I use nose-gear servo on Aux1 channel, which is mixed off CH4 (rudder) with the flight mode switch as a gate for that. eg In Norm it can steer, but not ID1 or ID2.
I go to ID1 right after take-off, which mixes flaperons with elevator (ailerons same directions as elevators, eg all go up, all go down) for improved pitch ability - well I am not sure how much it really improves it. But anyway, I go to ID1 and then gear up. (or ID2 which has higher % flaperons mixed in then).
I would do the steering lock off the gear switch, but I can't program the TX for that in its stock firmware form. So not until I change the TH9X firmware to ER9X or GruvinX, but I haven't modded any of my TXes to be able to flash them yet.

Tomorrow I will power test the 4S and 5S systems (various batteries) to see what is what in my Meteor. It weights dead on 1.4Kg now... I am not sure if that is heavy, or average.

Conduct test with the stock motor.

No load, 3.56A, 12.11 volts, 34,800rpm, RPM/V= 2,881

Installed in Meteor.

4s3300ma. 41.9A, 15.3V, 641 Watts.
4s2650ma, 38.6A, 14.7V, 567 watts.


The Kv is really very low, vs is indicated by the manufacturer.
This is the reason why the motor perform as well with 5s lipo.

People are using it with 5s,
Are using it without any changes?
Or are you putting a External BEC.

Manuel V.

Manuel, I am using it with no changes to the stock setup. Not even an external bec but theyn again I am running an airtronics 2.4 radio that seems as far as I can tell to not be as picky as spectrum voltage wise. I would test yourself range check wise if you run spectrum. It may not be needed but I have started to not advise spectrum users to try what I do so that I dont end up with them coming back and saying, "well you said it was safe" issues.

Jason

Thanks you
Jason.

Manuel V

My Meteor is 100% stock. I use a 3300mah 30c 5s Sky lipo. If I remember correctly it was just about 1100 watts and about 58 amps. I get a solid 5 minutes of flight.

I fly with a Spektrum DX-7 and AR6110E receiver.

I did a 'backyard' test yesterday and my 5S 3000 30C was also running at 1077w @ 58A. (What was that ESC rating???)
4S 3000 40C was 630W !!! So 5S gives a big power CONSUMPTION jump. But how much of that ends up in output power?

In the air, this morning.....
5S is of course faster. Not 1.5X (or 2x) though. It seemed more like just 20% to 30% speed gain. I think more increase is seen in "torque" - pulling power.
The take-off was pretty cool - a 20 metre run (cricket pitch), straight into a vertical climb out for something like 25m or so, seeing I had to fly straight towards a pretty close treeline due to wind direction! Yeeha! (I have done it many times before, but weaker and scarier on 4S).
RCspeedo said runs were between 135kph and 153kph. So it was somewhat consistent enough in speed area (RCspeedo), but who knows if that average readout is actually correct anyway. My visual guesstimation thought it was probably about right.

I wasn't overly impressed with the speed gain, but it was reasonably better than stock. Cruising speed (somewhere near 3/4 throttle) was much like full throttle before. And at the higher RPM it sounds a bit better, with the higher pitch scream, so it moves a bit away from sounding like a 'flyingleaf blower'!!. It struggled even more to "pull up" (weak elevator authority) at the higher speed, so that made its poor pitch ability even more dangerous.

So I will have to advance the priority on the twin MG servo elevator mod.....
But I also have a 360deg Thrust Vectoring nozzle on the way to try out on it, so that might all get done together (and will need the move to MG servo[s] to run that also anyway). Not that I think the Meteor's structure is quite up to "3D mad manouevers" - it seems there would be a few weak points that could protest/break if high stresses from 'weird flight attitudes' were put on them. (tailplane/elevator area?)

I was going to use a separate SBEC, just in case the ESC smoked, but I forgot to do that....
I will do that one night this week. A 70A opto. Which is also as preparation on a near future move to a CS 10 blade rotor to see what comes of that - in power and in sound result. (hopefully arriving this week, and in for tests next weekend).

