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Scale Model RC Helicopters > Lightning Heli 5 Blade Head Product Review

joeb56
Heliman
Location: Newcastle,NSW - Australia

In a word disappointing
Its kinda like opening that big box under the Christmas tree only to find you wife has brought you a lawn mower and not a heli.
Expectation is everything.
I brought the Lightning Heli head even though I already had a Century 5 Blade head for my 50 size MD530 fuse because I was not happy with the size of the Century. Its really a 60 – 90 size head with a reducer to fit a 10mm shaft.
In the brochure the Lightning looked SO good and at half the price of the Century not to mention the price of the swash and follower I thought why not.
The head arrived yesterday (took about 10 days to get here from HK)
Here are the reasons why not to buy one.
Basically its crap
The bad bits.
The arms on the blade holders are way too long, there is just enough clearance to fit a ball link on but the length makes it almost impossible to obtain vertical push rods. By chance I happened to have a couple of Heliproz blade holders which I will use to replace the stock ones ( as shown in the photo) – need 3 more though and at $50 buck a pop adds another $250 to the head cost.
The swash makes a very good sinker if your into fishing – it looks like it’s been assembled with a brick – the damage is hard to pick out in the photo but its severe.
The follower looks OK at first glance then you ask yourself how to you clamp it to the shaft? The answer is a small grub screw that contacts the very edge of the shaft (poor design)
The only thing that holds the head to the shaft is the Jesus bolt – maybe all thats necessary but its a bit come down after having a Kasama head and I guess the question is – Just how strong is that high tensile bolt? Maybe my friend Mr Green Locktite is the answer to take out any slop. Just a note it appears to be a reasonable fit on a 10mm raptor shaft not sure how it will go on a TRex 600 shaft which is 9.7mm.
The bolts that hold the blade grips are not long enough to engage the nylon inserts in the nuts – they do screw into the head block so thats a good thing but lots of locktite needed here.
So the good bits
Cheap
Reasonably nice finish
Beautiful head cap – looks much more scale
Its about 7” diameter compare to 10” for the Century – looks much more scale
My Recommendations
Replace the blade grips
Buy a Vario swash and follower (same advice if you’re buying a Century head)
Put it all together and you have a nice looking head for about $895 (Australian) or $820 US
I am reasonably confident it will do the job
The up side is I now have a 60 – 90 size head that’s looking for a Heli to fit under it.

03-19-2008 02:10 AM

TT2
Senior Heliman
Location: Lawrence, KS - USA

Bummer. I was looking forward to buying one. Glad I held out.

There are three types of people: Those who can count and those who can't.

03-19-2008 02:43 AM

the Wasp
rrProfessor
Location: Vt

can't you put the balls on the outside of the arms ??

Jim
Buzz Buzz Buzz

03-19-2008 07:04 AM

joeb56
Heliman
Location: Newcastle,NSW - Australia

Yeah you could but it increases the angles even more and you then run into problems of the ball links binding and even more dramatically "popping off" when the swash moves to the extremities of its travel

03-19-2008 07:12 AM

the Wasp
rrProfessor
Location: Vt

well I would be writing that company a well thought-out letter !!!

Jim
Buzz Buzz Buzz

03-19-2008 07:53 AM

Daniel Reese
Senior Heliman
Location: Urbana OH

Well, since you've got it in-hand, Ive got a few questions about size stuff if you have the time...and a ruler

The heliproz grips look great on there- not just because the arms are shorter but the blade root to hub length is shorter too- much more scale like.

While I confess that I know almost nothing about multiblade heads and that this is my novice experiement- I had thought that the long arms were necessary to get proper phasing on a five blade head with a 120* ccpm swash. If Im not mistaken the raptor has 90* ccpm? Maybe that's why the long arms wont work for you but might be necessary for a TRex600...but as i said, I dont know much about this stuff.

On a two blade head, the grip arms are pretty short but they link to upper washout arms wich make the 90* shift to the proper position on the swash. With a five blade head where the grips are attached directly to the swash- on 120* setup, those links have a long way to "wrap" around before they get to 90* precession. Maybe thats why the arms are so long. I suppose that if I got Helicommand or Helitronix that I could just reprogram the mixing to take care of all that....we'll see.

While Im thinking about the blade grips....
What is the blade bolt to blade bolt lenght with those heliproz grips on there?

Are you using regular 600mm blades or did you step down to 550mm or 515mm as others have? I know with the larger century and vario heads that you NEED shorter blades but this head is so much smaller that I was wondering what YOU were going to do about blades?

What kind of dampening system is used? Im assuming the grip bolt passes through some sort of rubber o-ring dampeners, then through a reinforced "boss" or something on the head and into the nyloc nuts inside the hub. How off is that guess?

I had already thought to replace the supplied follower with one from vario that has a much more robust construcition. The included follower has some sort of plastic loop like a ball end link to attach it to the swash? How is that held to the mainshaft clamp?

03-19-2008 12:05 PM

wilerbee
Senior Heliman
Location: Hong Kong

Sorry to hear of the quality issue with the heads. The head is probably produced by a HK company subcontracted the production to a China factory. The problem I see here (as I am from HK too) is that too many people can fly heli quite well but have no idea of how it works !!
Also too few people here have seen flybarless, so let alone making one.
They are just not knowledgeable enough. Given time maybe the design will improve, but only time will tell. I fly with OF Technik heads and I like them.

03-19-2008 04:53 PM

Lightningheli
New Heliman
Location: Hong Kong

To all readers of this thread

This is John from Lightning Heli. We're sorry to hear that there are some problems for our 600 sized multi-bladed head. We'll definitely fix all the defects in the next version.

