humveecrusher

Pwterry...thanks for your insights!

Question...how can you tell if the gear mesh is to tight? Mine makes a loud whining noise when it winds down.

seanrolsen

Awesome! Thanks guys, and thanks PWTERRY for the tips! I started a thread asking about the invered flight trcik... can I quote in there?

thanks again!

And Fernando, Rachel told me that I would have to use bank transfer. For me, it is like 12 dollars US to transfer. I wonder if there is another way to transfer using a credit card like visa, and not have such an expensive service charge? I will keep you updated...

Cheers,
Sean

tnd2000

The CF blades weren't made for HB2, I just bought a pair that was similar in length with the stock balsa blades. Generally if the blades works for Hornet I/II you can use it on the HB2 but you might need to add a spacer here, drill a hole there to get it to fit. CF blades are stiff so you won't see much coning. I also found with the CF blades, my motor is taking a toll. I have reduced head speed and motor runs hotter. I've switch to fiber glass blades for now. Am also going seperate brushless so when that happens I'll try it with the CF blades again.

rbiasi

humveecrusher,
Here's the trick that I use to set my gear mesh. Cut a strip of paper about 1/4" wide by a few inches long. Loosen up the motor screws, place the strip between the gears and turn the main gear to thread it between the main and the pinion. Now push the pinion against the main and tighten down the screws.

I got that trick from the Protech Shogun manual, but I've seen people recommend it on the forums. Gives you a nice backlash. If your gear mesh is to tight you'll fry motors.

humveecrusher

Thanks rbiasi. I do this on my other rc's but wasn't sure if this is a normal sound right out of the box. It does seem that the mesh might be to tight, thus the whining sound as the rotor comes to a stop. I'll check it. Right now I can't get it off of the ground with my 8.4 V NiMH. I'm not sure if it is because my battery is shot, if the gear mesh is to tight, or both. I have read that the NiMH will get it up 5 feet or so but I can't even get it off of the ground at this point.

Tucson01

My Feedback: (1)

Got my used Honey Bee 2 today from Ebay..

HB2 -1 spare mainblade , 2 spare tail blades, spare tail motor, 2 x 1050 li-po's --shipped for $170

I know why the guy sold it he had no idea how to set it up.( From his feedback he had it a month)

Asked the seller if I needed anything -- reply was no.( busted landing gear and chewed up main gear bent mast)

I had ordered from Heli-fever quite a few replacement parts before I had asked (Heli- Fever has fast speedpost 2 days from HK to AZ,USA and cheap)

I purchased a few sets of the PE blades -- The holes are quite large for the blade bolts I inserted fuel line tubing to take up the slack perfect fit.

Anyways I set the Flybar paddles straight and put on a set of balanced PE blades, set the tracking and did a test flight.

Not a bad little heli for the price - should be a bit cheaper to maintain than my Shogun.
I will flight test some Kokam 1500s I picked up see how it does have already built a EDP50 MOTOR DD tail assembly might need it?

Question- if anyone has tried this---> Hardwire the Transmitter power to a 12v Hobbico power panel ? Don"t feel like buying batts every few days

rbiasi

humveecrusher,
They do tend to whine a bit when they run. My wife complains about the noise so I can only fly indoors when she isn't here. Good luck with the 8.4v Ni-Mh. I got one with my HB2, but I could never get off the ground with the damn thing (but I've heard that other people have got it to work). Get a 1200mah li-po or two and you'll be really happy. Plus you'll get about 20+min of flight time. Also, if it won't lift check that the swash didn't separate. Also, when I was using the Esky TX I could never get the HB2 off the ground unless I set the throttle trim to max.

