Yet another what do you think noobie thread.

[Jay23]

Hi all,

I posted the frustrated noob thread a few weeks ago and 'im back with more questions as im really unsure where to go next. So, i have just bought a new dx6 with ar610 receiver to work with neXt sim and as you know from my last post i'm looking at a hew cp heli. Here are the ones 'im looking at:
The Blade 230s, by all accounts the same size as my honeybee V2, it seems a reasonable price but because its new parts for it seem a little thin on the ground and i don't want to be grounded for long periods of time. Also i'm not too keen on it having a tail motor, its probably just me though as i'm on the 4th motor on the honeybee. I like the safe mode stuff but i fear i may become too reliant on it.

My other pics are the Trex 450l dominator 3s or 6s super combo, firstly i know the 6s version will be more powerful, but 'im not likely to tap into that power for a long time, will the 3s version give me longer flight times? I like the idea of building my own heli so i know how it goes together but are they hard to setup once assembled? i presume the 3gx flb system will work with the AR610 as i am reading on forums about the gain being on channel 7 and the dx6 having setup problems. The other thing (and i know this sounds silly) but having watched youtube vids on the 450L i think i will be bricking it as soon as the thing spools up! The aligns also have plenty-full parts.

So basically i don't know if i should go 230s and regret not getting a bigger heli. Or get the 450l and regret not getting the 230s as the 450 will scare the crap out of me!

I have looked at other kits such as the guai x3 and goblin 380 but the cost of these kits plus servos, fbl system etc make them out of my price range, plus i don't really know what i'm doing as regards getting the right motor esc etc.

I should also add i have huge field at the back of the house i can use.

Thanks again guys for your opinions

Ps i don't want to be grounded on moderately windy days, if that might sway your opinions on my choices.

[Rachel]

i have a 230 and its a really great piece of kit, it will piro flip, piro huricane and hold in a very fast backwards huricane , seriously impressed with it..... safe mode is great for learning too as is bail out... i crashed mine really hard , just needed tail blades and a heade link ....
i highly recomend it....
especially if you have a garden to loon about in.

[trexamanic]

I have a 230 s that i am still to maiden. I will be using the settings given on the forum. Just make sure that you folow settings from a third party. Perhaps Rachel may input into the thread already started?
For the extra £20 , i would have bought the rtf version.
I got a great deal from midland helicopters and i think they are still £10 cheaper than others.
Rememeber you can also get free postage on all items at midland helicopters until the end of sept.
Saves another £6-£10
enjoy.

[myxiplx]

If you're looking at a 450L both a 3S and 6S can give you similar flight times, it's all down to the headspeed you run. People who want a lot of power prefer 6S as the higher voltage means lower current which is much easier on your electrics. 6S is a lot more popular these days on the new models.

It's worth bearing in mind that *any* 6 channel CP helicopter is going to be a big step up in capabilities from the 4 channel you have now. One of my first CP helicopters was a mCPX BL and it took me a full year and around 700 flights to get to the stage I was pushing that model.

And while I agree failing tail motors is a pain, it's still much less of a hassle than a fiddly tail mechanism that can break with every crash. On a small model while you're learning it's probably the lesser of two evils :-)

If you take your time learning on neXt then a 450 is definitely a realistic option for you, you'll just have to take your time flying it. One thing I loved about learning on a micro like the mCPX BL was that I could treat it like a real life sim and just mess about and have fun. I had an absolute blast learning on that :-)

So, my thoughts are that you have 4 distinct options to think about....

Micro helis - almost free to crash
nQX - Tiny quad, fun to fly around the house, and should be more agile than your FP heli
nCP S - Tiny CP heli, great fun in the house, has a stability mode, but turn the settings up and it's *way* more agile than your current heli

Larger helis - will need repairs after most crashes
230 S - Larger CP heli, has a stability mode to help you transition, but is also agile enough for a lot of fun in your garden
450 size - Much larger, needs a charging setup, batteries, etc... Has a learning curve for the FBL system and mechanical setup. Will be more expensive with every crash, but also more stable and has a lot of presence in the air.

