T-Rex 600 - A review of 'most' of the bling

This review will cover the majority of the available upgrades for the T-Rex 600. I have deliberately left out one upgrade. This is the metal blade grips and I will cover these in a separate review.
Reviewing a number of upgrades in one single document is an unusual move for T-Rex Tuning but I felt that it was the most appropriate way of dealing with the current crop of upgrades available for the T-Rex 600. Pictured below are the upgrade items featured in this review.

I will also list them here:

Metal Tail pitch slider
Metal Washout arms
Metal Mixer arms
Metal Elevator lever
Metal Aileron lever
Metal Tail drive gear assembly
Metal Tail rotor shaft assembly

 

 

There are seven different upgrades in this review and therefore I will process each of these individually to assess the build quality and generally discuss the aims of each individual upgrade. I will leave the conclusion and flight testing until the end of the review where all of the upgrades will be assessed together.

Tail pitch slider

The upgrade tail pitch slider is directly based upon the original tail pitch slider. The only difference between this upgrade pitch slider and the original one is that the main slider body is now constructed from aluminium rather than plastic. The rest of the slider is identical to the stock slider, it has the same bushing and the same linkage connections for attaching onto the tail blade grips. The slider is very nicely constructed but in reality is virtually no different to the original stock item. The aluminium main body may offer slightly more strength and durability in the event of a crash but aside from this I can't see that just replacing the main body of the slider with aluminium will actually make any difference in flight.

 

 

Metal Washout Arms

The metal washout arms are a direct replacement for the stock plastic arms supplied in the kit. They are identical to the stock item apart from the fact that they are fashioned from aluminium rather than plastic. The arms are a gunmetal green to match the head block supplied in the kit. The upgrade washout arms contain the same bearings as the stock parts and they are fitted to the washout base using the same screws. There is no difference in the size or pivot angles on these upgrade arms.

Given that these are an identical part but just made out of aluminium I am not expecting any changes in the flying characteristics as a result of this change. I am expecting that these upgrade parts may have better durability in the event of a crash than the stock plastic parts that they replace.

Care should be taken to loctite the ball link balls onto the washout arm. I found that mine did not come with any loctite as supplied.

 

 

Metal Mixer Arms

The metal mixer arms are identical to the washout arms in that they are a direct copy and replacement for the stock plastic parts that they replace. Therefore my expectation with regard to flight characteristics is exactly the same as the washout arms. The upgrade arms are fitted with exactly the same bearings as the stock part. Additionally the upgrade arms do not have differing pivot angles or lengths and therefore will behave exactly the same as the stock parts. As with the washout arms these metal mixer arms may well have a better crash resilience and the plastic parts that they replace.

Again these arms should be checked to make sure that loctite was applied when fitting the balls onto the mixer arms.

 

 

Metal Elevator Lever

The metal elevator lever is also an identical replacement for the stock plastic part. It is unlikely to have any noticeable effect on flight characteristics. As with the other upgrade parts it may well have a better crash durability. Again I would caution that the balls are checked to make sure that they have had loctite applied.

As with most of the other upgrades in this review the metal elevator lever is supplied in gunmetal green.

This part can be fitted without taking the main frames apart. All that is required is to remove one of the aileron levers and then pull the shaft out horizontally. The old elevator lever should then be removed and replaced with the upgraded metal part. Don't forget to undo the grub screw on the plastic elevator lever before trying to slide it off the shaft.

 

 

Metal Aileron Lever

The metal aileron levers are designed to directly replace the stock plastic parts that perform the same function. Unlike the other upgrade elements in this review the aileron levers are actually slightly different to the stock plastic part. This difference is in the length of the hub that the screw goes through to secure the aileron lever to the main frames. The upgrade arms appear to be slightly shorter in length and this creates a gap between the aileron lever and the main frames. Aside from this the metal aileron lever is identical in size and its pivoting point to the stock part. Once again I am not expecting any improvement in flight characteristics as a result of installing this upgrade. In fact my expectation is that there may well be a deterioration in flight performance as the metal aileron levers do not fit as well as the stock plastic parts. After fitting the upgrade parts there was lateral play on the shaft at the aileron levers bolt onto. I will need to install some washers in order to take up this excess movement in the control system.

In common with the other upgrade parts the aileron levers are also finished in gunmetal green. Additionally the balls on this upgrade part should be checked for loctite to make sure that they do not come undone.

 

 

Metal Tail Drive Gear Assembly

The metal tail drive gear assembly updates the existing stock part by replacing the pulley for the tail belt. The upgrade assembly as a CNC machined gear for driving the tail belt, whereas the stock part as a plastic gear.

