Finally took some time off to build the HK 450 PRO heli (Torque Tube version).  It has been several weeks since I got the kit, but today was the day !

It took about 8 hours (including the time to pull out the electronics from another 450 heli) in total.  Test hovered it outside the house, full forward flight test and moving to mild 3D will be at the field.

Some points to note so far.....

1.  Even though many parts come preassembled, you really have to take it apart and build it back. There is hardly any thread-lock on the screws that go into metal, and zero grease on the thrust bearings. 

2.  To make matters worse, some of the screws in the head are not hex ones, they are regular ones.  There seems to be some threadlock on these non-hex ones, making then difficult to remove.

4.  The non-hex screws are easy to strip, so be careful when you build them.

5.  Even though I had many parts, I wanted to see what the default setup will do, so full flights and more testing will be done then.  Not sure if the supplied blades can in handle pitch pump movements, anyways will try them out.

Anwar, its really bad to know that the screws in the head are not Hex! Seriously!

As you pointed out the regular philip screws really strip easily on my V2. Infact, I have decided I will never use those screws for the second time after a crash.

But really cant complain at that price! You wont even get an Align head for that price of the Entire HK PRO TT heli. But still what you pay is what you get. BTW with good electronics of your previous heli, hope this flies well.

BTW dont forget to make a video of your 3D flight. Waiting for it  .

What pinion and Head speeds? Also was there vibrations in the tail. I read that many users are experiencing this.

Can you post some more pics of the wiring?

About the screws on the head, most of them are hex.  But the few that are not, are all problematic.

Flew on the field this morning.  Have some video, but it was a very hazy day, not sure how the footage will look like.  Will post later.

For 3D I ran a straight 100s curve on a 13T pinion.  Need to confirm the head-speed.

Some video in the post below (HK 450 Pro action starting at 1:25)

http://www.rcindia.org/chatter-zone/what-rc-activity-did-you-do-this-week/msg19704/#msg19704

Flew as good as your 600. is it not?

Depends on what "good" is !   If you ask me, I would say "Not really".  That is a different class. You will realize when you fly one

Ya true, I just judged from the video. I havent even seen a 600 size fly in front of my eyes.

Got mine today, Post woman called me up and said - the box is too big, can you collect it? Went to the Post office and collected it. The box was declared at 58 USD. No customs.  Reached me in 10 days FLAT after booking. Havent opned the box yet. Will post pics once I reach home.

I wont be opening a separate build threads as the products are same.

Electronics:

Henge 933 cyclics.
Futaba gy401 or Spartan Quark
S9257 tail.
Turnigy nanotechs 90 c battery.
Either Super brain or Castle Ice 75 lite if it reaches me first. Will run on governor for sure.
2836 700 Watts 3700 kv turnigy monster motor  on 12/13 t

replacements:
Align feathering shaft - rest would be stock.
TIG 325 MM Carbon fiber blades from HC.

Hola! Tell Auntie to prepare some snacks for me.. I would be dropping at your place today to see this beauty and pick my other stuff.

Mom went to native today, so bad luck for u  BTW, if u want, I have ur stuff at office, in case u want to collect. If you want to come to my place, land by 830 PM.

Can I use the Align original Umbrella gears and tail shaft here? I was about to order some spares from align so...

Umbrella gears ?  If you mean torque tube gears, then yes.  The torque tube is also compatible.

Ya, ordering umbrella gears and TTubes. Dont know if HK quality supports high HS.

Some more pics and issues:

1)Main gear unfixable! No matter what I played with the 1 way bearing  >

2)Replaced with V2 gear. This is why u need spares  

3)450 tt Motor mount wont take standard HK screws   Had to file it.

4)JASON SAYS - Our helis are built with TIGHT TOLERANCES. It looks like the head had a little OVER TIGHT TOLERANCE!    Anwar bayya, dont know how u fixed this but I had to remove the trust bearing for the screws to be a tight fit, THAT TOO With the Align orginal collar which is thinner than the HK ones. Other wise it was clicking.

FIX - Just used more blue loctite and tightened the screw till the Feathering shaft rotated. Did the same thing on the other end. I ofcourse put the T bearing back  

UPDATE: The trust bearings had hex screws and not Philips as Anwar received.

HK 450 V2 vs PRO

1)The head size are almost the same regardless of the extra size feathering shaft of the PRO. I dont understand why people say pro flies better!  

The shaft of the pro is longer but the grips are shorter making it finally small. The only + point is that since the links are larger on the Pro head, we can get 2 degree more pitch on either side.

2)My Custom lazer text for the Heli.  

Did not have any issues with the feathering shaft for me.  I always tighten them together from both sides with everything in place, and check for both horizontal play (should be close to none) and vertical play (you may get a couple of degrees because of the rubber dampers, that is how they should work).

Widening the motor mount holes is a common problem.  Had to do it with the Scorpion motors on the Align originals too.  Can't remember if I had to do it on the HK TT Pro.

My feather-shaft also had hex screws, it was the see-saw arms that had the non-hex.

For the original Align ones, the Pro and V2 differ in how wide the horizontal portion of the head is, which reduces slop (especially after the dampers weaken a bit).  There was a change in the damper material also, from what I can remember.  The extra pitch range also helps, if you are that kind of flier.

Not only with the PRO even with the MT, I had to change the collar size so that the bearings dont click. But in the pro tt changing the collars also did not help.

Check the 4th post here

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1125617&page=190

I will fix the esc where u have placed, its really big though. Hope it does not alter the CG at 65 Grams weight.

 I have put the RX inside the heli. If I have to unplug something then I have to remove the tailservo mount  

But I really dont want to mount the RX on the outside as a crash may destroy it. Planning to put 2 servo extensions for programming the quark/ice in case required.