I don't know how much use a thrust tube would be as the internal design from the fan rearwards is quite good anyway. Maybe just for a narrower exit, smoother path, and thus higher efflux speed? Which would seem possibly to be what it needs to convert some of that extra 'torque' into speed (??).

Oh... and ANOTHER of my 5S became 4S in it today!! It is like the Meteor is killing them! That is now 2 batteries in about 4 flights. It came down medium warm, not hot or puffed at all - after the severe power drop it had and thus a forced landing right away. One cell is just totally dead - just like in the other battery did. No form of 'charge recovery' method does anything, they just don't give out more than about 0.3v now.

Well in my book the 5S jump is really noticeable and most of the people that see it fly on both agree. But that could be due to the sketchy production that is common in china factories as far as one motor being slightly different from the next Kv and wind wise. Its bird that yeah it can fly on 4S but is much better on 5S imho. At my field at least there are few jets or pushers that can keep up or outrun her.

Jason

Have to agree with Jason on this one, even with the huge brick size 5S 4000 mah battery she's got some serious gitty-up with some great vertical performance. It's great to see how well this airframe handles the extra weight and the landings are cake. Next will be retracts as I get the parts in. I'm going to use the air retracts that came out of my Venom F-86.

I run a 5s, 4000mah pack and I have to say the extra weight is a non issue! I get 6-7 min with lots of high power passes - I love this setup!

I use the stock esc but did add a ubec

Topher

Peter, The big thing to remember is edf planes need a huge power increase to get the same type of speed increase. Considering the relatively low power increase you do get a respectable increase in performance. I actually think that the meteors setup is relatively efficient compared to others out there.

Jason

Fresno, I totally agree, the stock fan is pretty darn effiecent and a favorite combo for other jets too. I think it's a great setup for the money!

Something is going on when going from 4S to 5S. Just one cell more, moves a 14.8v to 18.5v system from 620W to 1080W !! A 25% voltage increase, for 75% power consumption increase!
I am not sure if that is good or bad news.
It is good if the output gain is in that proportion also (or at least a large portion of that), because then it means you moved the power system into a more efficent operation area.
But if the output power gain is less than 75%, then you are burning up at least some of that power without gain. It is acceptable to be burning off some of that 75% more power draw, but hopefully not more than 25% of it.

I will have to test the plane for thrust levels, to see what that output power change truly is. I will do that this evening.
I just didn't find it an amazing change in flight. Sure, it is a reasonable amount faster, but the big power number changes didn't seem reflected in that speed gain. And I am pretty sure a large portion of that power is going into 'torque' and not efflux speed (probably 50% or more of it).

Well I am not sure how much EDF experience you have Peter so I am not trying to insult you in any fashion. But in EDF jumps in speed are not always proportional to power increases. Different airframes will give better results with any power increases but again its not proportional.

Today I clocked my Meteor using RCspeedo and from 4S to 5S is about a 10mph jump and about another 5mph jump with my retracts and reduced tailpipe. To me and extra cell that gives me 10 mph is an easy upgrade. So that its also known my 5S pack weighs about 8g more than the 4S packs I was flying on. Also along with the speed gain my vertical has gone from ok to almost unlimited.

There is one thing I can recommend you trying Peter the next time you fly. Reset your throttle curve on 5S to see if it gives you any more oomph. Beleive it or not it might help.

Jason

Jason,

Now there is some very useful information there! Would you mind sharing the details on your thrust tube, maybe post up the template if you've got one? What's the exit diameter? Also, what is this throttle curve that you mentioned? I know these may sound like basic questions and although I've been flying edf's for two years now I'm not familiar with throttle curves and there application only throttle end point calibration and esc timmining settings and so fort?

Well the throttle curve that I mentioned is the throttle end point calibration. I have found in some planes (esc's) that if/when you change cell counts that for what ever reason it helps to re-calibrate the end points.

Now as for the thrust tube I do not have a template but more play it by ear when making them. But here is a video I made at the request of some RCG users back when I first did this to my Meteor.

Jason

Dynam Meteor Thrust Tube Installation. (9 min 45 sec)