Looking to fly inside high school gym this year and looking at a new EXI 250 collective pitch. xheli has it for $59.00 .Looking for some feedback on this heli.I have a couple EXI 450s and seem to fly very nicely except for the one that got away from me,still looking for that darn thing. Thanks guys!
250 Anyone have a EXI 250?
- Thread starter mousie
- Start date
coolgabsi
Super Mod & DEAL KING!
I never liked the 250 size.
Reason: maintenance price is just right as much as 450 almost and screws just strip.
Not what you really asked.. Exi 250 is probably gonna be same or similar quality as 450.
Search "trex 250 tail wag" on google and read your heart out before you get it.
Fbl systems have seemed to fix it .
Reason: maintenance price is just right as much as 450 almost and screws just strip.
Not what you really asked.. Exi 250 is probably gonna be same or similar quality as 450.
Search "trex 250 tail wag" on google and read your heart out before you get it.
Fbl systems have seemed to fix it .
Tony
Staff member
I would rather get an mcpx or the 130x before I got a 250. Do a search on this site for "Nightmare" to read what I have had to do to the one I had. It was an HK, but it's exactly the same as EXI. I had to replace every moving part and some non moving with Align just to get it in the air and stable. Gaba purchased Nightmare and it started all over again even though I had it flying good. It's just the curse of Nightmare and it all comes from teh 250 class heli's.
If you really want a 250, do yourself a favor and get the Align Super Combo. You will be money ahead by a long shot.
If you really want a 250, do yourself a favor and get the Align Super Combo. You will be money ahead by a long shot.
coolgabsi
Super Mod & DEAL KING!
+1 on saving the trouble and getting a 130x. I have it. And man do I love it. You can find used ones for 200 and then just take care of it like a big bird and they'll never give you an issue. I just upgraded some parts last night. But man this bird is a beauty! Plus support from Horizon hobby.. CAnt beat it. New is 279.. Check a video I posted 130x plus Thor batteries.. Lol more than a bird I can fly! Lol
Ok now I am not sure what to do. Someone out there has to have something positive to say about the EXI 250. I have a walkera cb180z fix pitch and it fly's pretty good, only bad thing is its pricey when you crash.Its cheaper to crash my 450 pro. Who make the 130X and what size is it compared to a 250?
murankar
Staff member
Horizon hobbies, it's a blade product and is very well built. If you still want a 250 then look at the align 250 super combo. I feel that your results and experiences may very from pilot to pilot. The plat form is more for experienced pilots and not so much beginners. Earthling1984 (YouTube) has a video series on the that exact model. He expresses his opinions and concerns on the heli.
If you have the radio to bind to the 130X that would be a better route for you. Cost of maintenance is way less than a 250 and the bird is more durable. I have seen nothing but positive feed back on the 130X on youtube.
Good luck with your decision.
P.S. I was considering a 250 and was convinced the 450 size was much better.
If you have the radio to bind to the 130X that would be a better route for you. Cost of maintenance is way less than a 250 and the bird is more durable. I have seen nothing but positive feed back on the 130X on youtube.
Good luck with your decision.
P.S. I was considering a 250 and was convinced the 450 size was much better.
Tony
Staff member
Something positive about the 250... 
Once you get it to fly well, you can fly it until it crashes
The Align bird even though still has it's issues will be 100x better than the clones. And the 130x is a 130 size helicopter. It's smaller than the 250, but larger than the mcpx and Align 100.
Once you get it to fly well, you can fly it until it crashes
The Align bird even though still has it's issues will be 100x better than the clones. And the 130x is a 130 size helicopter. It's smaller than the 250, but larger than the mcpx and Align 100.
Lee
Well-Known Member
I put a lot of time and effort as did Tony and Gaba into our 250s. I never did get mine to fly well, no matter what i did to it. I would def go for the 130X or if you want a bigger platform, the Blade 300X, which considering it comes with a AR7200BX FBL unit, is a real bargain.
zenmetsu
Member
I have an EXI-250 and it is my very first bird, and to this date, my only bird.