[Euclid]

Jay. It's taken me 20 months to get where I am now - building my first heli, a 6S trex 450. I've got here via a Blade msr x, Blade Nano and the 200srx. Unfortunately a Blade 130x also came along for the ride but all that did was teach me how to change tail gears! Would I advocate building a 450? One hundred percent yes. I have learnt so much from the build process that I'd never have learnt otherwise. The build manual however is an utter disgrace but even that helps by forcing you to research elsewhere; when all else fails you'll find people here queuing up to help. Also thanks to the advice from the good people here I went for the 6S version primarily because of the Gpro FBL unit (there's a whole new lexicon of TLAs you have to learn as well). Setting that up is relatively straight forward (says he who has yet to maiden the heli) and adds to the knowledge gained. Twenty months is a long time compared to the progress others have made but, a) I'm a fairly patient sort of guy and, b) I'm time poor. Would I advocate the 450 as your first? That is only for you to decide but it wouldn't have worked for me. The micros are almost cost free to crash and unless you are exceedingly gifted or lucky crashing whatever you fly will happen. Knowing what I know now would I have changed the route I took to get where I am now? With the exception of changing the 130x for the 230 I wouldn't have changed a thing. Good luck with whatever path you take.

[Peteski]

I think the 230S will give you a much higher flight time vs bench time ratio while learning to fly. I spent a good 6 months flying micros and sim before I built my first serious heli from scratch (OXY 3) and I'm really glad I waited. By the time I got the OXY 3 in the air I was already a competent sport flyer with the CP micros (had literally hundreds of flights under my belt with mCPX, 130X and 180 CFX plus many hours on the sim) and had the confidence to do it justice. I really cannot imagine the frustration of building a nice 450 heli and then crashing it in the first few flights or simply being too nervous to get past tail in hovering. Before I went ahead with the OXY 3 (which although still quite small is a real beast of a 3D heli) I bought a 180 CFX to make sure I was up to it. The 180 CFX is another realistic option for you and will quickly tell you whether or not you could handle a 450L. The 230S should be more forgiving, but still very capable. In your shoes right now, that's probably the one I'd buy. Learn to fly it, crash it and repair it a few times and then move on to a 450 class heli or larger once your confidence improves.

[Jay23]

Thanks for all your help and opinions I'm still torn over which way to jump, £175 seems alot for a "feeder heli" when I will probably end up with a 450, but crash costs etc it may be more economical in the end. My main concern is how the 230 handles the wind and how easy it is to see, as the hb is very difficult when it gets away from me. There is a local shop (wireless madness) about 20 miles from me, I may well go and see a 230 in the flesh to help make my mind up.

The other option of course is to hybernate with the sim for the winter.

On a different subject I'm using a 600 size heli in the sim to make it easier to see, but it's very stable compared to the 450, am I cheating?

Jay

[myxiplx]

Put it this way, a Trex 600N was my first large heli, it crashed due to a hardware fault on the very first flight and cost me over £150 just to repair it and get it back in the air. In my first year I got 17 flights on that helicopter, 3 of which were crashes. It cost me well over £500 that year.

My micro mCPX BL, although costing me £140 extra I crashed dozens and dozens of times. Every so often it would break something, but I got in over 700 flights on that in one year, and it cost me well under £400 for the entire year.

Oh, and a 600 size in the sim is ideal, the small heli's just don't fly right in most sims. 600 or 700 size is fine and is pretty close to how a modern FBL small heli flies.

You'll find any CP helicopter handles the wind much better than a 4 channel FP, they're able to pull themselves down which makes a huge difference. This is a video of my mCPX BL which is significantly smaller than the 230 S, and yes, that is the camera being blown over :-)
https://youtu.be/XVEZ0NHgSb8?t=123

[Peteski]

No it's not cheating to use a larger heli on the sim. Small helis on the sim (with neXt anyway) are less stable than they are in real life. It feels like they have less mass and inertia than they should. So I tend to fly 600 size helis on neXt and fly a 300 in real life and they feel comparable. But I do sometimes fly the 450L in neXt as it's a good challenge. The Goblin 380 is a good smaller model to try in neXt too. You can mess around with the control rates and pitch curves too, which makes a huge difference.

