Official- Align metal is pig iron!

[Rctintin]

For all of you on here who have questioned why I did this, the answer is simple. I fly a 700, and don't want it dropping out of the sky because of a tail shaft snapping. I happen to have a mate in the right place who was able to ask the question to a senior engineer/investigator at Messier- Dowty Rotal, who happen to make the undercarriage for airliners, and the carbon props on the Hercules C130 C5. The whole exercise was to see if the shaft could be heat treated to make it stronger, and the answer is no, because it is cheap steel (as he called it, pig iron!) The photos were not taken by me, but by the guys who test this stuff for a living. I will be making my own shaft from 300M,(you guys who are obviously more knowledgeable than anyone else will know what that is!)

As I have already said, this was purely an exercise to see if there was a answer to this problem, as it does not look like Align are doing anything about it.

Don't shoot the messenger

[Rctintin]

You guy's need this

http://www.rcheliaddict.co.uk/gasser...tml#post494580

It was 4Dee's broken shaft that was photoed, and he PM'ed my to say he was getting a Ti one made.

[Dashik]

The trouble is where do you stop? If you want top quality then you pay top price, and even then theres no such thing as a 100% no-fail guarentee.

Align have there place as do Synergy, ElyQ, Kasama, Thunder Tiger etc etc.

But remember, most heli's that get sold do about 2 flights if there lucky before the owner either crashes and gives up or sticks it on the shelf and admires it from the sofa realising its actually not as easy as it looks !

The other 5% ( ok so I made the figure up ) are people like us who go and fly the things. How many people here honestly expect to have any of the components actualy wear out before they bin the heli? (actually I'm not doing to bad, I might actually have stuff wear out ask anyone that knows me )

Don't you think the manufactures know these things too? They ALL manufacture the kits to a target price and compromise accordingly.

All of the manufactures exist for one reason, to make a profit!

Align may not be the best but then you dont pay the highest price either.

One things for sure, there's probably only about 5 poeple on this forum who can out fly the aligns and actually justify, in terms of flying ability, actually getting a higher quality/more customisable helicopter.

The rest of us are buying stuff because we WANT it and that its really. Most of us would like to be 3D gods etc but probably wont be.

At the end of it all you buy what YOU like and can afford to run. Theres an awful lot of heli snobbery and forum elitisim at times and to be honest it gets in the way of playing with our toys

How about we stop critising other peoples choice of toys and help them have some fun?

As for the op's problem with tail shafts snapping has there been any other reports of this or has he just been unlucky?

[Rctintin]

I agree what you are saying, I choose to fly a 700 as it is the most affordable '90' out there, and cheap widely available spares. But, I wanted to see if it was possible to heat treat the shaft to strengthen it, but you cant. Thats it, nothing more, just an exercises that I shared on here so others could see the results.

[callum]

As for the op's problem with tail shafts snapping has there been any other reports of this or has he just been unlucky?

Yes.. Quite a few actually, 4 or 5 on this forum alone.

[Dashik]

Yes.. Quite a few actually, 4 or 5 on this forum alone.

OMG! A whole 4 or 5? out of how many hundreds? How many DOCUMENTED failures elsewhere?

Get me aligns phone number, I'll send all mine back lol!

It's equally possible they failed due it incorrect installation or maintence or some other user error is it not?

It is funny though, its the same names that jump in when theres a hint of a problem with an align lol.

Other manufactures screw it up from time to time as well

I can absolutely see the op's point and if I were in his shoes I'd be a bit concerned if it was a bad batch, poor materials or just plain back luck.

I suspect the latter.

[Dashik]

I agree what you are saying, I choose to fly a 700 as it is the most affordable '90' out there, and cheap widely available spares. But, I wanted to see if it was possible to heat treat the shaft to strengthen it, but you cant. Thats it, nothing more, just an exercises that I shared on here so others could see the results.

To be honest I'd be spitting feathers if I had a heli binned as a result of a cheap part failing but then thats the risk we take.

If you harden the metal does it not make it more brittle as a result?

Would it actually be that hard/expensive to get the shafts made form a more acceptable steel?

[Grant_beltcp]

I'll stick with a steel shaft
Its like titanium turnbuckles....There is no point

[shikari_chaos]

Lol Shikari - chaos, straight from wiki lol.

Titanium is rarely used in its un-alloyed state.

But yes your right - a half reasonable steel would be far better.

LOL that's actually hilarious cause funnily enough I got it from one of my engineering projects testing tensile strength of materials back when i was at college. Must of been the same source hahaha LMAO

[Grant_beltcp]

Haha - And lecturers complain to students about forgery of information lol.
Just to add, I've had an Align 600 for over 1 and a half years, and a 700 for over a year and never had a tail shaft snap.

[Tom Burgess]

Haha - And lecturers complain to students about forgery of information lol.
Just to add, I've had an Align 600 for over 1 and a half years, and a 700 for over a year and never had a tail shaft snap.

I have also had 3 x 600's and a 700 and never had a tail shaft snap

[bolders]

To be honest I'd be spitting feathers if I had a heli binned as a result of a cheap part failing but then thats the risk we take.

If you harden the metal does it not make it more brittle as a result?

Would it actually be that hard/expensive to get the shafts made form a more acceptable steel?

Yes heat treatment makes the steel stronger and harder but at the same time it becomes more brittle. However, if you temper the steel after hardening you get a steel which is much tougher but has a slight reduction in strength and hardness.

[Dashik]

Yes heat treatment makes the steel stronger and harder but at the same time it becomes more brittle. However, if you temper the steel after hardening you get a steel which is much tougher but has a slight reduction in strength and hardness.

At which point the extra processes add to the cost and therefore you have to decide if its neccessary/cost effective etc.

[shikari_chaos]

yeah or you could just start off with a better grade steel which wouldn't cost the world but doesn't snap off and cost the user hundreds of pounds to fix....
No Silly Me Align want that extra 10p for profit hehe

[Rctintin]

To be honest I'd be spitting feathers if I had a heli binned as a result of a cheap part failing but then thats the risk we take.

If you harden the metal does it not make it more brittle as a result?

Would it actually be that hard/expensive to get the shafts made form a more acceptable steel?

I'm sure someone on here will correct me if I am wrong here, but Heat treatment does not always mean Harder. Tensile strength comes from the correct heat treatment, as does hardening come from heat treatment but in different ways. The 2 snapped shafts (both supplyed by 4Dee) i sent for checking out because I thought they were in fact too hard, thus brittle. They can check the rockwell no of the steel, and that showed up that the shaft was indeed very soft, poor quality, and had not been heat treated as far as they were aware.

I shall make my own shaft now from 300M