Got out of it around 2004-2005ish. Belt Was a popular 400 class model, and Thunder Tiger Raptors has all but cornered the nitro market.

Is nitro even around anymore? What’s the go to?

What options are there for 400 or 700 class electric models?

I assume the popularity has fallen with drones. I have a drone, it’s fine, but nothing quite like an actual helicopter. Have Gyros improved? Heading hold gyros would drift pretty bad in my experience, or is that still a thing?

School me.

Drones and electric power have combined to kill of a lot of helicopter use and nitro as well. I fly planes, used to buy nitro in large quantities to use in engines from 1.6 and up, like share a pallet of fuel with the local club. Not anymore. Switched to gas for engines 50cc to 150cc. Electric power has taken over. I shopped for helicopters a while back. They're hard to find depending on where you look.

NItro is around, but honestly just not worth it anymore.  Almost.    Fuel has gotten expensive and harder to find.

Align is kinda the last big company selling bigger nitro stuff.  

The level of ARF stuff has actually gotten pretty good.  The HK 110 is an amazing little heli for goofy around with in the back yard.  Some of the newer Blade stuff is pretty good, from what I hear.

FPV racing and freestyle drones killed off any desire for me to get into collective pitch heli sfuff.

I had a sim over a decade ago practicing flying LOS heli stuff.   But the absolute control and range of a proper FPV rig is intense enough that I have been spending more on FPV the past 4 years than when I had 4 mustangs in the garage(down to 3 now).

The result of custom builds and playing with 3D reversible esc settings


These things are a lot more durable and resistant to crashes as well even at 30-40+mph impact speeds.  Ususally a new set of props and you are back in the air, maybe the battery goes up in smoke but the batteries are 1100-1300mah 4s or 6s at 15-25 bucks a piece compared to needing 2 5000mah 6s packs to run at 12s for a big heli.

Off-topic commentary removed - Eric802

Man, didnt take more than a few posts until the crossfit crowd showed up.

Yeah Ret, some of the small scale stuff is amazing. The 450 size scale birds are making a comeback and usually run around $300 or so for a fully built (Needs tweaking) scale bird.

Then with these you can add loads of detail with a 3D printer and scale-able files from get hub or such.

Check out https://www.hobbysquawk.com/ for scale birds and https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/index.php or Helifreak for 3D or just standard flying.

The cool thing about the newer scale offerings is if you break something you can order single fuselage pieces cheap. Its nothing like it was even 5 yrs ago where a bad landing meant you had to rebuild from scratch.

I have a couple of 450 air frames that I need to look around for a fuse for.  IIRC they were junky HK450 frames, but should work well enough.

Stumbled upon some of your posts at the other forum, i can't believe you haven't been locked yet.  

Meh, I was mindful that this was the tech forum.  Just wanted to present options.

Eh, just razzin ya.
The odd thing is the lesser quality airframes are better suited to scale over something full on 3D capible.

While you can do 3D with a scale bird, it will vibrate enough to cause canopies to fly off and get into the blades and also cause internal rotating parts to contact the inside of the fuse.

Youre also more likely to need to "Customize" your servo locations and battery locations so why cut up a "Good" heli if you dont need to.


As to the bold, you should have seen what got deleted, HS is a shit show. The mods over there are mostly workers/sales people who are forced to moderate and they are fucking horrible.

I came up with the moniker "Motrin RC" and their product line "Rotor FAIL" due to their full on hissy fits over some stupid shit and got locked, reinstated and locked again.

I went full Karen and called them on the phone to alet someone of how bad their mods were and actually got a call from Brian? that my account was reinstated and the mods would start acting like mods, which is what I told them to do and what got me banned.

A moderator of your forum, who should be promoting sales, telling people to go shop elsewhere because they bitched about parts availability after shit being out of stock for 9 months is not a good way to bolster customer relations.

Anymore I dont post there, I just steal their printer files and buy 2nd hand helis with their fuse on them.

Serious question.

Do you know of any DYI blueprints for being able to cut your own carbonfiber side plates for heli frames?

The ability to CNC cut my carbon fiber and even aluminum would seriously boost my willingness to try building a collective pitch heli.

Have been cutting to within .1mm from my drawing specs for my FPV frames(pretty decent considering there are two cuts/edges to a cut part).

Cutting 50% of the parts and then sourcing compatible motor/heads would potentially save some cash.

The combination of CNC for carbon fiber and 3D printer makes for a helluva powerful set of tools.  

Thinking of doing an RC car with billet aluminum suspension first.   Do the major geometry on 3 axis mill.  Then 3D print fixturing/jigs for turning the parts to hold for drilling operations and final reaming.

The process would go far towards being able to make parts for various flying things.

Cant recall seeing any.

Back in the day things like this were common as some helis were designed really well in most areas but were lacking in others.