Learnt governor mode. Just realized that there was some thing other than plush and plush was not everything  .

Set the heli at governor mode using Set RPM mode.

Normal: 0 throttle to initialize ESC
Hold: Enabled auto rotation at bail out speed of 14
Mode 1: 2500 RPM - to take off, normal flying.
Mode 2: 2800 RPM - 3D - If i can do something  

The super soft start mode is amazing. At value of 1, it takes 40 seconds to spool up, lol. All the above things set with holding motor in hand.

One can experience what all Castle ESC offers. Download the following software.

http://www.castlecreations.com/downloads.html

Start it. On one of the tabs, select castle ICE series and select demo mode.

I have a doubt.

People speak about crazy head speeds of 3600 rpm and all. But thats at 0 pitch and any speeds at 0 pitch absolutely makes no difference!

But what I have noted is that even the mighty motor like a turnigy 2836 3700 (AFAIK the second most powerfull motor next to one of the scorpains) boggs down to 2600 rpm at 12T pinion and -12 degree static test.

So my question would be how would a head speed of 3600 RPM help? Does it gain more momemtum at 0 degree and deliver the energy at -12? Is that why people love crazy head speeds?

Also I have noted one thing, that is:

on a turnigy 2215 motor. on 11 T pinion it gives 2550 rpm at -8 degree static test consuming 21 amp and on 12 T pinion it gave 2450 RPM at -8 degree consuming 27 to 28 Amps. So my observation is quite opposite to why people like crazy head speed.  

Hmm, your head-speed went down with the bigger pinion ?

Head speed bleeds off with higher pitch, that is a basic fact.  That is why you never stay at extreme pitch ranges for too long, you use them to do "popping" stops ! Every time you do a pitch pump, you bleed off some head-speed, and if you start off with higher speeds, you do not bleed off as much, allowing you to do certain maneuvers much better.  For example, the number of tic-tocs you can do in a given amount of time is directly proportional to the head-speed.  That is why people like higher head-speeds.

I haven't done tic tocs, so I dont know, but from my experiance, I saw an amazing climb rate and low power consumption with a smaller pinion. So should I go for a smaller or a bigger pinion?

OK, I will try flying the 450 v2(12t at 100 percent flat TC)  and pro(2800 Governor mode) side by side, see which one feels right.

You want the following...

1.  Best head-speed

2.  But it should be safe for your blade and blade grips

3.  Higher head-speeds reduces flight duration

Optimize for (or take into consideration) all 3 above factors, and that is what you want !

I have spent 2.5 hrs looking for a place to mount the ESC  . Its too big to sit under the batt tray. So side is the only obvious option.

Looks like U have put a black zip tie exactly where the motor is on the ESC. How did u manage? Any closeup photo?

Dont bother to take any snaps. found a way to mount it. 

And one more thing... any given motor/pinion/ESC setup will have a sweet spot in terms of head-speed.  If you try to go over (trying larger and larger pinions), you actually end up with LESS performance (ie head speed) than what is the best possible with that motor.  That is probably why you are seeing better performance with a smaller pinion.

No anwar bhai. as i said, iam dealing with the second most powerfull motor if run on 3s (first being scorpian) and its probably the most powefull motor at 4s for a 450 heli.

People are running 13 T on it. crazy headspeads! but what i noted was at the edges (+/- 12 degrees) the HS was more on the smaller pinion.

So I would like to summarize the following:

1)As you said there should be a balance of motor power to pinion.
2)So if one has to do a lot of 3D, the a crazy HS is required as the blades gain more momentum at 0 degrees and supply the power to the 3D manuvers for a short burst, but the heli cant sustain the HS at the extreme pitches.
3)If the pinion is small(so that it generates more HS at the extreme compared to its bigger pinions) then the heli moves fast but not good for 3D/fast Tic tocs etc. But more flight times.

Iam going to 11T pinion. and try it out. since I have another heli with the same motor and bigger pinion. I will compare to it. And stick to the one that suits my flying style/capability.

BTW guys, dont keep the heli near the table edge when building it. I was lucky this time and nothing broke 

pls use Mr. Mel's head speed calculator.. gives a great idea on the required HS, close to perfect
http://heli.dacsa.net/CalculatorV2/

Got it ! It was the edges that you were focusing on... I had missed that part. And as you said, the smaller pinion would help the motor drive the head faster at the high pitch ranges (if one were to keep the head running at those ranges, instead of just popping in and out).

I use this: Dark horse.

http://dhrc.rchomepage.com/calc.htm

One word of caution.  I was doing some rebuild on it, and two screws broke without applying much pressure at all.  Sort of scary of a 3D heli like this.  I would suggest that anyone doing any pitch pumping on this to upgrade the screws, especially the long slender ones (the ones of the main shaft and the ones holding the tail case on to the boom).

Correct, one of the other member of this forum, broke the tail boom screw. A screw from the align frame hardware bag is what i use. Breaking a jesus bolt is like ruining the heli. Ask me how i know 

How do you know ? 

In my case, the last few threads are lodged inside the tail case, and it would be really hard to get it out unless I find some really small drill bit.  The hole is like less than 2mm.  Might as well get another tail case !

Well once the main gear jesus bolt broke and I had to melt, YES , melt the main tail gear to remove it.

And second time the upper jesus bolt broke as i didnt know how much anabond to use. I had to literally hammer out the screw. In most cases considering the price of the parts, its better not waste time on drilling them  and loosing patience.

But considering that broken jesus bolt means the whole heli is struck unlike the tail screw. So getting the frame hardware bag for 10 $ is worth it.