How time flies.

I'm wrenching my old Swift 550 back together again for the first time in 8 years.

I disassembled all of my larger helis for the move from Okinawa to Oklahoma back in 2012. I moved again in early 2018 to Italy, not far from Venice. Setting up shop takes time. I've missed the thrill of flying for far too long. Time to knock the dust off, slowly charge/balance some lipos, oil the bearings and swing some blades in the name of defying gravity.

I'm deployed to Iraq for a few months flying on a C-130 doing communication relay duty for convoys, so I'm on a bit of a hiatus from the hobby. I brought along my Blade mSR to keep from getting totally rusty.

A friend of mine was telling me how cool it is having a 3s lipo to power his Spektrum DX7 since the pack would run for a month and beyond and leaving it on overnight without having to recharge. I was very tempted to do the same. Then I remember seeing this on page G-26 of the x9303 manual:

"5. Q: Can I use a 3-cell Li-Po pack in my transmitter?

A: No. All current JR and Spektrum transmitters are designed to operate using a 9.6-volt transmitter pack. A fully charged 3-cell Li-Po pack puts out 12.6 volts. This higher voltage can overload the power-regulating transistor causing damage and or failure, possibly in flight. Many of our customers have experienced failures using 3-cell Li-Po packs and their use in JR and Spektrum transmitters is highly advised against."

The x9303 isn't exactly free, and I would rather tolerate the inconvenience of the stock battery vs void my warranty. I wasn't exactly having any problems with the oem nimh pack other than it made the it necessary to run a nimh capable charger or use the included wall wart charger overnight- bleh.

So a couple of my friends and I are doing a shelf-check at the LHS and noticed this A123 Tx pack from Eagle Racing. I figured I'd give it a try at about the cool price of $50. I soldered a mini-deans connector on it, and did a balance charge. When I first powered on the Tx, voltage was reported at 10.1v. After flying all afternoon yesterday, 10.0v.

I think I like it

Eco 8 rebuild thread