Tuscon01, yeah the honeybee CP is a pretty nice flying heli. You can't beat it for the money. I've seen a few guys replace the AAs with a NiCad, but haven't heard of anyone wiring it to a power panel. But what kind of TX do you have for your Shogun? The Esky RX speaks Futaba. So if you've got a Futaba or Hitec TX you can use that instead. It's the best upgrade that you can make with these puppies. Then you can dial in the throttle and pitch curves, add a little expo, it's a whole new heli!

paedbo

My Feedback: (2)

i agree, totally new heli with a programmable radio, im using a hitec optic 6, the expo is my favorite feature that i wish the stock tx had.

for a beginner it can be kind of a pain in the but to set up the ccpm, servo end travels etc, but once you get it all dialed in its worth it.

humveecrusher

Thanks again rbiasi. I was just concerned about the whining when the motor and rotor comes to a stop.

jlb0305

i did the trick of losening the motor and moving it a papers width away last night... and wow!! what a difference, the motor doesn't get as hot or heat as fast, it seems to take less throttle to lift off... its just amazing what such a cheap small improvement does.

jlb0305

I saw a motor on towerhobbies.com... how much more power/lift would the Greatplanes 600 have?i realize it would def need a mod due to size and probably a new ESC

humveecrusher

Thanks for the report on the paper space. I will do it this weekend.

rbiasi

jlb0305,
I'm no expert on ESCs, but I think that going to a bigger motor would require a new ESC since the stock one is designed for a 370. Also, I think a bigger motor is going to draw more current. Not sure if that would fry the stock ESC or just suck. If your going to spend the money for separate compontents, then I'd just go all the way and go brushless. However, I think that Jim Pate hit the nail on the head with his earlier post about the Venom 370 RC car motor. No one hops up electric RC motors like the car guys. If you look at Tower Hobbies RC car motor selection there are a bunch of "hopped up" 370 motors. Most for under $20!

I had been looking at 370 airplane motors, but they all seem about the same as the stocker. I also bought one of the "Gold" motors for the Hummingbird from Century. Supposedly it's 25% more powerful. It's just the stock motor with a gold sticker on it and a 10t pinion! Lets see, 8t vs. 10t, hey a 25% improvement.

I'm going to oder a couple of the RC car motors and give them a try...

rbiasi

paedebo,
Yeah, moving to a better TX is the best investment you can make. Of course, a decent programable heli TX costs as much as the whole HB2 CP setup. But it's worth it. Between using my 7CHP and getting the Hummingbird symmetrical blades I can't believe how good this thing flys. Being able to adjust throttle and pitch curves really lets you dial the thing in. The pitch curve in the stock TX is just a little to wimpy, as witnessed by all of the 'I can't get my HB2 of the ground' links. With the stock TX I always had to push throttle trim to max to get the thing off the ground. With my Futaba it hovers at half stick.

Not to bash Esky. They definately gave us an awsome product at a great price! And now E-Filte is going to start selling the HB2 as the Blade CP next month. That will bring even more people into the HB2 clan.

It did take me a few days to get the 7CHP and HB2 configured and dialed in. A frustrating experience, but I learned a lot.

Oh well, enough rambling for one morning. I need to get outside and fly before the wind comes up!

Rich

Flying Rock

Anybody have any thoughts on this?
Thanks

Tucson01

My Feedback: (1)

I have a Super 8UHP rather fly atm with the stock unit. I will program my Futaba next week after I trash the AA Energizers in the stock unit.

Pulled those damn flybar weights off what a difference in Cyclic control. Might make a longer rod as suggested in one of the forums.

Also pulled that rachet bar in the Transmitter and flattend it out I would have completely removed it but you could go through the
roof real quick without some resistance on the throttle stick.

Wifes house plant ate one pair of PE blades... Can get a good 1min stable hover until the room turbulance comes into affect, then all the room
magnets ( couch, chair, the dreaded house plants ) start sucking that little heli in [X(]

Never got to fly in the house with the Shogun nor shall I ever try. I just have to figure out some kind of Excuse [&:] when my wife finds out
I have yet again bought another flying contraption.

rbiasi

I'd trash the PE blades. They suck. They're made for a fixed pitch heli. So you get a low head speed which is the enemy of stability on a CP heli. I tried a lot of different blades and found the Esky OEM replacement blades do a nice job. I tried the Like90's. They were an improvement, but not enough to justify the $25 price tag. Then I tried the Century Hummingbird Fully Symmeterical blades since they were on sale on Century's web site for $10. What a difference! They look a bit more fragile than the stockers, but they turned out to be toughter than I expected. My $.02, your milage may vary...

