ALIGN and the community?!

[Ashley Davis]

If you do have a problem with very stubborn thread locked screw, I use my soldering iron to heat the tread lock up by placing it for a while on the head of the screw.

exactly what I do, works a charm. Just applying more force to a well locked screw will nearly always lead to a rounded head.

[debrooker]

I think part of the problem is that you need good hex drivers. I thought I was using a good set of allen keys and I could feel the head starting to let go, so I borrowed someone else's 'quality' driver and the result was an eye opener - so much so i bought a new set of drivers.

[Janek]

Funnily enough, I was trying to replace a OS50 read bearing at the field on Saturday, for a young lad who'd got the Heli second-hand.

OS bolts are no better than Align bolts, when gorrilla'd, because two of the headbolts were rounded off prior to me touching them !.

Luckily the owner of the field has a bench drill, so we were able to drill off the bolt heads. Once the bolt heads were off, and the cylinder head removed, the remains of the bolts unscrewed with finger and thumb.

[Swashbuckler]

Yeah so what we are saying then is that cheap fastener head sizes are of varying tolerances - I have some heads that my tools fit perfectly and some are sloppy from the first insertion (ooer missus). I shall have to get myself some Align special size tools.

[scallybert]

And Outrage fasteners are no better.

I'm a bit surprised by that - or perhaps Align fasteners are better than I'd heard.

I certainly wouldn't claim the Outrage fasteners are perfect - but they're a lot harder than cheesium.

BTW, if enough people are interested in good quality replacement screws, I can point you towards a company that might be interested. They also do titanium...

[Sao]

So is the "The Nation" is becoming like political tool of the 60's, 70's and 80's, aka a Union, you'll be calling for a strike next !

NON-CITIZEN 00000

Kind of reminds me of Citizen Smith and the Tooting Popular Front

[CookieMan]

Hey everybody,

Thank you for your suggestions and replies. I wanted to clarify one thing here - I am not trying to go against a company which i adore here... I've said this before and i say it it again.. They're kits are great and that is precisely part of my point here - when they make such good helicopters, why do have to "save money" in this manner? OK, fine, the want to save the money - agreed, can't they help by releasing a separate accessory bundle with improved screws?



Thank you all..

[debrooker]

I think most people will agree that better screws wouldn't go amiss

[Smoothound]

I think most people will agree that better screws wouldn't go amiss

It's been talked about since the 450x appeared whenever that was. It's not going to change now To be fair even after all my Align knocking etc. the only ones that I find are really a PITA are the ones in the 250

[GravityKills]

Align screws are OK with me.
They are just doing the right thing, getting quality that is appropriate for the job, not too bad but not over-exceeding either. Proper engineering, IMO (always buying the most expensive stuff doesn't require any skill and kills your business if they are competitors).
The button-head frame screws on the 600 / 700 have sometimes been a PITA. But what's needed are simply better instructions: Use very little threadlock, they are already secured by the hole in the CF plate.

[Eddie.Fletch]

What annoyed me about my 450 sport kit was that the blade bolts were too short as used with the supplied lock nuts. Align upgraded normal nuts (as shown in the manual) to nyloc ones but didn't change the bolt length to suit.

When you pay over 200 smackers for a kit you would expect they would supply the correct length bolts. Okay I got some from fastlad but I shouldn't have needed to.

[Ashley Davis]

I certainly wouldn't claim the Outrage fasteners are perfect - but they're a lot harder than cheesium.

Outrage screws are better quality without a doubt, they also avoid the button headed screws which tend to not have much substance to them and strip easily. The only exception to this is on the G5 tail gearbox where there are some round headed bolts and they are a bit on the soft side. The 550 and Velocity 50 though the bolts are very good.

[scallybert]

Outrage screws are better quality without a doubt, they also avoid the button headed screws which tend to not have much substance to them and strip easily. The only exception to this is on the G5 tail gearbox where there are some round headed bolts and they are a bit on the soft side. The 550 and Velocity 50 though the bolts are very good.

I'm currently building another (perhaps that should say another...) G5 tail assembly, and there are two M2x4 countersunk screws that hold the r/h plate and the actuator mechanism bracket in place. IIRC, these take 0.9mm hex keys. This is possibly a bit sub-optimal for some important bolts that have to be adjusted properly and locked. However they seem to work ok.

WRT Align and screw quality - given how succesful they are, I wouldn't expect them to be all that receptive to being told they're doing things significantly wrong.

OTOH, the only Align products I've ever bought are some flybar rods (for G5), and some velcro straps.

I'm not sure that's going to change in the near future. I toyed with the idea of a T-Rex 250 combo, as it seemed a good price - then figured that if I did my usual thing of replacing the ESC for CC & the gyro for Spartan, it made no sense at all.

[CookieMan]

WRT Align and screw quality - given how succesful they are, I wouldn't expect them to be all that receptive to being told they're doing things significantly wrong.

I think that sounds like a pretty reasonable statement... but ...

[timmmy]

while building my 700 i noticed the bolts holding the grips to the feathering shaft to be some of the worst fastners iv ever seen the runout between the head and thread was very bad just outright poor quality poorly made,steel mills in china often use low grade ore.
align will just buy the bolts as cheap as possible and there definatly low quality steel no matter what tools etc you use.
its more of a question of shud a kit at the price they charge have parts made of low grade materials to save cost.
i personaly have changed alot of myn.
and on my 450 the blade grip bolts not been long enough to reach the nylon is just well what can you say best thing is to just buy some right bolts.