QuantumPSI
Elite Veteran
Location: Boston, MA
| Side by Side Comparison **UPDATED**Hi everyone,
I've been meaning to do this for quite some time now. I have both a Century Raven and an Align 600N. I've been flying them back to back for a little bit and wanted to take note of there differences, strengths, and weaknesses. Now I'm going to be editing this post as I put up more information and more pictures (have none right now), but I am hoping that this will get some attention. So let's get to it.
First Contender:
Century Raven
Kit price: $300
Engine: OS 50 Hyper $175
Muffler: MP2 $75
Receiver: AR7000 $100
Regulator: Fromeco Arizona w/pin flag set to 6V $65
Batteries: 2 2s TP 2100 Pro-lites $100
Gyro: GY611 w/9254 $330
Cyclic servos: S9451 $225
Throttle servo: 9402 $80
Governor: MultiGov $85
**Upgrades**
Full metal head $140
Gray speed up gear $9
Metal tail gears $30
CF tail blades $30
Red dampeners $6
Total w/o engine and electronics: $515 (with CF blades)
Total everything: $1750
Second Contender:
Align T-rex 600N Pro
Kit price: $600
Engine: OS 50 Hyper $175
Muffler: MP5 $75
Receiver: AR7000 $100
Regulator: Fromeco Arizona w/pin flag set to 6V $65
Batteries: 2 Fromeco 2600 relions $100
Gyro: GY611 w/9254 $330
Cyclic servos: S9451 $225
Throttle servo: S9451 $75
Governor: MultiGov $85
Blades: $100
**Upgrades**
KB dampeners $7
Total w/o engine and electronics: $607 without blades
Total everything: $1937
Some differences to note:
Raven Gear Ratio: 8.67
600N Gear Ratio: 8.5
Raven fuel tank: 500cc
600N Fuel tank: 400cc
The Raven is about 2 inches longer than the 600N and weighs a little bit more. (I don't have a scale, sorry, I'm trying to get one). I'll get the exact numbers ASAP.
Pitch ranges
This is the range that each helicopter can achieve without binding the servos. NOTE: at these extremes, cyclic is not being active, this is just to see how much pitch each machine can achieve mechanically without cyclic. For both helicopters, the limitation was set by the washout block contacting the headblock.
Raven pitch range: greater than +/- 16
(from the picture you can see that it goes beyond 15 degrees and I couldn't get anymore hence the gauge is not lined up with the flybar paddles)
600N pitch range: +/-13
Max cyclic pitch
This is maximum pitch achieved by the blades when full elevator is inputted. Collective is at 0 degrees.
600N max cyclic: little less than 10
For the 600N, the cyclic was limited by the swashplate tilt hitting the mainshaft. Again, servos were set to provide maximum cyclic until just before binding.
Raven max cyclic: little more than 10 with cage binding
Raven max cyclic: 8 without cage binding
So with the Raven, I noticed that although I could get a very nice amount of cyclic on the blades, when I turned the rotorhead to where the paddles were getting the input, the flybar cage would hit the maingrips. This is something that I just discovered and have been flying with the cage binding for some time. First photo is with the cage binding and the second is without the cage binding.
Max Pitch of paddles
This is the maximum angle achievable by the flybar paddles. I couldn't measure the angle because my pitch gauge is limited to about 16 degrees and paddles go far beyond that. Still, from the pictures, you can see that the 600N achieves a greater pitch range for the flybar paddles.
600N flybar paddles
 
Raven flybar paddles
 
Max tilt of flybar seesaw
I honestly don't know how this would effect flight characteristics but I figured since they are were so different between the two machines that I would take note of the two. To do this, I simply pushed the flybar down as far as it would go.
Raven flybar seesaw
600N flybar seesaw
(sorry the photo isn't as definitive as the Raven's)
Change of mainblade AoA due to seesaw
This was measured with 0 degrees collective and the flybar fully tilted. No cyclic was inputted either.
Raven change of mainblade AoA due to seesaw: 11.5
600N change of mainblade AoA due to seesaw: 9
Rudder throw
This is full deflection left and right. They are about the same between the two machines, but I did do a mod on the Raven to get more right pitch. Without the mod, I get much less right pitch but about the same left pitch.
600N rudder pitch range
 
