Trex 500 Rc Helicopter Flying Review

Trex 500 rc helicopter flying Review

I chose to fit the 13 tooth pinion on the 500L motor and also to use 9650 servos all-round including tail servo of the trex 500 rc helicopter. The gyro is a CSM 720 and I set the BEC on the speed controller to 6V. I also turned off governor mode as this normally induces tail wag on the Align range of speed controllers (this was later proven to be the case).

The following Trex 500 r helicopter flight assessment is based on flying several different packs of differing sizes and voltages. Firstly and as expected the T-Rex 500 rc helicopter flies much more like the T-Rex 600 rc helicopter than its smaller brother the T-Rex 450 rc helicopter. It is very stable in the hover and copes with the wind far better than the T-Rex 450. Head speed is around 2600 rpm when utilising the 13 tooth pinion and a 6S pack. I have also flown 5S utilising a 16 tooth pinion which gave a slightly higher head speed.

Moving out of the hover the T-Rex 500 rc helicopter is again very stable and tracks very nicely in flight. The motor supplied with this model is surprisingly powerful and all but the most hardcore of 3-D flyers should be happy with the performance it delivers. It certainly has enough power to perform Big Ben's and any of the other more power orientated manoeuvres without dropping lots of head speed.

However, you do need to use the correct pack in order to get the best out of the motor. In testing we have used packs ranging from 2100 mAh through to 4200 mAh in 6S configuration. Packs down at the 2100/2200 level give a lower head speed and a less powerful performance. They also run hot and from a balance perspective give a tail heavy model. Packs around 3000/3200 level give a balanced helicopter and also a very good head speed and flight time. The packs also do not run hot. The pack we tried at 4200 size gave the best head speed of all, the coolest running but also felt heavy in the air. This pack size was also nose heavy. The best compromise of power, head speed, weight and helicopter balance is around the 3000 mAh level in our opinion.

This is also where we ran into some problems as the most ideal pack size seems to have some problems in fitting inside the canopy of the trex 500 rc helicopter. The 6S 3200 pack that we have been using only just fits but it does go in. Your trex 500 rc helicopter need a small modification to the location of the canopy mounting posts resolves this.

Moving on into more complex 3-D flying and our own experience was that the trex 500 rc helicopter mini servo on the tail started to show the limit of its capabilities. When we swapped this for a standard tail servo the tail became much more locked in and very similar to the tail response on a 50 sized model. Pushing the model harder we found no lack of capability, this is an extremely agile and capable rc helicopter which can fly the entire book when it comes to 3-D manoeuvres. In many respects it is the perfect size for a 3-D practice machine both in terms of flight characteristics and the cost of spares should you be unfortunate enough to crash.

It was flying 3-D that we had our first problem when the model crashed due to what appeared to be a lockout or reset of the spektrum receiver. Having done a significant amount of research into this crash we believe that the trex 500 rc helicopter speed controller internal BEC is not providing adequate voltage but more investigation is required in order to come to conclusive proof as to exactly what is happening to cause this failure. In the interim I have converted my machine to run on a separate BEC rather than have another failure. It should be noted that of the two models we have for flight testing only one of them has suffered this issue.

Aside from this one issue we have not had any other failures on the rc helicopter of any kind.

This unfortunately does not mean that all is well. Right from the initial flights we felt that the damping was too soft and in fact the dampers are wearing out very quickly in aggressive 3-D. Trevor in testing his T-Rex 500 rc helicopter also managed to destroy the thrust races in his rotor head due to this overly soft damping. We believe the T-Rex 500 rc helicopter requires the same modification as the T-Rex 600 rc helicopter had for its dampers in order to resolve this. We have improvised this solution by wrapping the center of the feathering spindle with electrical tape in order to make an emulation of the T-Rex 600 rc helicopter modification. And this has worked very well in hardening the damping and improving the damper lifetime.
Pros
Inexpensive for what you get
Good quality considering the price
Looks fantastic
Extremely easy to build, with an excellent manual
Excellent power on the 500L motor
Flies like a T-Rex 600 rc helicopter, very 3D capable
Very strong and rigid frames
Appropriate lithium polymer packs are not too expensive for this model
Can run on two T-Rex 450 rc helicopter packs in series
Many different pack configurations are possible
ESC BEC switchable between 5V and 6V


Cons

Soft plastic used for the frame components
Damping is too soft
ESC governor causes tail wag
ESC BEC is suspected of causing a spektrum rx reset due to low voltage
Not a huge amount of room in the canopy for bigger packs
Servo geometry
Canopy has to be trimmed to miss servo push rods
Canopy retaining clip is too wide and causes the canopy to crack
Tail heavy when utilising two T-Rex 450 rc helicopter packs
Really needs a standard tail servo to get the best out of the tail system

Trex 500 RC Helicopter Flying Conclusion

Overall the T-Rex 500 rc helicopter is an extremely capable 3-D rc helicopter. It has very good power to weight ratio and also a very light disc loading. This makes it very agile but also capable of handling a variety of different pack sizes. The increase in size from the T-Rex 450 rc helicopter makes it much more stable than its smaller brother and its extra size makes it both easy to see and easier for 3D rc helicopter flying. It is not too big to park fly and the packs for it are not overly expensive. Add to this that it is quite possible to achieve flights of seven minutes or more of 3-D. The kit is of a good build quality apart from some of the plastics used and most of the items that you would normally look to upgrade have already been supplied as upgraded. The build itself is very logical and the model draws from already proven designs in the T-Rex 450 rc helicopter and T-Rex 600 rc helicopter. So, what do you think about T-Rex 500 radio controlled helicopter