ALIGN and the community?!

[CookieMan]

Hey everybody...

I would like to discuss about the screws manufactured by Align that comes in their respective kits. All of know how badly they do their job. For some, the experience comes while doing their hard 3Ds, for some while they're doing their regular fly-by's and for a few while building the kit itself. Don't get me wrong - they're a great company. They have established themselves greatly admist us that we drool when another shiny Align heli come out. I myself have 2 of theirs and another LE, shortly to follow. True - many might not be 'fans', the point is... somany of us are! But the fear does exist in the back of our minds still, doesn't it?

Now, WE, "THE NATION", ARE THIS HOBBY. We form this backbone. The various manufacturing companies exist because of us builders and flyers. We keep pushing the boundaries everyday thereby encouraging them to support us by giving worthy kits. It is true, people will argue that it is the tools or the threadlocks we use that are not implemented or applied in the right manner. BUT there a lot of us who take the time to ensure everything is done properly in a way that is healthy for the machine - common guys, lets face it - most of us do use quality tools and its not the first time that we're building an Align kit.

My doubt is, why cant we TOGETHER do something about it. I mean we have brilliant pilots amongst us who may directly have some connection to Align or at-least may know mates who are mates of somebody in Align?? Is there no way that we can together raise this concern with the company so that just because of one screw on the tail worth about 10p or 20p we have to go through the trouble of spending £££ for the resulting inevitable crash that would eventually follow??

This is the point where some people would vouch for turning to 'third party screws' manufacturers like rcscrewz or something or some people even go down to the lathe shop down-the-road to get their own set of screws made. Guys, my cry here is, WHY DON'T THE COMPANY ITSELF SELL A GOOD SET OF SCREWS, IN THE FIRST PLACE?? If that would be too much to ask, at-least they can sell a separate screw kit as part of an accessory bundle? - IS IT REALLY ASKING FOR TOOMUCH HERE? REALLY? Yes, align might just come up with another video showing that their kit is superb - which it is without doubt, but all of us (who build and fly align) know its just a matter 'when' more than an 'if' before the kit fails us.

Truly there must be somebody here that help raise our concern? They've got sponsored pilots who Im sure in their hearts know the screws set s*ck... Is there no way to resolve this issue directly through the company itself?

We have a great podcast team for the community... probably if we suggest an amendment through them, Im sure they would be happy to help (at-least I'm hoping they could...) but DON'T WE HAVE TO TAKE THE INITIATIVE??? DON'T WE HAVE TO TAKE SOME LEAD?

Now this post might just receive different views and opinions and I respect that... but we know the truth no matter what happens the (stuff) will make the model hit the floor hard someday.

I am asking you for your help, to raise this concern directly with Align. I'm sure if we (the users - the community) can stand together, we can get something from this movement. I would like some encouragement here so that we can do something - anything about this, if at all it can be done. I wish I could, but I dont know people higher up in the company and I DONT KNOW ANYBODY PERSONALLY WHO DOES. But YOU might...

CAN YOU HELP US PLEASE?

People... one small step for one pilot, can be one GIANT LEAP for the community.

Suggestions and HELP, people... suggestions and HELP!



Cheers,

[Janek]

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 !

While I agree that Align screws and bolts aren't the best in the world, most of us manage........you just have to stop gorilla'ing them

NON-CITIZEN 00000

[moonmanflyer]

Not the best fasteners in the world i grant you, but then aligns are cheeper, they have to save a bit of cash somewhere, yes it is a pain when you are trying to do maintenance or repair and have to drill off screw heads.
I for one have had a few go, on 250's, 500 and 700, the best one always seems to be my 600

[trvo]

As per other's comments, the screws aren't amazing, but I managed to build my 700LE with no issues. There's no need to tighten them as much as possible, just pinch them up and the loctite will do the rest.

Trev

[waveydavey]

Never had an issue, fortunately. Theres far more in the world to get upset about than a few bolts I'm afraid. I think part of the problem comes from people with little or no mechanical nous and the screws/bolts end up being tightened beyond their own yield strength. A 3mm cap head should be tightened no more than 4-6 Nm which aint a lot.

