Lots and Lots of Questions

[Rich23]

Hi

Rickyc83 does server PSU's and from the reviews there very good. Just search in the for sale section. If you go PL6/8 get the 24v 47A one. +1 for the mCPx too.

Rich

[Andy_Ran]

As a realitivly new flyer last year I was in the same situation as yourself

I looked at getting a raptor but after talking to local club members (JamieM, Sacko, Slippery Stevens, And Dave Rand) it was clear to me, Align electric was the best way forward. Parts are easy to get, and they are IMO straight forward to setup. I had help for the first few times again from Club members then off i went.

The only thing i did differently was i did not by a DX7/8 radio set. I personally didn't get on with it so went and tried them all at my local shop and ended up with the Hitec A9

I would take advice from your local heli club and listen to their advice as to start with, you WILL need it. Any experience they can offer is invaluable, so lean towards what they use as a good guide line.

I still one day want another nitro heli as i love the smell and noise etc but for now, i love my electric helis just need more Lipo's (currently have 4 for the 450 and 3 for the 500's) and a better charger

[Nick B]

telemetry on a leccy heli is a waste of time,the battery will not have a stable output unless its sat on the ground mid stick.The dx8 has a timer that can be set using a throttle ouput %...set that to 20% and the timer for 5 mins and adjust after your first charge using the figures from the charger

500 to big as a first heli,rubbish

[cjcj1949]

I would not trust anyone selling a second hand anything. The exception is people on this forum that have posted things about helis other than buying or selling. I've bought a few things, been given a few, and given some things away. A secondhand heli can be good value, but it can often have a problem or be worn out. Spares cost double the cost of a heli. A 500 is fine if you have someone to help you. It will be an expensive way of learning on your own. Find someone from here to go with you and go to a proper heli club. If you say you want to get in to helis and want advice you'll get lots of help, especially if you listen. There are lots of different opinions and you will have to make up your own mind. There is no rush though. Learning takes a long time, most of us are still doing it.

I've found telemetry very useful. It allows you to check for things going wrong before they cause a problem. I agree the battery voltage will vary but it's the minimum value that's important. You do need to monitor all cells ideally.

[BenScoobert]

I bought a used raptor E550, or rather it was listed as an E550. I was too new to the hobby to know what I was buying but I was keen and excited, so I bought it.

Turns out the scale body was fractured, skids snapped and glued, boom slightly bent, parts missing, screws stripped, tapping screws forced into nuts plus many other little bits including it having a longer boom and blades than standard.
I've learned from it, stripping it, replacing all wrongdoings with genuine parts. My best bit of advice if buying used is insist on seeing it fly and take someone with you who knows more than you.
Good choice on the DX8, love mine, bought dx6i initially and sold it.

Shop around you can get an icharger 306b for £120, as good as, if not better than the PL6, for a start you don't need 30volts to get full power.
PSU from ricky as mentioned, bang on, I have one, a little loud is my only bug with it.

Where's the used heli? Is it local?

[Stanley Speel]

I would not trust anyone selling a second hand anything. The exception is people on this forum that have posted things about helis other than buying or selling. I've bought a few things, been given a few, and given some things away. A secondhand heli can be good value, but it can often have a problem or be worn out..

With the exception of my first helis - a Blade 400 and Trex 250 I got on ebay, every single second hand heli that I've bought has been perfect. Not all of them have been from the forum, some have been from ebay.

That includes a Trex 500 ESP, two MSH Protos', a Gaui X2, a Trex 450 Pro, a trex 450 se v2, an atom 500 and a logo 400. everything was 100% locktighted and I've never had a mechanical problem that wasn't my fault.

If you look around on the forum you will find quite a few Trex 500 deals that you can just set up and fly. Of course you should always check to see if everything has been locktighted, and you should find that 99% of the time it has all been built well.