This probably raises a few red flags, most of all, why the hell is a heli-noob starting off on a 250? The answer, I love challenges. That said, the fact that I have put over 60 hours of flight time into this thing over the past year and it is still flying is a testament to the 250's resilience when it comes to kissing terra firma.
The EXI parts are pretty good, but the feathering shaft is reported to be weak and that the screws will sometimes pull through and allow the blades to separate. I cannot testify to this as I heeded the caution and just replaced the feathering shaft with the Align branded part from the get-go. I have not really had any failures attributed to poor quality. I have crashed her about a dozen times now, with two crashes being very violent.
On the 23rd of this month, I lost my tail rotor due to a poor jury-rigging on my behalf while flying at about 60 feet above asphalt. I watched as my heli spun at about 4-5 revolutions per second and I slowly lowered the collective and brought it down under control. I lightly touched the ground, but the rotational speed was too great and the heli tipped over, leading to a triple boom strike. The casualties? Feathering shaft, tail boom, tail servo control rod, one of the tail servo control rod holders, one of the carbon fiber tail boom supports, and a very slight bend to the main shaft. The cause of the crash was a make-shift repair that I had made, and this brings up one of the caveats of buying an EXI-250. But first, here are some photos of the carnage. At the bottom of the photo with the casualties, you will see the tail drive gear assembly that failed, along with the upper housing for this part which will be mentioned shortly.
The item that triggered this latest crash, my first in over 30 battery charges, was the gear that drives the tail rotor belt. The EXI model has two aluminum housings that cradle the two bearings on the tail drive shaft. There is a top housing and a bottom housing. The Trex250, however, has the housing split left and right. The result is that the replacement part for the Trex drive shaft is the shaft, two bearings, the large gear that engages the main gear, and the smaller gear that drives the belt. You separate the left and right housings and fit them around the replacement shaft, then slide the whole assembly into the helicopter frame. Since the EXI housings do not split left/right, you have to remove one of the gears in order to fit the shaft through the openings in the housings. The easiest one would be the belt drive gear since the lower gear would require the removal of both bearings and the gear that engages the main gear. The Trex part, however, cannot be disassembled. The belt gear appears to be held in place with a small screw, but in reality this screw is utterly pointless since the belt gear is not only pressed onto a fluted shaft, it is red-loctited into place. Chinese engineering at its finest.
So how and why did I jury-rig this part? The short answer, the bearing in the EXI shaft failed and I wanted to see if I could make the Trex part work without having to order the EXI part every time. I used a pair of snips to mangle the Trex belt gear until I could pull the remains off of the shaft. Once this was done, I took my existing EXI belt gear and slid it onto the shaft after pushing the shaft up through the upper housing. Since it was a loose fit, I soldered the belt gear onto the shaft. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Ultimately what had happened is that after about a dozen flights, I lost the tail. I thought that my solder job had failed, but upon closer examination, I found that the lower gear, the plastic one that engages the main gear, had melted where it engaged the shaft. I did not provide enough clearance between the upper housing and the belt gear, so while flying, this part was generating metal-on-metal friction until the heat caused the plastic gear to fail. Oops. Moral of the story, don't jury rig this part. Second moral of the story, not every Trex part is compatible with the EXI.
I have since repaired the heli and gotten her in the air. I had to order a replacement tail drive shaft from EXI. From my experience, the only three parts that are not compatible between the Trex and the EXI are the tail drive shaft, and to some extent, the bottom plate, and the landing gears. The EXI has a one-piece bottom plate and landing gear, so if you snap one of them, you have to buy an Trex bottom plate AND a landing gear set. I am going to order the Trex tail drive housings and see if they fit the EXI frame. If so, I can continue to use the locally available Trex tail drive shafts if I ever need to replace it.
So to an extent, I am slowly converting this EXI into a Trex through replacing damaged parts, but so far just about everything has been compatible. The only major change that I have made is the utilization of a tail assembly from microHeli since this part is vastly superior to the EXI and Trex offerings. The tail wag that I had was completely eliminated with this upgrade.
