Heli-Max AXE EZ battery Question

[donaldhm]

The Heli-Max AXE EZ coaxial helicopter, uses the Electrofly 7.4v 2 cell series battery. The copter was getting a good 8 to 10 minute flight time on both batteries that I have for it. After the last flight both batteries were fully charged and put away. Two days latter, I went to fly, and I only get 2 minutes of full power for climbing etc and then for about 5 minutes, all i can get out of the batteries is about a six inch hover. Seems funny that this could happen to both batteries at the same time. Hoping somebody out there has a few ideas of what might have gone wrong and how to correct it. Also, one of the batteries after use, has a slight mushy feel to it and is hot, but still within Li-PO heat ranges (120F). The other battery gets just as warm, but still has a solid feel to it. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

[Mike100877]

Sounds weird. Do you balance them when you charge? I would'nt try charging the mushy one any more.

[donaldhm]

They are just the two cells in series and they are charged only with the ac wall charger supplied by Heli-Max. I wrote to them as well, and they feel that the batteries might have been over discharged. They agree with what you said about not using the battery that has the mushy feel. The other battery can still be used, but I will get very short flight times from it. Oh well, I guess thats a lesson learned.

[donaldhm]

OK folks, a new update. Replaced the battery and still the same problem occurs with flight time. Next the local hobby shop suggested that maybe the motors both basically died at the same time. Guess what? Replaced the motors and still have the same problem. The only other thing I can possibly think that could be going wrong, would be the 3 in 1 board. Tower wants $60 odd bucks for it. It has come to the point that there is more invested in this little machine than if I had just bought a new one. It also sounds to me like the people at HOBBY SERVICES that handle Heli-Max don't seem to care about their customers, because they won't offer any help at all. If anybody at all has any possible opinions on this problem, please post a response. I'm at a total loss of what else to try.

Thanks in advance for any help that might be offered.

[BABY HUEY]

Hello, I had a problem with my axe ez also and it was that one of the motors was going bad.
First it lost power like you discribed and then it died completely!
I fixed it by upgrading to the 180 motors for the Vortech, what a difference!
It is like I thought it would be when I bought it,flies great!
I hope this helps, I don't know if your problem is the same but helidirect has the motors if you want to try it.

[donaldhm]

Thanks for the advice about the motors Baby Huey, but the hobby shop here let me borrow their mixing board from their display model and the problem is definitely in the board. With their help as well, Heli-max is sending me a replacement board so I hope this will resolve the flight time problem.

\you mentioned a different motor. When you did that, did it effect your over all flight time, or was it about the same as when the Heli was new?

[BABY HUEY]

Flight time seems to be better actually, but I never got to time it before I started to have problems.
I had a simmilar problem with my sabre fp. The stock motor was so weak that it couldn't even draw down the battery so I transplanted the 400 brush motor out of my 36 and it worked beautifully!

Also I almost forgot to mention that although the vortech motors work extremely well THEY ARE NOT A DROP IN REPLACEMENT!
Sorry if this causes anyone a problem because you have to change pinions around and there are some minor clearence issues