kwiktsi

Hey, I have a quick question regarding the gearbox on the Formosa. I have bought 4 formosas so far and built 2. I noticed while going through the contents of the last one I purchased, that while the other three came with the "c" gearing, then 4th has a "b" gearing. Was this an attempt to get a bit more speed out of the formosa, or is it possible it has a different motor/gear combo altogether? I was wondering if it was worth swapping that into me "c" geard formosa instead. Any thoughts? Thanks.
Joe

Mike Parsons

I would think it was a mistake. The standard is a C (5.33:1) GB. You can still use it of course, swing a smaller disk and increase your pitch if you want more speed. Just watch the amps if you do this.

Good luck.

Mike

kwiktsi

yeah, upon further inspection, I noticed it came with smaller props also- an 8070 and 9070 instead of 9070 and 10xx (can't remember the pitch of the 10" off the top of my head). I tried it on my current formosa with the 8070 on my 2 2100 cell lipolyand it barely wanted to fly. I put the 9070 on it and it flies pretty decent on the "b". Slightly noticeable drop in torque and a *bit* more speed. Flight times seem about the same though. Nothing worth doing, just odd that it came with it instead of the normal setup..
Joe

Trogdor the Burninator

It is supposed to come with B gearing now according to Mr. CEO GWS himself in the GWS forum. Apparently the GWS engineers got feedback from the locals that they wanted more speed so they moved to B gear 350 combos with the 9070 and 8060 props. They 8060 seem to barely fly the thing except at full throttle but the 9070 I noticed flies the stock Formosa about as good as is possible with a 350 brushed motor, IMHO. I have noticed a rather short motor life with the B gear however, on the order of 20ish flights or so but I try lots of 3dish kinda stuff and dont really let the prop unload with faster normal forward flight so that could be it... I think its something like 11 amps static with the 9070 so I guess that answers the question of short life span and my kinda flying!

kwiktsi

I had a feeling it had to do with trying to make it faster, my LHS just said "someone screwed up or just gave you whatever they had left". Yeah, it will barely climb with the 8060 prop!!

As for the motor- do you know of any good sources for replacement stock motors for this thing- or even a part number or something? I have a bunch of 350 "sized" GWS motors out of various GWS gear boxes I have bought, but none seem to have the same RPM or power as the stock formosa motor- it won't even fly with them!!! Thanks.
Joe

Trogdor the Burninator

allerc.com is pretty good, ordered from them a number of times and been happy...

balsapr.com is supposedly good, they have a good website but I have no personal experience, heard good things though...

parkflyermotors also looks good..

I think these guys can help you out, I'm sure I've seen replacement motors with the various pinions already on them on these websites. Are you sure the other motors weren't actually GWS 300 models?? The 350 says mabuchi TN001239 or something and another line of text as well.. the 300s say mabuchi 7B only or something like that...???

I can't remember all the details especially since I went brushless... haven't looked back! It really is worth it not to mess with replacing motors etc, especially now that they're getting so cheap! although I will say going lipo is the best first upgrade.

kwiktsi

Actually, they may be 300's- are they the same exterior dimensions? I am running an e flight park 370 5400 kv brushless with a 2 cell 2100 li poly in my formosa- not a lot of speed, but MUCH better flying than stock with impressive flight times. I still use the stock motors in my flying pizza and spitfire though and don't really plan to upgrade either one since they are only used occassionally, but you like to find stock replacements just so I have a couple on standby. I am also building a "beater" formosa that I plan on leaving stock and running both 2 and 3 cell lipos in so I can practice all the things I don't want to do with my "nice" one. I have had the kit here for a while and wasn't sure if I was going to build a beater or not, but after landing mine on it's lid this evening doing a very low altitude inverted flyby, I decided I would rather use another one for the practice so I can keep the bruises off this one .
Joe