Got it in the air

[wilinfla]

I had asked in an earlier thread about using a 6s, 3000mah, 30c battery in my Ultra Stik 60, I flew it today and it worked very well. I am using an E-flite 90 and a Castle 120HV ESC. This combination provided more than enough thrust and plenty of flight time. I could take off in 5 feet with full flaps and climb straight up with no problem. I flew for 6 minutes on 2 different battery packs. The download after the flights showed a max current of 26.6 with max watts of 530 with an average throttle use of 30% power. It only took 650mah to recharge the pack to full capacity after the flight. I am new to electrics, what is the desired low limit for discharge? I think with my flying style I should be able to get flight times of over 10 minutes with this combination quite easily. I am really starting to like electric power.

[xmech2k]

Hi Wilinfla. I'm still trying to fully understand these electrons myself, so whatever I say here, take with a grain of salt, and wait for someone who IS an expert to chime in!

It sounds like you can go a lot longer if you only put 650mah back into the batt. I think I've read that you can safely go to 80% of the mah, which would come out to 2400mah! Myself, I go by the post-flight voltage, which should be about 3.8v per cell. I must admit I really haven't paid too much attention to how many mah I put back into my batts. I'll have to start doing that.

Awesome plane! How big is it? I would have expected with that big of a motor, you'd be pulling more amps, but I guess that has something to do with the 6s batt. I still have to fully get that one, too.

[wilinfla]

Thanks, it's a Hangar 9 Ultra Stik 60 with a wing span of 66 inches and weighs about 6.5 lbs. I wish that it was still available because it is a blast to fly and the flaps add to the fun. With full flaps and a little wind it will almost hover! I don't fly it fast so I think with power management I should get some good flight times with it. It is overpowered, but that's okay, I can always throttle back.

Will

[JetPlaneFlyer]

personally i dont pay too much attantion to the amp-hours i put back in. this is not always a reliable measure of how much capacity ramains because not all 3000mAh batteries actually will take a full 3000mAh.

I (and most people) just check voltage after flying. The guidance limit is not to regularly go below 3.7V per cell (22.2V for 6s) measured after you take the battery out of the plane. This means you should be leaving about 20% in the battery which should ensure good life.

Just gradually increase flight time until you are approaching 3.7v per cell. You can buy dirt cheap little voltage checkers that will give you a quick indication of battery voltage:


Look for 'LiPo Voltage checker' on eBay and you will find lots of them. The type with the alarm you can also fly with and use as a low voltage warning.

[road king 97]

Electric power is great but just remember it can take fingers off just as fast or even faster than a nitro or gas motor. Always take your prop off while programing your radio and be carefull around the prop at all times. http://buyradiocontrolledplanes.com/...products-6970/When you get to bigger motors like yours i use these .Nice conversion and it sounds like alot of fun. joe

[wilinfla]

Thanks for the advice, I appreciate it. Hopefully we can get some decent weather and I can get it out for some more flights soon.

Will

[road king 97]

Originally Posted by wilinfla

Thanks for the advice, I appreciate it. Hopefully we can get some decent weather and I can get it out for some more flights soon.

Will

Me too its in the lower 30's today ,windy and snowed a little bit. I might as well just keep building till spring.lol joe

[wilinfla]

Joe,

Luckily Georgia is a little warmer! I assume that you have a 97 Road King. I have a 99 Heritage, the last year for the EVO motor. I have 105k miles on it and it still runs great! Not as fast as my newer bike, but a lot easier to work on.

Will

[road king 97]

Originally Posted by wilinfla

Joe,

Luckily Georgia is a little warmer! I assume that you have a 97 Road King. I have a 99 Heritage, the last year for the EVO motor. I have 105k miles on it and it still runs great! Not as fast as my newer bike, but a lot easier to work on.

Will

I have 30,000 on this one and its time to do new valves and adjusters too. Mine is just like my girlfriend built for comfort not speed.lol joe

[wilinfla]

Joe,

Nice bike, this is my Heritage with my StreetGlide and the wifes Sporty, summer is just around the corner! I need to get busy converting a couple more nitro planes to electric. I have an Astro Hog biplane that I have been flying with an OS65 that is next to be converted and then my Great Planes DR1. I have bought my last gallon of nitro fuel!

Will

[road king 97]

Originally Posted by wilinfla

Joe,

Nice bike, this is my Heritage with my StreetGlide and the wifes Sporty, summer is just around the corner! I need to get busy converting a couple more nitro planes to electric. I have an Astro Hog biplane that I have been flying with an OS65 that is next to be converted and then my Great Planes DR1. I have bought my last gallon of nitro fuel!

