Blade 400 Upgrade to FBL

admiral · Posted: Wed Jan 01, 2014 4:54 am Post subject: Blade 400 Upgrade to FBL

There it was sitting on the shelf rarely being used, my Blade 400, purchased in 2010 it was now redundant as the Flybarless helicopters had taken over even the 2005 Model Pigeon M1. Was it time to put the B400 up on Ebay? I checked what they were selling for and the $100 they were getting would not cover the cost of the electrics, what to do? recover the electrics and put the frame on Ebay or in the bin, that was the fate of my T-Rex 450FX.

At this point the B400 had minor upgrades.
HiTec HS65MG collective Servos
Align 420 Tail Servo
Align 780 Gyro
Blade 450 Skids
Blade CF Tail boom (The aluminum ones kept collapsing at the belt inspection port)
Cheap FG Canopy (Got sick of paying for overpriced Blade canopies)

What would be needed to go Flybarless.
FBL Unit I had a spare CopterX unit in my spares that I had previously purchased when they were on special for $29.00

FBL Head Did a quick search on Google found that others had gone B400 FBL previously and used the Tarot head which would fit without modification (wrong) so I purchase the Tarot head $30 including postage.

What modification did I have to make?
Tarot head had 4.5mm ball links and swash had 4.0mm changed the swash to 4.5mm.

Could not fit the Jesus bolt in the Tarot head had to grind 0.5mm off the top of the standard blade main shaft.

Conclusion
Well worth the effort, turned a wall flower Helicopter into one of my favorites again. I had to play with the settings on the FBL unit a bit to calm down the Cyclic response and increase the gain on the tail to stop a bit of tail wag, but no other issues.

Can highly recommend this upgrade.

http://youtu.be/ePtYTrNY7t0

pjdog · Posted: Wed Jan 01, 2014 11:40 am Post subject:

Howdy Admiral:

I've got three fly bared RC 450's. It's been a very long time sense I have had them out. Almost 2 years. But not to long ago I did dust them off and gave them a spin in the driveway. Both AXI's were good to go. The B400 however seemed to have a hard left drift. I scuffed up some first time new woody blades try to fly it. I was upset and loseing the new blades.

They still fly - keep them and play with them. They are not worth enough to sell. If you keep them long enough the will become valueable again like a 55 Chevy Bel-Air with a 265 4-barrel down draft carburetor.

Jack