Hey guys I wanted to do a little review on two products I found on Ali express recently, I bought them both and I am pretty pleased with the quality. My experience with buying products from china are hit or miss as far as quality goes, these two I am pleased to say are a hit for me. The first is the "GPS Mount" Sure you could use it for that but I found they are prefect for mounting to your center plate and your boom and act as a near perfect boom alignment tool. You also have to buy some "Small accessory mounts", they come in packs of 4, you need one for ever boom. I suppose they will save you a little time when you have to re build your copter after traveling. The second part is a landing gear extender that has a small RC truck shock on it, Ive seen people talk about this part but never really heard anyone say if they liked it or not. When you receive the landing gear extenders, the shocks do not have any fluid in them. I tried using some 100 shock fluid from Losi and found its a little to stiff for the weight of a GH3 on my gimbals, so changed the fluid to a 20 shock fluid from losi and for the weight of my copters set up, its working pretty good. Now you do not have to use fluid but it helps the shocks work they are suppose to. The springs are pretty tight as they come from the factory and seem to work OK. These extenders add about 3inches in height to your gimbal and wont really help out much in a total loss of power crash taken directly to the legs but those rougher landings are definitely where these extenders shine. I will say they cause a little bit of a sway when the copter is on the ground. I don't see any real problem with that other than it feels a little weird going from the rock solid standard landing gear. As for the quality of the components that these extenders are made, top notch, I cant see there being any better quality carbon fiber. The one thing that kinda pissed me off was that they did not include the longer screws you need to be able to mount these to the cinestar landing gear. Kinda think that would be a good thing to include, but if you have a M3 screws around they will do. Or you can order some really good quality screws form the same place for really cheap. I bought an entire extra screw pack for my cinestar from these guys for about 12$, Ill include all the links below. Hope this helps anyone who has seen these and were concerned about quality issues or if they even worked. http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/CS060-GPS-holder-bracket/109347_1134977811.html http://www.aliexpress.com/store/pro...ear-afford-3kgs-weight/109347_1095292838.html http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/CS046-small-accessory-mount-B/109347_904972623.html http://www.aliexpress.com/store/pro...d-head-screw-12pcs-pack/109347_860311853.html
I was hoping I was the only one that was going to happen to, If you email them they will send you their paypal address and they will get you taken care of that way. Thats the way I had to do it because I got the same message about shipping.
Yeah it seems like its just the extended landing gear that it has an issue with. Everything else added and purchased just fine.
I personally don't have a scale sensitive enough to weigh them, the site says the package weight is 3.31Lbs so thats a rough estimate but they aren't that heavy
Fastenal is US based and has branches all thru North America...... And they sell all nuts and bolts etc. that the Cinestar6, 8 and HL require , i.e., metric sizes at very competitive prices..... no more waiting for parts from 1/2 way around the world. http://www.fastenal.com/web/home
Yes I buy Cinestar replacement and add-on parts from AliExpress and Famous Hobby Shop China and am totally impressed with the quality.... price is good too and waiting for delivery is not so bad if one plans well in advance.
Also http://fastener-express.com and http://boltdepot.com are good places for metric bolts at good prices. Andy
I saw these recently ... might be able to tweak them make for a quick removal of booms. http://dragonplate.com/mobile/product.asp?pID=5190&cID=169
Those boom aligning plates are genius....i feel stupid for not thinking of something like that sooner. Don't think i'd like the landing gear shocks though. Careful you don't level your gyros while one is depressed to far or you might have some issues
Casey, I seem to recall you telling that me the motors can also drift out of alignment on the boom too -- so even if you get the boom properly re-aligned, if the motor's clamps have drifted then the center of thrust will be squiffy (technical term, Brit speak, misaligned). I think I prefer checking the prop blade tips on adjacent motors and then taking off, hovering at eye-level and checking the blade "disks" are all level. But that's just me.... Andy.
I found that out recently, I was getting some weird twitching and fond that the hub clamps started to loosen I thought enough purple stuff on them. On that note I was relining the motors and was thinking that maybe a laser level might be an answer to getting a good way level a motor. My thought is that if I ran a laser level on the side of the motor mounts and rotated the mount until the laser is perfect parallel to the pillars of the hub clamp in theory the motors should be perfectly aligned to the axis of frame hub. I put a bubble level on every corner of the hub until they all are centered then I use your technique with a bubble glued a motor shaft bolt. I can get them pretty good on the first try, but every once in a while I will find one propeller still higher then an adjacent one. It seems as if you move a motor mount fractions of a degree is enough to significantly be noticeable. That clamp is awesome, it would be neat if there was one like it that could extend all the way from the motor mount, that would relieve a lot of alignment woes and guessing as well as keeping the motor mounts from slipping in flight. Just a thought Shaun
Get the copter balanced like you would for an ACC calibration. Use an app like the level from the iPhone or a bubble level on the side of the motor bell to check vertical balance. Quick and easy. Final check is that the prop tips align. Have the attitude that everything will slip over time and do it as part of your regular maintenance cycle.
The I phone app sounds interesting. My cheap disc levels that I bought from harbor freight my not be the most precise instrument, although they to do the acceleromter well. But typically the method you mentioned once they are close I eyeball a few that look off and get them dialed in. What I have been doing is setting those disc levels on four corners of the hub plate until they all are aligned if there is error in the accuracy it will be off a little off. I brake down the copter every 50 flights and do a MX once over, clean dust off the electronics check for frey wires, and any loose solder joints etc, as well as motor alignment and then button it back together and do a MX check flight. It would be nice to have something quick in the field other than eyeballing it, which I will do if something looks gross out of whack.
For the same reasons that TX is transmitter, RX is a receiver, and WX is weather. Back in the Dim Times it was easier to type via Telex, send my morse, jeez....are you starting to believe this stuff? Andy.