Raven rudder pitch range
 
I think this new information and photos is enough to get people talking a little bit. It took a lot longer than I anticipated to organize everything.
Preliminary flight conclusions
So I finally switched the blades and got a chance to fly the 600N with the Rotortechs on. I haven't flown the Raven with the V blades yet hence this is called 'preliminary' conclusion.
So with the V-blades on the 600N, the performance wasn't to my liking. The pop was there yes, but the cyclic wasn't. I know these blades are light (124.9gr) but they felt "heavy" in the air. They definitely require power to run them. Whenever I added collective and cyclic at the same time (say like, climbing flips), the engine would bog EXTREMELY badly. Further, I like to fly my 50s with a lower headspeed (1600 RPM) for longer flight times and to work on my collective management skills. In short, the 600N did NOT like this. It was not very fun for me to fly with this lower headspeed. With the V-blades, the only way I could get it to perform to my liking was to kick the HS to 2100.
Now with the Rotortech 610s, things were much more pleasurable for me. I was able to run the 1600 HS with no problem at all and had good pop and cyclic performance. The cyclic is very clean with the 610s and the nimbleness of the 600N really starts to shine brightly. Also, with the 1600 HS, no matter what I did, the engine kept up no problem. The RPMs rarely dropped significantly. Only complaint is that I just installed new KB orange dampeners and they don't like the lower headspeed (wobbles a bit when hitting the cyclic hard), but it doesn't bother me enough to change them or stop flying with the 1600 HS. When I kicked the HS up to 2100, I had myself an animal that needed taming! Was very happy with the performance. Everything improved, cyclic, collective, all of it. It had plenty of power to do everything I could throw at it (which ain't too much). Either way, I'm happy with it. I'm still getting it dialed it perfectly. I finally took the time to put in some cyclic mixing to fix the phasing issue and it feels a LOT better. Continuous flips and rolls are much easier to do now. I still need to tweak the tail a little bit and it'll be perfect.
I really enjoy flying the Raven with the RT 610s at the 1600 HS. With the 500cc tank, I get VERY LONG flight times. The cyclic is quick and the collective is very impressive for a 1600HS. When I kick it up to 2100, it's a BEAST! With the gray 3D paddles and cyclic maxed out, the cyclic performance is amazing. Further, with the extreme pitch range the pop is there with authority. Now, I don't have the Raven fully dialed in yet. It too has a phasing problem and I'm just now stepping into the realm of using electronic mixes. It'll be the first thing I do when I take it out again. Further, the tail needs to be tweaked a little as well.
So I just got back from flying the Raven with the V-blades. With the 1600 HS, the Raven actually performs pretty well with the V-blades. The gear ratio and MP2 really help out in this and had no sign of bogging. I found the cyclic to be a bit slower than the RT 610s as well as the collective speed. The pop was ok and about the same as the 610s. At the 1600 HS, the performance was acceptable but I think I still prefer the 610s, however I found them to be more stable than the 610s. Now, when I kicked up the headspeed to 2100, things got a bit interesting. In terms of cyclic, I found the V-blades to be faster off the center than the 610s, however the max flip and roll rate was slower. The pop was quite impressive, definitely a little better than the 610s but the max climb rate was maybe a TAD slower. With the V-blades on, the Raven really started to show its weight. It felt heavy in the air BUT the V-blades produced PLENTY OF LIFT! I found them to be a bit more stable in FFF and making turns at high speed was quite impressive. The engine was able to pull through the maneuvers quite nicely actually but if you weren't finessed on the collective, you could easily over power certain maneuvers and pick up more speed than you desired (engine didn't skip a beat with the blades even with intentional bad collective management). I do have some complaints though. The V-blades seem to be much harder on the Raven's frame. When making quick and aggressive inputs, the frame would shudder. Further, the blades do require more power to run them, I found my flight time had decreased by about 30-45 seconds. All in all though, I KINDA like these blades on the Raven. Not as much as I like the Rotortech 610s but the added power makes certain maneuvers really fun (at the same time, certain maneuvers really require good control). The verdict is still out on whether or not I'm going to keep them, but honestly, I'm leaning towards getting another set of RT 610s.
600N with RT 610s vs. Raven with RT 610s
Now here's the part everyone wants to read!!!
Ok, so where to start. The cyclic performance between the two machines do differ but NOT BY MUCH! The Raven has SLIGHTLY faster cyclic than the 600N (speed off the center and max flip/roll rate). This is probably due to a couple of things: 1. Flybar is longer on Raven 2. More aggressive paddles. Between the two machines, the 600N tracks A LOT better as the Raven tends to pitch up quite a bit when getting up to speed. This is due (again) to the paddles, the gray 3D paddles are notorious for this. In a hover, the Raven is just a little bit more stable (Raven's heavier, so not surprising). Now, the collective is where I expected some differences occur, but I was a little surprised. Despite the fact that the 600N is lighter, the collective pop was not as good as the Raven's. I honestly don't know why and will be checking my pitch curves, but I did not feel that the pop was as authoritative as the Raven's. My initial guess is something is off my pitch curves, but there are other things to consider. When doing maneuvers, the Raven pulls through them a bit better than the 600N. This is most likely due to the lower gear ratio and MP2 (as I understand it, MP2 produces more power than MP5, but I don't really know for sure (and I'm not gonna take the time to find out either  )). Overall though, the 600N does feel a little bit lighter than the Raven (changes directions a little easier and stops faster). I'd actually be happy flying either one of these machines with the 610s on. So that's my flight comparison between the two machines on Rotortech 610s.
600N with V-blade TST vs. Raven with V-blade TST
So as stated before, I didn't like the 600N with the V-blades at the 1600 HS. Between the two, at the 1600 HS, the Raven is the better flier hands down. I'm pretty sure this is due to the gear ratio and MP2 again (and perhaps my pitch/cyclic settings but I kept things the same). At the 2100 HS, the 600N still tracks better than the Raven. The pop was better on the 600N as well as climb out. In terms of cyclic, the speed off the center was about the same for both machines but I found that the max cyclic rate was a bit faster on the Raven. Further, when doing flips and rolls, it felt as if the Raven was able to power through the power requirements of the blades. Even though the Raven is heavier, I found it to be able to power these blades a bit better than the 600N. However, the 600N was able to handle the loads from the blades better than the Raven. Between the two machines, the 600N required more collective management than the Raven for the same maneuvers. I'd probably prefer to fly the Raven with the V-blades than the 600N with the V-blades. Well, that's my comparison for the machines on the V-blades.
What I would like to do is fly the 600N with V-blades with the same gear ratio as the Raven. I feel like the performance would be much better but unfortunately, there's no easy way to change the gear ratio on the 600N.
Now, if I had to choose which one to fly, which one would I choose?
As of right now, the answer is simple, whichever one has the Rotortech 610s on 
The blades you put on REALLY make a difference in how your helicopter flies.
On another note, I've been seriously contemplating selling one of these helicopters. On one day, it'd be the Raven, another it'd be the 600N. But seriously, I'm reminded why I keep the both of them when I fly them. I am very happy with both machines and they suit my purposes well.
Later I'll do a comparison on maintenance, repairs, and ease of building.
Thanks for reading!
...now where was I, dh/dt = BS-dx/dt
I will fly you forever... till earth do us part |
