Official- Align metal is pig iron!

[Rctintin]

Following on from my previous thread regarding the snapped in flight tail shafts, the 3 shafts, 2 of which broke in flight, plus my bent one were inspected by a senior air crash investigator, and this is the result. It is just crap metal, badly machined, and very soft!! It is very low carbon steel, so cant be heat treated, and they have been made with pig iron, which is the cheapest steel you can get.

The first photo is of one of the broken shafts, but look at the machining on the shoulder, there are multiple rings that are all weak points.



This next picture is a complete shaft, but again, look at the machining on the shoulder.



And lastly, another shaft that snapped in flight.



I shall look at the possibility of making new shafts, and use the Align bevel gear pinned to it like the front TT gear is. My mate has already said about titanium as a possible choice!

[electricsceadu]

you get what you pay for
buy cheap buy twice

[trillian]

you get what you pay for
buy cheap buy twice

Yeah but everyone loves when you buy spares you get two in the package

[Paulice]

Yeah but everyone loves when you buy spares you get two in the package

True but the quality is still less than one good one!
Quote from Benjamin Franklin:

"The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten."

[spunkmyer]

Get a Raptor!!! but saying that who knows what metals they use

[pgkevet]

Doesn't everyone accept they are cheap helis?..More to the point would be to know what the competition is using..because probably most is made in similar factories to keep costs down...until you get to birds that are so expensive one hates to risk flying difficult stuff on them..

[J-S-Q]

It would certainly be interesting to make a comparison with the machining quality of other manufacturers if anyone has the parts, time and photography skills.

[Janek]

were inspected by a senior air crash investigator

And what exactly is the point of that ?, you planning on flying in it !

Align models are cheap, accept them for what they are. Pretty good flying, cheap heli's, with parts that are cheap.

If you don't like cheap, get an expensive heli...... and enjoy the experiance, until you crash it and realise why it was you flew Align before

[glen_j]

And what exactly is the point of that ?, you planning on flying in it !

Align models are cheap, accept them for what they are. Pretty good flying, cheap heli's, with parts that are cheap.

If you don't like cheap, get an expensive heli...... and enjoy the experiance, until you crash it and realise why it was you flew Align before

i'd imagine the reason he had it looked at is becaues he's had a few fail. even a "cheap" heli like aligns shouldn't have failures like this. the sort of sub standard materials used on an important part thike is what i'd expect to see on a clone. we all know align use cheap metal on things like screws ect but i'd like to think they'd use something a bit better on the shafts.

[J-S-Q]

And what exactly is the point of that ?, you planning on flying in it !

Align models are cheap, accept them for what they are. Pretty good flying, cheap heli's, with parts that are cheap.

If you don't like cheap, get an expensive heli...... and enjoy the experiance, until you crash it and realise why it was you flew Align before

Surely the point is to identify any weak spots in the heli and look at ways of improving them. Yes a TRex is 'cheap' but you've still got about a grand flying in the air so if somebody can find a genuine flaw and fix it with say a titanium tail shaft for reasonable cost then I would personally applaud the effort (and probably buy one too!)

[Janek]

Surely the point is to identify any weak spots in the heli and look at ways of improving them. Yes a TRex is 'cheap' but you've still got about a grand flying in the air so if somebody can find a genuine flaw and fix it with say a titanium tail shaft for reasonable cost then I would personally applaud the effort (and probably buy one too!)

But.......there are hundreds (maybe thousands) of machines out there, that fly many, many hours of hard 3D, that don't have shafts shearing off in flight.

[scallybert]

Following on from my previous thread regarding the snapped in flight tail shafts, the 3 shafts, 2 of which broke in flight, plus my bent one were inspected by a senior air crash investigator, and this is the result. It is just crap metal, badly machined, and very soft!! It is very low carbon steel, so cant be heat treated, and they have been made with pig iron, which is the cheapest steel you can get.

Hmm - if that's what he said, I suspect he knows even less about metallurgy than I do...

Pig iron - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Pig iron is the intermediate product of smelting iron ore with coke, usually with limestone flux. Pig iron has a very high carbon content, typically 3.5–4.5%, which makes it very brittle and not useful directly as a material except for limited applications."

It may well be crap metal, badly machined - but I doubt it's pig iron. (I'm not even sure you could machine pig iron.)

[machasm]

I suspect, although don't have any proof of this, that other manufacturers use similar materials in their kits/helis.
Unless you analyse those too you may find that you spend more money on a premium heli only to discover its made of the same stuff!
Ade

[Ads]

Not at Kasama, when they harden something its damn hard, that's for sure. All aluminium parts are also 7075-T6 Aircraft grade. Check out the stuff that didn't make it through Quality control:




If its not perfect, it goes in the bin.

I agree with the 'you pay for what you get'. But all parts should be strong enough to not break during flight, whatever the manufacturer. If they break in a crash then that's fair enough, but when main gears, tail shafts feathering spindles or whatever break under general use, that's a design fault.

[steve b]

i have had a tail pitch slider fail in flight repair bill was around £250 email align and didnt get a reply back we all now there is a issue but they wont admit it