"Official" RCH Heli Thread

[Tony]

I first want to thank Marius (Stokke) for starting the other thread and kicking all of this off. This thread can be found HERE. Next I want to thank Jesse for finding the deal on the New RCH Heli and Gaba for sealing the deal. It was expensive, but building a "New" kit would have cost more than double what we are going to spend on this heli.

For those that don't know, The RCH Heli is an Align 600 Nitro Pro with 3GX gyro and an OS 55 HZ with the Hyper Head. This all came with the heli as well as 3 canopies, a flybarless head as well as a flybar head and a set of Align 600 blades. Just those things alone that it comes with is worth double or more of the asking price that we paid. Happily.

Gaba was generous enough to donate a starter shaft to start the engine with a drill as well as a LiFe Rx battery and an onboard glow igniter as well as two sets of tail blades that the heli didn't come with.

Jesse was generous enough to donate a set of front torque tube gears for the bird because we all know I'm going to need them lmao.

Now the above people that have donated parts to the heli is only part of the matter. The rest of the money came from cash donations to Rc-Help to fund the purchase of everything we have spoke of. I don't know who wants their name in the open, so I will not mention any names in this thread. No matter what your donation amount, it has helped greatly in getting us this far!

So where do we go from here?

At this time, the front TT gears are in the mail, the helicopter with the extra parts from Gaba are in the mail and the "other part" that I ordered is in the mail. All heading for central Oklahoma. I'm very excited to receive this helicopter to figure out what I can do with it.

There are still parts that we need for the heli. Not only to get it in the air, but to keep it there when my thumbs start acting up as they always do lol.

The Must Have parts are servos for the cyclic, servo for the tail and servo for the throttle. I'm looking to get All align servos for this bird such as 610's for the cyclic, 650 for the tail and 620 for the throttle. Once I have those, I could wire this thing up and have it in the air from what I know about it. However, there are always hidden damages in a used helicopter so I will have to completely tear down the bird to figure out if it's safe or not.

Now I don't know about you, but the holidays are the worst possible time to start a build. At this time, it's almost December and turkey day just passed last week. Needless to say, I'm broke as a joke. However everything has been done with donations so far and it's turning out great. Over $400 in donations already!

I would like to urge you to donate if you can to help get the RCH Heli in the air before the new year. I would also like to know who would like their name out in the open that have donated. Please vote in the poll. No one but me can see the results so if you say no, then I will not put your name in the thread, nor on the helicopter. But I want everyone to vote one way or another. If you have NOT sent a donation, DO NOT VOTE! This poll is only for those that have donated.

And speaking of donations. If you donate, you will be put into the supporters usergroup here on the site. This will not only open up more privileges for you on the forum, but you will have access to a section of the forum that is only for our Adult Members. Anyone under 18, please don't donate because I will not be able to change anything with your account.

So to everyone that has donated, I am greatly appreciative of what you have done. Because of your generous donations we have been able to get the heli and most of the parts to get it in the air. But we still have much further to go. Please donate anything you can to help out. Whether it be parts or cash, it will all go into the helicopter unless you write me a note in the donation stating otherwise.

Thanks again everyone! It's because of you that Rc-Help is where it is today!!!

 

[coolgabsi]

and pairs of tail blades..


Love the people on here! Great website! Just shows how generous people can be..

 

[Tony]

You are correct Gaba, didn't mean to short change you there. Gaba did include two pairs of tail blades. One yellow set, and one green set. I edited the first post to reflect this. My bad.

Now for the update!

Since the last update above I have created an article for this heli that you can READ HERE. There is also the thread that Marius created that started all of this that is linked in post #1 of this thread. Both are great reads even though the thread has went a little off topic at times. But it's always been about one thing, the helicopter and the forum.

We are still waiting on some parts such as the cyclic and engine servo as well as the upgraded muffler that is made for this engine. Not the .50 muffler that is on it. This should help to wake up this heli and allow for better tuning. In due time I will also be making some modifications to the engine to help with this matter. But that is for a later date and video.

Thanks to Breeze400, we are now awaiting the arrival of our BRAND NEW Align DS655 tail servo. I'm sure you are asking why we went this route. The answer is pretty simple actually. The Align servos can be run on up to 8vDC. That is some serious voltage. The Futaba servos are only capable of running 4.8 even though they have run on 5.2 before without issues. The other reason is, this is an Align heli, and the members all agreed that we should keep it Align. So with that, we have NEW Align DS610's coming for the cyclic, a DS620 coming for the throttle and the DS655 for the tail. This thing is going to be rock solid and very responsive when it's done!

