500 My Trex500 just showed up in the mail.

[zenmetsu]

Locally, we have a place called Fry's Electronics. They carry it, but I stopped shopping there once they put up there "No firearms" signs, lol. They have a few stores back east.

They stuff is often called "expandable sleeving". If you compress it, the internal diameter increases to almost 5X it's size, allowing you to slip it over large connectors and then pull it taught and narrow again once the large objects are through. You simply use heatshrink to lock the ends into place and keep things tidy.

Yes, my gyro is on the bottom, right below the main shaft. I really don't have many options for mounting this thing. I'm using my GY401, and it is a bit too big to fit anywhere other than the top tray, and I wanted to keep my receiver there considering the fact that the lower tray is closer to the ESC.

 

[zenmetsu]

Still waiting on my last two servos, but the hobby store should have them on hand Friday. I decided to get silly and locked down the pitch and aileron control rods to hold the blades level at about -2 degrees pitch and spun this motor up, with pinion attached, for the first time. Holy cow this motor is loud. It has a few speeds where it makes a high pitched almost ringing sound, and I suspect resonance of some sort. I lubed the bearings pretty good, but I suppose it could be bearing noise.

As an added bonus, from zero to about 40% throttle, there was no noticeable vibration or rocking of the helicopter. Things must be pretty well balanced. I didn't dare take it over 40% without aileron control. I really can hear the difference that these larger blades make, one can tell that this thing will be beating the air into submission this weekend.

 

[Tony]

Wait until you get a 600+ size heli. One thing I remember from my HK600 was how the blades sounded at a very slow speed. It's like swinging a stick through the air lmao. Then they go faster and sound even better.

If you are only used to that 250, you are in for a ass hole puckering good time the first time you put this thing in the air lol.

 

[zenmetsu]

Man, don't go making me nervous...

Ok, more nervous.

I already went over and loctited everything well. I'm already paranoid enough that I wear my shooting glasses when flying since I fear a bolt or something getting ejected at me at 40x the speed of sound... ok, slight exaggeration.

I won't get really high head speeds on the 500 since I have a 1400kV motor on it and it looks like I will be able to get about 2680 RPM out of it. The CC calculator is telling me that I can set max throttle at 93% and the governor will still hold constant speed... that is a boatload of torque if true. Not bogging at 93% is crazy talk. If the head speed is not high enough, I will need to swap out the helical main gear for a straight one since Align only makes a 12T helical pinion. I really need a 13T to make this ideal.

 

[Tony]

That is about the max head speed you want out of a 500 size bird. The 600's are only about 2000rpm give or take and 450's are about 3500. And you said your 250 is over 5000. More weight, less speed.

 

[zenmetsu]

On second thought...

Looks like Align just added a 112T precision helical main gear, mod 1.0, to their website for the T-Rex 600 and 500E. Now, if they make a suitable mod 1.0 5mm pinion, I am set!

Scratch that, the info I was looking at mentioned 500E, but it is 550E. Bummer.

 

[zenmetsu]

Got my free Castle Link in the mail today.

I programmed the BEC to 6V and upgraded to the newest ESC firmware... it was beta, but hey, living on the edge and all.

I spun up the heli one more time, again lacking any aileron control due to the lack of the front two servos. I got enough power into it that the tail gyro started to take control. I powered it back down and checked out the logged data... 1860RPM head speed at 69% throttle. I think this will end up working quite well.

The hobby store said that they did not receive the shipment that included my two other servos today, but it will be there before noon tomorrow. Probably won't get to maiden it tomorrow though due to the horrible weather we are having; gusting and raining. Yuck. Oh well, it gives me a day to play with the swash leveling and making sure that everything is correctly set up.

 

[wolfman76]

I have i believe a 17t pinion for the motor on my hk500gt with a turnigy typhoon motor have not put it on yet though need to get some flights in on it first

 

[zenmetsu]

I wouldn't be able to make use of it; I have a helical main gear. I could swap it out for a straight gear, but then I'd have to pull the pinion off of this motor... and green loctite is kinda hard to break loose sometimes.