New to site, new to hobby. My first heli

[zenmetsu]

Hello everyone. This is my introductory post.

First of all, huge thanks to Tony for his instructional videos on youtube. Luckily I had picked up a DX6i and was looking around to find a full setup guide and landed on his videos. The fact that I managed to set everything up and quickly progress from ground work to hovering within a few days on my very first bird is a testament to the thoroughness of Tony's videos.

I felt like diving in head first and grabbing a CCPM heli to learn on; that was the inner masochist at work. I picked up an EXI-250 and threw in the spare GY401 that a friend had laying around (probably a bit much for a 250). Many people recommended the JR 290G tail servo so I grabbed one of those as well. In addition, I went with a spectrum AR6210 receiver and some HiTec HS-65HB servos for the cyclic.

So far I have had really good luck. I learned really fast just how important thread locker is, or rather, how good a helicopter is at finding non-threadlocked bolts. I haven't given the thing a dirt nap yet, but I know it is coming. Just now practicing nose-in hovers.

Here are a few pics. As the photos show, the gyro was a really tight fit. I elected to mount the receiver up high and affixed a plastic block to the base of the receiver that wedges tightly between the sides of the frame. I affixed a bit of epoxy to make certain that the receiver doesn't work its way free. Overall, I am thrilled to be entering this hobby and look forward to pointers and advice from the community here.

 

[coolgabsi]

Let me say this...

KUDOS!! A 250 size bird for a beginner first heli! It's like the jinx hasn't caught you yet.. Lol..

250 bird is considered the devil of a bird by tony and I (more me that tony) .. Lol... Hahahh not to scare you.. Haha..

It wasn't the bird but the pilot(me)'s fault.

It's a VERY twitchy bird. And man if you have handled that bird in the air without putting in dirt till nose in hovers! I tell you my friend! You are going to go far in this hobby!!!! Hahah!

People usually start off with 450's . But there is no written rule! I was just amazed at your post!

Good job! And welcome to
The site!!

And no gy401 is not bad for the heli! Smaller the heli, faster and better gyro it DEMANDS! So you did not make a wrong decision picking up quality tail servo and gyro.. Or you you would have had to deal with the cursed "250 tail wags" ! And man of you have not had that major issue! You have an amazing bird with a beautiful build!

Good job and welcome to the site!

(try a 450 when you get a chance next.. You'll see it gets easier!)

 

[zenmetsu]

So you did not make a wrong decision picking up quality tail servo and gyro.. Or you you would have had to deal with the cursed "250 tail wags" ! And man of you have not had that major issue! You have an amazing bird with a beautiful build!

Good job and welcome to the site!

(try a 450 when you get a chance next.. You'll see it gets easier!)

First of all, thanks for the compliments. I actually DID have a rather severe tail wag issue. My initial tail servo was a HiTec HSG-5084MG that the salesman at the local hobby store suggested. That servo is super fast and has a lot of torque. I kept getting serious tail oscillations while on the ground and light on the skids. I set the gain low enough to stop the oscillations, but then the gyro would not hold. Luckily I will be getting a 450 as well, and this will probably be an awesome tail servo for the 450. I have a feeling that it has a bit too much Ooomph for a 250 and it was likely flexing the boom and storing energy that way so that a positive feedback loop was formed. The JR 290G fixed the problem immediately.

And I wouldn't say that I haven't had issues. I'm about to nickname this thing "Machine screw salesman of the year." I've thrown quite a few into the grass as a result of overlooking loctite here and there. I think that I've gotten all the bugs worked out now, however. (yeah right).

The closest I came to a serious crash was just as I was learning to hover. The bolt holding the elevator servo to the swash (also the anti-rotation device) managed to work itself loose and the swashplate rotated about 60degrees clockwise resulting in full forward/left cyclic. Luckily I was over grass and only hovering about 18 inches above the ground when it happened. I just managed to kill the throttle before impact and nothing was damaged. I took the feathering shaft out and rolled it around a few times on my glass tabletop just to make sure it was still straight. Luckily I have a few Align branded shafts since people were saying that the EXI ones tend to detonate due to the weak threading.

Regarding my bird, I'm not TOO thrilled with the yellow. Yeah, it is high visibility, but I am looking to do an neon-orange and teal color scheme once I get a replacement canopy. Right now I am trying to find the best way of protecting my ESC wires and battery since the vibration is causing the rough inside of the canopy to scuff the insulation. I've affixed some packaging tape to the inside of the canopy for the time being, but I figure that others probably have better experience and solutions.

 

[Tony]

Glad you made it over here, and as Gaba stated, you are starting out with one heck of a heli. I have not tried the EXI, but I did have the HK250GT and it stood up to it's name (Nightmare). I then got it flying correctly and sold it to Gaba, and he managed to face plant it a few times then he sold it cause of the "curse" lmao. I'm glad you have this one up and running, and it sounds as if you have a great start to the hobby. Keep it up and let us know if there is anything we can do to help.