I also took the liberty of ordering NEW ball links and balls for the servos. Why order new ball links? Well when I put the blade grip linkages on the heli to bring it to work they just fell on. No pushing, no snapping and stinging my fingers like you saw in the 450 build videos, they just fell on. So this would not work and I ordered new ones. If I need more, I will order more but I think we will b e okay with one set. The balls I ordered because this heli did not come with the balls or the servo horns. I'm hoping all of the horns and mounting hardware come with the servos so I don't have to make another order.

As stated in post #1 of this thread, Gaba donated an onboard "Push Glow" glow plug igniter. This is used to light up the glow plug so the engine will start. All you do is push a button, and crank the engine over and it should fire up. This is much better than having to remove the canopy, insert an igniter on the glow plug and then crank it over. And while it's sitting there idling and loading up, try to put the canopy on while getting hit by the blades lol.

The only issue with the Push Glow that I"m worried about is the alligator clip that goes on the pin of the glow plug. I dont like this and I'm looking for other ways of securing this. I may have an old EZ start wire off of a Traxxas engine that just pushes on to the glow plug. This will be more secure since there is less weight. I will also have to replace the negative terminal since it's just bare wire, but that is an easy crimp, solder, heat shrink and it's done.

The next thing is, Gaba included a LiFe battery with this deal as well. I'm wondering if we should use that, or just a regular 2s lipo. Remember, we can run upwards of 8v on this bird thanks to the servos so a 2s would work great. Also, no matter if we go with the LiPo or the LiFe, we will not have to run a BEC to regulate the power. Just plug the battery in and go, that's it. I guess only time will tell.

So at this time we are playing the waiting game on parts once again. 5 servos, link ends, balls (the heli has balls ) and muffler. I'm sure there will be other things that we will have to wait on but that will be after I tear into this bird.

Stating this weekend I will try to get an introduction video together and uploaded. This will introduce the helicopter to the world to see and know what is going on. It will also include thanks to all that have donated to this project and made it happen. For now, we can only dream of the time when this bird is polluting the air with a massive smoke cloud and farting through the skys!!!

 

[coolgabsi]

With life you don't need a bec. I ran the life straight to my rx for months and months. That's the best part

Another thing about life was that they are much safer so I had that only on life pack there, and so I never took it out of the heli and charged it in the heli. While LiPo charging in the heli is asking for it to burn down. So I charged it in the heli and gave me constant and good power for two tanks (on jr8711 servos )

While of course you can rub a bec that doesn't make a difference , but just letting you know. With LiPo I think you still would have to if the rx can't take that voltage. Now I don't know about your 8000rx. I was talking about the small 6200 rx.

Btw I got a bec with its input (battery) wire cut out at solder point too if you would want it. Let me know .. Text me I don't need it and might as well get rid of it for this heli. It's not align.


If you want to go with a bec circuit then I highly recommend an align 2in1 that has an on off switch.. Battery life indicator, 2s LiPo bec and a glow igniter all built into one. That's what I have on my vibe right now.

As far as the push glow securing on the glow plug. Never have I ever ! Ever lol seen that push glow or the align one I use right now, come off the glow plug. I was skeptical too, but it really doesn't come off lol. The alligator clip does its job well I guess. Yeah obviously you can decide it a better way , that'll be something may be ill do too.. But not needed at all

Fly safe!! have fun!

 

[Tony]

The problem with the LiFe would come when you are running a Futaba servo that can't handle the 6.6 volts that the battery puts out. But with this setup, I could run a straight 7.2 setup with a LiPo with no BEC. That is one reason I decided to go this way, higher voltage. And as you know, the higher the voltage, the less amps it will pull.

I have been looking at the Align 2 in 1 and like it. Less wires lol.

I will trust what you say on the alligator clip, you have run it, I have not. I'm learning all of this stuff as I'm going, but I seem to be pretty good at it. It will all come back to me pretty quickly I hope. Just need to dive right in and get to it. Lots of toys I can put on this heli and test out. This is going to be fun.

 

[coolgabsi]

yeah .. 7.2 volt is good.. But Lipos will get charged to 8.4.. see if that is good or not.. regardless with a BEC in the middle its all good.. but if not.. I know you will check this.. but just reminding

 

[Tony]

No worries. For now I'm going to run the LiFe pack just to see how it does. Plus, the LiFe pack has the Rx plugs already on it. So it's just a simple plug and play.

 

[Tony]

So after I finished editing the video, and getting some pictures of the helicopter hanging from my tree, I thought I would check out the gear mesh. There is surprisingly no way to adjust the gear mesh on this thing. Not that I have found anyway. So I decided to remove the head, main gear and clutch bell from the heli. My suspicions from earlier about the clutch bearings were correct. However I was wrong about the amount of time they would be spinning.

