Conference vmszoo::rc

	To continue with comments about the SX. The main differences between 
the SX and previous models has been the conversion of many of the plastic
parts with metal, such as the See-Saw. The Swash plate is now all metal and
about 8 of the bushings are now ball bearings.  The canopy has been completely
re-designed and is more "pointy" and streamlined than previous canopies.
Two extra guides for the tail rotor control rod are provided for mounting
on the boom (which, BTW, is silver colored, instead of black).

	All in all, the instructions are excellent, but the SX has a six
page supplemental that is to be used sometimes instead of and other times
in addition to, the regular instruction book. In the instruction 
illustrations, Kyosho indicates which bag contains the parts to be used in
that particular assembly, well, with the SX additions, the added or replaced
parts were not always the the bag, but in another one.  It was a bit
confusing, but all of the parts were there. I thought the ball link that
connects the tail rotor push rod to the control wire that runs along the
boom was not there and I was starting to get upset when the wife came down
in the basement and said: "Is that the black thing that's on the floor under
your worktable?" Yep.

	Since all of the hardware is metric and my calipers are English,
I found I had to take the metric size from the instructions, multiply by
.039 to convert to inches.  Many of the screws are close to the same length
so you need to be pretty accurate in your measurement so you get the right
piece of hardware in the right place.  There are many blind, tapped holes,
so you have to be right.  If I were do something like this again, I think
I would separate the hardware into little nut cups or something like that
and label each one.  I think that would save time and be less confusing
in the long run.  Ain't hindsight wonderful?  FWIW, the allen wrenches
supplied are not hardened so they round pretty quickly.  Fortunately,
I have a set of hardened ball end wrenches on screwdriver handles and
this is definately the way to go.  I would also suggest you get a set of
ball ends on a hex base that you can chuck into a cordless screwdriver and
the job would go a bit easier. Also you need a very fine tipped phillips
screw driver the handle the 2mm and 2.6mm screws. I couldn't find my
smallest phillips, so had to make do with a broken ended x-acto blade in
a handle.  Not very efficient, speaking more to my impatience that my
sound judgement.

More later,
Chuck

    	Picked up radio, gyro and muffler last Monday and got everything
    installed.  All went well, so Thur took the bird down to Jack at Custom
    Hobbies for his assistence in trimming out. Found I had mounted the
    main rotor blades and the tail rotor blades backwards, which I promptly
    fixed.  We set main rotor pitch and seemed ready to fly, but since
    throttle and pitch are mixed, there was something wrong.  Pitch
    inceased with lowest throttle setting and vice versa.  On Fri I called
    Hobby Dynamics and talked to a really nice guy named McBird.  When I
    described my problem, he said: "I know what's wrong, you should have
    the pitch servo plugged into AUX1 in the receiver and not where you
    have it (5th connector)"  I asked why the manual doesn't expain that.
    In fact, except for one page that explains ATS and another page that
    tells how to set hi-lo pitch, the entire manual is an AIRPLANE manual.
    Receiver slots are called Throttle, Elevator, Ailerons, Rudder, Gear,
    Aux1 and Aux2.  Mc Bird said they were unhappy with the manual too and
    they planned to have a HELICOPTER manual written and printed.  Without
    old hands to consult, a beginner could NEVER get the thing built and
    flying.
    
    	Yesterday (Sun), I went out to the Air Force Academy about 9:30 and
    even though the weather was lousy, the die-hards Ralph Walker and
    Deccie Rick (Last name?) were there and Jack showed up shortly after.
    By 10:30 all of the regulars were on hand.  I had some trouble getting
    the engine started,but once going, I was able to check blade tracking 
    and began to try and hover.  Since I only had a small amount of gas in
    the tank, I shut it down and re-filled.  Fired up again and the rotor
    baldes wouldn't turn and I began to burn up the clutch.  Shut it down
    and back to the bench and found the drive gear bound up.  The fan
    shroud mounts with a couple crummy self-tapping screws to the frame
    right by the starter cone and if not fastened properly by pulling the
    fan shroud down toward the bottom of the chopper, will cause the main
    drive gear to bind.  I freed up the shroud and the gears worked
    normally.  Ralph then tried to help me get the bird into a hover, but
    we didn't seems to have sufficient rotor head speed.  There seemed to
    be some slippage, then something let go and that was it for the day.
    When I got home, I removed the motor/fan/shroud assembly. (A bit of a
    chore) and discovered that I had totally trashed the main gear/clutch
    bell housing.
    
    	Went down to Jack's this morning and $9.95 later have a new
    assembly to install tonight.  I'm going to thru-drill the fan shroud
    ears and attach them to the frame and fasten with cap screws and lock
    nuts to more positively lock the drive gear in the proper position.
    
    	BTW, Jack has just built a Concept 30SX himself, powered by an Enya
    engine and he brought it out to the field yesterday and ran two tanks
    of gas thru it.  I left before he flew it, but he told me today that
    it flew like a dream and he was delited with it.
    