But even then it was more common to buy stock frames and modify them to fit a larger engine and or gas tank.

Any complete one off stuff that I have seen is for large scale as there are no kits above the 1000 class birds.

Stuff like this.

I have never seen any DIY frame designs, I guess you could take a set and copy of them.

I am not 100% how much you would save making your own.  The frames tend to be the least of the problem and are fairly cheap.

Having said that, the dirty secret of the quad/heli world is the "carbon" parts are often just partial carbon or are black fiberglass.  A lot of the cheap carbon frames are a layer of carbon on the outside of fiberglass sheets.  It works fine, but you would need to figure out a matching material for a replacement part.

For the real cheap quads absolutely.   Guessing it is a thing for RC helis as well.

The top layer is definitely cosmetic.   It has no real indication of the layup of the actual carbon fiber as to suggest if the lay up is 0/90 or what orientation the weave is.   Quasi-isotropic would be among the best or 0/45/90 lay ups that give the best rigidity.

Most of what I have been buying is 3k and it holds up pretty well.

I have been cutting anywhere from 1.5 to 6mm carbon fiber now as I learn my machine and differences between CAD design to actual machined part tolerances.

Have made some real monster quads.   At some point I am gonna play with fixed wing and maybe a collective pitch build.

Most heli frames are of a boxed design and G-10 works as well "In flight" as carbon fiber would, albeit a lil heavier. Its basically being put under tension or compression in a box frame design.

With a ground/obstacle impact all bets are off regardless of materials.

Indeed.

I dont want to shit up the thread being off topic.

Hit me in IM or email if you have FPV questions.

Sorry, OP is back.

After looking into everything FPV seems like a better route to take and just stick with either planes or quads.

Do you do any long distant FPV? Any reco on where to learn more about it? What kind of hardware is needed? Only site I’ve really seen with products is ImmersionRC but not sure where they fit quality wise.

Long range is relative to size and battery but it is possible to take even a little 3.5inch drone out ridiculously far.

I have done a little over 1/2 mile out with my palm sized builds and done over a mile out with my 6-7in builds.    They can go farther but it becomes an issue of just how bad do you want to get it back if you go down.

1 or 2 miles out over open prarrie land is way dofferent than even 1/4 mile out over heavy forrest.


For high performance flying I use high C rated LiPos of 4 or 6s.   For endurance I build my own 18650 packs but have a hard set current limit I try to not exceed(6s2p 15amps cruising, 30amps cont, 60-70amps burst).

On lithium ion I can hit 15-23 minutes between 3s pack on a 3.5 to a 6s2p on 7 or 10in, even parallel 6s4p for 13in.


There is a learning curve to it but if you have stick time on LOS helicopters you will likely pick it up quick.

It is fixed pitch props so there is no head speed for things like autorotating down to a nice ground effect landing.

Youtube JoshuaBardwell and he goes in deep on how to build.

Vendors I use are RacedayQuads, Pyrodrone, and ReadyMadeRC.

Goggle choices are pretty much Fatshark for Analog and DJI is only game in town for digital.   Analog has some strengths and weaknesses while HD DJI goggles are beautiful but a little more difficult options wise.

Want a laugh.

Find the old KwadBox review he did.

He opens the box and there is a set of stickers.   One of them says JoshTardwell.

Hilarious.

Wound up ordering an Align 450. After doing a lot of surfing it seems I have a lot to learn to get into FPV. It still confuses me. Antenna choices, frequency ranges, UHF, HAM requirements, goggle types...overloaded with choices and have little knowledge. Crazy how much the industry changed in 15 years. But then again I guess 15 years is a long time.

Understood.   Jumping into another rabbit hole is never pretty.   Takes about a year before you can look at something and know if you will like it.

Hit me up in private messages if you ever have any questions.   There are some starter options that might prove interesting if bashing around the house with a brushless TinyWhoop and annoying the hell out of the cat sounds fun.

What’s the go to brand for chargers? Lipo was just coming out and Dynamite and Orion were THE brands back then and something tells me that has changed. Is EV Peak any good?

I’m already looking at upgrading and venturing out. IKON2 seems to be a go to, and I see that you can use satellite receivers...do I need 2 with something like that?

Sorry, a lot of questions. Is there an Arfcom of RC? The board I was a member of (RC Car Action) basically looks dead, and naturally was geared towards surface.

Thanks!

I have two chargers I like.  Both are from Icharger.

It has nicad, lead acid, balanced lithium poly and lithium ion, and like 3 other programs available to choose from.

My Icharger 206B has done upwards of 9 amps into a giant parallel array of like 12 1300mah 5s or 4s batteries.

My 2nd charger is an Icharger X6 and I often do a parallel array of 4 or 6 batteries at once at like 6 amps.


I like parallel charging because I will run at around a 1c charge rate for the parallel array.

