Originally Posted by Lardog

So, these #s are for a single motor/ESC then?

Yup, 1 motor and 1 esc.

Originally Posted by Orion Pax

Bringing it down to a 5" pitch by using my already cut HL blades brought the amps down to 47.9 but my watts went up to 487. Still too much for the motor but the esc is what was hot not the motor.

Careful with 48 amps on a 40 amp esc. two things can happen:
1) it will shut down - as in thermal shut down when it gets too hot (not fun on a P-38 twin having one side shut down, even worse if it is your BEC for your rx)
2) it could start on fire.

Motors can usually handle over-propping quite a bit if it is only for shorter bursts.

Originally Posted by kasra

Quick video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnmPbVfekJo

cool!

Originally Posted by PositivelyJoe

Careful with 48 amps on a 40 amp esc. two things can happen:
1) it will shut down - as in thermal shut down when it gets too hot (not fun on a P-38 twin having one side shut down, even worse if it is your BEC for your rx)
2) it could start on fire.

Motors can usually handle over-propping quite a bit if it is only for shorter bursts.

Yeah, that is my current predicament. The esc's can handle 40 amps for 60 sec and 50 for a 10 sec burst. The motors are rated for 440 watts. I just need to get a different prop. I have a MAS 9x7 I am going to try tonight probably.

Originally Posted by kasra

Quick video

Great vid Kasra. The horizontal stab looks like a great mounting spot for the camera. May have to give it a try.

Originally Posted by Art Newland

cool!

Can you take a pic of how you mounted it? cool!

Originally Posted by Orion Pax

Yup, 1 motor and 1 esc.

you know, this sounds like an insane amount of power for this plane.

I fly a BH Mosquito on 300 watts per side...

each to his own of course, I really enjoy my P-38 on stock power.

Well if the plane was all stock I would agree. I am probably going to bring the watts down per side by using a smaller prop. However the power will be needed since it probably wont weigh 29 oz. when I am done.

Hey guys, I just received my BH P-38 and began doing the necessary dry fitting and wiring etc.

During a power test everything appeared to work fine but after a few tries of lowering and raising the gear, the nose gear steering servo began to jitter by itself then got worse to the point it was sounding crunchy.

I powered down then looked around and didnt see anything I thought was out of ordinary and powered it up again - the nose steering servo began to spin inside. I take it the gear is stripped? Anyways its not a big deal just wondering if this plane is steerable with out that servo?

I have a replacement coming in the meantime but I would like to fly it if I can. Also how do you guys tune the servos to quit jittering? Thanks in advance.

Julian

Originally Posted by ~JG27AFRIKA~

Hey guys, I just received my BH P-38 and began doing the necessary dry fitting and wiring etc.

During a power test everything appeared to work fine but after a few tries of lowering and raising the gear, the nose gear steering servo began to jitter by itself then got worse to the point it was sounding crunchy.

I powered down then looked around and didnt see anything I thought was out of ordinary and powered it up again - the nose steering servo began to spin inside. I take it the gear is stripped? Anyways its not a big deal just wondering if this plane is steerable with out that servo?

I have a replacement coming in the meantime but I would like to fly it if I can. Also how do you guys tune the servos to quit jittering? Thanks in advance.



Julian

One of the design flaws with this plane is that while the gear is retracted, the nosegear steering is bound up, so if you try to use the rudders the steering servo has no place to go and puts a lot of strain on the gears in the servo. Looks like the most common fix it to disable nosewheel steering through electronic mixing, that's the route I chose. If your transmitter doesn't support mixing (also have to have an open channel in receiver) some add a small microswitch to the power lead of the steering servo to disable while retracted. My P-38 needed some small tweaks to the lingages to the retracts and adjustments to the transmitters end points.

Art,

The E-Flight retracts fix this problem pretty well.

Hink

Originally Posted by Art Newland

One of the design flaws with this plane is that while the gear is retracted, the nosegear steering is bound up, so if you try to use the rudders the steering servo has no place to go and puts a lot of strain on the gears in the servo. Looks like the most common fix it to disable nosewheel steering through electronic mixing, that's the route I chose. If your transmitter doesn't support mixing (also have to have an open channel in receiver) some add a small microswitch to the power lead of the steering servo to disable while retracted. My P-38 needed some small tweaks to the lingages to the retracts and adjustments to the transmitters end points.

I'm using a spectrum dx6i and will fiddle with the mixer settings, thanks.

Originally Posted by Hink64

Art,

The E-Flight retracts fix this problem pretty well.

Hink

Too bad the fix is almost as expensive as the plane!

I have a set... plan to put them in over the winter. My stock rtracts are still working, but getting beat up, have had to use a little CA on them in places.

Same with mine... after 5 flights.. need to put CA in places (retracts) I also used hot glue on the nose retract area.. (screws came off, I dont know if in-flight or during landing) but 2 of them are gone, only 2 left holding it. Hot glue Fixed that area for now. I dont know for how long it will hold. I have a T28 foamy (PZ) it seems it can take a lot of beating (mine is still pristine condition) I dont know with this P38 how long the foam will last. (maybe more damage just getting to and from the field) Also with the other jet foamys at BH... dont know how durable, how long they last. I came across one person in youtube that his BH planes lasted about 10 flights then things fall apart. I would like for mine to live forever (no crashes)...

I finally got the "replacement" airframe built & it was no bargain. I was sent some sort of prototype with crappy original parts.

The landing gear had additional support wires attached and they were loose so they rotated on their own, had to fix (tried to anyway) with CA, the gear doors had hinges setup so they were hinged closed!!!

I had to peel off the hinges, take them apart and put the hinges in backwards, then re-glue everything back together. Somewhere during the process it crossed my mind to chuck them and see what OP was doing for doors and follow his lead.. Then I discovered they didn't include the little fishing line jigs for closing the doors. Had to recover those from the crashed one.... After much screwing around to mount them, the new problem is the doors wont close all way because the hinges appear to be too stiff!!!!! What a croc... Just cant win.

Any suggestions for gear doors would be welcome at this point I feel like ripping them off and flying naked!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, took it out this morning for the maiden, besides some clicks of left aileron all went well, flew like a dream & I forgot how quickly it took off. It leaps off the ground in 30 feet.

Not much top end but lots of grunt with the stock motors. The Tower pros I used from hobbyking in the last one appear to have more pull and gave me a slightly higher top end... With all the messing around and other projects on the go, I don't have the time or inclination to change them out....