The sim is brilliant for learning, but you do need to get outside and fly something for real too. But it's not a bad idea to spend your first month on sim only and really get the hang of hovering in all orientations and flying controlled circuits in all directions. 30 mins a day dedicated practice for a whole month should get you to a point where you can handle a real CP heli. But there's still something different about flying in real life that can only be experienced by actually doing it! But you know that already from your experience with your V2.

£175 may seem like a lot of money for a trainer heli, but really it's not that much in this hobby and you should enjoy flying it. I still fly all my "feeder" micros and enjoy them in their own right. But you could always sell it on and get at least half your money back and probably more. Actually it surprises me how well these micro helis sell on ebay. I would have thought you would easily get £90-100 back for a 230S boxed up in good condition. Or you could buy one used for that sort of money and then sell it on for much the same i.e. virtually zero net cost. The only downside to buying used is that you are never certain that it doesn't have lingering issues from previous crash damage etc. Especially beginner helis like this!

As for the wind, you'll need to be realistic with a small heli, especially when you start out. I find that I can now fly micros in a fair bit of wind, but it took a lot of practice and sometimes it's just not enjoyable. I think the 230S will be okay in winds up to 10 mph and maybe up to 15 mph when you get to grips with it, but much above that will become a real handful, especially if it's gusting. That's where a 450 would be much better, but you wouldn't want to fly that either as a beginner on a very windy day. I pick my flying days based mainly on forecast wind conditions. If I see over 15 mph on the forecast I don't usually bother, but then I fly on a small hill in a very open field, so the wind is usually much stronger than forecast and often gusting. From what I've read, my stretched 300 size heli (285 mm blades) handles wind as well or better than most 450s, so probably comparable in that respect. I can easily fly my 300 in conditions where I wouldn't have a hope with my 180 CFX!

[Peteski]

Put it this way, a Trex 600N was my first large heli, it crashed due to a hardware fault on the very first flight and cost me over £150 just to repair it and get it back in the air. In my first year I got 17 flights on that helicopter, 3 of which were crashes. It cost me well over £500 that year.

My micro mCPX BL, although costing me £140 extra I crashed dozens and dozens of times. Every so often it would break something, but I got in over 700 flights on that in one year, and it cost me well under £400 for the entire year.

17 vs 700 flights hits the nail right on the head when considering whether to learn with a micro vs large heli. That reality for me made a micro trainer a no-brainer.

I'm 9 months in now and have just clocked up 100 flights on my OXY 3 in the last 2 months with only a single crash (and that was a stupid mistake hitting TH instead of rescue!). But to get to that point I had clocked literally hundreds of flights with my mCPX and 115 flights with my 180 CFX in the preceding 6 months or so. I think that makes for a more enjoyable overall experience than trying to nervously hover a larger heli right from the start.

[Grumpy]

17 vs 700 flights hits the nail right on the head when considering whether to learn with a micro vs large heli. That reality for me made a micro trainer a no-brainer.

I dont think you can take one persons experience as 'proof' that small helis are better for learning, or vice versa.

To 'balance' myxiplx's experience heres mine:

Large helis:
Trex 500/ Trex 600/ Kasama 600 /7HV 700 helis - 3 years flying, 2000+ flights, one minor crash and a few heavy landing causing a boom strike and a couple of stripped tail gears/ chipped tail blades etc. Total repair bill about £150

Repair bill averaged per flight = about 7 pence per flight I also still have all the helis in working order and great condition.


Small helis:
Trex 150 - about 30 flights, several crashes costing maybe £30 total then one that killed the MRS board costing about £80 (gave up flying it rather than replace)

Repair bill averaged per flight = £4 per flight


So add that to the mix then make your conclusions

[Granpappy]

I dont think you can take one persons experience as 'proof' that small helis are better for learning, or vice versa.