Basically 1300mah x6 equals my charge rate so around 8 amps for those packs.

Just gotta make sure all batteries are at a good storage voltage and in good shape, large voltage disparity between cells or packs is where turns dangerous.

If I am within .1v per cell on the packs I consider myself good to go.   Usually I am within .05 per cell at storage because I am tedius and OCD as hell putting 100+ batteries into storage.


I run a 24v power 600w supply to drive my two chargers.   There are some decent 50 dollar 24v 15-20amp rated power supplies out there.  Check ReadyMadeRC or RacedayQuads, figure it is good for roughly 10-12amps max power output.

24v power supplys are the shit for doing lipo packs.

Not uncommon for when I want to fly to have upwards of 12-16 batteries charging at once.

In 2 hours I can have 30+ packs charged and ready to go.



Both Icharger and ISDT have chargers that will do 8s if you need to push the big voltage packs for a heli.

Buy ISDT fs100 smart discharger for dropping 2s-8s packs back to storage so you dont put that load on your charger.

I burned out an ISDT T8 doing that which really sucked.


My charge box has a pair of 10 or 12amp AGM batteries wired into series so I can charge up a cpuple more packs out in the field.   Used it a couple of times and 24v is the way to go.


Reason being is some of the cheap chargers will cut off as soon as they see less than 12v.    Well that happens quick if you are charging a 4s which is gonna want to goto 16+ volts.   Charging at 1-3 amps on that pack means the wattage being drawn off the 12v arrangement will sag the voltage.    But if you goto 24v it will be pulling less amps and have a higher voltage overhead without reaching shut off voltage.    That means you can do 6s packs as well and it is more even steven on amps coming in versus amps going out.

Icharger also has some regenerative programs for draining a pack and putting it back into the power supply packs.


The chargers I recommended are very flexible with input voltages and geared towards 24v(and higher) inputs.


It gets really kinda perverted when I fire up my power supply and plug it into my charger only to have it feed right back into my AGM batteries.


lastly...    the red t-plug Deans connectors are dead.
Like why they made it out of the damned 90s is beyond me.    XT60 and XT90 connectors are the shit and should be a standard plug on anything rc

Bump for charger topic


Pick your parallel boards depending on if you are doing 2s or 4s or 6s...

Can do seperate programs at once.

You freaking kids and your XT-this connectors.  

Deans were popular because they worked pretty well and were easy to solder.  Those of us that have lived through Anderson PowerPoles know what's up.

I still run Deans on my NiMH and Nicad r/c car batteries.  When my kiddo is running cars with grandpa he can be somewhat trusted with charging NiMH.  I don't trust grampa to monitor lipos when they charge.

XT-* is on most of the airplane and drone stuff these days.

I have a big server power supply and a couple of DC chargers for bigger stuff.  I find myself using a couple of smaller AC chargers than anything else these days.  Two or more chargers is a really handy thing to have.

Deans were absolute shit even when I used them back during my RC10 days.

Used a lot of plugs including some of the fancy silver plugs thatvwere whiz bang.

XT60s are the most stra8ght forward awesome to assemble plug ever.


I had 40+ batteries that were Tplug lipos when I got into drones cause those were what I knew.

When I finally ditched them for XT60s it was one of the single best decisions I ever made in RC.

Don't give up on FPV, it's a lot to take in (brain and wallet) at once, but its worth it!

My goal is to be able to deliver a beer to my friend on his deck, from my property a mile away autonomously using INAV or some other type of autopilot (ardupilot etc).

I used to fly the 450 series heli's (Align 450)....but also got out of it a few years ago. I think the big thing now is flybar-lss type setups using gyros to smooth stuff out instead of a flybar.

Honestly.......I like flying my cheap little home build foam planes much more than my helis.  If I crash a foam plane, I'm I'm and flying in a few minutes. With a heli, it's hours or repair and balancing/setup to get things right again.

Drones are an interesting beast and remind me a bit of helicopters in their hayday, everyone was always chasing the latest and greatest.  New was always best and everything else was horrible.  DIY drones and racing seems to be cooling a bit at least locally.  The technology and reliability you get out of a $25 FC these days is pretty amazing.

FBL controllers ensure with a reasonably correct setup (mechanically and software) you will end up with a pretty flyable helicopter.  Back in the olden-days this required a lot of initial setup work.  Many people never got a solid setup on the bench and struggled from then on.  One reason the Futaba GY401 was so widely adopted when it came out was it would work pretty well if your mechanical setup was close enough and vibration wasn't insane.  

The little GWS units may have been the exception, I don't think there was ever a time they worked properly for more than 10 seconds at a time.

Then again, that is all part of the fun of helicopters.

I'm going to bump this thread so it doesn't slip into Archived status.