For all buyers who have bought the 5-bladed head and found it cannot be used, pls email us at sales@lightningheli.com and we can arrange replacement

For those of you who are interested in helping us to improve the design, we're more than willing to hear your comment. Pls let us know if you have any design input.

We are hoping to recruit a team of Scale model heli flyers to help us design / test our new products. If you're interested to be part of out team , pls email us at sales@lightningheli.com

Thanks

John
Lightning Heli
http://www.lightningheli.com

03-22-2008 01:37 PM

avconslt
Senior Heliman
Location: o,o

Hey guys,

I noticed that this thread is talking about the Lightning Heli 5-bladed version for the Trex 600E. I have a 4-bladed version coming for my Trex 600E going into a Funkey Bell 407 Jet Ranger fuselage. Has anybody tried the 4-bladed version yet? If so, is the quality just as bad, and with the same linkage problems? Thanks.

Richard

03-22-2008 03:12 PM

joeb56
Heliman
Location: Newcastle,NSW - Australia

John
I applaude you for your attitude towards the issues - very proactive, well done and it will go a long way in establishing future confidence in Lightning Heli products.

Basically the overall look of the head is very nice and addressing the design and QC issues will result in it becoming a winner

I will email you some photos and suggestions shortly

Cheers
Joe

On the J curve of all things Heli, I am still going down hill, FAST

03-23-2008 01:33 AM

Hoverup
Elite Veteran
Location: Gulf Coast

It's refreshing to see "Lightning-Heli" step up and address the problems with this head. I sent a hotlink to this thread to Fung at Flying-Heli.com in HK and asked him to pass it to one of his contacts at LH. Can't take any credit, but since Fung is one of the best heli e-tailers I know, I thought he might be able to help. I was close to popping for one of their 4 blade heads, but this thread made me stop to see what would happen. Thanks for the thread joeb56.

Cheers - Boyd
AMA80393
Major USAF
Retired

03-23-2008 02:55 AM

TT2
Senior Heliman
Location: Lawrence, KS - USA

Status report? Anything being done about these 'corrections'?

Quote
Just a note it appears to be a reasonable fit on a 10mm raptor shaft not sure how it will go on a TRex 600 shaft which is 9.7mm.

The statement about 9.7mm had me wondering about the fit. I just measured both my 600Ns and my 600E...all were 9.96mm so it should fit fine.

On closer look, that swash looks awful, and you're so right about the follower. Lightning could charge an extra $50 per and supply higher quality parts. I doubt anyone would gripe.

Thanks again joe for the review! Saved us lots of cussing and phone calls.

There are three types of people: Those who can count and those who can't.

04-03-2008 07:29 AM

joeb56
Heliman
Location: Newcastle,NSW - Australia

Heres my fix for the head

Take TT 3 head spindles and cut them in half, run a 6mm die so that there is 25mm of spindle left unthreaded.

Buy 3 packs (2) Heliproz metal blade holders and put it all together

Add a Vario swash and follower and heh presto

You end up with an cool looking and very solid functional head

On the J curve of all things Heli, I am still going down hill, FAST

04-07-2008 04:19 AM

Super-Hornet
Veteran
Location: Singapore

Hi joeb56

Are those spindle tightly screw onto the hub and thus giving u a rigid head? or is there some sort of flapping hinges in between?

SH

04-07-2008 04:25 AM

joeb56
Heliman
Location: Newcastle,NSW - Australia

Screwed in, loctited and they also have a lock nut on them as well
Definately rigid

On the J curve of all things Heli, I am still going down hill, FAST

04-07-2008 05:59 AM

Super-Hornet
Veteran
Location: Singapore

Quote
Definately rigid

OK. Thanks

04-07-2008 06:30 AM

Edwardp
Heliman
Location: Malaysia

I think with the latest in electronic stabilisation, lead-lag and flapping hinges are probably not as crucial for a multi-rotor to fly well.

Hi Joe. Where did you get this thing? I tried doing a search but there's not a lot of places carrying lightning products and none have this yet in my region.

04-07-2008 06:51 AM

joeb56
Heliman
Location: Newcastle,NSW - Australia

ordered it from RC-Expert.com who are HK based
Bear in mind you need to do the mods I did or similar to make it usable
The swash and follower are not good quality
Lightning Heli have said they are making changes but I have not seen any so far
Early days yet
cheers
Joe

On the J curve of all things Heli, I am still going down hill, FAST

04-07-2008 07:26 AM

Super-Hornet
Veteran
Location: Singapore

Well, correct me if I'm wrong here.

In real heli, those that have rigid head like BO-105 has its blades in special design that it allow to flex. The flexing is sort of like replacement of flapping hinges.

In R/C, if the rotor head is rigid, u tend to see the rotor disc tilt forward and roll to left/right (depend on CW or CCW) when u apply forward elevator cyclic. This will in term, affect the direction of the heli is going to move, when u apply elevator or aileron.

In order to compensate the overall forward and roll effect, u tend to change the phasing from 90Degree to less than that.

If your rotor head has the flapping feature, your will see the rotor will tilt to the direction u apply the cyclic.

This again will be more obvious when u are doing taxiing in the runway on heli that has wheel.

In summary, it is not because of stability reason, that u need flapping hinges. It is more for other purposes.

SH

04-07-2008 07:29 AM

Edwardp
Heliman
Location: Malaysia

Thanks joe. I'm actually looking at the 4 bladed head but I imagine the quality issues will be similar.

Hi super-hornet, I agree, as I've often seen the effect even on two bladed flybared helis. That's gyroscopic precession in action. I've often wondered why gyroscopic precession seemed to effect multi bladed heads and not two bladed ones nor full sized helis. Gyro precession should effect all spinning objects...

Talking bout it further is probably out of context in this thread but I do love a good discussion... Is there someplace we can discuss this to wit's end?!

04-07-2008 09:19 AM

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