Will

After flying nitro and gas for 35 years it would cost me to much to convert them all so i still fly all forms of power .I lean more towards e- power and iam only building electrict planes now but a little nitro in the morning makes me smile too. Nice bikes ,i owned a 54 pan for 28 years hard tail with a 22 over front end springer but i got to old to keep kicking the cold blooded bi$%h so i sold my pan and ride in comfort now. lol joe

[wilinfla]

Joe,

I know what you mean about the expense of conversions! I was out of the hobby for about 7 years and just started back flying again 10 months ago. I kept all my planes and unbuilt kits when I stopped flying, but I gave almost all my nitro engines away. I figure instead of buying engines I will just go electric. I am hoping to stay in the 60 to 90 size and be able to use my battery packs in multiple aircraft. I am still very much in the learning phase for electric power. Your Pan sounds like it was a nice bike but as I getnolder I appreciate electric starting and shocks!

[kyleservicetech]

Originally Posted by xmech2k

Hi Wilinfla. I'm still trying to fully understand these electrons myself, so whatever I say here, take with a grain of salt, and wait for someone who IS an expert to chime in!

It sounds like you can go a lot longer if you only put 650mah back into the batt. I think I've read that you can safely go to 80% of the mah, which would come out to 2400mah! Myself, I go by the post-flight voltage, which should be about 3.8v per cell. I must admit I really haven't paid too much attention to how many mah I put back into my batts. I'll have to start doing that.

Awesome plane! How big is it? I would have expected with that big of a motor, you'd be pulling more amps, but I guess that has something to do with the 6s batt. I still have to fully get that one, too.

Nice thing about these electric power systems, as compared to the noisy power systems. You can put a tiny prop on the front, and not have enough power to taxi on the ground. Or put a proper size prop up front, and with the appropriate power system and model weight, fly straight up.

With a glow/gasser, to small of a prop can cause over RPM and damage the engine. To large a prop, and the engine won't turn it over properly.

Running an electric motor without a prop or to small of a prop is no problem what so ever for the motor. But, these electric motors are DUMB! You can also put way to large of a propeller up front, and the motor will happily turn it over with lots of power. Until the smoke comes out of its windings. This is where a Wattmeter is mandatory when playing with different propellers and battery combinations. If your motor is severely overloaded, you will see it on your wattmeter before anything is damaged.

The amount of current pulled by these brushless motors is controlled by the propeller diameter and pitch, along with the battery voltage. Changing either of these items can really change the current pulled by your motor. Going from a 3S to a 4S battery with the same prop can increase your watts by about 80%, more or less.

As for me, I never fly more than about 60-70% of the battery capacity on any given flight. That way, if someone is on the field, if you have to do a go-around, the motor battery has enough electrons to fly around again without running out of power. These LiPo batteries do not like being run down to far. Doing that just once can result in permanent damage to them.

[road king 97]

Originally Posted by wilinfla

Joe,

I know what you mean about the expense of conversions! I was out of the hobby for about 7 years and just started back flying again 10 months ago. I kept all my planes and unbuilt kits when I stopped flying, but I gave almost all my nitro engines away. I figure instead of buying engines I will just go electric. I am hoping to stay in the 60 to 90 size and be able to use my battery packs in multiple aircraft. I am still very much in the learning phase for electric power. Your Pan sounds like it was a nice bike but as I getnolder I appreciate electric starting and shocks!

I have some friends in paulding GA that fly all electrict and a old fart like me (jack) Who is a builder like iam. They have a nice little layed back club that i want to vist some day. Yea no shocks riding to sturges 8 times and run to the sun or (daytona ) 10 times now took a toll on my old ars. My buds riding with me were waiting to see that 22 over springer fold up was nerve racking at first too. lol I love my windshield ,air shocks and the electrict start now but i still own a older shovel to get a around town with joe

[CHELLIE]

[QUOTE=wilinfla;893705]I had asked in an earlier thread about using a 6s, 3000mah, 30c battery in my Ultra Stik 60, I flew it today and it worked very well. I am using an E-flite 90 and a Castle 120HV ESC. This combination provided more than enough thrust and plenty of flight time. I could take off in 5 feet with full flaps and climb straight up with no problem. I flew for 6 minutes on 2 different battery packs. The download after the flights showed a max current of 26.6 with max watts of 530 with an average throttle use of 30% power. It only took 650mah to recharge the pack to full capacity after the flight. I am new to electrics, what is the desired low limit for discharge? I think with my flying style I should be able to get flight times of over 10 minutes with this combination quite easily. I am really starting to like electric power.[/QUOTE]

