hi

thanks H2So4 n msev for the helpful replies. what do you suggest what should be the ideal configuration for the glider if i want to get good vertical flight with it
I am planning to buy only the kit and would like to assemble it with my choice of HW.

any suggestions for the ideal HW which can be used to give it a good thrust so it climb vertically and with good speed too.

whats your opinion about the battery choices. I have seen different motors at HK which company do you suggest and for ESC i was thinking of turnig as it would be easy to programme with the turnigy card

Sky hawk.
Just about ready to fly 2836 and 10/6 prop.Is this prop to much the motor or esc

Originally Posted by GBazz

Sky hawk.
Just about ready to fly 2836 and 10/6 prop.Is this prop to much the motor or esc

The 2836 motor ( https://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...idProduct=8139 ) is rated @ 300watts , so as long as you stay under the 300watts @ WOT , you should be OK ..
With a 40amp ESC and a 3amp UBEC fitted running a 9x6 prop on 2200mAh Li-Po, I'm getting around 290watts @ WOT...

If you have not got a watt meter , buy one...
https://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...dProduct=10080

Sean

FOR PHOENIX THREAD
-----------------

PHOENIX STOCK ESC LETS LIPO BATTERY GET TOO LOW?
(You all have my permission to skip this post if you like - else you might die of boredom!!)

This might not make too much sense as I'm tired, sick (think I got heatstroke or something at the field today, it was a HOT Spring day here) and erm, I possibly had few too many recovery beers when I got home! But here goes...

Just for reference, the Phoenix is running on:
- Battery: Turnigy (Blue) 2450mAh 2S 30-40C
- Propeller: Stock 10x6 Prop and Spinner
- Motor: Stock Blue 28-15 1050Kv
- ESC: Stock ESC (are they rated 30-40 Amp?)
- HK Orange 6ch RX Spektrum clone without satellite
- Turnigy 3A (5A max) BEC
- 4 x HXT900 and 2 x Turnigy TYG90s MG (on flaps) servos

After getting home from flying, the 2450mAh battery in the Phoenix took a 2255mAh (73 minutes) at 1C charge back into it, so that makes me think the ESC might be letting it run down too damned low, though it did balance nicely right back up to 4.19/4.20. I didn't think to look at what the volts were before starting the charge though.

I'm am concerned that the ESC let it run a little low, even though the plane has a BEC, if the battery gets too low even the BEC is not going to save it (unless of course the BEC was hooked a separate RX battery pack), so I might be lucky that RX didn't brown out. (HK Orange RX Spektrum clone)

As I'm typing it's reminded to check the motor/prop because it was sometimes making strange noises, the best I can describe is that it sounded like something was out of balance and vibrating a little too much just after restart after an extended glide or kinda sounded like a bearing was about to fail. But it tended clear up after a few seconds of run - Perhaps it was overheating and kinda 'trying' to seize up?

After the flight which lasted 31 mins, going by the time elapsed on the KeyCam, with motor running about:
- 5 minutes at WOT
- 5 minutes at 1/2 throttle
- 20 minutes power off gliding
That was a long enough single flight for today as neck was starting hurt and I was starting feel ill.

Of course I could always sit through and study the video for how long I was on the power and what the power settings were, but to hell with 31 minutes of that boring stuff.

This message started out as PM to my flying buddy, but I thought I'd bore all of you as well by posting it here for FYI, don't know if it will help anyone wondering the stock ESC and if anyone could help, Hence...

I DO HAVE a question out of all that: Is anyone running the stock ESC and found it lets lipo discharge too far before killing/shutting-off the motor to save power for RX to continue for a hopefully safe landing???

I guess I could try and see if the ESC is programmable on Turngy, Turborix or a few other Programmer Cards I've got, to set the 'Cut Off Voltage'/'Power Protect', but I doubt it would have that function or work on any of my cards. And forget stick programming, the only thing I can my head around on doing it that way is, 'ESC Throttle End Points' and 'Brake On/Off'!!

You'd think they would be able design ALL ESC's to be programmable and compatible with the one type of card or SOMETHING easier than that damned stick method.

OK crazy useless post finished, Whew - Back to bed me thinks!

B!LL!

hi
do we need to programme TURNIGY Plush 40amp Speed Controller if i use it with turnigy 35-30 or 2836-2350 motor

Originally Posted by Fugitive_Bill

Is anyone running the stock ESC and found it lets lipo discharge too far before killing/shutting-off the motor to save power for RX to continue for a hopefully safe landing???

