Joe Bailey

If your just bashing then turnigy are probably your best bang for buck lipos. Followed by gens ace.

Check the balance plugs are clean and also the balance board. Get some solvent cleaner and a tooth brush and scrub the plug on your balance board. I had issues with my bc8dx reading dodgy voltages and it was a corroded balance port on the charger.

Servos have moved on a fair bit from those ko fet servos. I could never afford one when I was racing at school. The modern versions from futaba, mks, and Jr will make your eyes pop. http://www.mksservosusa.com/product.php?productid=130&cat=24&page=1 These things are mind blowing. Huge power and hyper fast. The trend for high end stuff is to use a 2s lipo direct at 8.4v and the rest of the radio gear is now been made to cope with the current and voltage demands ( in some cases getting on for 8a per servo) For

Thread from the grave Happy to charge at 40a on my packs. Now at over 250 cycles and only just starting to puff after a hard pounding so another 100 ish cycles left. My 2s packs regularly get a 5c kick up the arse and are fine. Good packs will be fine. Cheaper packs will suffer a fast demise with this abuse.

Du-bro as above is good. Or get the original hi-point balancer if you can find one. Both are more then capable of balancing prop-nuts there that sensitive.

It will work but with your charger you will be limited on output current, if you connect two 2s 5000s in paralel they become a 2s10,000 pack so for a 1 hour charge at 10a you need an output of 84w. I find that if your packs are within a few percent of each other there's no issue with plugging in. Just plug the balance lead in first so if there is a mistake it will just blow the balance connector up and not your fingers like if you use the main connector

If your after flying buddies then head on over to rcheliaddicts forum and drop an introduction on there. There's lots of clubs around London and most of the guys are great and really helpful.

That over lander one should charge most packs your Likely to use in an hour or under. It's only if you get something daft like a 1:5 size car that it will start to struggle. Joe

If you check the manufacturers specs you should see a max charge rate in C, most packs these days can take 3c. Charging at 2c or 16a in your case can seriously cut charge times and if you get a setup capable of parallel charging multiple packs you could charge up to 5 packs in 1 hour at 40a. The cell pro pl8/6 are very but if you don't wont to pour money into chargers the icharger 308b has a huge output and is a good budget parallel charger (don't know if budget can be used on parallel charging) For a power supply, there's a guy called Ian contessa over on Rc Heli addicts (forum name is coolice) who makes some superb 1200w power supply's for good prices. Or if your confident with mains electrikery and electronics make a psu yourself from some server psu's Cheers Joe

I've posted my charge station on here before. http://www.msuk-forum.co.uk/gallery/image/25833-/ Much the same as Jas Jab's one just bigger. Parallel charging is fine if you understand what your doing with the batts and your lipos are in good condition. I've been parallel charging for 2-3 years now with no issues. The cellpro PL8 and PL6 are built to parallel charge packs and have the output power to cope with it. I normally charge my 6s 5000s as pairs at home and as 4's up the field. I can charge 8 6s 5000 packs in 30 mins.

Hi and gratz on getting it to a hover without any real outside help. As you've found out helis arn't as simple as they look, you need to learn one of the hardest parts before you even get it in the air. A well setup and dialed in Heli WILL hover hands off for a short period and there's no reason why your 450 should be any different. I'd advise checking out the finless bob vids on Heli freak (a bit of a muppet but all the info is there and he's got a lot of people flying) Here's the link, you need to sign up but it's worth it http://www.helifreak.com/forumdisplay.php?f=60 Cheers Joe Ps remember that learning to fly a Heli is one of the hardest things you will ever do.

A 3 cell lipo will work very well but you will need a lipo protection alarm to stop it discharging to far. If your making something to pull weight the lipo will hold its voltage better under high loads then a nimh. A well selected esc can give more torque to.

60/40 tin lead if you can get it, no use going to maplins as they don't sell it. Best source I've found is RS online. They keep an ever smaller selection of it but normally have some in stock. 60/40 melts at a lower temp then the new lead free stuff. About 75degrees if I remember right so it's easier to work with on large cable and connections Joe

They are both very good chargers. The main advantage of the I charger is the dual outputs. You cAn at least charge two differant packs at the same time (very usefull and the reason I have two chargers)

To be honest I thought parallel charging was strange at first and I was really careful with the packs, after charging this way for 3 years now charging packs one at a time just seems foolish to me. Good packs are essential, I use thunderpower and Opti packs in my helis. the thunderpower packs take the abuse without issue the optis tend to spit there dummies out after 100ish cycles. My oldest thunderpower packs are over 200 cycles now and they have been charged this way since day one.

Once you get above 6s 3000mAh packs then charging starts to become a problem, even more so if you want your packs in a hurry. I use a lot of 6s 5000 packs in my heli's, it takes two packs to get 6 mins of flight so charging them fast is essential. I built my own charge station to allow me to charge my packs very fast. It's a bit OTT for 2s car packs but for 6s 6000 packs its great. http://www.msuk-forum.co.uk/gallery/image/25833-/ The case contains a 3kw 26v home built power supply which powers a Cellpro PL8 and a PL6 at the same time. Using this setup I can charge 8x 6s 5000 packs from flat to fully charged in 30 mins. Both chargers will output 40A at 6s. Ok you probably don't need this sort of power but it does show just what can be achieved when it comes to charging packs fast. You can modify a 750w server psu to give you a stable 12v supply for about

Did you put a load resister across the output terminals. Switch mode psu's need to have a small load on them at all times for them to work properly. To be honest a 750w servor psu would have been a better conversion most atx supply's will start to struggle at 50% load.

That looks amazingly complicated. You say on your site that the phasing is set, but from the pictures on your site it appears to use a standard variable swash driver as found on any multi blade head? Has it been tested for 3d use or just for scale flying? It's a nice looking piece of kit but damn its complicated.

If you can already fly then take your pick. Pretty much most of the nitro helis in midland or fastlad are awesome. If you fancy something very nice to fly the nitro G4 is on another level. There's no differance in basic controls its just the tuning part of nitros that can be awkward. Lighter and faster in response then big electrics they make awesome smack machines.

For a nitro trainer you can't get better then a Thunder tiger raptor 30/50. Built like a tank and will run forever if built properly but a point to remember is how big these machines are. If one hits you it's no joke and will do serious damage. If your planning on learning on one of these you NEED to be in a club. You will need buddy box tuition unless you have heaps of money for spares, crash costs of a 50 are normally

We need a better pic of the head and frames. It's a semi scale Heli built around a bell or alouete style. Could be Hirobo, or even a very old Morley design.

I can highly recommend a Blade mcpx in any form. They are very resistant to bumps and crashes and will handle a huge amount of wind once you have the controls down. There a bit fast to learn on indoors but great out side.

To be fair it's not worth that much, it's an old fuse and is missing windows and wood. I got my long ranger ready to fly for

Here you go http://www.modelhelicopters.co.uk/nano-cp-x-tail-boom-assembly-with-tail-motor-rotor-mount.html Joe

Probably not the mcpx is a lot longer then the nano. If the diameter is right you may be able to cut it down. Isn't a nano boom available?