Ah, it met a houseplant? Most of my blades have green stains along the tips from meeting the plants on our patio. My wife noticed a while back that all of the plants seemed trimed at around 10". She thought that was funny. Then she noticed all of the little dents and white marks on her 'antique' mail cabnet in the entryway from my Radds flight lessons days. She didn't think that was funny...

Tucson01

My Feedback: (1)

I have had great luck with the PE blades so far. I trimmed the HB2 out can hover with 1/3 trim around half stick.

Heres a Nice Century heli story-- I ordered a couple sets of the $10 blades and just checked the tracking -I paid for 2 day shipping and I live in ARIZONA!!!

Whats wrong with information below!! What a joke I will not deal with Century Heli again after this.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
4/23/05 2 : 45 am Processed at Sort Facility. Wilmington, OH

4/21/05 4 : 51 pm Departing origin. Santa Clara, CA
5 : 00 pm Picked Up by DHL. Shipper's Door

batfalcon

Mine had similar "meetings" with palnts. Since spring has arrived in Greece I suggested to move all the plants to the balcony[sm=wink.gif] to catch a little more sun[sm=sunsmiley.gif]. Only a small planter remained indoors and betraid my "secret" after it was clipped at 15 cm.[sm=thumbdown.gif][sm=thumbdown.gif][sm=thumbdown.gif]

casipak

My Feedback: (3)

If I get a more powerful main motor and dd tail motor, from what I read, flight time will decrease quite a bit and battery life will probably shorten because the new motors will draw more current. I was thinking of getting a 1500 Mah lipo instead of the 1200.

Do you guys think that will help and whta's the cheapest place for lipos?

rbiasi

tuscon01,
That sucks! Sorry to hear about it. Century has always been good with my orders. Maybe I started a run on those blades with my posts. Anyways, there's no excuse for bad customer service. Especially when you pay extra for shipping. I'm having my own fun with RC World International right now. Bought a replacement frame. It took twice as long as usual to arrive and when it got here it was broken! I emailed them about it and expected to be told they would ship out a replacement. Instead they told me it was in a crushproof box and parts never break in those boxes! The box was fine, but if you throw plastic parts and a tail motor in the bottom of a box and just put some crumpled paper on top things can break! Well see if they make things right.

humveecrusher

I did the gear mesh with paper today and it helped a lot. I put on a pair of kyosho M24 blades that I had and it got up in the air pretty quick even with my cheap 8.4v NiMH. I know these blades are for FP but for practicing they have already saved me a couple of pairs of blades. They are tuff but yet flexable enough not to break or do to much damage to the head. I did put a crease in my nice chocolate wall but the wife hasn't seen it yet...[X(]

Thanks for all your help. I know that I need a lot of practice so I think I'll get a new battery and head outside.

batfalcon

The link for the "Tower Hobbies" works great, I am about to order one right now.
Could please post the link for the tail motor as well ? I keep searching at "Wattage" with no luck [].

Thanks,
Michael

batfalcon

I noticed yesterday evening that the tail makes some snap movements to the right, while hovering, and returns to the original position in a fraction of a second. I suppose that the tail motor is on it's final living moments, so I would like to know where can I purchase a dual motor upgrade kit, complete with motors etc.

Can someone post the link(s) here please?

Thanks,

Michael

jlb0305

helihobby.com has all the parts but i think you have to purchase each part seperately.

[link=http://helihobby.com/html/hummingbird_upgrades.html]click here[/link] and scroll down a bit to see the upgrade. looks like all they have in stock is silver and yellow though. don't know if it includes the motors or not.

also noticed on the main page the futaba 14 MZ... says it plays MP3's and more stuff... my question... well does it actually do controlling a heli?