Hope you feel better soon Bill, and I'm quite envious that you managed to get out for a bit of flying

Something that I've read on the forums here - LVCs are unreliable with many modern batteries.

In the past, while LiPo technology was less mature, the discharge graphs of most batteries used to look like gradual downward slopes. When the LVC circuitry first detected a drop to 3.3V or whatever its limit was set at, the battery still had plenty of juice left, and further voltage dropoff would continue to be relatively gradual for a while.

Nowadays, with improvements in battery chemistry, LiPo discharge curves look more like a plateau with a cliff-like drop at the end. In other words, by the time the LVC sees 3.3V, the battery is practically empty, or it will be within the next few seconds.

On some programmable ESCs it's possible to move the LVC voltage significantly higher, but then you're failing to utilise a fair percentage of the battery's capacity. It is very difficult to pinpoint that compromise voltage where the dropoff is starting to get significant, but there's still 20% left in the battery.

I've tried a Quanum telemetry unit in my Phoenix, but it suffers from similar issues. Its low-voltage alarms either sound too frequently if the threshold is set high, or it's a case of fine, fine, fine, ... oh ! It's still better than the LVC though, especially on a plane like the Phoenix where a timer is almost pointless because the amount of motor use is governed by conditions.

Originally Posted by Fugitive_Bill

You'd think they would be able design ALL ESC's to be programmable and compatible with the one type of card or SOMETHING easier than that damned stick method.

Plus it's necessary to store and sometimes carry around all the various instruction leaflets which decode the unique dot/dash beep patterns for all of the different ESCs in our planes... painful, I agree

Originally Posted by Fugitive_Bill

the 2450mAh battery in the Phoenix took a 2255mAh (73 minutes) at 1C charge back into it, so that makes me think the ESC might be letting it run down too damned low,

Bill,

I believe that what happened to you may be totally normal, but have no evidence to disregard that your ESC is incorrectly programmed for 2s as it should. The reasoning is that the ESC is supposed to cut the engine when the voltage falls to 3.3V per cell, but in all batteries that I'm aware of there is not an exact relationship between the voltage and how depleted the battery is, because it's also influenced by the load on the battery, in our case how much throttle we are applying at that moment. When on full throttle the influence of the load on the voltage is at the max, and voltage drops more than with less throttle. If you only applied medium or less throttle near the end of the battery that means that the battery had a small load and therefore it can supply more energy before hitting 3.3V. This is the same reason why when you check the voltage of a depleted battery without load, its no where near 3.3v, but around 3.7. I suppose this is not harmful to the battery but I could be wrong. I have squeezed almost 2000mAh out of a 1800mAh this way, but I really try to avoid it.

I'm glad you shared this, take care.

Originally Posted by shkimran

hi
do we need to programme TURNIGY Plush 40amp Speed Controller if i use it with turnigy 35-30 or 2836-2350 motor

While most of the defaults are fine, you might want to think about two changes:

1) Raising the LVC as high as it'll go on that Plush ESC, to avoid issues of the sort that Bill just described. From memory the upper limit on the ESC is 3.3V.

2) Experimenting with the "brake" function until it's just strong enough to cause the prop to fold back in level flight when there's no throttle applied.

I've taken the liberty of answering the other questions which you PM-ed me out here. That way you'll get many more people who know more than I do looking at your queries:

can you tell me where can i get the spare spinner and propellor for this glider.

I have looked at HK but 45 * 4 spinner on HK does not have a good feed back so where else can i buy a good quality

Yes, HK almost appears to be giving up on the folding prop business. It's been months since they've had new stock.

If you wanted prime quality you'd arguably need to go with a spinner/prop combo costing $50 or more (check out www.electricwingman.com), but for a HK-grade equivalent www.leaderhobby.com may have what you're looking for.

what servos i should choose I am looking for some thing different than xt900 as it is plastic and i was thinking of smthng metal gear

HXT900 servos actually have fairly beefy gears for the "9gm plastic" category. I'm yet to strip any of the 6 in my Phoenix. If your Tx has the ability to "slow" flaps deployment, that should reduce what is probably the biggest shock that the Phoenix is capable of inflicting on its servos.

If you do want metal gears, Bill mentioned Turnigy TYG90s MGs.

