rjhike

I am new to electric powered airplanes. (I have flown glow/gas for years).
I bought the Great Planes Flatout Cap 580. I also bought the extra things that were needed and recommended in the instructions. So I bought an ElectriFly 640mah 3 cell LiPo battery, the C-10 ESC, and a Triton charger. I thought since these products were recommended they would work without problems.

The problem is when I move the throttle even one click above half the motor quits and the servos also do not respond. At 1/4 throttle everything works.

Using the Triton charger instructions, I charged the battery at 0.2A and at 11.1 V.

Is the problem with the battery, charger, motor, or ESC?

What should I do or have done?

I did buy the Rimfire motor hoping that works, but haven't tried it yet because I am waiting for a Castle ESC.

Thanks for your help.

exeter_acres

My Feedback: (2)

which motor are you using now? which prop?

mandtra

My Feedback: (29)

Sounds like to me the ESC is cutting off due to either your battery being not able to supply enough amps (power) or your drawing too many amps and that's shutting down the ESC

rjhike

I was using the motor that came with the plane. Not sure of the name. The prop is a 10x3 SF.
It had little tabs on the ends of the prop and I have never seen a prop with tabs on the ends so I sanded them off.

I will be using a Rimfire motor when I get another ESC.

rjhike

"Sounds like to me the ESC is cutting off due to either your battery being not able to supply enough amps (power) or your drawing too many amps and that's shutting down the ESC"

How do I know which one it is ?

The instructions for the Rimfire said to use a 9x3.8 prop.

Matt Kirsch

My Feedback: (21)

Great Planes includes a cheap Speed 300 can motor in a gearbox with these Flatouts, and they recommend a 3S LiPoly pack...

On a 3S LiPoly, with the stock 10x3.8 prop and a 5:1 gearbox, the motor is drawing nearly 11 Amps according to P-Calc. If the battery pack can sustain that (I know it can't for a fact), the ESC will go into thermal shutdown or burn up. What's probably happening is that the battery voltage is dropping rapidly, all the way down to the ESC's non-programmable low-voltage cutoff of ~5 Volts, which is well below the recommended minimum of 9.0 Volts for a 3S LiPoly pack.

You should still be able to control the servos, though. Maybe because the voltage is drawn down so far, the pack's got absolutely no "poop" left until it's had several minutes to recover...

There are three options:
1. Go with the Rimfire motor and SS8 brushless ESC.
2. Reduce prop size.
3. Use a 2S LiPoly pack.

rjhike

I went with what was recommended in the instructions, one would think that the recommendations would be correct.

I now have a Rimfire motor with a 9x3 prop, and a Silver Series 25 ESC for brushless motors.
Same problem, I can't move the throttle over 1/2.

Is it correct that to many volts AND not enough will shut down the system?

I have charged the battery and that didn't help. Should I discharge the battery with the Triton?
Thanks

Flypaper 2

You say you charged the batt. at .200 ma. You may not have a full charge. Would take over three hrs at that rate to charge. Your timer may be cutting it off to soon. Full charge should show 12.6 volts. Should be charged at a 1C rate which is One times it's capacity which is 600 ma for that batt. Should take between an hr. and 1 1/4 to charge. You should find the C discharge rate for that batt. As Matt says you'll find it to low. If it shows 10C discharge rate then that means the batt. can discharge no more than 6.4 amps And I'm sure it's drawing more than that. Good tool to buy that you can't do without is a wattmeter. It will tell you exactly how much the motor is drawing in amps, what the batt voltage is while the motor is running ,etc. Hope this helps.

PilotLight

My Feedback: (1)

Try a bigger Battery. Thunder Power 1320.