[evaD retsiL]

pgkevet - I mentioned Phoenix 3 in my first post

muscleflex - bah too late, was down at Midlands today and picked up a MCPX :S, and the club is the North Leeds Flying Club, their blurb on the website says fixed wing only, although I've since found out that they would welcome heli pilots, but since I'm gonna be a while before I consider myself a heli pilot and not a heli OMGWTFISITDOINGNOW flyer then I'll be better in a different club where there's more heli pilots around. There's Horbury Helicopters which as the name suggests specialise in helicopters, and then Dewsbury & District who seem to have a good few heli pilots too.

rich23 - I'll have a look at those server PSU's thx

Blade & cjcj - essentially the telemetry part is free, it comes with the transmitter so I've nothing to lose by installing it, I've ordered a proper battery checker & balancer that should give me more details on the cells themselves, I don't expect exact results since battery drain is very variable, but it's an indication, and with trial with flight times, and the battery checker, it's still going to be hit and miss since every flight is different loadings etc.

cjcj - within reason, I trust this guy, spoken on the phone to him, and members of the club say it's a good machine to buy, so I'm fairly confident that a good look round the machine when I'm there will be good enough (famous last words?

Ben - the heli is about 15 miles away so local enough, and I ended up with a PL6 in the end, (although still need a psu)

Stanley - I've bought a bottle of loctite blue today, so will be going round the machine and probably re-loctiting things, since the only way you can tell if somethings been loctited is to take it out unless you can see it on the head of the fastener, which is good since I don't want to get it out straight away, I want to take my time in learning on the sim and then the mcpx first. I know they won't handle the same as the 500, but it should give me some idea.

[Rich23]

I have the PL6 and use a 12v/24v 1150w 47A Server PSU. They are a little noisy but you can swap the fans for silent ones which I will be doing once the 600 is built. Did you go for the combo kit with the parallel leads, PC link and croc clamps?

Rich

[evaD retsiL]

No, I went for the bare charger and got one of the Multi-Port Safe Parallel Charger boards, I'll look at getting the PC link in the future, how useful is it?, and I'll build my own set of croc clamp leads to the EC5 connector

One question I've got, is charging time affected by going up to 24volts?

[BenScoobert]

No, I went for the bare charger and got one of the Multi-Port Safe Parallel Charger boards, I'll look at getting the PC link in the future, how useful is it?, and I'll build my own set of croc clamp leads to the EC5 connector

One question I've got, is charging time affected by going up to 24volts?

Look at the specs of the charger, it can't tonk out full 1000w unless it gets 30 volts, I'd guess at 24volts you are going to get about 800w and 400w at 12 volts

[waveydavey]

[QUOTE=snotvis;864978]

If I had to do it all again i would go for a 600 size machine from the start (probably nitro for the flight times).

My call every time to a new pilot

[del19_82]

I too would go for a 50 size minimum if i was starting again. I started with a Raptor 30 but with hindsight I would have saved money by going with a Trex 600 or a Raptor 50.

[evaD retsiL]

I was thinking that Ben, so I'll have a look at one of ricky's psu's or get busy with the soldering iron, build some kind of frankensupply, just need to find an insulating (plastic) box to put them in since one of the cases could end up live should something go wrong

[snotvis]

Can't go wrong a good old Trex 600 - the work horses of the rc world...

[BenScoobert]

I was thinking that Ben, so I'll have a look at one of ricky's psu's or get busy with the soldering iron, build some kind of frankensupply, just need to find an insulating (plastic) box to put them in since one of the cases could end up live should something go wrong

from the manual:

PowerLab 6 is one of the highest power RC battery maintenance devices available. Running full power, it can deliver 1000W to batteries during charge. To achieve this, even on a 6 cell Li battery, it must boost the input voltage. This means the PowerLab 6 may draw up to 1200W from the input power supply.
To take advantage of PowerLab 6’s full power capability, the power source should be 30V DC (higher voltage does not improve output power), and capable of delivering a minimum of 40A to PowerLab 6’s input. Per Ohm’s law, 30V x 40A = 1200W. However, it is generally not advisable to pull 100% of available power from a DC power supply. Therefore, if you want to attain 1000W of output power to a 6s Li battery, the power supply should be capable of 1300W or higher for best results.
Likewise, if you don’t need PowerLab 6’s full output power, it can operate from much lower power sources. Use the steps outlined in Set Smart Power Management to con-figure PowerLab 6 to never exceed the maximum capabilities of your input source(s), whether DC power supply or Lead Acid battery.
For more information about power supply selection, please download the PowerLab 6 Power Calculator spreadsheet found at the PL6 Resources tab on the REVOLECTRIX website.