April 1st, 2009 captain
While flying the Silverlit MX-1 in my lounge in did it’s dropping out of the air trick and landed in some “old man’s beard” Christmas tree decoration. This stuff is like loose cotton wool and tangled itself in the tail rotor.
To remove the fibres I had to pull off the tail rotor, but I wasn’t gripping the motor hard enough and pulled it out of the housing, breaking off the power wires in the process. Inspection of the motor showed that it would not be possible to re-attach the wires.
Finding a New motor
A search around the Internet located a source of replacement motor from http://www.servoshop.co.uk/. They are currently selling for £3.99 plus p&p. I bought two so I would have a spare.
Fitting
The blue and red lead on the MX-1 where pulled out of the motor housing and the ends where scrapped to remove their insulating enamel coating. These leads are multi-stranded and each strand has it’s own coating, so you are never going to remove all of it. You are just looking to remove enough for the solder to bond to.
The new motors come fitted with two short leads, also blue and red, so it seemed logical to match then blue to blue, red to red with the MX-1 wires. The motor was pushed into the housing with it’s wires exiting through the vent holes at the back.
I twisted the MX-1 and motor leads together and applied a drop of solder to form the joint.
A quick test showed the tail rotor was spinning the wrong way, so with solder pump in hand, I removed the solder and rewired the connections blue to red. Small wires and big fingers don’t make for the neatest job ever, but it’s working.
The replacement motor, wiring and solder has added some extra weight to the tail rotor, requiring the addition of some extra BluTak under the nose.
I can’t say if the new motor is an exact replacement for the old one. I feel that I need a little trim than before, but once added, flight performance and handling seems the same.
Posted in Helicopter, Modding, Repair | No Comments »
March 30th, 2009 captain
The MX-1 re-establishes Silverlit’s position as the producer of the world’s smallest remote controlled helicopter. It’s small size enables it to be transported inside the combined controller/charger, creating a portable package that can be left in your bag, allowing for a quick flight when an opportunity arises.
The downside to this miniaturisation, is that the MX-1 is difficult to fly smoothly. It’s probably the least controllable helicopter that Silverlit produces.
Configuration
The MX-1 features the standard main and tail rotor arrangement shared by all the other helicopters we have reviewed so far. The on/off switch is on the starboard side and the charge connector is on the underside between the skids.
As the photos below show, the MX-1 is about 65% the size of the PicooZ.
Controller
To make the controller more transportable it uses sliders rather than sticks. This makes it reminiscent of the Palm-Z’s.
Behind a sliding panel is a storage compartment for the MX-1. This compartment contains the charging cable and with the charging socket on the underside of the MX-1, it allows the helicopter to be charged whilst in storage.
I have been carrying the unit around in my laptop bag now for 9 months now and it has held up really well. The only damage it has received is that some of the silver paint has worn of the corners.
Airspace
The manual recommends a room of about 3m x 5m x 2.5m, free from drafts, bright lights and strong sunshine.
Flying
When it comes to smooth flying the small size of the MX-1 works against you. Small adjustments to the controls have big effects, making it impossible to hover or maintain direction. The challenge of the MX-1 is not steering it around a course, but just keeping it within your flying space.
In the end I was most successful flying the MX-1 by trimming the tail rotor as best I could at an approximate hover and then controlling the direction of turn by climbing and descending. The addition of some Blue-Tak to the nose gave me some forward speed making it easier to stay away from the walls.
Another problem I found with my MX-1 was that it would suddenly drop out of the air. I thought this would probably stop once the battery had been cycled a few times, but it never really went away. In one case the tail rotor got tangled with some fibres, which ultimately caused me to replace the tail motor.
Modding the controller
In help maintain a constant hover I removed the spring from the main rotor slider on the controller. To do this I removed the four screws from the back of the controller and the fifth one from inside the battery compartment.
The two halves can then separated. Make sure you don’t lose the small pieces of felt that cover the switches.
The main rotor has spring to shut down the rotor when the slider is released. You can see it on the right had side below.
After slackening the screw, I unclipped the spring from the slider, rotated it round a bit and re-tightened the screw to hold it still.
Finally the controller was re-assembled and screwed back together. As with this mod on the other controllers, before turning the controller on, check that the main rotor control is pulled right back.
Conclusion
The MX-1 only has one feature that I can recommend it on and that is it’s portability. If you are looking for a second or third helicopter that can live in your bag to fill the odd spare moment then the MX-1 is for you. But you definitely shouldn’t buy this as your first micro helicopter. For that I would still recommend the PicooZ.
Facts and Figures
Whats in the box
- MX-1 helicopter
- Combined infra-red transmitter, storage and charging unit
- Multi-language manual
- Spare tail rotor
You have to supply
- 4 x AA batteries
- Cross-head screwdriver in order to fit them.
Dimensions
- Main rotor diameter: 96 mm
- Fuselage length: 115 mm
- Height: 60 mm
- Weight: 8 grammes
Manufacturers Website
- Silverlit main site
- MX-1 product page – (Link removed due to malware infection of product web page)
Available in the UK From
Posted in 2 ch, Helicopter, Indoor, Review | Comments Off
