Takeoff

Welcome to The Helipad. I'm doing this as a part of my 12-step program to deal with my addiction to remote control electric model helicopters. It all started innocently enough with the purchase of a 2-channel infrared Pico-Z clone indoor heli...In one month's time, I've bought, flown, crashed, repaired, flown, crashed, flown my 2-ch and a "few" other items the UPS guy has arrived at my door with. My deep heli-addiction has taken me virtually to the shores of England where I bought my latest toy, the 4-channel Alien Jump Jet by Snelflight. So, that's it for now...Gotta go fly.

Saturday, August 2, 2008

Maintaining Micro Mini Motors

This is specific to a brand of coaxial 3 channel micro mini helicopters called "735 Set." I really, really, like flying these things, so much that I was wearing them out. These helis have three motors-- One works the tail rotor and two more drive the main contra-rotating rotors. After wearing out three of these helis, I realized that the front motor that drives the top main rotor was always burning out. These motors are tiny and tightly held into the plastic frame. The front one burns out because it's almost entirely enclosed by the helicopter's canopy. The other main motor is exposed to the prop down wash and gets good ventilation. You'll know the front motor is failing because you have to trim all the way to the left at first. Then, either the heli will spin and be un-trimmable, or the motor will completely die. It ain't easy to pull the front motor out, then solder the connections and install a new one, but it can be done. Replacements are available from XHeli.com for around $3.00. I got tired of replacing the front motors, so I came up with an another solution to the problem. I limit flights on these little helicopters to 5 minutes. They'll go for 8 or 9 minutes on a battery charge, but that front motor will burn out in a week. Since I started my 5 minute rule-- No burnouts! I really like these little helis because even though they tend to be fragile, they're "easy" to learn, maneuverable indoor flyers. If you want to fly them around family and friends, people don't tend to be so nervous about them buzzing overhead as they are with my E-Sky Lama V3, for instance. So, set your timer and keep your little 735 Set flying!

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I'm interested in instructions for blades replacement since I bought a new set but were unable to remove the broken ones.

Thanks!

BladeHead said...

Hey claudiu... I haven't tried to replace the blades yet. There's some description of it over at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ny15_LC0vfM
on the YouTube channel of "taoistflyer."

Sam Huang said...

Hey its really nice
Thanks for sharing this
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ElPulpoLoco said...

Hi BladeHead
I know it's a long time since you posted this, but I just got one of these 735 set heli's for Christmas and I'm having a little trouble with it and I was hoping you might be able to offer some advice.
Even with the throttle on full, the heli doesn't have enough lift to take off. It just scoots along the ground. The lower main rotor doesn't seem to spin as fast as the upper main rotor and takes longer to get spinning when increasing the throttle. Have you seen this occur in other 735 set helis or other helis in general?
Many thanks