I will provide my parts list, in case anyone decides to get an EXI-250. I have zero tail-wag and the tail holds rock-steady in heading-hold mode. The tail drifts slowly (approximately 180 degrees per minute) when in rate mode, but this is to be expected.
Motor: Exceed RC 75M60
Battery: Hyperion 850mAh 3S LiPo (tight fit in canopy, but will not fit well in a Trex since the battery holder is at a different angle than the EXI)
Cyclic Servos: Hitec HS-65HB
Tail Servo: JR DS290G (this thing is really fast and light weight)
Gyro: Spartan Quark
ESC: 30A Quantum (a bit big for this heli, but the only thing that was available locally at the time)
Receiver: Spektrum AR6210
- - - Updated - - -
Ooops, forgot to post the picture of the failed parts. Here you can see in the lower left, the tail drive shaft and upper housing as sold by EXI. The housing comes pre-attached and the shaft cannot be removed from the housing. This was my jury-rigged part that failed.
And here is a photo after the reincarnation.
As an aside, I got to fly a Trex450 last month and the thing was downright docile compared to the 250. I have gotten quite good at holding the 250 in position, even in gusty conditions, but the 450 was like turning on Easy-mode. I still have a training gear attached to my 250 and probably will until I start to do more advanced maneuvers, but the docility of the 450 gives me confidence that I could easily fly without training gears attached. Now I am eyeballing the EXI-450 so that I can have a bigger bird.
This probably raises a few red flags, most of all, why the hell is a heli-noob starting off on a 250? The answer, I love challenges. That said, the fact that I have put over 60 hours of flight time into this thing over the past year and it is still flying is a testament to the 250's resilience when it comes to kissing terra firma.
The EXI parts are pretty good, but the feathering shaft is reported to be weak and that the screws will sometimes pull through and allow the blades to separate. I cannot testify to this as I heeded the caution and just replaced the feathering shaft with the Align branded part from the get-go. I have not really had any failures attributed to poor quality. I have crashed her about a dozen times now, with two crashes being very violent.
On the 23rd of this month, I lost my tail rotor due to a poor jury-rigging on my behalf while flying at about 60 feet above asphalt. I watched as my heli spun at about 4-5 revolutions per second and I slowly lowered the collective and brought it down under control. I lightly touched the ground, but the rotational speed was too great and the heli tipped over, leading to a triple boom strike. The casualties? Feathering shaft, tail boom, tail servo control rod, one of the tail servo control rod holders, one of the carbon fiber tail boom supports, and a very slight bend to the main shaft. The cause of the crash was a make-shift repair that I had made, and this brings up one of the caveats of buying an EXI-250. But first, here are some photos of the carnage. At the bottom of the photo with the casualties, you will see the tail drive gear assembly that failed, along with the upper housing for this part which will be mentioned shortly.
The item that triggered this latest crash, my first in over 30 battery charges, was the gear that drives the tail rotor belt. The EXI model has two aluminum housings that cradle the two bearings on the tail drive shaft. There is a top housing and a bottom housing. The Trex250, however, has the housing split left and right. The result is that the replacement part for the Trex drive shaft is the shaft, two bearings, the large gear that engages the main gear, and the smaller gear that drives the belt. You separate the left and right housings and fit them around the replacement shaft, then slide the whole assembly into the helicopter frame. Since the EXI housings do not split left/right, you have to remove one of the gears in order to fit the shaft through the openings in the housings. The easiest one would be the belt drive gear since the lower gear would require the removal of both bearings and the gear that engages the main gear. The Trex part, however, cannot be disassembled. The belt gear appears to be held in place with a small screw, but in reality this screw is utterly pointless since the belt gear is not only pressed onto a fluted shaft, it is red-loctited into place. Chinese engineering at its finest.
