450 Mini Titan repairs

[Marc]

I got all my repair parts today and have just finished up when I noticed an issue with one of the main rotor blades that I missed on the initial check over after my last crash. I have CF blades and the tip of the blades are hard plastic. Evidently one of the tips hit something hard and broke. Do you guys think this is repairable? I've not been able to locate the missing pieces.

Thanks,

Marc

 

[Tony]

I never suggest using blades that are damaged in any way. I have seen them come apart at high speed, and it's not a pretty sight lol.

 

[Marc]

That's kind of what I thought, but figured I'd ask since I can't find the smallest sign of damage anywhere else. Seems like a waste but maybe I can make a plaque for someone out of it. Now hopefully the LHS has some in stock! Don't want to wait another few days to get back out and fly!

 

[coolgabsi]

well while you are just hovering around, you are not pushing the blades too much.. if they balance well, they are usable. I have used some dinged CF ones. now If you are going on idle up too long and putting those through stresses.. you might wanna get new ones.
YEs like tony said they come apart.. but carbon fibre ones are good until and unless you dont have a crack in the middle somewhere and the roots are solid..

my $.02

 

[Paulster2]

I had a fiberglass one come apart ... almost took out the boys (if you know what I mean). Just three inches lower and I'd be singing soprano Glad I had my jeans on or it would have hurt worse than it did, lol.

 

[Marc]

I had a fiberglass one come apart ... almost took out the boys (if you know what I mean).

Not quite interested in that procedure yet even if it was free!

I'm pretty sure they had some Align 325mm cf blades at the lhs last time I was there. I'll pick up a set of those and try them out.

 

[Tony]

Hey Marc, if you are just learning, go ahead and get yourself about 5 pairs of fiberglass blades. Much cheaper if and when you crash. Once you can hover and do FF pretty well, then move up to the carbon fiber. In the beginning, you won't notice any difference in performance.

 

[Marc]

Hey Marc, if you are just learning, go ahead and get yourself about 5 pairs of fiberglass blades. Much cheaper if and when you crash. Once you can hover and do FF pretty well, then move up to the carbon fiber. In the beginning, you won't notice any difference in performance.

I'll have to order those. They only had Align cf blades at the lhs so picked up a set of those today to get me back in the air. I also got a new set of landing gear today. Someone mentioned they put the Gaui X5 on their 450 with success. I've already gone through 5 pair of skids in two weeks of the stock ones and thought I'd give that a go. I'll upload a before and after of that once I get that installed.

Going out for a test flight now

 

[Marc]

Okay, so I had a fairly good couple of flights. I had to swap out the tail servo because of the crash and now I'm getting some shaking when I apply power or when I give it a left or right input. Going to try lowering the gyro gain and see if that helps.

Back outside

 

[Marc]

Well that was backwards... I had to increase the gain... works beautiful now. I have a charged battery left so I'm going back out to make sure I got it right!

 

[Tony]

Glad everything is working out for ya. sounds like you are having a blast with it

 

[coolgabsi]

Marc if this is a pro 450.. The landing gear for it by align is only so good. I would suggest getting the sport one or v2 one.. The one which has metal Skids and plastic braces or whatever. They hold up good. And usually only the metal Dings or breaks and you can replace just the metal (that comes as a spare) its just a little cheaper and a bit more sturdier.

Now if gaui x5 works for you .. Even better I guess... Lol

 

[Marc]

Marc if this is a pro 450.. The landing gear for it by align is only so good. I would suggest getting the sport one or v2 one.. The one which has metal Skids and plastic braces or whatever. They hold up good. And usually only the metal Dings or breaks and you can replace just the metal (that comes as a spare) its just a little cheaper and a bit more sturdier.

Now if gaui x5 works for you .. Even better I guess... Lol

Well the kit says its a Mini Titan 325 V2, but the stock cross braces are weak like you mention about the align especially where the body/bottom bracket meets them. All of mine have broken there.

Here are the before and afters.




I've only been able to do a quick test flight tonight but it seemed to fix some vibration during spool up :thumbup: will test its durability tomorrow

 

[coolgabsi]

Great!!!

 

[Paulster2]

Good deal

 

[Marc]

So the new G5 skids on this bird seem to be indestructible. I've had several hard landings, most unintentional and its held together great. So all in all a recommended mod.

I do seem to be having a problem that I didn't notice before the crash. While hovering in in head-holding mode the tail is moving ever so slowly to the right. If I could hover head-in I'm sure it would eventually make it all the way around. Anyone know what might cause that? A gyro issue or mechanical setup maybe? The Gyro is a Futaba GY401 and is mounted horizontally behind the elevator servo on two pieces of foamy tape. I setup the new servo by connecting it to the receiver directly, centering all trims/&subs, then installing the horn at a 90 degree angle. I moved the servo mount until the tail rotor's pitch was as close to 0 as I could tell.

If this kind of issue has been addressed somewhere else please let me know and I'll check it out. Google hasn't been very friendly so far.

Thanks!

 

[Tony]

The attack of the famous 401 drift. There really is no fix for this other than tail control with teh rudder stick. You can adjust the linkage rod every so slightly to try and take the drift out of it, but it doesn't always work. If it's going nose right, then you need to take some pitch out of the blades. it's not suggested, but for testing you can add one click of left rudder trim to see if it stops. If it does, center your trim and adjust the rod in teh same direction as the trim did. I hope that made sense.

 

[Marc]

Tony - Its actually moving tail right nose left, or I should say was moving. I tried correcting with trim and that seemed to help, but after making the mechanical changes it still drifted.

So I did some more searching and found a post on another forum where the guy answering about 401 drift sugguested taking the gyro out of hh mode and get the tail to track in rate mode first. I unfortunately don't remember all the steps and can't seem to find the webpage tonight to link it, but once I did that and switched it back into hh mode the tail holds! Its a bit twitchy when I give it alot of power to climb now, but I think that's fixable with adjusting the gain? I didn't test that since it got really windy today and I decided to bring it in before I crashed again.

It was a lot of fun doing hovering exercises in my garage lastnight with the tail holding

 

[Tony]

I forgot all about doing it that way lol. Yes, you will put it in rate mode, then center your sub trims and trims, and get the servo arm as close to 90* to teh linkage as you can. Then, use subtrim to take it the final step. Once that is done, you will slide the servo up and down the boom, or adjust the linkage rod to make the tail hold perfect.

the issue with that is, in rate mode, you are setting it for a specific rpm. Once you go over that head speed (in idle up for example), you will have too much force being put out by the tail. When I did this, I always did it in idle up. but I'm sure you woudn't want to do that at this point.

Also, in normal mode (heli, not gyro), you will have a lot more blowout of the tail in pitch pumps than you will in idle up.