    	Another hint, the Starter cone is mounted to the fan shaft with
    two really short self-tapping screws, which work loose almost
    instantly. I replaced them with the next diameter machine thread cap
    screws (mumble mm long, about 3/8 inch) and had no further problem.
    Jack had built his with the metal starter cone.  (Easy enough to do,
    if you own a hobby store -:)  )
    
    	I'll get every thing back together tonight and do some hovering
    in my driveway and add on to this note as I have things to share.
    
    Chuck
    

	I've been flying a Concept 30 DX (on and off) for about a year. Its a
popular helicopter in the clubs here. I was interested to note that some of
your problems are very familiar.
	We have found that 10% nitro is the minimum you need or the engine
overheats. This is particularly true of Enya engines, infact most people have
ditched them! can't comment on the 35 Enya.
	The OS 28 with a pipe seems to give as good a performance as the 32,
both engines are sweet.
	Clutches are notorious for blowing up, seems to be better with the new
metal plate and a metal bearings.
	The wooden weighted blades are a problem to get tracked. Len Mount
are doing some good glass blades costing a little more than the composite
ones.
	The ball joints are bad news, we've had several crashes because these
have worn out...recon the SX would solve this problem.
	Even with the problems I still think it's a great little helicopter. 
I've just started circuits and I've noticed that I get a low frequency side
to side shake, only in gusty conditions, sometimes increasing head speed stops
it, but not always .... any ideas?

	John

RE:-.1

I have to agree with the comments on the clutch being a weak point. I haven't 
had a failure but every now and again the clutch would get tight and then loosen
up all of its own accord.  I was talking about it to the owner of the local
parts house and he told me what happens is the clutch bell gets worn away a 
little each time the clutch gets tight. Finally, the bell fails by the lower rim
breaking free from the top. The engine now has no load so it goes to high revs
and the leaves of the clutch spread and break under the strain. Net result is at
a minimum you get to replace both the cluth and the bell for about $50.

Replacing the clutch bell before it fails is much cheaper. It'll only run you 
about $30 for the latest revision of the bell. Kyosho has had about five tries
at clutch design if you count up all the variations. I decided to replace mine 
before it failed but instead of using Kyosho's plactic clutch bell I bought an
aluminum aftermarket one. It's really slick. The bell itself is a gold colored
anodized pice of aluminum with lightening/cooling holes in the top surface of
the bell. The clutch bell rides on two bearings and this bullit proof piece of 
engineering only cost me $5 more than Kyosho's piece of plastic.

The only thing I didn't like about the clutch was you have to install the clutch
liner yourself. I epoxied mine in and then took a piece of sand paper to the 
liner face to trim it down till the clutch fit without being too tigth. 

    I haven't had time to enter recently, but I have to agree with the last
    two replies.  The plastic clutch bell with the fiber liner STINKS!!
    Jack sold me the previous revision, which is plastic with a steel liner
    and I haven't had any problems with it yet. Kyosho price $11.95 and
    Jack gives us a discount on parts, so it came to only $9.95. The
    Colorado State games were underway this past weekend out at the Air
    Force Academy, so we couldn't use the athletic fields. Several of the
    guys went up to Longmont, but I had a lot of "honey do's", but I did
    practice hovering in the driveway.  I still need someone like Ralph
    Walker to help me get the SX all trimmed out.  I did manage some 4-5
    second hovers, but I get a lot of "drifting".
    Dan, where did you get the replacement clutch bell?
    
    More later, Chuck
    

RE: 1226.5

Chuck,
I purchased the clutch bell at a local (St.Charles, Mo) RC shop. The owner told
me it was made by a Canadian  company but he didn't mention the name and the 
parts just came in a sealed plastice bag with no idea. If you want, I cna stop 
by and find out the name of the company. I'm sure Jack could order them for you. 

    Thanx, Dan.  I'll ask Jack about it.  For now I'll stick with the
    down-rev Kyosho bell.  It seems to be O.K., but then I only have about
    3 tank-fulls of gas thru since I replaced the bad one.
    
    Chuck
    

    I checked with the hobby shop where I bought the after market clutch
    bell. They said the part is imported by Century Systems in Costa Mesa,
    CA. He said that this is the same clutch bell that Raves is selling for
    $47. 

    Well I know this isn't one of the liveliest conferences on the net, but
    I thought I'd check in and say hello.  Although I've flown some line-
    control planes many years ago, I've never done anything with R/C.  So
    when my wife brought home a Tower Hobby catalogue, I scanned every page
    cover to cover intent of selecting a challenging and exciting very
    first R/C kit.  Well I just sent the order off today! - $600. just for
    the kit and engine, plus a few building supplies - OUCH!!  What I 
    ordered was the CONCEPT 30 SX unassembled together with the OS .32F-H
    heli engine.  
    