Your Hooked Now with E Power you will never go back to Nitro LOL, Take care and Have Fun, Chellie

[kyleservicetech]

Originally Posted by road king 97

Electric power is great but just remember it can take fingers off just as fast or even faster than a nitro or gas motor. Always take your prop off while programing your radio and be carefull around the prop at all times. http://buyradiocontrolledplanes.com/...products-6970/When you get to bigger motors like yours i use these .Nice conversion and it sounds like alot of fun. joe

Yeah, those "little" electric models can really slash your fingers, but motors on the order of these E-flite 90's or larger can remove your fingers. These larger motors don't slow down much when hitting a solid object.

So, I've got two Spektrum transmitters, a new DX8, and a 6 year old DX7. Programming in a throttle "Kill" switch on the DX8 is very easy to do. Doing the same for the DX7 takes a bit of programming. ( can provide instructions found on the internet for the DX7 kill switch) On both of my Spektrum transmitters, the gear switch has been mixed with the throttle so with the gear switch in the throttle kill position, moving the throttle, nothing happens.

If your transmitter has this ability, it is well worth using it. Someday, you'll be glad you did.

[road king 97]

Originally Posted by kyleservicetech

Yeah, those "little" electric models can really slash your fingers, but motors on the order of these E-flite 90's or larger can remove your fingers. These larger motors don't slow down much when hitting a solid object.

So, I've got two Spektrum transmitters, a new DX8, and a 6 year old DX7. Programming in a throttle "Kill" switch on the DX8 is very easy to do. Doing the same for the DX7 takes a bit of programming. ( can provide instructions found on the internet for the DX7 kill switch) On both of my Spektrum transmitters, the gear switch has been mixed with the throttle so with the gear switch in the throttle kill position, moving the throttle, nothing happens.

If your transmitter has this ability, it is well worth using it. Someday, you'll be glad you did.

Nitro motors might stop when hitting something but e motors wont ,kinda scares me when i plug in all four of my motors on some of my seaplane even with the arming plug.

[wilinfla]

Originally Posted by kyleservicetech

Yeah, those "little" electric models can really slash your fingers, but motors on the order of these E-flite 90's or larger can remove your fingers. These larger motors don't slow down much when hitting a solid object.

So, I've got two Spektrum transmitters, a new DX8, and a 6 year old DX7. Programming in a throttle "Kill" switch on the DX8 is very easy to do. Doing the same for the DX7 takes a bit of programming. ( can provide instructions found on the internet for the DX7 kill switch) On both of my Spektrum transmitters, the gear switch has been mixed with the throttle so with the gear switch in the throttle kill position, moving the throttle, nothing happens.

If your transmitter has this ability, it is well worth using it. Someday, you'll be glad you did.

Thanks for the advice. I treat my motors like a loaded gun with the safety off. It is easy to get complacent so I try and stay vigilant because I like my fingers!
Will

[road king 97]

I never knew i could program a kill switch on my DX-7 but i will look into it. I like to keep programming to the bare min ,iam to old i think but i dont trust radios to keep all my settings so i dont use much of them. joe

[kyleservicetech]

Originally Posted by road king 97

I never knew i could program a kill switch on my DX-7 but i will look into it. I like to keep programming to the bare min ,iam to old i think but i dont trust radios to keep all my settings so i dont use much of them. joe

This is not original, I found it in the internet. Might save you a lot of work.
(I mixed my DX7 with the gear switch, none of my models have retractable landing gear.)

Electric Flight Safety
Ideally every electric aircraft you have should be equipped with an arming device on the craft itself (either and ESC switch or power interrupter plug) as well as having a throttle cut switch on your transmitter. Since electric motors can startup unexpectedly and inflict a lot of painful damage the double precaution can avoid some nasty injuries. Although an arming switch/plug on the aircraft ought to be sufficient on its own there are times when it is armed with the intention of flying but something distracts you and the aircraft is now vulnerable to a careless jog of the throttle lever, the transmitter becomes your last line of defense.

I have implemented a transmitter disable switch for all my aircraft (helis as well as conventional planes) this way the process is second nature to me. The idea is that whenever the aircraft is not expected to fly the transmitter switch is in the disable position. The moment before takeoff I switch it to enable, fly as required then the moment the aircraft touches down and I have completed taxiing it I always click the switch to disabled.
Some of the more advanced transmitters have the ability to set a throttle cut switch up within their menus however others need a little work to make it happen. Below I give the process needed to set up a Spektrum DX7, it is likely this technique can be used on other transmitters, it is well worth doing and if you are still unsure how try looking online for your particular transmitter.

