Spektrum AR6335 AS3X Nanolite Receiver

The tiny AR6335 receiver/flybarless controller.

This device is simply amazing, and confusing, at first.  It's one half of the brains on this helicopter, and it's unbelievably small.  It's a 6 channel DSMX/DSM2 receiver.  It's also the flybarless controller - which is where the confusion begins.

The AR6335 is actually a fixed-wing receiver and controller, and if you buy one separately that's exactly what you get.  But for the 180 CFX the manufacturer reprograms this device to be a flybarless helicopter receiver and controller. If you buy a new one separately with the intent to use it on a helicopter then you must also reprogram it with a programming cable, a servo connector adapter, and the firmware for the 180 CFX from the Spektrum website.

Spektrum USB Programming Cable (SPMA3065)

Spektrum Standard Male Servo to Female Ultra-Micro Servo Adapter Cable (SPMAJST1UL)

Not much is documented about it's configuration as a flybarless controller except for the "Blade 180 CFX Advanced Settings" document available on the BladeHelis website.  In fact, everything on Spektrum's, BladeHelis' and Horizon's websites regarding this module is for the fixed-wing version only.  It's important to know that there is nothing more to be 'enabled' on the flybarless controller version.  AS3X is already enabled and functioning, as is all of the pitch, roll and yaw compensation, cyclic-collective pitch mixing, pirouette compensation, etc.  You can, however, adjust various cyclic and tail gain settings as well as servo center locations (similar to 'subtrim' but in the AR6335, not in the transmitter).  Instructions on how to do this are in the Advanced Settings document.

Blade did mention however, that there is 'anti-tip-over' functionality built into the firmware that is enabled when the throttle value is between 25 and 30.  This is to support take-offs and landings in "Normal" mode when using the recommended transmitter setup in the user's manual.  Flight performance is affected somewhat negatively so once the heli is off the ground Blade recommends switching to the other flight modes where anti-tip-over is disabled.  In order to take advantage of this the heli's ESC must be in Set RPM mode, which is it's stock configuration.  More on this later ...

The tail gyro gain adjustment is still mapped to channel 5, so you can adjust the tail gain from your transmitter like you would for those dedicated tail gyros on older helicopters with flybars.  But the gain values range from 0 to 100 (not 0 to 49 for rate mode, or 51 to 100 for heading hold mode).  There is no rate mode here, only heading hold.  The default value recommended by Blade for a DX6i is 50, but I found that to be too 'loose'.  I now have mine set at 95 and the tail holds great just like my old Futaba GY401s :)

The DX6i's Gyro menu (channel 5) controls the tail gyro gain.

Early releases of the Blade 180 CFX had some tail wag issues that were fixed by a firmware update for the flybarless controller.  Other than that there's no reason (at the time of this writing) to re-program an AR6335 that's already configured correctly as a Blade 180 CFX flybarless controller.