700 T-Rex 700E build

pvolcko

Well-Known Member
A month or so back I bought Gaba's 700E frame. I've completed buying up parts for it, just waiting on them to arrive. Pieces have been coming in though so it's getting close to time to finish this build so thought I'd post a thread on it.

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Rebuilt frame. Gaba had a bunch of upgrade parts on this heli, including a frame stiffener at the bottom rear of the frame, the metal nose mount, upgraded motor mount and lower motor shaft bearing block, and more.

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The head was locked down super tight. Took it apart and found I couldn't get the radial bearings out of the blade holders in order to clean and relube the thrust bearings. So ended up trying to pack some grease in without removing. Don't know why they were so difficult to remove. Possibly the holders got slightly deformed and it is pinching them in there? Wouldn't expect any kind of locker/adhesive on the outer ring of the bearings that would be holding them in place.

In this test fitting the rotor assembly spun very freely, more so than the 550X's did at this stage (which itself seemed fine). Perhaps higher quality bearings. Or this heli's two bearing block arrangement didn't bind at all whereas the 550's three bearing block setup was slightly off causing a slight bit of friction?

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Interior shot. Seems like a lot of room, but there is a pretty complex elevator/ail/pitch control arm arrangement on this that will end up filling it up quite a bit near the head.

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Took these all apart and reassembled and lubed. The front tail gear case (left) had a sticking point in the gear travel before I stripped things down. It was odd and once having it apart I didn't find anything that would explain it. All the bearings spun free. I pulled the radial bearings off the torque tube driver gear cleaned things out and reseated them, put it all back together and the binding is gone.

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RCBooyah canopy mounts on the top rear mount points. These will be nice. However, there is an option for either front or rear battery loading. ESC mounts on the rear diagonal plate from the looks of things. I'm planning to run a BEC that can be fed by the 12S main batteries so I'm not sure I'll really need to take the canopy off and on very often.


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Going to be running an Ikon controller and DSMX sat receivers for my DX7s tx.

Not yet pictured: Bought a scorpion motor off gaba that he used to run in this heli. Got the shaft swapped out on that yesterday and used some liquid tape on some frayed areas of the motor leads, so that's all ready to go. Also bought a ds655 tail servo off super bad.

Got a deal on a castle ice2 HV 120A ESC on ebay (hopefully it works!) which should be showing up in the next couple days. Cyclic servos and BEC should hopefully be at the LHS today sometime. Also have some odds and ends coming in from A Main Hobbies today sometime.

So with any luck I'll be able to finish this build off this week and weekend and get it in the air sometime soon!

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coolgabsi

Super Mod & DEAL KING!
Looks nice man!! Good job building it


And the bearings are sometimes pressed tight into the heads.

For example my whiplash head, its very hard to pull apart the bearings from the head. ESP the radial ones.

If there was any sort of warping holding them you would immediately see a bind in the head grips... Hope you don't see that.

It's roomie in there but fills up fast lol


Good job!

Fly safe!! :) have fun!
 

xokia

Active Member
I hope to be building one of these soon too I am just waiting for Align to release the new 700E with the 800mx motor.

Looking good so far!
 

pvolcko

Well-Known Member
No binding, Gaba. grips rotate free and without a hint of grit. Hopefully the tight fit will mean low chance of dirt and whatnot getting in there and also keep the grease and oil in the bearing assemblies.
 

pvolcko

Well-Known Member
Yes and no. Before my mishap with the 550X and later with the 300X I was starting to get a little less nervous flying. Now I'm kind of back to square one. Nerves on edge, thumbs of jello, etc. I do want to get it done and in the air, but I expect I will be taking it very slow with it. Need to get on the simulator and start practicing on there again. Get a bit of confidence back.
 

Tony

Staff member
Gaba told me in a text that he put thread lock on the back side of that bearing just to give you issues.

:chuckles:
 

pvolcko

Well-Known Member
I knew he was screwing with me. Gabaaaa! :)

It wouldn't be bad if I could get something in there to punch or pull it out. When it comes time to do a complete teardown I'll try applying some heat to the outside of the holder. Maybe that'll loosen things up enough. If it comes down to it I can replace the grips and bearing assemblies.
 

Tony

Staff member
You should be able to stick them in the oven at 400º for 10 minutes and they should fall right out. Should being the key word here lol.
 

murankar

Staff member
I need more $$$$$$$$. If I had it I would have the Protos 700. Your 700 makes me want one more and more.
 

pvolcko

Well-Known Member
Well, the servos and BEC has not come in yet at the LHS. I'm starting to get annoyed. I've been waiting over two weeks for a spindle shaft wrench to come in, over a week for the servos and BEC. Going to call them tomorrow and see what the hold up is. They haven't even been able to give me an ETA on when they'll be showing up. I really want to throw them business now and again, but if it means I'm getting parts this slowly then I'm going to go online for everything from now on unless it is in stock there (and they aren't stocking anything for these bigger helis from the looks of it).

ESC off ebay and odds and ends from A Main arrived. ESC looks like it is new in original packaging. Have the motor, controller and sats, rx battery for setup purposes. I'll be starting in on electrical testing and setup next, on the bench. I want to hold off on any more frame construction (or linkage installation) until I get the cyclic servos.
 

pvolcko

Well-Known Member
Well, called to see what was up. They ended up ordering all the parts from the same supplier, but from two different warehouses. This place has a minimum purchase limit for dealers and one of the warehouse orders was under the limit, which caused their system to block ship on both orders, including the one that was over the minimum from the other warehouse. Oy. They got it straightened out. Glad i called. Patience is a virtue, up to a point. This is a 700 I'm trying to build here and it's been 2 weeks already! :) Lesson learned: complain early, complain often.
 

Westy

LEGEND
Looks mean! I think I will stick to the 600 Class unless someone donates me a Goblin 630 of course MWAH MWAH
 

pvolcko

Well-Known Member
I'm about a month into the build, Tony. I've been waiting on this particular set of parts for 2 weeks. These were in-stock parts at the distributor. Shouldn't have taken more than a week using the slowest shipping. It's good I called to ask about things or else the orders would have sat there until they decided to order more parts from them, from the below threshold warehouse, at which point it all would have shipped.
 

breeze400

Spagetti Pilot
If it isen't something I need right away. Or my LHS hasen't got it in stock, I just order my thhings off the net! Much faster!
 

pvolcko

Well-Known Member
Couple updates:
1) Servos and spindle wrench came in. Still waiting on the BEC. So still stuck.
2) Assembled the tail and put it on the frame. Holy cats this thing is big. Tail alone is almost as long as the whole 550 X Pro. :)

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So I'll probably finish installing servos and linkages this weekend. I'll use my 550's 7200bx to get the servos to reference and figure out which ones go best with which horns. Will stop there until the BEC comes in to finalize the servo/horn installation and get it all setup.

This will be flying sometime next week. :)

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