Turbo Shaft kit vs Xtreme aluminum upgrades

In case you upgraded to aluminum swashplate and extended your servo links, you may want to move swashplate a little bit up, so it will be within the limits of servo arms travel and the links won't touch motors. Here's how I did it. I needed to move it up by 1.5mm. So I ground some notches on the outer shaft for the screws to grip on. It's 13.5mm from the original holes in my case. Distance between the upper and lower screws is 15mm. So it gives you 1.5mm lift. Then I used lower screws to hold lower blade hub in place. And always use threadlock. Even on plastic. As you can see on this picture, lower screws got loose and the hub started to rotate leaving marks to the right.

Maybe the rotors are only turning at different speeds at the lowest setting (not enough to lift off). I can't tell a difference when they're moving at flight speed.

The proportional adjustment has to be all the way over to keep it from spinning, which has to mean something.

On the V4 outer shaft, the holes you indicate are about 3 mm higher than on the v3 shaft, so I got your mod by accident.

The wind finally decided to go bother someone else.

Maybe this thing can hit 40! Dang thing was burning up the sky, quickly getting to the point where it was too small to see. I also moved the control links to the outermost holes of the servo arm, which put the response to control inputs much closer to the HBFP. No more pushing the stick all the way forward to get slower-than-walking speed. Awesome!

I'd still like to figure out this battery problem. Did anyone else get a greatly reduced climb speed and flight time? Is it just the extra weight? It doesn't seem like there was enough extra weight to make a difference.

How much vibration do you get? I've still got some although for all I know it could be the prop wash bouncing the Lama's jiggly bits around.

Jack the R wrote:

Maybe the rotors are only turning at different speeds at the lowest setting (not enough to lift off). I can't tell a difference when they're moving at flight speed.
...

This is most likely the case. Try to spin them on the low speed with blades and fuselage off and move move cyclic in complete circles. Look for any friction. There should be none. Also make sure that full servo arms travel does not exceed the swashplate travel limits. If it does, you will have to adjust the swashplate position.

Sorry, it seems that I've missed out here.

The proportional adjustment was all the way to the left when I got my Lama (and yes it was brand new).
The link betwin the stabilizer, and the upper blade grip is adjusteble (took me some time to find out, because the where screwed together so it looks like one) so I had the lower blades with positiv pitch, and the upper with negativ pitch.

My lama hoovers a little over half throttle, and climb like a rocket with almost no vibrations.


[img][/img]

Not only the PC LOL,LOL

Jack the R wrote:

The wind finally decided to go bother someone else.

Maybe this thing can hit 40!

May be it can! :) As I said before you have to do only 3 things:

1. Remove the weights from the flybar, or get a shorter aftermarket flybar with the wights that can be adjusted.
2. Install the extended inner shaft. 20 mm minimum.
3. Use the longer arms on servos. One hole on the standard arms should be enough. With longer arms you will hit the swashplate travel limits.

That's all you can do.

Some reports suggest not to use stiffer and heavier blades or blade grips. I am not sure about this, but it does make sense, as with more flexible blades and grips, the rotor can change angle much faster, as it doesn't have to drag the whole helicopter body behind it, so response to controls is faster. Probably marginally faster. However, I can't confirm it from my personal experience.

I lost it a few hours ago, due to distance and declinging light levels. Couldn't see what it was doing, bounced it off a tree 30 ft in the air. Looks like only a servo was damaged, which is rather impressive. If it'd been a plane I'd be glueing balsa back together.

Buuuut -

While disassembling to get at the servo, I discovered the damn outer shaft gear is getting chewed up again! There are no loose collars anywhere, why is this happening?! I noticed the heli was getting loud again before the crash, I don't think the crash caused it.


Brutus5 - how can you tell what the pitch is? It's hard to eyeball when moving.

Good info though, first I've heard of it.

If you hit something, the gears can snap. As for the sound before, it could be just bad overheating motor bushings. My stock motors went bad after 2 weeks. I replaced them with Extreme ball bearing motors, and they work great so far, but I didn't have much flight time on them yet to tell how reliable they are. Some people say Extreme motors are not as good as some other aftermarket motors. But I couldn't find them on the web and don't even remember the name.

Also if you look for parts, check E-Flight Blade CX family. It's basically the same thing as Esky Lama. But you can find more upgrade parts there. Like stronger shaft gears. I saw them, but I didn't order any yet. But I will.

Jack the R wrote:
Brutus5 - how can you tell what the pitch is? It's hard to eyeball when moving.

