Snapped Tail Belt :(

[SRH990]

My 550 has over 30 flights on the original black tail belt but I'd bought the 'upgrade' brown Bando belt a while ago and decided to fit it a couple of days ago. Fourth flight on the new belt this afternoon and it snapped, too low to auto or stop the piro as it was going vertically backwards at the time and it hit hard sideways on.

All four side-frame parts are totalled as is the bottom plate, skids, front boom mount, flybar, boom, obvious blades, the tail has survived unscathed as I actually had the foresight to hit throttle hold fast and shafts. The canopy looks pretty second hand too so I'm considering the Fusono version. Spares excluding blades and canopy come to £75, add the Fusono and a set of Maniacs and it's £155, quite a lot cheaper than my Logo 500 after a similar crash but damn annoying that the new belt caused it.

I had to spend £100 on repairing the 700 last week, mainly the cost of blades, why is it you only ever crash when you're skint

[jamiem]

If i were you I'd be going back to Blink/Fastlad (whichever you bought it from) and have a few words. I had a similar thing happen to my original Knight 3D a couple of years ago - Climb-out replaced all broken bits FOC.

Jamie

[Mart61]

That's not a pretty sight Steve. Hope you get airborne again soon...

[callum]

aww that sucks

Its a complete let down when something fails on the heli itself, but at the same time, i dont think its as bad as crashing yourself, since you have something to blame :P :P

[jamiem]

I'd rather I crashed a heli, than a part failing. At least I know what I did wrong if I do it. I get right hacked off at part failures....

[callum]

Infact, thats quite true.. lol

[SRH990]

At least it's not an unexplained crash, that's the worst as how do you fix it if you don't know what's broken.

The other frustrating thing is that after actually thinking I'd made a real mistake buying it I found it was due to the awful MS Composit blades I'd fitted as I had them lying around. When I damaged these in a pretty minor spill I fitted some Maniac 550's and it was a revelation, then I went up a tooth size on the pinion and started running governor mode on the Align ESC which gave a nice steady 2250rpm with just the occasional tail wag due to governor mode, the thing was a joy to fly, tons of power and tracking well.

Oh well, I was trying to scrape the cash together to buy a new heli as I haven't built one since I bought the Outrage - now I've re-kitted it I can get a fresh building fix

[moonmanflyer]

unlucky mate, i have the bando belt and it has been fine, i never fitted the standard belt as i have heard those break.

[SRH990]

That's why I changed the belt, because I'd heard the standard ones snap

The belt that was fitted was this one Fast Lad Performance, can anyone tell me which is the recommended belt and where I can get one as I've seen three different belts advertised for the 550 and I don't know which one is best!

[moonmanflyer]

Yeh that looks like the same as mine, 30 flights plus and fine so far

[GravityKills]

sorry to hear about the crash.
In a way you got lucky that the LiPos survived. I had two bad crashes with the 550. Both times, one expensive Hyperion 4200x4 pack busted. Argh.

My belt (yellow) had around 100 flights, and failed gradually: It started to slip. During that flight, threads came off, started to wrap around the tail pulley and caused even more slipping. Anyway, the tail was all over the place but it still flew well enough to bring it back.
From the noise that the heli makes, I sometimes wonder, whether even the brand-new belt is slipping when I hit rudder to the limit.

I prefer the original canopy, and suspect that the Fusono canopy played a key role in both my crashes (not to blame the heli, just to alert others so that they don't walk into the same trap):
Usually I don't care if the heli gets over my head - simply climb out for a second, and everything is fine. Here, the problem was that I couldn't tell anymore, where is up and where is down (and my 550 is fast). Instincts for self-preservation took over and I got out of the heli's way. The colours on up / down-side of the canopy are too similar, IMO. It's lacking contrast.
Since then I'm using the stock canopy and find it much easier to fly. The Fusono looks cool, though.

BTW, check the blade grips. I'd bet that the replaceable arms are bent.
The bell crank and elevator arm on the control shaft were another problem after the first crash. I put in ordinary socket-head screws that I can tighten harder than the stud screws.

[SRH990]

As the heli hit side on, the lipo survived unscathed, then again, it only cost $60, I'd hate to ruin an expensive pack. I've checked the replaceable arms on the blade grips, one was slightly bent but the alloy is pretty soft and it's now straight

I've already got a hardened control shaft in stock so may fit this when I get around to the rebuild, I'll see how the existing shaft looks although the frames around it are all sorts of funny shapes at the moment.