Blade MSR = Poor

[Gate88]

I have it in my office today and have been flying it around our conference room.

Sounds like a really productive day Mart, I flew my 450 til I ran out of Lipo's then made a table to put my heli's on.

The rat race is hell!

[richieclarkie]

noobs

[tiddler]

noobs

Where

I do like a nice pair of,
Oh hang on you said noobs,
I thought you said, Oh never mind.

[Holst]

The problem with making it more robust is that if one part is made stronger something else will break. Reinforce that bit and another part will break and so on untill you are reinforcing the frame and making everything heavyer. If the heli weights more you need a more powerful motor, with a more powerful motor there is more energy and things get broken more easily...

Helicopters are inherrantly weak as you want a good power to weight ratio. There is no helicopter that crashes well.. they all break. The best you can do is design it so that something inexpensive breaks rather than something expensive. Often everything is "expensive"

The parts for the 4#3B are cheaper (from HK) but I think the 4#3B is much easyer to damage.
If your not happy with the spares cost then dont buy the product. One reason Align are so popular is that there spares are better value than much of the competition.

Not crashing is the best way to avoid high spare parts prices... if only it was that easy

[dam74]

The problem with making it more robust is that if one part is made stronger something else will break. Reinforce that bit and another part will break and so on untill you are reinforcing the frame and making everything heavyer. If the heli weights more you need a more powerful motor, with a more powerful motor there is more energy and things get broken more easily...

Helicopters are inherrantly weak as you want a good power to weight ratio. There is no helicopter that crashes well.. they all break. The best you can do is design it so that something inexpensive breaks rather than something expensive. Often everything is "expensive"

The parts for the 4#3B are cheaper (from HK) but I think the 4#3B is much easyer to damage.
If your not happy with the spares cost then dont buy the product. One reason Align are so popular is that there spares are better value than much of the competition.

Not crashing is the best way to avoid high spare parts prices... if only it was that easy

It's ok Holst, I think I've almost got this little baby's swash plate levelled out. It's at the moment has slight drift but I'll sort that out when the next lot of batteries charge. The problem is that out of the box it had a fairbit of movement with zero stick input so I was easily drifting into obstacles.

Mmmmh.....saw some nice Align helis today.
Align T-Rex electric 250, 450, 500, 600 and a nitro 700.
Also saw an Interceptor 400 kit aswell which is suppose to be a 450 clone.

[cambs flyer]

Well I was hoping to give the Blade MSR a second chance seeing as on the first run I did manage to take it outside and get a gust of wind take it over some trees at about 10m+ and ditch it into a road.

Well after some spare parts arrived I repaired it and have flown it extensively indoors. With adjustments as recommended on other forums which were superglue the grips where they overlap and superglue the end cap on the anti-torque motor. After a night of flying from about 8pm till about 1am and attempting to level the swashplate, which I've almost done, the following fault has come about.

The end cap on the anti-torque motor has seperated causing the helicopter to piroette on increasing of throttle.

So my verdict is the MSR is crap, all of those who think it is the bees knees.....try flying it some more.

TBH mate with the risk of occasional gusts I wouldn't even risk my T250 outside and thats massively more powerful & substantial then the MSR, I'm not knocking it I think there great, but learning a machines limitations is one of the single most important aspects of flying these machines.

A drop of ten meters plus and the machine was repairable is testament to the little fellas robustness, any Heli that crashes from that hight is going to be poorly until fixed.

That being said it sounds like your learned from your mistake, (always a good sign ) and are well on the road to success, best of luck bud.

[BadBear]

I have had my MSR 1 week I never flew any heli before this and I think its great I have 52 flights of 5 min in length all in my garage I have hit about everything with it and have broke nothing.....great little Heli

[dam74]

Wayne I don't fly the MSR outside anymore, only did it once and learnt my lesson. The cap of the tail motor popped off while flying indoor but there is a good chance that it was weekend during that drop outside.