In my case I use the switch at the top right hand corner of the transmitter as the kill switch, this seems to be a standard as far as I can tell, the DX7 does have a label saying HOLD for this switch (as well as Ruder D/R).

Setup Process For the Spektrum DX7 Transmitter:
From your selected plane setup menu (pressing scroll and select simultaneously) move to one of the mixing channels (Kyleservicetech used Mix 3, for mixing with the gear switch).

Select source and destination for the mix to be THRO (short for throttle), the display should show:
THRO -> THRO
Now move to the rate section and set both sections to -100% (you will be able to set one of them with the throttle stick down and the other with it up).

Move to the SW: section and set it to MIX
Move to the OFFSET section and set it to -100%.

If you toggle the gear switch you should see the text to the right of the THRO -> THRO change from OFF to ON, when this reads ON the throttle is disabled (this should be with the switch pulled toward you). I had to adjust the throttle trim command so going from throttle kill to throttle run worked OK.

And, double check all your other program settings to make danged certain no other functions were accidentally changed.

[road king 97]

Originally Posted by kyleservicetech

This is not original, I found it in the internet. Might save you a lot of work.
(I mixed my DX7 with the gear switch, none of my models have retractable landing gear.)

Electric Flight Safety
Ideally every electric aircraft you have should be equipped with an arming device on the craft itself (either and ESC switch or power interrupter plug) as well as having a throttle cut switch on your transmitter. Since electric motors can startup unexpectedly and inflict a lot of painful damage the double precaution can avoid some nasty injuries. Although an arming switch/plug on the aircraft ought to be sufficient on its own there are times when it is armed with the intention of flying but something distracts you and the aircraft is now vulnerable to a careless jog of the throttle lever, the transmitter becomes your last line of defense.

I have implemented a transmitter disable switch for all my aircraft (helis as well as conventional planes) this way the process is second nature to me. The idea is that whenever the aircraft is not expected to fly the transmitter switch is in the disable position. The moment before takeoff I switch it to enable, fly as required then the moment the aircraft touches down and I have completed taxiing it I always click the switch to disabled.
Some of the more advanced transmitters have the ability to set a throttle cut switch up within their menus however others need a little work to make it happen. Below I give the process needed to set up a Spektrum DX7, it is likely this technique can be used on other transmitters, it is well worth doing and if you are still unsure how try looking online for your particular transmitter.

In my case I use the switch at the top right hand corner of the transmitter as the kill switch, this seems to be a standard as far as I can tell, the DX7 does have a label saying HOLD for this switch (as well as Ruder D/R).

Setup Process For the Spektrum DX7 Transmitter:
From your selected plane setup menu (pressing scroll and select simultaneously) move to one of the mixing channels (Kyleservicetech used Mix 3, for mixing with the gear switch).

Select source and destination for the mix to be THRO (short for throttle), the display should show:
THRO -> THRO
Now move to the rate section and set both sections to -100% (you will be able to set one of them with the throttle stick down and the other with it up).

Move to the SW: section and set it to MIX
Move to the OFFSET section and set it to -100%.

If you toggle the gear switch you should see the text to the right of the THRO -> THRO change from OFF to ON, when this reads ON the throttle is disabled (this should be with the switch pulled toward you). I had to adjust the throttle trim command so going from throttle kill to throttle run worked OK.

And, double check all your other program settings to make danged certain no other functions were accidentally changed.

Thanks most all of mine are seaplanes so no retracts for me either .I will give it a try on one of my foamys for a year first and then put it in one of my year long scratch builds,again dont trust radios very much. joe

[wilinfla]

I love your seaplanes, they look great! What is the wingspan of your 4 engine model
I am retired Coast Guard aviation and water landings in helicopters was always a blast. Unfortunately the HU16 Albatross had been restricted from water landings when I joined. I think open water landings in those would have been a thrill!

Will

[road king 97]

It is a 99 inch short solent seaplane ,i have plans for ivans 84 inch albitross for this winter's build and his 84 inch twin otter also. http://www.ivansplans.com/ You can check out Ivans plans but check out their size compared to the weight and wingloading. My solent came in at 8 pounds with two lipo packs . There is another long thread of ivans planes plus you can scroll down for some videos of most of his planes. You will see me on his wall of fame plus alot of others . http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=710485