Friday, January 14, 2011

HK-500GT R/C Helicopter

This week, the parts for my newest helicopter kit came in from Hong Kong.
This is the HobbyKing.com HK-500GT kit.
Note that the body, rotor head and tail rotor units are factory-assembled. This makes the assembly of the kit go much quicker.


Here are the electronic parts needed to make the helicopter flyable. Clockwise from top-left:
ESC - electronic speed control (aka motor control)
Gyro - controls the tail rotor
Receiver
BEC - voltage converter for receiver and servos
Servos - actuate the controls of the heli
Battery - actually, two of them in series are used
Not shown:
Motor
Transmitter


Here is the assembled model.


Other side - more photogenic, don't you think? (It looks like there are two rotors - the black one is the shadow from the flash on top of the camera.)


The kit went together very nicely. It took me 6 or 8 hours, as I was taking my time, measuring stuff, and being careful.
This version is a mixture of CNC (metal) and FRP (fiber reinforced polymer) components. HobbyKing has cheaper and more expensive versions.