    Besides the kit, engine, CA glue, DX stab blades, tri flow lube,
    bearing grease, locktite, engine test stand complete with fuel tank,
    and heli build, set-up and fly manual, is there anything else I need
    initially to get this thing put together?  Should I buy the radio now
    or is it just as easy to install the servos and RX after heli assembly?
    If I have to buy the radio now, I'll do it but I'd rather wait till I 
    save the $$ for it.  I think I'm going to go with the FUTABA 7UHF 7
    channel helicoptor radio.  Its 1991-ready and I like the idea of the
    LCD screen display.  Of course there are a couple of more economical
    models for less than the $400 that this one costs.  Any suggestions
    from other copter fanatics out there are greatly appreciated.  If 
    anyone has any Tower sale catalogs or other books where the copter is
    cheaper, please let me know and hopefully someone can copy the pages
    and send 'em off to me!  Thanks much.
    
    
    					Regards,  Jack Mahon

    Jack, As I'm sure you noticed, I started this topic and am very happy
    to welcome another modeller into the Concept 30SX fold. I think you
    will find that without the radio (and servos) you really don't have
    anything once you've assembled the helicopter. I think you'll find that
    a great many helicopter modellers are JR enthusiasts although you'll
    also find lots of Futaba fans.  
    
    Do you have a nearby Model Shop that sorta specializes in choppers?
    Maybe we're just lucky here in Colo Spgs, but Jack at Custom Hobbies
    gives us equal to Tower prices PLUS 10% off on parts. If you're
    anything like most of us, you buy quite a few parts!!
    
    Do you know any chopper modellers in your area?  They can be one heck
    of a lot of help.  Drop me a note at GENRAL::BALDRIDGE or
    MORA::BALDRIDGE_CH and I'll do what I can to help.  I'm currently
    living in Colo Spgs, belong to an IVO cost center and physically work
    at a Customer Site in Phoenix (confusing, huh?).
    
    My main Christmas present from my wife was the Whitman Helicopter
    Training Stand and I couldn't be happier.  Unfortunately the weather
    over the holiday season was in the -20 deg F range, so I haven't had
    the opportunity to use it much yet.  Although the $171 cost might seem
    high, with main blades costing in the neighborhood of $30/pair and
    other replacement parts in the same neighborhood, it doesn't take long
    to realize a few saved "crashes" quickly amortizes the cost.  The
    instructions for assembly leave a bit to be desired, but if you read
    them carefully and don't get in a rush and think out the next step,
    you'll find the stand really does go together fine and work really
    well.
    
    Chuck
    
    
    

Hi Jack,
Welcome to the wonderful world of helicopters! Assembling the copter won't 
take too long so you might as well order the radio now. I swear by JR but others
get by with Futaba without too many problems. 8^)

I second Chuck's recommendation that you find the chopper flyiers in your area.
They'll be a big help. Drop me a note or call and I'll also be glad to answer 
questions or just chat choppers.

As long as Chuck got to talk about his Christmas present I'll spill my guts and
say that my wife bought me a Hughes 500 fuselage for my Concept. For now, I'm 
using the provided decals to decorate it but when the weather warms up I'll put
a decent paint job on it (if I can figure out how to make the paint stick). It
doesn't look too bad even if the tail rotor is on the wrong side.
                                                        /     \ /
Dan Eaton - Demented                                   /      / \ 
            Dragonfly                                 /       #  
            Pilot                                    /        #
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                                                 / l @##  .  
                                                /   #@   .
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                            l 
                                                       

 

    I looked up Jack's node, and it is in Parker Street.  I'm not sure, but
    Anker might be the nearest DEC chopper pilot.  Otherwise Tenerowiczt.
    
    Jack, the most important thing for you to do now is probably to find
    someone to be a mentor before you create $600 worth of broken parts.
    
    Please sign into topic 4 and include your home address and phone.
    
    This note of mine will self destruct in a week.

    Jack,
    
    Welcome to RC Helicopters.  You are starting with a real nice machine,
    please listen to the advice given on finding a expirenced heli pilot to
    help you after assembling the SX.  The Futaba 7ch is a good box but a
    few chopper pilots here have picked up the JR347 and really like the
    features. I would check a 347 before locking on the futaba.
    
    Good Luck with the SX.
    
    Ralph

    Hi,
    
    Thanks for all the great advice!  I'm definitely going to check into
    the JR347 since I've heard so much about it.  I live in the Leominster 
    area and I was wondering where I can get a look at the radio, either in
    a shop or in a catalog?  Any leads appreciated!
    
    re .12:  Is that Anker Berg_Sonne you're referring to?  I work here at 
    PKO with his wife.  I thought Anker was mostly fixed wing but I may be
    wrong.  I'll reply with my personal info in note 4.  Thanks.
    
    Jack

    Check out the WEWAND::DECRCM conference and stop by the DECRCM meeting
    in Hudson (HLO) tomorrow (tuesday 1/8) night at 6pm. There's always at 
    least one X-347 there since most of the crew seems to have bought one 
    in the last few months.
    
    For directions look in DECRCM topic 108.189 and stop by (second
    tuesday of every month)
    
    The JR crowd (that will be at the meeting tomorrow) is mostly power 
    plane fliers but there's a few people that can show you all the 
    programming possibilities.