I believe the correct way is to make them tight enough to move by hand with moderate force, but not loose enough to where they flop over when you pick up the heli

A good test is to tighten them to the point where if you hold your heli sideways (to where they could swing down if floppy loose) and extend them straight out they wont move, but if you give it a good jerk they'll come down a bit. Just not swinging down, but able to "walk" the blades down so to speak

Bert Kammerer's advice and seems to work well with 600-700 sized machines

On 450-550's its a bit less tension due to the weight of the blades naturally not requiring you to tighten it as much, but the same concept.

If you tighten them too much you could cause some bad wear on your bearings and get a bad case of the "wobbles" upon spool up before it gets to top HS and "straightens them out.

 

A good point that you mention helladies, the bearings is something i did not consider.

 

Matt botos runs them relatively loose to allow for the natural lead lag fo the blade.

 

If you tightly shim the blades you should avoid that...

 

Yup, blades usually come with some washers to tighten tolerances up. Shouldn't be any play at the blade root.

 

So do I, for the same reason. Not that I can fly anywhere as well as Matt......
It's easy on the vibration & head wear & tear generally.


Citizen #186

 

On my 700e dfc I run them locked dead for bail out tricks on my g700 comp I run them very loose, just so there is no bobble on start up while practising routines.

 

If you mean boom strike in the event of a tip over or a crash then I've found that it's the ground that folds the blades up & causes the strike.
I've never had a boom strike for other reasons. Maybe I don't fly hard enough?
Anyway, I'm not talking floppy loose, just not tight.


Citizen #186

 

I do my blades up May be to tight to avoid boom strike and I like to do the old throttle hold bailout thing
@ full noise lol & a over speed or 2
If it wears out the head bearings and dampeners so be it better thin a carbon fiber rainbow boom strike
Just my two cents

 

LOL carbon fiber rainbow!!!! love it.. (so does crash)

 

Yea, not floppy loose especially if you fly hard. I even tighten them a teeny tiny bit on my 130 x-- But I dont see how tightening the shiz out them would really benefit in any way. Gotta get that sweet spot.

They should be able to move with some force

 

Loose blades like matt botos = fast heli .. I picked up 20km/h (238) on speed runs

 

Just how loose are we talking here?

Please define loose!


It's like... I have a hard piece of candy and a hard piece of steel. Which one is harder. Please, guys try and define what "loose" is to you.


Floppy loose? ??

 

Hmmm using the shake method as described earlier they fall prob double what I call 'normal'not sloppy just so they move to allow lead 'lag .

Make sense ? Lol

 

That's much better.. LoL

so like if you hold it up and don't shake the heli it'll hold the position of the blades, but with a good jerk they'll flop down all the way "smoothly" instead of "walk a step" down?

It's starting to make sense instead of oh yea I have it loose and oh I have it hard (might as well be talking about the side effects of the little blue pill...LoL)

 

Thats it ... bit like nascar im watching loose is fast but not too loose you hit the walls hehe