 

[Lee]

Welcome dude,
The dreaded 250 LOL I've had every sized Trex except for the 700, and by a mile, the hardest to fly is the 250. Like Tony and Gaba i fought tooth and nail with mine until i gave up and sold it.
So if yours is flying well then you are one of the lucky ones. When you get the 450 it will feel so stable in comparison.

 

[zenmetsu]

Perhaps it is good that I am learning on this one then... I'll develop better reflexes for the 450 when I decide to drop the change on one.

Out of curiosity, what is the problem with the 250 that you folks ran into? Is it something that manifests itself all the time (like hovering) or is it something that happens when moving on up to sport flying and 3D?

This 250 does not like being in ground effect. I find that I am having to use a lot of cyclic input to keep it happily over my hover circle. Once I get it up to about 3 feet in altitude, it calms right down. It is a bit flighty though... very very gentle cyclic input is needed. I gave thought to mucking around with expo settings, but the voices in my head tell me that it will only cause me to develop 'dumb thumbs' in the end.

 

[Tony]

The issue with me is documented here in the forum in the 250 section lmao. I gave up on it a few times, but finally got it flying correctly after replacing just about everything with Align. From the tail shaft, slider, belt, idle gear, main gear, main shaft, feathering shaft, you name it, I replaced it. And finally it gave in and decided to fly. And yes, I also had the dreaded screws falling out randomly, even the ones that had thread locker on them.

I hate to say it, but I want another one. As much frustration as it caused, once it was flying, it was a blast. Just dont' get it too far away from you. I was used to my 450, flew it out to the edge of my property, lost it in the trees and lost orientation. After fighting with it for what seemed like 5 minutes and it falling a foot every minute, I cut the throttle and just let it hit the ground from about 5' up. Another set of blades, main shaft, feathering shaft and tail boom later, it was flying great again lmao.

 

[Lee]

Mine had the screw problem too. Threw out the tail pitchslider arm which doesn't bode well for a stable heli spun like a top into the ground. Tail was never solid no matter what i tried. It was like there was someone else trying to control the heli at the same time as me and fighting me all the way. Anyway a friend decided to buy it from me knowing what it was like.

 

[coolgabsi]

Looking at all this makes me wanna get an align kit too.. FBL obviously!! I can't has flybar anymore.. I am a flybarless snob now! Hahahahhahaha

 

[murankar]

gabi is getting to good for us now! lol. One of these days I will be fbl also.

 

[Irishrover]

Hi guys,
This is my first post as I found Tony on Youtube a few weeks ago when I was trying to set up my 450.
I then went and got a Align 250 Original so I could fly indoors (not got a lot of time to go to the park here) but the dam thing came with the softest Hex screws I have ever seen. Then there is the Align driver that came with it..... the tip snapped off and now Im sitting here wondering how the heck Iam going to finish it off. Half the Hex heads are rung out and im 70% through the build.

Anyone out there know if I can buy a pack of real hex screws for this thing that wont be as soft??

I have a 450 as well and she is solid, but Align are really selling cheap crap now.... Very disapointed.


Any suggestions would be great.

 

[Tony]

They are actually a Torx screw, and yes, they are very easy to strip. They are actually a good quality screw, but it just doesn't take much to strip them. I would order a new align screw kit for the heli, and a new set of drivers for it. I don't know of an aftermarket "Allen Driver" kit that you can use on it, but it may be out there. I just don't know about it.

When you tighten the screws on the 250, just go a hair over snug, and let the thread lock do it's thing to hold them in. I as well as others on here learned this the hard way as well lol.

One thing you can do on the driver, is use a file and file the tip down flat to get it like new again. I had to do it on mine. Good luck.

 

[zenmetsu]

I haven't had an issue with the EXI supplied driver. You could be over-torquing the screws, or you could just have a bad driver which is resulting in slipping/stripping. I second the suggestion from Tony. If it were me, I'd fire up my dremel with a cut-off wheel and try to take the "dulled" portion of the driver off.

As far as getting out stripped screws, using a high-speed cut-off wheel on the dremel will allow you to cut a slot into the screw head and then back it out with a normal flat screwdriver.

 

[Irishrover]

Yep, got ya both.... Great advice and I'll fire up the grinder in the morning.
Any idea of the size heads on these bolts? 0.9 or 1.3mm?

Could also use some tail servo suggestions as this thing is so small.
Going to mount the servo upside down so that will be interesting, should not be too hard to set up should it

Thanks again for the suggestions, I'm off to bed as its almost
Midnight here in Vienna.

 

[Tony]

I want to say the size for these bolts is like a T-5.5 or something tiny. You can also go to your local tool store and get a set of micro torx drivers and they may work better.