HBFP upgrades - can someone help please?

Ok, brief background: I got totally hooked on my brothers 2ch micro a few weeks back, so ordered a micro 3ch coax from xheli and been flying it about a week. I can put it about anywhere I want it, smooth takeoffs and landings... I was all set to jump on a belt cp ver2, but then found myrcguides.com and watching the videos am convinced the FP is a better fit for me. I don't really care about flying inverted or any fancy stuff like that, but what I DO want is a solid heli. The economy and durability of the FP looks like it's for me!

I have a basket set up at xheli with an FP and all the spare parts suggested here, but I want to get some good blades from the outset (carbon fiber if possible). Can anyone suggest some good blades currently in stock at xheli?

The next thing I want to do is put in a brushless motor. I understand from reading here that I will need a different speed controller? Can someone spell it all out for me (like exactly what motor(s) and other parts I will need)? Can I do a brushless tail motor too?

Finally, I will be going with a 1200mah battery or two. Do I need to look for any kind of special connector, and if so, where would I find them? Anyone suggest a good entry level charger?

Any other suggestions will be greatly appreciated! I want to build a solid, reliable heli with plenty of power and extended flight time. I realize that a lot of these might be old topics, so links to answers already posted would be great too.

Hi,
As I saw batteries at xheli are very expensive. Better buy these batteries. They are alot cheaper than at xheli. You'll get almost 4 batteries from hobbyking for the price of one battery from xheli.
Xheli also doesn't sell upgradeable blades for hb. There are carbon carbon fiber blades at heli-world but they are sold out at the moment. Maybe they are discontinued...
And I think you really don't need brushless motor for your first flights. Stock motor will have more power than you need in your learning to fly progress.
A good entry level charger will be included with your honey bee

Thanks P3tras, I'll check out hobbyking and see what's up there. I have to wait a week or so for my credit card billing cycle to roll, so I'll be building some nice carts during that time.

Someone posted a link to some blades on Miracle Mart and it looks like they have some fiber reinforced ones in stock. Perhaps I should get a few different types of blades and find what works for me. Seems like people are having different luck with different blades. It'll be a fun process to find the ones that work best.

If anyone can give me some links / parts lists for what I will need to upgrade to brushless motors, that would be great. I do plan to fly the HB stock out of the box, except for adding the training gear first. I would rather spend a little more for the brushless motors and equip than to buy more stock motors to have on hand for replacements.

Looks like a good battery and a good price. Does the stock charger with the HBFP balance the packs? Or am I just getting too carried away with research and just need to get it and fly the dang thing already?

Yeah it balances packs and charges them at 0.75A rate. And brushed motors don't go out so fast. I was flying with my hb for ~6months and none of the motors wearied out

Here is yet another stupid question: What is the difference between HBFP V2 and V3?

There is no honey bee V3 Maybe you mean difference between V1 and V2? V2 is heavier, uses different frame, battery, skids, tail boom, vertical fin, main shaft than V1

Xheli is showing a couple of version 3: http://www.xheli.com/juinye20esho.html
Something has to be missing though for $69? It is out of stock too. It has the same rotor dimensions, but looks like a lot flimsier frame.

Wayne wrote:

Xheli is showing a couple of version 3: http://www.xheli.com/juinye20esho.html
Something has to be missing though for $69? It is out of stock too. It has the same rotor dimensions, but looks like a lot flimsier frame.

The V1 and "V3" are 99.9% the same execpt for the V3 has a lipo battery. I don't think Esky is even making them anymore since the real V2 with different frame etc. has come out...
Hope this helps some, Esky's numbering system doesn't make since for the most part

Honey Bee V3 is name made by sellers. Esky stopped producing honey bee with ni-mh battery and added lipo battery. And then many sellers renamed it as honey bee V3 so everyone thinks that it is new heli and buy it

The battery linked to at Hobby King earlier in this post is out of stock. Too bad, because at $6 each, I'd have gotten a few of them. Do I have to stay with 20C or can I go to 25C? I see the recommended battery here is 3S and I have seen other posts about people liking the 3S over 2S, but will my stock HBFP charger charge the 3S anyway?

Never mind, I see the 3S is the 11 volts I need, so strike that portion of the question. I see the stock battery is supposed to be 62.7g so I need to stay somewhat close to that weight?

Maybe I will keep digging long enough to answer all my own questions. On one of the sticky posts, there was a link to rtf-heli.com where they are selling the exact battery I was looking at on Hobby King and showing they use it on the HBFPv2. So, I jumped off and ordered two of them (Turnigy 1,000mah, 25C, 3S, 94g) for about $14 and some change each after shipping factored in.

Found a lot of good info on rtf-heli on brusheless upgrades and more ideas on fuse mods. Looks like they have done their homework. Why figure it out all over again if someone's already done the footwork for you?

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Got my HBFPv2 this afternoon, put it on the bench, disconnected the motors, hooked them up to a couple of power supplies and ran them for an hour or better at 1v (tail motor about .12 amp and main about .4 amps).

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I already tore into it and did the 3amp tail motor and 10amp main motor as seen here. Did all the setup suggested here in the forum, checked all screws tight, and put the training gear on! Mark is correct in needing to put the battery way forward to balance the heli. I did the velcro + rubber band battery mount.

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Don't really have any good place to spin it up at the office. I did spin it up in the lab just a little, but the floor is too sticky. I am totally shocked at how well the tail is trimmed and the stock blades track! It does not look like I will need any further trim adjustments to fly. I do think the stock blades suck and can't wait to break them so I can put on these 10 pitch wrap blades I bought with it.

rtf-heli is a good source for upgraded parts for the HBFP. HBFP bible (by Slyster) is a good source for information. Nuttcaze has some excellent information and videos on his other website. Oh, by the way, you won't have to wait long to break your stock blades, in fact you can count on going through several pairs of blades as part of your learning process. Most folks tend to use several sets of the cheaper stock blades until they develop some skill at flying the HBFP. It isn't that easy to fly for a beginner although lots of people have done it.

What I could really use is an HBFPv2 model for the FMS. The one I found sucks as bad as the stock blades on this bird! I've tried a couple of CP heli's in FMS and after about 10-15 min of practice, I can fly pretty well and even hover inverted, flip back right side up and land. Hopefully I'll have some access to a local school gym this weekend and try it out. It'll be a lot better when those bigger batts come in so I can fly 20 min or so without recharging.

Check out this site. they have lots of helis for all sims. Maybe there is a Honey Bee for FMS.

http://www.rc-sim.de/wbb3/index.php?page=Database&c=38

Thanks, I'll check it out. The one with training gear posted in this forum on the FMS sticky seems very much like the HBFP, and I did subsequently find another. None of the FMS ones really simulate the take off / ground affect slide to the left though, and that's what I'm working to overcome now.
I just got back from more or less hovering another full battery. I am not great, but I can see progress. I actually hovered within the center court circle of the basketball court for just over 30 sec twice, but even better, NO damage to the heli this time! It's like when I go golfing and play a whole round without losing a ball and call it a major success! I just don't even think I'll probably ever try nose in hover.