Heli-Max HMXE0834, 1SQ SLT 2.4GHz Quadcopter RTF

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Product Description

Heli-Max 1SQ SLT 2.4GHz Quadcopter RTF. #HMXE0834

 

Notes:

 

Features

• Rady-To-Fly
• 3-Axis Gyro Stabilized
• Can fly indoors or outdoors in light wind
• Contains everything to need to get in the air!

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Customer Reviews

Most helpful customer reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful.
Very powerful, fast and highly responsive multi-copter for the price
By Ryan Hulse
There has traditionally been a wide gap between expensive "hobbyist" remote control (RC) flying equipment and inexpensive consumer RC toys. The little RC helicopters you see in many department stores have a lot of limitations. Your level of control is limited, which means you can't make it go where you want and do what you want. They use infrared communications, which requires a completely unobstructed line of sight and has a very limited range. They are not very powerful or fast, and are often quite fragile. ...And you can forget using it outside if there is any wind. On the other extreme, hobbyist RC planes, helicopters and radios costs 100s and 100s of dollars. For some time I've been looking for the perfect compromise: Not too expensive but fun to fly. My wife got me this Heli-Max 1SQ for Christmas and boy, I haven't played with a new toy on Christmas morning this much since I got a Jetfire Transformer in 1986. It's very powerful, fast, and highly responsive, yet not hard to control with some practice.

There are many things I love about this multi-copter: The 1SQ offers a full range of control and is very responsive. If you want to point the 1SQ a particular direction it goes exactly the direction you point it; there is no sluggishness. The RTF version I got comes with a 2.4Ghz 4-channel radio controller. You can fly indoors and outdoors without worrying about a light wind or losing the signal. It is very rugged too. I've crashed at least once on every flight (around 10 so far) without any damage.
The only negative I can find is that due to how powerful this multi-copter is, the battery charge only lasts around 5 minutes and it takes up to an hour to charge off a USB connection. I've ordered a few more batteries to extend my flying time.

In my first 10 flights I've picked up some useful tips to pass along:
- The radio offers two levels of sensitivity. The lower sensitivity makes it easier to fly for beginners and easier to fly indoors. Read the instructions carefully, especially about how to set sensitivity and switch between modes. The user manual labels a picture with how to switch between modes and then describes in text how to set sensitivity. It is easy to erroneously conflate these two concepts the way they've presented them. The transmitter has two sensitivity levels. You switch between high and low by pressing in and releasing the right gimbal (thumbstick). The oval in the LCD screen is half-full for lower sensitivity and entirely full for higher sensitivity.
- You can also adjust the sensitivity level in a way that affects both high and low mode. Do this by first setting the throttle to zero, pressing AND HOLDING the right gimbal, and then increasing the throttle to between 30 and 40 and then releasing the right gimbal. 40 is high, and 30 is low. It comes set to 38 by default. I set mine down to 30 for flying indoors on the low mode. What this actually sets is the sensitivity of high mode. Low sensitivity is always 75% of high mode. Low mode sensitivity cannot be set independently.
- The most important tip to avoid damaging your 1SQ is to CUT THE THROTTLE BEFORE YOU HIT SOMETHING. Mine has landed on brick from 8ft high without damage, but the key is to make sure the rotors are not spinning when they impact something. Also, running into a person or animal with the rotors spinning could really injure someone.
- If you hear a clicking or notice that one of the rotors doesn't want to spin as freely, push up on the motor from the bottom. Some upside-down crashes can push the rotor and motor down a bit and create friction. Just push up from the bottom to seat the motor higher where it's supposed to be.

I wouldn't recommend the 1SQ for small children that have never flown RC devices before. The 1SQ, even on lower sensitivity, requires a delicate touch to pilot compared to other more toy-like RC helicopters I've flown. It flies smoothly in a very predictable manner with a lot of performance on tap, making it great for beginners that don't want to get bored quickly with something that "doesn't do much".

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
Great starter quad!
By Bob R.
I picked this up at a local hobby shop, but was so impressed I decided to write a review on Amazon. I've been flying a Blade MCX2 for over a year, and this kicks it's butt. The gyro in this is impressive. I can't fly my MCX2 in the living room with the ceiling fan on, too much breeze. The 1 SQ doesn't even notice the breeze, I can't wait to fly it outside now. Of courses crashes are expected while learning to fly a quad. This thing would be hard to break from my experience so far. My living room has a vaulted ceiling about 12 feet high. My 1 SQ has fallen from 10 feet onto my hardwood floor numerous times without a scratch.

Pick up an extra battery or two, they're less than $7. Flight time is only 6 or 7 minutes so you'll need them to keep flying.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
Excellent toy copter
By V. Hall
Durable, agile, very stable, easy to setup, ready to fly out of the box, very cheap, very capable both indoor and outdoor in moderate or low wind.

This may not be a best first toy helicopter. You have control over the fairly traditional helicopter flight model controls: rudder, collective, and cylic. First time buyers may want to stick with a toy with a more basic flight model. Don't expect to pick this thing up and fly pirouettes around your grandmother's head in the first few flights unless you really want to be disowned.

However, it does have a great 3D gyro and it keeps the copter very heading stable. If you just hover with collective and cyclic, the nose does a very good job of staying on the same heading, for instance. Rudder controls yield a clean stop-to-heading when input is removed as well. Very quick and crisp controls.

I do think there are limits, ex. I do not believe the motors can spin backwards to simulate negative collective pitch, so this copter will not hover upside down. I could be wrong, and maybe there is some secret mode, and perhaps it is possible to "throw" it over and do a temporary roll, but a quick assessment of the electronics looks like current flow can only flow in one direction to the motors.

Very excellent power and agility. If you punch it straight up from a standstill I imagine it would hit an indoor ceiling in less than 2 seconds, maybe 1 second. It SCOOTS. It will spin (rudder) 360 very quickly with just the standard sensivity of 38. You can really hear the motors spin on input or gyro correction.

First few flights took a lot of practice and I'm still learning how to control all three inputs at once for controlled flight, but the ability to knock the senstivity down (read your instructions!) is great. I set it down to the suggested level 30 and it is great in doors.

I've done little testing outdoors, but for such a tiny, lightweight, and cheap helicopter it handles it like a champ. Most of my research also shows it has very good outdoor handling. Other copters this size generally do not fair as well.

Protip: pick up at least one extra charger and at least two extra batteries. Flight time is 5-10 minutes. Charging takes at least 20, sometimes more depending on your charger. Use a 2.1 amp USB charger if you have one (like a cell phone or tablet charger). One battery in the copter, two or three charging and you can almost keep the thing in flight constantly besides battery changes.

One las trick, the motors seem to love to try to slide out the bottom after crashing. Push up on them so the rotors aren't touching the body. Ironically, the gyro is so good that you can have one rotor almost completely stuck and it will still fly, albeit noticeably hampered.

As another review stated, make sure to kill power before you crash and this thing seems almost indestructible. I've run mine into all sorts of things with nothing but a small crack in the cover piece, and a few tiny nicks in the blades (for which the gyros correct anyway).

Only big downside is it has virtually no carrying capacity. You'll be challenged to fit any sort of camera on this thing. You'd be lucky for it to pick up just the camera mount. You'll probably need something bigger to fit a special low weight camera, and something bigger yet if you want to strap your GoPro or even a compact consumer digicam on it. I have not formally tested its lifting capacity, but I'd be surprised if it were more than a dozen grams or so (2-3 nickels).

Absolute A+ product. An absolute blast. Versatile. Cheap. Durable.