helishack
Heliman
Location: San Diego, CA
My Posts This: Topic Forum | It's nice to jump in on a topic and see some familiar names. Jag/Slider, how have you guys been? I've been "off the grid" for a while - lot's lof travel (over 100K frequent flyer miles last year alone)!
Anyway, I think it's great that you guys and several others jumped in to help rhampton with his ES600 pre-purchase questions.
I actually moved and sold off my "stuff" and the ES600 buyer got a killer deal from me - w/the 401 gyro, stretch kit - longer boom+belt, Align 100A ESC, 3A switch-mode BEC, 6-ch rx, servos, and too many parts to mention. One of the first things that I did do though was upgrade the swash to all metal - very smooth, as well as buying the metal washout (comes with metal arms - and it's REALLY low cost to get these upgrades. The tail rotor grips I dislike, but that's another cheap replacement that was already discussed in this forum...
Anyway, just wanted to kick back on a Fri. night (while the kids are all tucked in and the wife is cramming for a test) and say hi. RHampton, you made a great decision - you won't regret it. Good job on sticking to your guns to get your questions answered. When I sold my ES600, I sold so many spares (crash replacement parts) because of two reasons:
1) I bought a lot of spares 'cause they're very low cost
2) She flies so well I didn't need to fix her all the time - crash, what crash?!
Before the summer kicks in here in San Diego I'm going to pick up another one. I convinced the owner of a decent LHS to carry the ES600 and spares - he's got literally every part to build one from scratch.
I'm VERY familiar with the heli so it's going to be a pleasure to sit with another one and build her up. Since I'm not really into 3D I am considering a fiberglass fuselage for a Hughes 500E. That's going to be a lot of fun.
Just for the record, and I know A LOT of people don't agree, I took (4) very good and identical 3S batts and connected (2) of them in series, another (2) in series, then connected those packs in parallel to get 6S2P 4400mAh. 8-10 minute hard sport flying no problem! Batts stayed cool and I didn't suck them down to below 85%. Yes, I know - that's the "poor-man's" technique. The batts fit well in the fuselage and didn't cost me extra since I use them on my RC vehicles as well as other helis. Plus chargers that can charge 3S at 2.2A (2200mAh) are REALLY low cost (a Polycharge is only $99 at hobbypeople - but you can't see how much you put back in, unless you use something like an EagleTree Data Logger - indispensable if you have any type of electric-powered projects or hobbies.).
Cheers!
Jeff
p.s. Jag, I'd love to see your "Hobby Shop"! Can't wait to put mine together in the new house...!! |