On a nitro car or truck, the clutch bell is attached to the crank shaft with bearings and clips. This means that when the car/truck is idle, the bearings are spinning with the engine. But when you are going down the track, the clutch bell, clutch and crankshaft act as one. That is not so on these heli's as I have come to find out.

It turns out that there are two bearings this clutch bell ride on. And the clutch bell is not attached to the engine at all. It's on a bracket held to the frame.

Anyway I took it out and spun it. The larger of the two bearings is shot. Rust, dirt, something is in it and has destroyed it. So I will need to pick up another bearing for it before we can fly this thing. Nothing like blowing up a clutch bell on teh first flight to make it official lmao

 

[breeze400]

You can find all kinds of parts like that on e bay! Lol. Just type in Align 600 nitro! You could probably get the whole bell cheep and just swap it out without having to change bearings!

 

[coolgabsi]

Give me the exact bearing size. Don't have to buy align bearings. Many local companies make the exact sizes for helicopter for much much cheaper. What's the exact size? Let me know I can check with the hobby shops here

Fly safe!! have fun!

 

[Tony]

Gaba, I will let you know later. It's still on the shaft. However I have found all 3 bearings in the clutch bell and case for $12 I think. But it's through heli direct and shipping would be more than the cost of the parts. Anyway, I will let you know the size when I get it all ripped apart.

 

[Tony]

I know more than just 4 people have donated and I need you all to vote. Otherwise I will put your name on the canopy whether you want it there or not . Persuasion, I love it lmao.

Here is the update as of today.

Again I have to thank Jesse for sending me 3 brand new Align aluminum servo wheels. They are blue, but I plan on taking care of that issue at a later date. The linkage ends and the balls have also shown up today as well. And yes, the balls fit the new servo arms perfectly. A little blue thread lock with a backer nut and they will be there forever.

So really all I'm waiting on now is my new Allen driver set and the USB plug for the 3GX and this heli will have everything to see some air. But there is a LOT of work to put into it before we even fire up this beast. We still need to mount the servos, get the bearings checked and replaced, and so on. It's a lot of work and I'm going to try to capture everything on camera. some may not be on there because lets face it, some things are just way too boring to watch lmao.

If you have any opinions on this heli, post up and let us know!!!

 

[Tony]

By the way Gaba, the bearing is 10x19x5mm and 2x 5x13x4mm. Those are the three bearings on the clutch bell/starter shaft.

 

[BOKI]

Hi Tony ; Just got timed out but here is a Hobby shop that might have cheaper shipping! Cobblestone Hobby Holland Michigan ! They don't have a website ! Its where I bought my Trex 450 SE V2 This is BOKI There Phone number is (616) 396-3066 They are nice to deal with! Tell them You know Eric Rowlee & Dave Bokus With the Trex450 From ILLINOIS! Friday 3:28AM THE BEST & SAFE FLYING You might save some money on parts & Shipping!

 

[Tony]

Boki, you are getting timed out because it's taking you over 10 minutes to type your response. When a member is signed in to the website, it takes up resources on the server. Because of this, i have set all members to a 10 minute time out to save on forum resources. Some things to remove when posting to make it faster is saying "this is Boki", we know it's you, your name is to the left. Also omit "from Illinois" and the time. Also try omitting the smilies. I realize that some people may not be able to type that fast and I'm just trying to help out by letting you know you don't have to type that stuff every time you post. A simple post to explain what you want to say is plenty and will take far less time. Hope this helps.

 

[murankar]

Or just type it in note pad then past it into the forum.

 

[Tony]

Okay, I give up on this engine. I took it out of the heli once again and stuck it in the oven at 375ºF for almost an hour. More than enough time to fully heat up. With the new Align driver in hand, I put on my glove, grabbed the engine and didn't budge a single bolt. They are going to have to be drilled out when it comes to that. For now, I'm letting the engine cool down and I"m going to put it back together. No sense in breaking something that should work fine.

On a side note, if/when I either receive the USB plug and wire for the 3GX or I get the one from China I will start setting up the servos. Fro now though, it's just a show piece lmao.

 

[breeze400]

Can't help you on the engine my friend. I would get her running and see how it is first before I drilled out the bolt though!

 

[Tony]

That is exactly what I'm going to do Sam. The engine has good compression so I'm going to run it until it dies then try to take the bolts out one more time. If they still wont' come out, then it will be a great video on how to drill out the bolts. I was just wanting to get the bolts out to do a video on what to look for in the engine. I also wanted to hit the crank with some emery cloth to get the bit of rust off of it that's on there. But the bearings feel good so I have no worry about putting it in the air. Just need my USB link lmao. I have just about everything else I need.

 

[heli-maniac]

stop your crying about the usb link you can do the programing manually if you really wanted to