I've been looking to get back into flying. Family, work, and brutal long summers killed it for me in the past.

I've got a few Align T-Rex 450SEs collecting dust that I want to try and fly CP rotor again, but drones look like they have a lower skill entry point and a lower price point.

I still have a logo-10 that I built for 6-8s back in mid 2000's.. I look at it occasionally and think about flying it.

I know that this isn't EE but.......
If anyone is close to Spokane I have a couple of helis that I'd like to trade away.
Compass stretched Warp 360. 6S
Goblin 700 running on 12S.
Spectrum DX9
Spare parts etc.

You should post it on the EE. Heck I'd like to see pics myself.

I'll see what I can do sir.

Attached File


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That's hot.

I just tried my hand at collective pitch for the first time today.  Eachine E160.   This is going to be a steep learning curve but I don't plan to really get into the 3D heli stuff very deep.  Loving fixed wing and have gone WAY overboard buying planes for the past two years.

Been kicking around picking up a E160.

There is such a thing as buying too many planes?  I am willing to bet I have more than anyone else on this forum.  

Get a drone...You can actually do other cool stuff besides just buzzing around.

Meh. There is something awesome about an RC Heli that a drone cannot replace.

Hard to explain. But definitely true for me. I have a drone.

I have a Heli, and have had several others long before drones were a thing.

I still take my heli out 5x for every one time I grab my drone.

Thought about selling a gun to fund a Kraken 580 in fact.

How many you have?

I had 22 cars, 4 planes, and 2 helis at my peak. 2004ish.

Down to 1, 0, 1. And a drone.

I'm currently just over 80 planes as soon as my Draco arrives, 12 multirotors various sizes, and 3 Helis.  Probably stop there at 3 helis.  Just wanting to know how to fly one around without the 3D stuff. Frankly when people at the club bring out the big helicopters and start the 3D flying I seak shelter.  Scares the crap out of me thinking what bad could happen.  Fixed wing has become my obsession and that number has accumulated in just over 2 years by first purchasing a little EFlite Sport Cub.  Was going to just be a cheap hobby!!!    The E160 is an incredibly capable machine and high reviews every where.

Where do you even store 80 planes!?

It's mostly all brushless motors and Lipo battereis now.  I used to fly the Align Trex 450's years ago......last time I checked, they kind of died off.  There are some other manufactures out there, but when "drones" came out, the RC Helicopter market seemed to take a big hit.

In my bonus room, under my beds, in closets, up on top of big 2 wall office desk unit, in my truck, in my toyhauler, any place I can find lmao.  A big B-17 is arriving today, and then Draco whenever it comes.  No idea where I'm putting these two but at least Draco'd wings pop off easily which will help.  I am done buying after these two arrive.  I always say that but the buy button is too damn easy to push!
This is a list I haven’t updated in many months but gives you an idea.  Several planes I have a nib backup for ones that I really like and knew would be discontinued.
Freewing F22
Freewing F18
Freewing F86 Sabre
Freewing F8 Crusader
Freewing Mig15
Freewing Stinger
Freewing F9f Panther
Volantex Super Cub . Had 2 but just gave one to a club member.
FMS Corsair x 2
FMS T28 x 2
FMS p51
HK P51
HK Skyraider x 2
XK Beaver
EFlite Sport Cub
EFlite Cessna 182
EFlite Waco x 2
EFlite Pitts x 2
EFlite p51. X 2
EFlite wildcat
EFlite Yak 54 x 2
EFlite MiG 15 x 2
EFlite Timber X 2
Volantex Saber 920
EFlite F16 x 2
FMS F-35
EFlite PT 17 x 2
EFLITE Utimate x 2
Durafly 1100mm Supermarine
Durafly BF109
Night Timber X x2
HookII Extra 300 1200mm X 3
Freewing Rebel
Freewing Rebel 6s conversion
Dynam twin 64mm A10
Dynam B-26 Marauder
Dynam ME 262
Hobby lobby B-25
Eflite Conscendo Evolution 1.5m
EFlite Extra 300
Flex Innovations QQ Extra 300
Dynam 1.m P-51

Hell, I don't even know.  Just a swag, I think I have 6 helis, not including toy/micro ones.  Probably the same in quadcopters.

Airplanes...hmm.  I have a kit wall that is about 12'x12' and full.  Most of these are wood or wood/foam kits, not ARFs.   Stuff ranges from the mundane like a Sig 1/5 scale Cub to some entire runs of kits that are probably pretty rare.  Mostly sailplane stuff with a healthy dose of classic pattern planes.  Size ranges from about 16" to 5m.

Then there is the built stuff.  Probably a few dozen that are pretty much RTF, some of those might need an rc thrown in and balanced.

One of the guys at the club was talking about nitro this past weekend being pretty much dead now mainly because the fuel is $80 a gallon!!!