500 XLPower XL520 from Banggood - review

[Smoggie]

I can only assume that Banggood have got me mixed up with someone who can actually fly helis worth a damn, because they seem to be making a habit of sending be helis for review. I'm not about to tell them that they have the wrong guy!

The new helis is the XLPower 520

And someone far better than me putting an XL520 through it's paces:

XLPower are new kids on the block when it comes to helis but they have good credentials. The company is the brain child of a genuine heli enthusiast and ace 3D flyer called LouJiaWen (aka 'Raka') and it's he who designes their helis. So far the 520 is the only heli in their lineup, but it seems to be a good one judging from first impressions of the kit and initial build. The XL520 is a 'true' 500 class heli that will swing blades between 480mm and 520mm. It also has a stretch kit available to take it out to 550.

The kit comes with a 1100Kv motor for operation with a 6S LiPo but the battery bay is large enough to take 12S if you used a suitable motor. The heli is quite conventional in design, pod and boom, single stage gear primary drive and direct belt driven tail. Overall it looks quite Logo 480 like, but it's not a clone.

The spares for the heli aren't yet listed on Banggood but they are available direct from XLPower web site. Technical support and after sales is also provided by XLPower and I have to say it's the best I've ever experienced. I had one minor problem with the kit (a titanium turnbuckle was not threaded) and within half an hour of me dropping them a note they had a new turnbuckle set on it's way, no quibbles. I also had a query on setup and got straight through to Raka (the designer of the heli).. There aren't many heli manufacturers where you could get that level of service!

So on with the unboxing:

Here's the box once I removed the outer protection that Banggood added for shipping:

And inside are three seperate boxes which gives good protection for shipping:

Contents of the big box. Quality is top notch, the supplied tail blades are Fun-Key Rotor Tech, not some no-name generic brand:

The paint job on the canopy is spot on:

The smaller box is packed full of the metal parts, there is almost no plastic on this heli, it's all CNC machined alloy.

The motor comes with the kit and is XLPower branded, size 4020 with 1100Kv. Windings look nice and neat:

Swash is fully rebuildable and perfectly finished:

Tail box is a real highlight, beautifully machined from a single piece of alloy!

All alloy head comes assembled:

Tail design is another stand-out feature, it's designed similar to a Goblin tail with floating feathering shaft on rubber dampers and Delta-3 geometry, this shows a lot of attention to detail in my opinion:

Tail belt guide pulleys and tail mounting brackets, all CNC alloy, as is all the rest of the frame hardware:

Kit comes with two booms, one fluorescent yellow, the other black. both are the same length.

Main blades again are Fun-Key Rotor Tech brand, 480mm

I'm looking forward to getting stuck into the build. The spec i have planned is:

Motor: XLPower 4020 1100Kv
ESC: Hobbywing Platinum 100A V3
FBL: Spirit Pro
Servos: KST mini size (still deciding on exact model)

 

[Smoggie]

Last weekend was too windy and/or raining to get any flying in so i had plenty of time for building. The airframe is now basically complete. When i do these reviews i always have good intentions to methodically photograph each stage of the build but once I get into it I can never be bothered, I just want to get it built, so apologies in advance for lack of 'screw by screw' build log (they are pretty boring anyway IMHO!).

The build was very straightforward helped by the fact that the sub-assemblies are loosely pre-assembled which saves a lot of time searching for the right bits. You do need to be careful though because every screw is only finger tight and dry assembled, so each and every one needs to be removed Loctited and tightened.

The manual is a download from the XLPower web site and is a series of assembly drawings, with no real written instructions. This is perfectly ok for the experienced builder but might leave a novice scratching their heads a bit.

The fit of all parts is perfect, everything that moves is buttery smooth. Links were all a good fit without reaming but take care to get them round the correct way. It's very obvious that there was a lot of thought and attention to detail in the design of this heli.

