The devil mainblade has caught my attention. I love the switch blades ... but 60 bucks a crash...ouch. Considering I used to get align 360 blades for like 19 dollars each. They were no where near as good as halos/switch but if i was going through a crash spree, it did not hurt as much.

 

The Devil is now available in Switzerland too. I didnt thought that this will happen.

G380 kit: 389.- Swiss Franks
D380 kit: 289.- Swiss Franks

So you spend 100.- Sfr less on an 1000.- Sfr (fully loaded) heli and therefore you got no Goblin.. I peronally wouldnt do that even if the Devil is the same quality. Im in love with the yellow/blue design of the G380!

Cheers and happy new year!

 

smakmeharder,

I was about to say I could send you a set of the ALZRC blades but see you live in Australia.

 

Looking at the previous postings here I'd most probably get flamed for this but what the hell, here goes... Ha I cheaped out and bought this cloned Devil. For the price of the combo plus free shipped to my doorstep within 1.5 weeks, it was too good to pass. Not gonna be building it fast coz still waiting on the cloned servos and cloned yellow bar . Just went through the whole kit making sure there was no missing items and stripped screw holes, overall it was pretty nicely built but here're some of the stuff I like and hate about it.
First off, no complaints about the canopy...colour I like and some impressive graphics and painting here. Really awesome in person and in the sun.

I got the standard combo that comes with the motor and esc, so it's a 1000kv 6s motor nothing special about it but nice visually nice windings, nice bearings and nice bell. Also comes with a rebranded Alzrc HW platinum pro V4 60A esc. And it's good that it comes with all the motor and esc connectors, XT60 on the batt and 4mm bullets on the motor.

No bearing play in the swash and great looking tail sliders.

Going through the stuff, this was when the first thing went wrong...it was missing a set of swash to head ball links. There was just 2 in the bag when I needed 4 to complete the links. Measured the swash balls and seem they're just slightly bigger than the Align ones I've on hand. Just slightly loose, it could work ok but I might probably just swap the links from the tail over and do everything Align on the tail. No idea what those shims are for, maybe for adjusting head dampeners?

There was some comments in other forums doubting that the main plate was CNCed but I can see the cnc milling marks but they've anodized or painted it over. And there're also chamfers on the edges and the finish is very nice indeed.

Also like the aluminium servo holders, some might say it's unnessary added weight but for most won't even notice. Very nice and tight fit in the main plate and a fully shouldered 2.5mm bolt to hold it in place.
And now for the worse thing about this kit, off all the things when the cloned the G380 they opted to not clone the G380 single shafted tail hub and instead went with the old tech tail with the solid hub. Even though Alzrc came out with the bigger tail blade grips that would accept tail blades with 500 sized roots, they crapped out and stayed with 3mm thrust bearings and a small 2mm bolt at the end. When I went over mine I was shocked to see what looks like they cut the hub ends off with a crude Dremel grinder. Not sure what happened here but definetely not something you'd see new in the box. I tried tightening down the blade grips and lucklily nothings binding and no slop in the bearings.

And lastly the blades came with lousy paint job, carbon fibre blades and probably works ok but need to put them on the balance and see if they're out by much.

 

I'd rather read or look at heli stuff than the other stuff if you know what I mean.

Let us know how those blades balance out.

 

Blemishes are difficult to see at several thousand rpm. Keep em moving and nobody will notice.

 

Well lots here hate clone stuff in general but this comes with some pretty nice cnc parts. The carbon frames are top grade too, very rigid 1.6mm thick n no burr cuts. Maybe this would make good replacement parts for some G380 flyers.

 

I am not so sure of hatred, I think the clone stuff definitely has its place and is good for the hobby. Each clone has to be taken on its merits. Some are awesome and personally i encourage people to talk about and use clones. Its good for the hobby and i think its also good for the original manufacturers (because usually parts from the original heli is swapped in). Its also dam interesting to see how things are swapped around and made better!

We need clones and they can offer exceptional value for newcomers. Sure there is the principle issue but putting that aside, i think as mentioned above it actually helps the original manufacturer long term. So more power to the clones!

 

It only becomes a problem when clone advocates go too far and start bad-mouthing the brand-name stuff. ...... as we have seen before.

 

Yes but Heligods implemented an "IGNORE" feature to fix this problem. If you dont like posts from a particular person, you just have to click ignore then all posts from that person are hidden!. It rarely happens of course but now if someone is offended, they only have to click ignore. Problem solved!

 

Until all Chinese manufacturers combine all their skill and brain power to form one single genuine concept, and then go manufacturer the design using quality cnc machines (that are not Chinese made) to good tolerance with good materials - until then we are left with sh1tty clones eating into the income of innovative heli manufacturers....

 

+1 if we can make our heli community stick together and grow bigger than the multirotors or plank community, that would be awesome to have.

The local rc club here use to have some heli pilots, now they are all gone. Just multi's and planks which is kind of sad. This is happening every where.

To top it off my local hobby shop which sells some heli stuff is owned and run by a plank pilot. He told me heli pilots are weird people.

I'm not going to name any names, but this is sad. I'm waiting for ZenRC to hopefully open up shop one day. So that I don't have to go to this local hobbyshop

From what I've seen from plank pilots, they don't care if you fly a plank clone, or a plank that you made your own, as long as you are not flying a heli, then that's good enough for them. May be we need to do the same??? Don't worry what pilots fly or use, as long as it is a heli.

We need to grow

 

Anyways back to topic.

How did those blades balance out?

 

.....coombayah.....
Yeah, I didn't necessarily want to start out with a clone, but that was the only way I could get it done at the time, or I'd still be stuck flying a NanoCPx. Eventually I'll be able to invest in a Mini Protos or something similar and use all high-end components.
I'll agree that clones take away from the "name brands", but they also allow a starting point for those who can't go out and drop $1500 on a pro-level Heli..... let alone putting one in the dirt because of inexperienced thumbs.

As for Heli pilots being weird..... I resemble that remark.

 

I admit as well to being weird @Beaver! Either that or the rest of the world is weird and i am normal . Sorry to stray off topic. I had two clones when starting. Today i only buy original - mainly because cheaper stuff breaks and I believe i could make most clones break as well with a descent power plant behind it. When i started I did not even realize the clones were clones! thats how naive i was. But helis will hopefully survive the storm and pickup some dis-enchanted drone pilots who want more from flying. Time will tell!

 

Still not tried balancing them yet, will get it done maybe tonight. And the dreaded orange coloured tail blades too, yuckkk!

 

There are a few blades to pick from now. Top level blades are pricy - around 50-60 but there are some zeals (which i have not tried) which are significantly cheaper. Do you have a blade balancer?

 

Yea i try to balance all my blades, buying cheapos require me to do that. I balance my tails as well to reduce ad much vibes as possible. I do have a balancer, those magnetic type.

 

Do you use the tail idler? is it a must to prevent tail belt from slapping in the boom? Did not get one in the kit. The G380 manual says to have the tail belt 'very tight' but will this cause it to wear out faster?

 

I cant vouch for the devil380 but the goblin380 tail belt survived 500ish hard smak flights while being very tight. I use the tail idler to prevent the belt from flipping off the maingear pulley just incase. The belts on the 380 are expensive but dam they last (if you dont crash)....