OK, i am up to 127 flights so far. I need to put shims in my head i think (I should have when i built it anyway). So far so good. The heli is holding up well.

 

Now i am up to 210 flights on the goblin 38o. These are not sport flying flights, these are hard and consecutive 3d flights with hard collective moves right throughout. This is the most practical bird for me so far costing less for maintenance than the Trex 450, the Black Angel, The Mini Protos and others who have been flying at the field can testify to this. I have had to put in some shims (which i should have inserted during assembly) in the head and the Lynx tail mod which is great! but apart from that i have not had to do a thing. When my minip was running well i could get up to 60 flights on the belt using the normal 6s motor - which is still pretty good. It will be interesting to see if i can crack the 300 flight mark. I am going to fly to failure with this thing....

 

RIGHT... On the home stretch to make 300 flights hopefully tomorrow. I am up to 290 flights on the gobby.

 

Cha Ching!!!! 300..... Bo yeah.... But I am going to change my servos to BK. I have decided that i like the feel of the BKs better than the MKS. Will report back on how these go long term.

 

Hot patato hot patato hahahahaha
@smakmeharder @The Dude

 

Bah ha ha ha.... lol @3dmick.... Coffee out the nose man. But seriously its flying so well. Switching to BK servos after flying @The Dude heli......

 

Yes the Bk are the go maybe you can just
Take the dudes Bk servos he is only going to
Crash them anyway lol
Hot patato hot patato lol

 

I would take the dudes but they are damaged goods now......I think @The Dude and @Crash Heligod are dating at the moment... seems crash is getting pretty friendly with him....

 

300- congrats. So how many belts have you tortured and replaced now? If I remember correctly, you had one warp-out on you awhile back. (June 3 2015)

 

Yikes! Not good. So raising the inevitable question: Which one of em gets "boned"??

 

Since that time @Beaver I found that i did not have the belt tight enough - it also looked warped. I also added the aftermarket tail pulley guide (which should be standard in my opinion) and a new belt which was straight. So the flight count started after that point and i have been punching through packs as much as i can in order to up the count. What should i look for re wear in the belt? It looks fine to me: ie teeth are still very prominent etc..

 

Gear belts can be unpredictable. Either the teeth will strip or the cord will beak and they will simply snap. Watch for cracking of the rubber around the teeth, fraying of cord on sides, or warping. If you have 300 flights on one belt under hard smaking, I'd change it before it changes your 380. Why enable the Evil one?

 

How is that rotor head on your gob after 300 flights? Did you had to replace something? - An Align DFC head wears out after 50 smacks.. Parts are cheap but its a bit annoying to replace that so soon.

 

Not a thing @iggy up to 320 flights today and still going really strong. Only thing i had to do was add two shims about 200 flights ago. I smak the heli pretty hard I think. It is a very reliable helicopter if you do not crash it. If you do crash it, its very easy to work on.

 

Okay the official number is 425 flights. The main support tail bearing has slop so i am calling it time to do maintenance. The belts are ok (look that way anyway), the head is fine. The tail pulley guides started to squeak last week so i thought i better oil them... Since then no issue.

So i am now going to give her an overhaul. It was fun to do this mini experiment.

 

Would the tail support bearings last longer if you were to lubricate them more frequently? Im betting you can break 500 flights next round with a few more frequently placed drops of oil. Just don't get any on the belt.

 

I did not lubricate anything except for the belt guides.. lol. Its a pretty robust heli i must say and i think you would be right - if i lubricated them they would last even longer.. I could even fly it now but its just a tiny bit unpredictable on the tail due to the slop. It happened pretty quickly - ie everything was ok then the slop.

 

Spoke to a bearing dealer who's been in the business all his life, said to never oil the bearings.

 

So much for that idea. Wait. What sort of bearings does the guy deal with? I've worked with industrial machinery that ran ball bearing and tapered roller bearings on 5000 rpm spindles, and they absolutely had to be lubricated or they would seize (not fun to replace either). I've had main shaft and swash plate bearings try to seize, a drop of oil- I never had a problem with them again. Practical experience leads me to not buy the no oil theory.

 

They have lube already, I think it was 40% filled with grease. The grease hits up and runs against the walls, once the temp drops the oil solidifies back into grease.55