I've made me an pitch gauge. I'll take away the blades, put on the gauge (in the bladegrip) and read out the pitch.
I don't know how accurate it is, but I get the same pitch on both rotors.

Hanol - let me know if you spot the tougher gears anywhere. I searched but only found the normal CX2 gears.

Are you thinking of the Aero Nuts motors? From what I've been able to tell the Xtreme motors are more powerful. Do you use the heat sinks on yours?

Brutus5 - I think a pitch gauge came with my Exi tool kit - but how do you use it on the upper rotor head, which rotates freely on the pitch axis?

You don't really need pitch gage.

What you have to do is to align the lower grip with one of the lower swashplate links. Turn power on, center cyclic and trims, then just look towards the grip slot. It should be perpendicular to the shaft. It's very easy to eyeball. If not, adjust corresponding servo link. Trims should move it in either direction a little bit.

Then align grips with other link. Repeat for other servo.

And just to make sure everything is right, slowly rotate outer shaft and observe the angle of the grip slots during complete revolution. They should be perpendicular to the shaft. Or at least the angle shouldn't change at all. With trims and cyclic centered, of course.

That's all. You will have your Lama perfectly trimmed on the first flight.

And, of course, you have to use blades from the same package to ensure proper tracking. They may differ from one production run to another by weight and shape.

Jack the R wrote:

Hanol - let me know if you spot the tougher gears anywhere. I searched but only found the normal CX2 gears.

Are you thinking of the Aero Nuts motors? From what I've been able to tell the Xtreme motors are more powerful. Do you use the heat sinks on yours?

I went through so many shops since I got my heli couple of weeks ago, and didn't put them all in favorites. So I can't tell who sells them. But I did see white plastic gears for E-Flight Blade CX family. I didn't buy them because back then I didn't know it's the same thing as Esky. And that gears snap too easy. But I can't find them now. :( If I will, I will post it here. And if you will find them first, please let us know.

As for the motors, yes. I saw it on other RC forum. Some people prefer Aero Nuts to Xtreme. Even saying that Xtremes are complete junk. However Xtremes are available in the hobby shop nearby, and not too expensive. And I had to get them fast, as one of my stock motors simply died. So far I am very happy with them, but the next time one of them goes bad, I will try Aero Nuts just to compare.

Another option is to use brushless motors. But it's expensive and difficult to set up. You will need separate gyro, mixer and speed controllers. If you really want to get your Lama to the maximum performance - this is probably the way to go. It significantly increases power and reduces weight. And you can even use 3 cell 11 volt batteries with this mod. However, I am not going to do it, as I am planning to transit to a single rotor collective pitch 3D outdoors heli very soon. I selected Lama only because it's cheap, it will let me restore my basic flying skills, and let me figure out if I am still interested in this hobby :). After that, I will keep my Esky just for the indoor fun fly events, so I don't care about performance too much. :)

No power on my camera
So I made a drawing lol lol

[img][/img]

Hanol explains it very good, but in the beggining I used this metod.
Stabilazer and inner axle should be in 90* to each other, then put the cf rod in the bladegip, and you can read the pitch. Not very accurate but, you get the upper and lower bladegrip at the same angle.

Uh.. I forgot this

http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=8285&Product_Name=Brushless_Conversion_kit_for_LAMA4_&__LAMA3

Brutus5 wrote:

...
Hanol explains it very good, but in the beggining I used this metod.
Stabilazer and inner axle should be in 90* to each other, then put the cf rod in the bladegip, and you can read the pitch. Not very accurate but, you get the upper and lower bladegrip at the same angle.

I only gave explanation of lower rotor grips adjustment. Upper rotor is somewhat easier. Also done by simple visual observation. Make sure that the flybar is perpendicular to the inner shaft and that the grip slots are perpendicular to it too. Adjust link as needed. Rotate shaft 180 degrees. Double check.

I found a source for the white plastic gears -

Link

The problem is, the better gear is on a longer outer shaft. Could be hard to accurately cut it down. Sure wish the outer shaft gear was removeable like the inner shaft gear is.

Believe me, I understand the desire to transition to better helis that can do more, and have angered people here arguing for it.

Buuuut -

Now that the bugs are back out I can appreciate a heli that will hover by itself while I swat a mosquito. I'm in the country, when I step outside all kinds of things come out for a meal.

I'm also questioning whether I will have sufficiently frequent periods of calm weather to maintain single rotor skills. The wind blows and blows and blows and blows.

So I'm finding an unexpected niche for the Lama.

The price on the kit Brutus5 found isn't that bad. If the Xtreme motors are as crappy as people say, you'll be buying them again, and when you figure in S&H fees, it's the same price.