So how and why did I jury-rig this part? The short answer, the bearing in the EXI shaft failed and I wanted to see if I could make the Trex part work without having to order the EXI part every time. I used a pair of snips to mangle the Trex belt gear until I could pull the remains off of the shaft. Once this was done, I took my existing EXI belt gear and slid it onto the shaft after pushing the shaft up through the upper housing. Since it was a loose fit, I soldered the belt gear onto the shaft. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Ultimately what had happened is that after about a dozen flights, I lost the tail. I thought that my solder job had failed, but upon closer examination, I found that the lower gear, the plastic one that engages the main gear, had melted where it engaged the shaft. I did not provide enough clearance between the upper housing and the belt gear, so while flying, this part was generating metal-on-metal friction until the heat caused the plastic gear to fail. Oops. Moral of the story, don't jury rig this part. Second moral of the story, not every Trex part is compatible with the EXI.
I have since repaired the heli and gotten her in the air. I had to order a replacement tail drive shaft from EXI. From my experience, the only three parts that are not compatible between the Trex and the EXI are the tail drive shaft, and to some extent, the bottom plate, and the landing gears. The EXI has a one-piece bottom plate and landing gear, so if you snap one of them, you have to buy an Trex bottom plate AND a landing gear set. I am going to order the Trex tail drive housings and see if they fit the EXI frame. If so, I can continue to use the locally available Trex tail drive shafts if I ever need to replace it.
So to an extent, I am slowly converting this EXI into a Trex through replacing damaged parts, but so far just about everything has been compatible. The only major change that I have made is the utilization of a tail assembly from microHeli since this part is vastly superior to the EXI and Trex offerings. The tail wag that I had was completely eliminated with this upgrade.
I will provide my parts list, in case anyone decides to get an EXI-250. I have zero tail-wag and the tail holds rock-steady in heading-hold mode. The tail drifts slowly (approximately 180 degrees per minute) when in rate mode, but this is to be expected.
Motor: Exceed RC 75M60
Battery: Hyperion 850mAh 3S LiPo (tight fit in canopy, but will not fit well in a Trex since the battery holder is at a different angle than the EXI)
Cyclic Servos: Hitec HS-65HB
Tail Servo: JR DS290G (this thing is really fast and light weight)
Gyro: Spartan Quark
ESC: 30A Quantum (a bit big for this heli, but the only thing that was available locally at the time)
Receiver: Spektrum AR6210
- - - Updated - - -
Ooops, forgot to post the picture of the failed parts. Here you can see in the lower left, the tail drive shaft and upper housing as sold by EXI. The housing comes pre-attached and the shaft cannot be removed from the housing. This was my jury-rigged part that failed.
And here is a photo after the reincarnation.
As an aside, I got to fly a Trex450 last month and the thing was downright docile compared to the 250. I have gotten quite good at holding the 250 in position, even in gusty conditions, but the 450 was like turning on Easy-mode. I still have a training gear attached to my 250 and probably will until I start to do more advanced maneuvers, but the docility of the 450 gives me confidence that I could easily fly without training gears attached. Now I am eyeballing the EXI-450 so that I can have a bigger bird.
zenmetsu
Member
Yeah Lee, but I am torn between the 450 and the 500. The 500 is definitely big by my standards, but the 450s seem more popular. I have already priced the 450 and 500 parts and they are pretty much the same. It seems like once you hit the 600s, the prices start to go up pretty quickly. I guess that I will just grab the 500 and purchase as many spare parts as I can up front. The local hobby shops seem to have just about everything in the 450 lineup, but the part count on-hand for the 500 seems to only be half as plentiful. :/
Tony
Staff member
I'm all for supporting the LHS but if they don't have the stock then I would suggest making an order online at someplace like readyheli or the like. They will be cheaper and their shipping is as cheap as you can get.
As for what helicopter to get, the 450's are very popular and parts are EVERYWHERE! The 500's are now coming around and parts are only about 15% more than the 450's. However the stability from the 450 to the 500 is enough to bring me to want the 500. They are just so much more stable and the "Blade Fart" that the 500+ heli's give is unmatched by anything smaller.
Go for the 500, it's well worth it.
As for what helicopter to get, the 450's are very popular and parts are EVERYWHERE! The 500's are now coming around and parts are only about 15% more than the 450's. However the stability from the 450 to the 500 is enough to bring me to want the 500. They are just so much more stable and the "Blade Fart" that the 500+ heli's give is unmatched by anything smaller.
Go for the 500, it's well worth it.