[Mark_T]

I started off with the view that the Align screws were rubbish because my expensive tools were having problems with them.

I then switched to a 'cheap' set of Align hex drivers and the problems went away.

Individually Align screws and hex drivers may not be great, but they are perfect for each other.

[Tom Burgess]

I had a 700 for 18 months and only had to drill one screw out. Reason for this was a crap tool. I bought a set of decent tools and used the original screws for over 12 months with many crashes/rebuilds. IMO they are up to the job, question is, are your tools?

[EtheAv8r]

Yes, but there is absoutely no reason why these screws could not be better quality and more able to take a bit of overtightening or frequent re-use.... and sometimes you can expand the hex slot before they are even fully driven - that is not tighening them as much as possible. These swrews are not a whopping 10p or 20p each... they are fractions of a penny each to Align.

They should also make the tiny washers and spacers available separately in packs (e.g. the spindle spacer on the 250).

They may be great for the 600 and 700, but the 250 and 450 are a different proposition. I have the best tools available.

[cupracing]

No issues with align screws here. Only ever stripped one on the 250 where I put too much loctite on and it wouldn't budge.

[Ashley Davis]

pretty much agree with all the comments here regarding the screws, treat them right and they treat you right. Yes you can get harder wearing screws but it's only occasionally I have an issue and it's always a case of not being able to get one undone due to loctite rather than it causing a failure inflight. I've been flying Align heli's daily since 2004 and I'm yet to have a screw related inflight failure.

[cupracing]

The only issue I see with align is releasing helis with inherent faults because they haven't gone through rigorous enough testing. The 250 tail wag and the 600 tail failures as an example.

[Swashbuckler]

What might be nice is if they gave a recommended torque setting for each screw. I think they are missing a trick here, they could sell Align torque wrenchs and drivers, they could be as good as the electric starter! Only trouble is they would then have to ensure their fasteners were up to the said torques and that would mean supplying nuts and bolts that were actually adequate for the job. It's not going to happen.
I myself use the Swiss tools torque driver, in the manual for the tool it tells you the maximum torque for each size bit. When I'm assembling a kit I generally halve that figure so I know I'm not "gorilla'ing" anything, but as the original post states - Aligns screws cannot even take this amount of torque, it's basically a 50/50 chance of the torque being acheived before the head of the fastener rounds out. And Outrage fasteners are no better. And to be honest the third party Rcscrewz are only fractionally better than the original fasteners. Another reason to stump the cash for a high end machine. As far as I'm concerned Aligns have two redeeming features.
1: Original cost
2: Parts availability
I think they know their market though, if all of a sudden Align brought out a real quality kit that flew brilliantly but cost the same as any other machine I don't think it would be that well received initially. Once people realised that it was high end but they could buy the parts from anywhere that might change though.

[stevieb337]

in my experiance (not much with heli's but a lot with other rc kit ! ) the align screws are Crap !! plain and simples . im not an engineer by trade but i do have a mechanical back ground due to my job/trade so i know when to stop turning a simple screw but when it came to rebuilding my 500 i had to resort to a very unconventional method of removing the bolts/screws even with the ones that had a pin head of locktight on them as has been said before they cost penny's for 100's to align and i personally would pay the extra few £'s for some decent fastners


come on align step up an change them !!!

[Smudgyboy]

Not had any problems really, if you use a good set of hardened set of tools and take your time, keep the tool inline use tread lock and don't over tighten.

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.

[Mark_T]

I myself use the Swiss tools torque driver, in the manual for the tool it tells you the maximum torque for each size bit. When I'm assembling a kit I generally halve that figure so I know I'm not "gorilla'ing" anything, but as the original post states - Aligns screws cannot even take this amount of torque, it's basically a 50/50 chance of the torque being acheived before the head of the fastener rounds out.

I use the Swiss tools as well, but they just don't seem to be a great match for the Align screws. The Swiss ones will fit but it is not a tight fit so rounding does happen, but using the Align drivers they positively 'snap' into the heads with no room to move and hence tend not to round so easily.