I put my pheonix together tonight every thing worked fine and went together well no issues so far
the only thing that I noticed is there are no vent exit holes and the cheek vents are too small .so I cut two holes aft and widened the cheek vents and added one more vent above the motor .this most likely why others have burnt up the escs and motors.and I do not see it melting the fire wall as mine is insulated by plywood and has a metal ring on the front outside the fire wall ,we shall see this weekend

Just taken delivery of my Phoenix 2000. Will use a KD A22L-20L 25A KV1000 motor from Giantcod http://www.giantcod.co.uk/a22l20l-kv...otor-p-49.html with this 45mm alloy spinner http://www.giantcod.co.uk/45mm-30mm-...-p-404696.html with Graupner Cam 10x6 folder. I didn't realise that this was the same size as the standard prop which I also didn't realise was included in the kit version. However, I would imagine the Graupner will be more efficient.
I've bought a couple of the Gens Ace 1800 20c 3 cells as they seem to be a well respected make and the price was right http://www.giantcod.co.uk/gens-1800m...-p-406463.html. I will run without flaps at first but I will use a 5 amp UBEC is I add the extra servos
I plan to use a circle of carbon fibre between the motor and plastic fuse. It's a little thinner than the ply circle included with the kit. Will this be a satisfactory alternative?
Any thoughts on my plans would be appreciated.
Andy

Hi killer vtwin and headlessagain! I too have just finished putting together my Phoenix, and have also added extra nose scoops (plastic spoons!) and 2 vents just aft of the wing. I'm hoping to get a sort of venturi effect but don't know if they'll work 'til I maiden it! I bought most of my parts from Giantcod (lovely place, Perranporth!), even shipping to Spain they were quicker than anybody else! I bought the same spinner as headlessagain, and am also using the supplied folding blades, but am running the NTM 35-30 1100kv/380w motor, mounted on XYH 35-XX mount (that I cut down to fit ) with a plywood/bakelite/metal firewall sandwich. I've installed a Pentium 40amp ESC and as I want to use the flaps, a Hobbywing 3amp UBEC, all bought again from Gaintcod. Got one more visiting friend to entertain before I can get out flying, in the meantime I'm giving the Phoenix a coat of paint on the wings to make it more visible against our blue skies! We do most of our soaring from the top of a hill just inland from Mojacar; very nice for launching, but a bit of a bugger for landing, rocks and very spiky shrubs everywhere!

very cool philosan it should be a great weekend weather wise here in alabama i will write about the maiden .Its been my experience that most of the stock equipment will be up to the task .but sometimes you have to help it out some especialy with vents.

Well folks i got off work early today and was able to go to the field and maiden the pheonix .I flew it with a 2200 3s about 15 minutes no problems then I thew in a 1300 3s and flew about 15 minutes then I threw another 2200 3s and flew about 25 minutes.it thermaled better with the 1300 and the 1st 2200 i landed early cuz the prop catches the edge of the canopy and sticks so watch for that .it never got very hot on the esc and the motor and the batts were only slightly warm .I did not give much time between batteries .I just climb and glide she flies like a glider what else is there to say

philosan
glad to hear that you also get great service from Rob's team at Giantcod. I sometimes receive my goods before I get the confirmation email! Good luck with the maiden. Video?
Re adding scoops and glueing in firewall ,what glue sticks well to the plastic fuse?
Andy

Headlessagain! Hi Andy! Yes, great service from Giantcod, and they usually have stuff in stock, unlike a couple of big suppliers I could name! If not, their restock estimate is pretty good as well!
For the scoops I used the glue that came with my "first" electric plane (I last flew anything in the late 60's, up on Epsom Downs!) a Starmax Cessna! It's a bit like the old Evostick (sniff, mmm - that brings back.....nope, forgotten!) only almost clear, so presumably it's the solvents that make it stick so well! Shame I've only got a squeeze left! For the firewall I used Araldite, how well it sticks I wont know 'til tomorrow!
I was hoping to maiden the Phoenix then at an abandoned football field, as it's covered in softish sand (not a lot of grass out here!) 'til I get the trim/balance sorted, but the weather forecast is a 47% chance of rain, so maybe not! Then I have another visitor for a few days, so maybe the end of next week....!?! Will try for pics if I remember the camera!

Killervtwin! I'm starting with an 1800 3s, and keeping a 2200 3s in reserve; how was the balance with your batteries? Did it make a lot of difference?
Phil