Blade CP Billet Main Frame

[Sev Fontaine]

Hi all,
This is my first post in the heli section. I'm quite active in the chat and airplane section.
I recently bought my first heli... a Blade CP.
After a week of hovering at different heights without breaking anything I had my first crash.
The main frame broke where the tail boom and rear of the landing skids attach to. Has anyone had this happen to them?
Anyway... I ordered a replacement from dynamic hobbies but also decided to design, test and if all goes well go to production with a billet aluminum upgrade. This frame will have lots of machined pockets to make it as light as possible while still being stronger than the stock unit.
As soon as I have a prototype part ready and installed (sometime next week)... I'll take pictures.
I was just wondering if there is any interest from people on here?

[Tom Hastie]

Welcome to the club... that is, those of us who have crashed Helicopters!

Sure you can't repair the frame with some thread and CA? I think I've splinted together my landing gear in about a dozen places using that method ;)

But an aluminum frame add on for the blade would be cool. Obviously send pictures. Might be tough to make it as light as the stock plastic though.

Tom

[Sev Fontaine]

I've tried that thread and CA trick and it just broke off right away. The break is on the main frame... not the landing skids.

[Sev Fontaine]

Well... I just got my prototype machined today out of 6061-T6 Aluminum. The main shaft holder has yet to be press fitted onto the main frame but I'll give everyone a peak for now.
It's very nice and shiny but the picture doesn't do it justice.
176
I should assemble my Blade within the next couple of days and i'll post a pic at that time.
Note that if there is enough interest in these.... I may do a small production run.
More specs will be available later.

[Sev Fontaine]

Well after installing my first prototype... I realized the servo mounts were inadequate so I redesigned and had prototype version 2 made. I received it from the machinist a few weeks ago. Since I was really busy finishing my Vector V1 Delta wing project I left the frame aside for a while. I finally got to it a few days ago and here are the pictures.
309310311312
Other mods that I've done are the aluminum swash plate and the super landing gear. It should be noted that my Blade CP AluFrame will work with a stock Blade CP landing gear as well.
Some additional features of this frame are the possibility of mounting a brushless outrunner motor like the cheap Hobby Lobby 400H, the Aurora 400HT, or any other properly sized Axi or Hacker design.
Flight testing of the AluFrame will happen in the next few weeks. Updates will be posted at that time.

[MikeZufelt]

The Blade CP pro comes with an updated frame that fixes a lot of the major issues present on the original CP.

Not quite as nice as what your working on but it is a step in the right direction.

I would think the new boom would slap right onto an old CP. Thankfully they have a new part # to seperate the two.


Mike

[Psikelly]

Thats a sweet looking frame. Whats the weight difference between yours and the stock??
And where did you order your skids from? Ive seen them on HeliDirectand also Superskids but at superskids theyre out of stock until late August I think.

[Sev Fontaine]

There is actually no weight difference. Many of the reinforcements present on the stock plastic piece are not needed on my AluFrame.
I have been flying for many months now with 100% success. Not a single frame failure. And let me just say that there have been some nasty crashes!
:D
I ordered from HeliDirect. As I remember... they came in about a week later.
They are super strong compared to the original landing gear but not unbreakeable. I broke mine in about 3 places. The beauty is that they are much easier to repair. ;)

[Psikelly]

I thought the frames were the same in the CP and CP Pro. On the Horzon webste they only list 1 frame for both. If theres another frame out there Id like to see a pic of it and some info if possible. Do you know a site that lists it?

[Sev Fontaine]

The only difference between the 2 frames is the addition of the rear gyro mount on the CP pro frame. Due to this... the original blade cp frame has probably been discontinued and they just replaced it with the new CP Pro frame.
The great advantage of this is that the gyro mount has significantly reinforced the area arount the tail boom mount which in my opinion was an absolute necessity. I would consider it a factory defect on the original CP.
I broke the original CP frame about 5 times... some were more like rough landings and the frame still broke. That's why I designed a billet aluminum replacement. I was sick of dissassembly/reassembly everytime I had a rough landing.