DougBonham
Heliman
Location: Pittsburgh, PA, USA
| Bling BladesHi All
Please allow me to introduce myself and provide a little background…………….
I’m new to the micro-heli world, but not to R/Cs or R/C modeling. I’ve be building and running RC Trucks for several years as Wicked Dragon R/C Engineering and subscribe to 2 philosophys… MORE POWER! and If I want it and nobody makes it, I’ll build it! I’ve wanted a heli since they ran with chainsaw engines and have been a gear head from shortly after that. I done a stint at NASA and the stuff I worked on IS on the Shuttles and that stuff works…..don’t hear about launch delays due to leaking turbo pumps anymore, do you? I’m truly a practical engineer at heart!
My adventure started with the purchase of a Venom NightRanger3D; let’s just say that it caused me to consider the screen name of upbackleft& boom. I inadvertently had found an assembly problem with the NR and when the heli guy at my LHS repeated the maneuver, I felt a lot better. That’s when I bought my Blade. Yeah, I know that in the text to follow the TREX guys will say “you could have bought a TREX and been done with it”, but guys, it wouldn’t be a Blade now would it? To calm these folks, I’ll say, there is a TREX in my future! But they’re different animals! I also have no desire to run a gas heli; nothing against them, just not what I’m interested in….. maybe some day. I get a kick from modifying things in ways that really shouldn’t have been considered and making it work…..really well!
I now have 2 Blade CPs. I figured out early that an trick Blade and a screaming Blade really cannot exist within the same aircraft. Let me introduce you to Blade1 & Blade2 (Dr Suess like, huh?). Blade1! is on it’s third build, it’s mounted on a blue FlightTech aluminum frame with custom carbon fiber servo mounts, it’s powered by a CC Phoenix-35 running an E-Flite 4100KV brushless, tail rotor option include the GWS DD, GWS DF and NR3D twin motored run with a CC Pixie7a, a Futaba 146iP Rx with a Dean’s whip antenna and a GY401 Gyro, a FlightTech rotor head with the E-Flite Bell mixer setup. A very wicked machine.
Blade 2 is a little more docile……. It’s still in progress. Stock BladeCP Pro frame with Super Landing Gear, same motor as above but with a CC Phoenix-25, haven’t decided on the tail rotor config yet, but the options are wide open. Probably go with the E-Flite 3 in 1 and matching Gyro with the same Futaba 146iP again.
I’ll be including pictures of both soon……… now folks, I don’t want to tick anyone off, but neatness does count! These are aircraft and even though we “play” with them, they aren’t really toys, now are they? Some of the stuff that you think is SWEEEEET or NICE, makes me wonder. You want Blades with BLING……. Route those servo wires, put a real paint job on the canopy and DON’T paint moving parts, enough with the industrial strength wire ties and don’t just mount ESC’s anywhere! A little forethought would go a long way. Remember when considering the overall weight of a dressed out Blade, collectively the wiring amounts to several whole percentage points of the overall weight; if they’re bouncing around your constantly change the weight distribution of the entire heli and you’ll generate your own RFI!!!!! If you’re using a metal frame, ground it! This provides a great ground plain for the antenna and also eliminates a lot of noise; better reception and fewer glitches-what’s not to like!
Sorry, if I’ve spoken “out of turn” here, but I just had to say it! If you’d like I will continue to post pics of my progress…..I’m waiting for parts! |