Brutus5 - does the kit have, or need, a seperate gyro?

Who has the 3 cell 11 volt batteries, and how would you mount them?

How are these servos mounted? Double sided tape?

The set I linked, don't need xtra gyro. It's comlete, just hook it up to your 4in1. I was thinking on purchace it myself.

You can use double sided tape, velcro whatever, to fasten the speedcontrollers, and the signal adaptors.
When it comes to batteries, I've read that the 11.1v are burning up the 4in1 controller. you can use it for some time, but suddenly it burns. Some people highly recommend it, and others don't. So that is up to you, what you want.
If you go for 11.1v you will get lot more headspeed, and it's going to be a lot faster.
If I should go for 11.1v I would place them at same place as org. I just cut of those little tabs that hold the org. and use velcro tape and velcro strips to mount it. But that's me. I just purchased this batteri.

Brutus5 wrote:

The set I linked, don't need xtra gyro. It's comlete, just hook it up to your 4in1. I was thinking on purchace it myself.

You can use double sided tape, velcro whatever, to fasten the speedcontrollers, and the signal adaptors.
When it comes to batteries, I've read that the 11.1v are burning up the 4in1 controller. you can use it for some time, but suddenly it burns. Some people highly recommend it, and others don't. So that is up to you, what you want.
If you go for 11.1v you will get lot more headspeed, and it's going to be a lot faster.
If I should go for 11.1v I would place them at same place as org. I just cut of those little tabs that hold the org. and use velcro tape and velcro strips to mount it. But that's me. I just purchased this batteri.

Thank you for the link. These parts will eliminate stripped gear problem. But see bold text above. I was talking about the brushless motor conversion. I's different issue altogether. Brushless motors need special speed controllers and as a result, separate gyro and mixer. I didn't do it, but I read some threads about it. May be a year old or so. Perhaps now they have something better. But I am just telling you what I learned by reading other forums. I didn't try it myself, but it's something to look into, if you want to get ultimate performance out of you Esky. They significantly reduce weight allowing you to use 11.1V 3 cell battery. 4 in 1 should work with 11.1V without any problems, as it's used on other helicopters that are designed to use 3 cell batteries. And again, I didn't check it all myself. Just giving you some info from other places. I am still learning myself.

As one of my friends said, "You can always throttle back."

RTF-heli had a way to protect the 4-in-1 in his HBFP. Perhaps the Xtreme velcro mount would be worth trying with the 3 cell LiPo.

But then I'd have a bunch of 7.4 volts going to waste. Maybe with the lighter brushless motors it'll lift well again.

I've got an observation about the negative angle of attack problem - it looks like the blade will be negative on one part of it's rotation, and positive on the other part. Does that make sense?

Jack the R wrote:

I've got an observation about the negative angle of attack problem - it looks like the blade will be negative on one part of it's rotation, and positive on the other part. Does that make sense?

No, it doesn't make any sense :). All you get is DIFFERENTIAL angle of attack. Higher on one side and lower on another. That's how helicopter is controlled. You can get negative angle on real 3D helies, but not on the fixed pitch Lama types, as the rather large positive angle is built in the blades themselves. And your swashplate can only make very limited changes to this angle. It's always positive. Just a little less or more.

Jack the R wrote:

As one of my friends said, "You can always throttle back."

RTF-heli had a way to protect the 4-in-1 in his HBFP. Perhaps the Xtreme velcro mount would be worth trying with the 3 cell LiPo.

But then I'd have a bunch of 7.4 volts going to waste. Maybe with the lighter brushless motors it'll lift well again.

You can use 3 cell batteries on stock Lama. But not with stock motors. You will simply overheat them real fast because of added weight. You can't do it with better conventional motors either. I mean you can, but you are not going to get any benefits because of the extra weight.

The only way you can get any use of them is if you do the brushless conversion, reducing the base weight of the heli. However, by the reports that I've seen, it only gives you marginal benefits in terms of power and flight time. It's always a trade-off. Wight is the number one killer in this little toy. I can tell you from my own short experience that Lama performs better with stock plasic parts without any metal upgrades. Also with stock flimsy blades and grips. They break often, but every gram of weight counts. If you are not planning to crash, stock parts probably the way to go. Besides the extended shaft and better motors. May be a swashplate. Every time you add something made out of metal, it adds weight. Little here, little there. But it all adds on. So you have to make sure you don't do the upgrades you don't need.

Well, yes and no. What you're saying is true, but if I can get the same performance with more weight I should be able to get better wind penetration, which is important to me.