I was interested when disassembling the tail boom to look at how worn the stock parts have become. The T-Rex 600 has around 60 flights logged on it and I was expecting to see some signs of wear and tear as a result of those flights. Upon removing the old tail drive gear assembly I could see that neither plastic gear had any sign of significant wear and tear.

Removing the old gear and replacing with the new is a simple case of removing the tail boom assembly from the back of the main frames. Once this has been removed the screws holding the tail boom assembly together can be undone. Once these are loose the tail boom clamps can be pried apart and the drive gear assembly removed. The upgrade part is a one for one swap and identical to the stock part apart from the metal pulley that the belt goes around. When replacing the drive gear assembly take care not to twist the belt. It can be quite difficult to see if the belt is twisted down the boom and therefore much better to take care and swap the drive gear assembly over quite quickly. Once located into place all the screws can be tightened, belt tension checked and the tail boom clamped back into the main frames. This part does not come with any bearings and just slots into the existing bearings vacated by the stock part.

The only element to take great care with is the twist in the belt and the belt tension. Make sure you double check that the belt only has a half twist in it after installing the drive gear assembly.

 

 

 

Metal Tail Rotor Shaft Assembly

Once again this is an identical part to the stock part except that the gear is metal rather than plastic. I also checked the stock plastic gear for wear and tear and found none (after the same 60 flights as above). Fitting this part is a simple case of unbolting the tail gearbox, removing the tail rotor hub and then sliding the old shaft out and the new one in. The whole thing can then be bolted up again and the tail rotor hub secured onto the newly installed shaft.

As with the tail drive gear assembly above the machined gears on these parts are very nicely done with no sharp edges. Belt wear should not suffer much as a result of installing either of these upgraded gear parts.

 

 

Overall Build Conclusions

All of the parts installed as part of this review are very nicely machined and finished. Installing these upgrade parts was not a complicated process. With the exception of the metal aileron levers all of the upgrade parts were a perfect fit and replacement for the stock part. The metal aileron levers for some reason do not fit as well and some washers were required to take the slop out of the control system.

Nearly all of these upgrade parts are identical to the stock part that they are replacing. They are the same size and utilise the same quality of bearings.

Each of these parts does have some advantage over the stock part that they replace, however, for the most part this is just extra strength or durability in a crash rather than adding an element of improved performance or function on the helicopter itself.

Align have made the original (stock) T-Rex 600 extremely good, therefore the requirement for upgrade metal parts is not necessary from a performance point of view. This is in stark contrast to the T-Rex 450 where the upgrade parts replaced plastic parts which did not function as smoothly. Looking at this purely from a functionality and flight performance point of view I can't see that any of these parts will make any difference at all to the flight characteristics of the T-Rex 600. Each of these parts will clearly be stronger than the plastic part it is replacing and this does add an element of justification for installing them onto the machine. However, the stock plastic parts are actually quite resilient and I'm not sure that this argument comes anywhere close to justifying the cost of these upgrades.

Flight Testing

Unfortunately there is very little to say with regard to flight testing. Having now had several flights with all of these upgrade parts installed I cannot actually tell any difference between the flight characteristics of the T-Rex 600 with the upgrades versus without them. This is very much as I expected.

I purposely grouped all of these particular upgrades together as my expectation was that they would not offer a performance improvement. Notably the metal blade grips are missing from this review and will be covered in a separate review all of their own for this very reason.

 

Final Conclusion

There are only two reasons I can fathom for purchasing any of the upgrades detailed within this review.

The first is that the purchaser has noticed that when they crash they break a particular part and therefore would like to replace it with a stronger version to save on that cost in future. Personally I have not crashed the T-Rex 600 as yet and therefore cannot attest to the crash durability of any of the stock parts that these upgrades replace. However, all of the plastic parts are really quite strong and my personal feeling is that an impact hard enough to break a plastic part would likely also damage the metal upgrade as well.

The second is that the purchaser wants to 'bling' their heli. We all like a bit of bling and as long as the purchaser is well aware that their machine isn't going to fly any better having installed the upgrade part then all well and good.

Aside from this all of the parts except for the aileron levers fit perfectly and are of very nice quality. It's a pity that they only come in a gunmetal green as for those wanting to buy these parts from a 'bling' point of view they really don't stand out much at all and you have to look closely to notice that the stock plastic parts have been replaced by bling metal ones.

Overall - nice build quality upgrades but really rather pointless from a flight performance point of view.