To 'balance' myxiplx's experience heres mine:

Large helis:
Trex 500/ Trex 600/ Kasama 600 /7HV 700 helis - 3 years flying, 2000+ flights, one minor crash and a few heavy landing causing a boom strike and a couple of stripped tail gears/ chipped tail blades etc. Total repair bill about £150

Repair bill averaged per flight = about 7 pence per flight I also still have all the helis in working order and great condition.


Small helis:
Trex 150 - about 30 flights, several crashes costing maybe £30 total then one that killed the MRS board costing about £80 (gave up flying it rather than replace)

Repair bill averaged per flight = £4 per flight


So add that to the mix then make your conclusions

I think what would be more relevant is what did you learn to fly on, and how many times did you crash it, and how much did it cost you. A 3 year track record on large helis is no good to the OP if you have always been a competent flier.

My view for what it's worth is to start out on a 500 size heli with fbl controller that has rescue plus level control. Level control is important because as long as you know how to make the heli rise and fall in the hover in a controlled condition then it's pretty damn difficult to crash. You can virtually fly a large heli in co-ax mode if you want. I suggested a 500 size because it is much more manageable in windy conditions then a 450 and it's cheaper to crash then a 600.

It is all a bigger outlay then a micro-size but a fbl controller as I just described is pretty good insurance against the cost of crashing. The important thing is having it set up correctly from the outset.

PS: I wish I had been in Brighton today. Japan beat the Springbok's and thoroughly deserved the win. Never seen so much guts and determination. Absolutely brilliant.

[Grumpy]

Fair point Granpappy..

I learned on a 450 initially which i did crash a couple of times due to mechanicals most often.. probably cost me £50 in repairs, then i switched to the 500 and i pretty much stopped crashing.

If i were to go back in time and advise myself i'd say the same as you are saying, i.e. skip the 450 and start on the 500. But without the benefit of hindsight to know that i'd still be heli flying over three years later the 450 seemed like enough to spend at the time.


PS... i did come into helis with years of fixed wing flying behind me, so maybe that skews the picture a bit. How much fixed wing helps with helis is hard to say.

[Granpappy]

If i were to go back in time and advise myself i'd say the same as you are saying, i.e. skip the 450 and start on the 500. But without the benefit of hindsight to know that i'd still be heli flying over three years later the 450 seemed like enough to spend at the time.


PS... i did come into helis with years of fixed wing flying behind me, so maybe that skews the picture a bit. How much fixed wing helps with helis is hard to say.

That's a fair point as well regarding hindsight. I believe that the bigger the investment, then the more determination there is to carry on even through hell and misfortune.

Flying fixed wing prior to helis definitely helped me. Transmitter familiarisation and feel plus an inbuilt sense of pitch and roll control which you don't have to re-learn was definitely an advantage. The only thing I did have to learn was rudder control which I never really used much on fixed wing. Even coordinated turns were programmed into the mixes on the transmitter.

[Peteski]

Is starting with a 500 really a good idea if you haven't got the support of a club? It's one thing having a micro buzzing about out of control, but quite a real danger with something that size! One of my considerations when I started was that I was often flying with our 2 year old daughter, so that ruled out anything remotely large. But even if I was flying alone I wouldn't have gone any bigger than a 450. It's a bit different once you can fly confidently, but something you really have to think hard about at the beginning. Even a 450 is fairly dangerous in the wrong hands. If you are flying at a club with support, then I can't argue that bigger is better providing you accept the larger costs involved - not just in crashing, but batteries, chargers etc.

Anyway I think Jay23 has plenty of options to consider at this point. They all have their pros and cons, but I certainly wouldn't do anything differently if I started out again tomorrow. One thing I've noticed (and this is just an observation) is that people who learn to fly on large models rarely seem to get on with flying micros later on, but people who learn with micros are usually happy to fly any size heli when they progress. I'm not saying micro learners develop better flying skills, it's just that they seem more able to switch between small and larger models. I realise some people simply struggle with seeing micros if their eyesight is a bit dodgy, so that limits them to larger helis only. But presuming you have good eyesight it is nice to be able to enjoy flying smaller helis too. Since I bought my OXY 3 I've even stopped looking at larger helis because I'm struggling to see the point in going larger just for the sake of it. It really is a game changer for small helis.