Socaldan
Heliman
Location: San Pedro, CA USA
| Hi All. I have been flying the Axe Cp for the last few months. I'm new to the heli thing, but I'm very happy with this purchase as a first helicopter. Great to learn the basics with. Over the last few months, I have crashed it's too many times to count. I just keep buying parts and putting it back into the air.
Gixer, I didn't really have a problem with the servos in the beginning. They worked fine, but after 10 or so crashes, the stipped out and needed to be replaced. I purchased the HS-55 and installed them. A little better on the torque, but I didn't notice a huge improvement in the response of the heli. It's still good, don't get me wrong, but since the servos needed replacing, it was better to spend 12 bucks for the HS 55's then the 20 dollars for the oem stuff. The next 2 crashes resulted in stripping out one HS 55 each time. So they both seem prone to stripping in a cruncher. I just bought the rebuild kit for 5 bucks, and I was off and flying again.
Anyone with the AXE should jump right up into the Lipo battery. I run a 1350 mAh battery and get about 9 minutes of flight time. Now it's mostly hover and a little ff, no 3d for me quite yet. And I really don't think this bird will be much of a 3d machine. Again, It's great a training machine.
I wanted to improve my heli, so I went out and got the carbon blades. Now they are expensive, 50 bucks, but I feel they are worth it. Minor blade strikes won't send you to your LHS for the 21 dollar woodies. Survive two strikes and you have broke even.
I also went nuts and bought the HH gyro. I put a Futaba 240 on mine. I'm not real happy with this upgrade because the gyro is always working the tail. The motor will surge and retard then surge again. No matter what I set the gain to, I usually have a little tail wag except in dead calm wind. I unfortunately don't have the option to return to the mixer gyro on the 3 in 1.
A note of caution to those installing a gyro. I accidentally plugged the tail motor esc into the 3 in 1 tail motor out put from the board. Running 2 power sources into each other doesn't work well. I fried the tail ESC and also the gyro on the 3 in 1 board. At 90 bucks for a new one, I'm just going to deal with the minor tail wag with the gyro.
For you guys looking to upgrade to a HH gyro, check out this link from Heli-Max for the parts and instructions to install a HH gyro. Follow the instructions, and it's a piece of cake. Happy landings. 
http://manuals.hobbico.com/hmx/hmxe04-gyro-manual.pdf |