I'm pretty much kitted out with spares now. 1xtailmotors, 1xlandingskids, 2xbladegrips, 1xblades, 1xflybar. Have the one tailmotor in use, one spare and one broken.....going to try and see if I can repair the broken one but the pickup/brushes are pretty knackered. Need to get out my magnifying glass to see if I can straighten them up

Update: oops, got back late lastnight from Sussex and started levelling and trimming the MSR again after putting on the new tailboom assembly and had it fairly tweaked. Woke up this morning and found the tail fin on the table Back to tweaking! Anyway after about 30-45min twisting in/out the ball links I've managed to get it fairly stable and hovering on a spot with very little movement. The only movement I'd put down to slight air movement (eg. drafts) that will always be present in most houses/flats. Anyway off to have some fun

[Mart61]

Mmmmh.....saw some nice Align helis today.
Align T-Rex electric 250, 450, 500, 600 and a nitro 700.

Go for it! You know you want too! But prepare your credit card to be raped, plundered and pillaged!



Glad you're getting the mSR a bit more stable too. For me, this is part of the fun - tweaking a heli until it flies right. And, even when you get it flying right, you'll still carry on tweaking to see of you can get it flying righter!

[dam74]

Yeah it is fun, I've become more obsessed with tweaking then flying
I think I've done about 10+ batteries playing around trying to get it just right. It's fairly stable but after every bump it just knocks it out again so you're back to square one.

As with the Align helis......I've already been pricing up a clone 450. However if I bought a frame you still have to buy all of the other parts aswell which I'm not sure it'd be that much cheaper. I know Gav has a 3DX450B frame however if you start to put in genuine Align heads, swash, shaft etc etc you'll probably end up something that will cost as much as an original. I could be wrong though

Update: I know from blink helicopters you can get a 3DX450B kit for around 168gbp with everything bar servos, gyro and rx. From the same place you're looking at 133gbp for a Align TREX 450S G10 Combo Kit which excludes motor, esc, servos, gyro and rx. Motor and esc will most likely set you back around 80gbp. So 210gbp for an Align kit where the clone is 168gbp. The only thing is that I'm sure the clone kit has a lot of upgrade parts like metal head and cf blades, whereas I'm sure the Align kit would use plastic heads and woody blades.

[richieclarkie]

As with the Align helis......I've already been pricing up a clone 450. However if I bought a frame you still have to buy all of the other parts aswell which I'm not sure it'd be that much cheaper. I know Gav has a 3DX450B frame however if you start to put in genuine Align heads, swash, shaft etc etc you'll probably end up something that will cost as much as an original. I could be wrong though

Update: I know from blink helicopters you can get a 3DX450B kit for around 168gbp with everything bar servos, gyro and rx. From the same place you're looking at 133gbp for a Align TREX 450S G10 Combo Kit which excludes motor, esc, servos, gyro and rx. Motor and esc will most likely set you back around 80gbp. So 210gbp for an Align kit where the clone is 168gbp. The only thing is that I'm sure the clone kit has a lot of upgrade parts like metal head and cf blades, whereas I'm sure the Align kit would use plastic heads and woody blades.

Buy once and buy right is the way I would be thinking here. Everything is made to a price and I would suggest that for the few quid you save on a clone, you will lose triple in resale value. Also not many clones fly very well for various reasons. This is an expensive hobby and the only way to really save money is buy good second hand stuff or when you get good enough get sponsored.

Pays your money.....

BTW. I bought an MSR and I've crashed it a lot. Really easy to correct any issues that occur and I love the little thing.

[ChrisB]

I agree,i would not buy an Align clone,IMHO Align are already cheap helis built down to a price so i would not want to risk a copy of whats already a cheaply produced heli. They are the Kia`s and Hyundai`s of the heli world.

[Nick B]

Yeah it is fun, I've become more obsessed with tweaking then flying
I think I've done about 10+ batteries playing around trying to get it just right. It's fairly stable but after every bump it just knocks it out again so you're back to square one.

You will be better just flying it with the sticks m8,pointless trimming all the time....waste of fun IMHO

[dam74]

Nick, I've levelled it enough now. The rest I just use subtrim inflight to correct. Had fun zooming it around a 3.5mx4.5m lounge room

Have managed to take off from my coffee table and land it on my ironing board. Makes for a good landing pad

[Mart61]

I agree with Nick. I find that, with any small heli, it needs constant in-stick adjustments to make it fly right. It's much easier than re-trimming every time.