I still havent got the servos or ESC so the build will stall for a while but here is how it looks today:

But I have to admit that I've had some help on this build. Here's my helper checking the swash for level (he's my daughter's ten week old Wire Hair Dachshund called Oscar):

And relaxing after all the hard work:

Weight of the airframe and motor with only the servos, ESC and battery to add is 1405g which feels pretty light.

 

[Smoggie]

Talking of lack of ESC and servos, I've had a change of build spec. In the interest of keeping the price down hopefully without sacrificing anything in performance I've gone for the following:

Cyclic servos: GDW DS590MG

Tail servo: GDW DS595MG

ESC: Align RCE-BL100A (Hobbywing Platinum 120A V4 re-labelled)

I've never used GDW servos before but the performance spec looks really good. Red anodised servos would have been nice to go with the anodising on the airframe but I'll just have to live with Blue. The frame gives an option of mini or standard size servo on the tail, I went with mini to save a few grams. I never really could quite understand why any 500 needs the same size servos as a 700/800 size heli anyway.

The servos are coming from China so it will be a while before I get it finished off unfortunately:

 

[Geena]

Looks like a pretty solid kit. I have never heard of that brand of servo before, and I`m looking forward to hearing what you think about them.

 

[Admiral]

I can only assume that Banggood have got me mixed up with someone who can actually fly helis worth a damn, because they seem to be making a habit of sending be helis for review. I'm not about to tell them that they have the wrong guy!

I don't think so Smoogie, I think the review that you did of the ALZRC 420 was so professional that you can look forward to a lot more review machines in the future, you found issues and resolved them in a common sense manner without being over critical, I'll watch this build with interest as well.

 

[Smoggie]

Thanks Admiral!

The last small job I could do before the servos arrive was to make up the tail pushrod. It consists of the usual paltruded carbon tube with threaded rods which are inserted and glued into each end of the tube. I had a small problem with this because when I screwed the rods in the end the tube began to split. This is how I got around the problem:

First I bound the end of the tube with thread. I used Kevlar thread which is ideal but any strong thread will do. Once bound coat the thread in CA glue so it looks like this:

Now add a piece of heat-shrink and you have a pretty neat job with no chance of the rod splitting:

 

[Smoggie]

I contacted the XL520 designer 'Raka' about the splitting tube and he pointed me to the new part that he's now made available to get around the problem, it's a tiny alloy clamp that fits around the end of the carbon tube:

I'm quite happy with my fix but it's good to see that XLPower are addressing these little issues.

It's worth noting that you can get every spare part for the XL520 from the XLPower-RC web site : XLPower Spares prices are pretty good too so if you do have a crash it's not the end of the world.

 

[Smoggie]

Sorry my previous photos have vanished, this is due to a money grab by Photobucket, it's been free for years but sudenly they want $400 for a single year subscription (yeas $400, it's not a typo!)

Anyway, at long last that's my XLPower 520 finished, setup and ready for it's maiden:

Sorry it's taken so long! Maiden flight should be tomorrow if the weather cooperates.

 

[Smoggie]

The 520 flies great. I've got 12 flights on it already but due to non stop wind I've not really got the chance to fine tune the gyro settings, but it's flying well anyway.

Here's one of the test flights (video with my new Firefly 8S action cam with 'non-distortion' lens):

Most larger helis these days use slant cut gears, the 520 kit comes with straight cut and while they work perfectly well the gear whine is noticable, so I ordered up the new upgrade slant gears. I also decided to try out some 515mm blades too and a few other upgrade parts which XLPower very generously included free of charge in my order!

I'll do an update once those parts arrive.

PS.. The servos and ESC were also items I'd not used before, both are big hits. The Align 100A ESC it turns out is a Hobbywing Platinum 120A V4. I opened up the case to confirm and it says 'HW' and '120A' right there on the PCB! It also programs using the Hobbywing programming box.

The GDW servos also seem like a great bargain. Considering their spec and performance they were very cheap but they are working really well so far, fast, powerful, smooth and precise.

 

[Smoggie]

Quick video of a shakedown flight with the new 515mm blades and slant gears fitted. It's much quieter with the slant gears.