Microheli Precision T-Rex 450 Tail Pitch Slider
Written by Ashley Davis Thursday, 24 March 2005 00:00
Pitch SliderThe following is a review of the MicroHeli Precision Tail Pitch Slider
The first part of this review will center around the build quality of the Precision Tail Pitch Slider.
Initially some good close up photos of the slider with some comparison shots to give you a feel for the CNC quality and differences in build to the stock unit.
As usual with MicroHeli upgrade parts the unit is very nicely engineered and has a feeling of quality about it. Things of note are that the overall bearing is larger on the MicroHeli unit, however, the units overall width is exactly the same such that no length of throw is lost in the control system. The blue plastic mounting plate is thinner than the Align stock unit, which I'll come onto later. The whole thing is solidly built and a perfect fit on the tail rotor shaft.
Assembly of the unit requires just screwing on the ball links that connect to the tail grips. The screws are the standard Align supplied screws which go through the blue plastic and into the short length ball link. The ball links should be tightened down to get rid of any unwanted movement but not so tight that they cannot rotate freely.
At this point I hit a minor problem. Due to the blue plastic mounting plate being thinner it allows more of the screw thread to go into the hub of the ball link. In screwing the ball links down to the correct length the screw comes through the ball link and protrudes into the space where the ball would normally sit. Either the blue plastic mounting plate needs to be thicker, preventing the problem, or smaller screws should be supplied and used. As neither of those options was available I chose to grind the screws down by a couple of mm using a Dremel sanding disc. This done I could screw down the ball links without fear of damaging them.
Once this has been done the whole unit can be installed.
Some pictures of the finished install ....
I noticed some minor stiffness in the pitch slider movement at around zero degrees pitch on the tail blades. Loosening the ball link screws very slightly resolved this issue.
In flight the unit performs as expected. I couldn't feel any noticeable difference in tail control from installing this upgrade. This is not the point I believe for this upgrade. The stock unit can crack and is not as good a fit on the tail shaft. The bushing cracking on the stock unit could lead to a tail rotor failure, this unit suffers no such metal fatigue issues (although to be fair it needs a long term test to prove this) and is far more solidly built than the stock unit. I believe this part adds some longevity to the tail control system as well as peace of mind over tail control failure. In use the unit is slop free and very precise with little or no twisting of the unit on its bushing, the stock unit does suffer from some twisting and this may be contributory factor to the aforementioned cracking in the bushing bushing.
Overall Conclusion
As usual a very nice piece of quality engineering and less likely to suffer (if at all) from the cracking of the bushing seen on the stock unit. This should add longevity to the tail control system as well as being a bit more robust and offering peace of mind that a failure won't imminently occur. Performance of the tail unit feels relatively unchanged by the upgrade and similar control movement throws to the stock setup are achievable. The only negative aspect being the need to modify (shorten slightly) the tail pitch slider ball link screws to stop them protruding into the ball link space normally occupied by the ball.
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