I wouldn't want to give up the extra snappiness of the metal upgrade kit. I can't say how much of it is the grips and how much is the extended shaft. Maybe I'll rebuild my Commanche with a turbo shaft and no other metal pieces and see.

Are you saying the 4-in-1 can handle the 11 volt battery?

Jack the R wrote:

Are you saying the 4-in-1 can handle the 11 volt battery?

According to the posts that I've read on other forums about brushless conversion, it can. But I didn't try it myself. One thing I know for sure is that when voltage on 2 cell battery drops near safe minimum, 4 in 1 will automatically reduce power, so you can land safely, but after that it won't let you start motors again. I think it's a safety feature that will prevent discharging the battery under some critical voltage. And I am not sure how it will work with 3 cell bat. And if you discharge LiPos to too low voltage, they will die. The forum I've seen it is called RC Groups (I think). Just Google for it and then make a search for brushless conversion. Sorry, I don't have a direct link.

Hi again

It is like Hanol sais, the 4in1 cut the power when the voltage drops.
When you go brushless, it's the ESC who does that job, most of them are progamable so you can set it up yourself.
They will also prot. the motors during a crash, so you don't have to use any fuses.

About the 11.1v question, there are many people who use the 11.1v bat. And it seems to be as many oppinions about it as it is people.
One thing is for shure, when you go brushless you take away a lot of stress to your 4in1, because the ESC does most of job for it. So the 11.1v will work on the 4in1, but no one can tell you for how long, but in my opinion, when you go brushless theres a lot bigger chance that it'll last cause the ESC takes most of the load fom it.
I think this is the Forum Hanol is talking about.

I see, the 4-in-1 burns out if you use the 11.1 volt bat with brushed motors, but with the brushless motors it's o.k. due to the esc's.

Wiill a 3 cell pack fit under the stock Lama v3 landing gear?



Not only is it longer, but with a stack of 3 cells it seems it would extend past the landing gear.

Who put paper bag over my head? I didn't do it. LOL

As for 3 cell bats, I guess you can do it. Just some pieces of wood, hobby knife, crazy glue, Velcro and rubber bands. May be some duct tape. Actually I prefer postal tape to fix mine. It's lighter and sticks better.

I could go for the Xtreme landing gear, but I want to keep the scale looks of the V3. The Zippy battery Brutus5 linked to is probably more than enough, especially wth brushless motors, and double especially if the brushless motors bring the weight back down in line with the stock configuration. 20C is twice the power of the stock battery, and the motors will be more powerful. The stock vertical acceleration was plenty.

edit - oh hey I've got a knife wielding murderer for my avatar. Sweeeet! Usually I use Verne Troyer or Jack Skellington, but this will do

Jack the R wrote:

I could go for the Xtreme landing gear, but I want to keep the scale looks of the V3. The Zippy battery Brutus5 linked to is probably more than enough, especially wth brushless motors, and double especially if the brushless motors bring the weight back down in line with the stock configuration. 20C is twice the power of the stock battery, and the motors will be more powerful. The stock vertical acceleration was plenty.

Let me ask you one question. How long are you going to stay with Lama line? It's only good indoors or in very calm weather. Mods that will let you to fly it outdoors like brushless conversion will cost you hundreds of dollars and many hours or tweaking.

If you are into just tweaking this thing, so it can do some stunts it wasn't designed for, it's up to you. It's fun too.

However if you want to progress to a new level of flying, I would consider some 3D heli. Single rotor, collective pitch, mechanically driven tail rotor, etc. And keep your Lama just for some indoor fun fly events.

I am starting to look into small 3D things. As I told you, I used to fly 3D capable gas powered helies of .30 and .60 size some 20 years ago. I didn't really learn most of the 3D maneuvers, but it was real fun from what I can remember. But the repair costs were like $100 to $200 per crash. Also they needed a lot of room to fly. Tthey where making a lot of noise, smoke and my neighbors weren't very happy about it. Also tips of the blades are moving at about 200 mph, so this thing can kill someone. Back then electric helies were not possible because of the batteries, motors and old heavy electronics. Now they are. So I am going to move up to the smallest 3D electric very soon.

Jack the R wrote:

I could go for the Xtreme landing gear, but I want to keep the scale looks of the V3.

I opted for Dauphin red US Coast Guard body. It has wheels. Actually it had wheels. :) They broke after few unexpected hard landings. So now I launch this thing from my hand. Or from the grass, empty can or ashtray. Works fine without any wheels or skids. Landing is not a problem, as it always lands very fast by itself, after I hit a tree, wall, or something else.