john agnew

It has taken me longer than expected to get my Nuance 120 in the air for reasons mostlly to do with the motor. I inspected it briefly as previously described before going on holiday and started putting it together on my return. It would be exaggerating to call it a "build" as there is very little building to do other than making and glueing in the firewall which Andy P kindly provided a template for. My only minor gripes were the hardware quality and tail wheel assembly which I thought were a bit on the skimpy side.

I do not really like "Z" bends on my pushrods and changed these out for better items, ditto the tailwheel, other than that everything was fine. It only took a couple of days to assemble mostly waiting for the Hysol on the firewall to cure.

As I was quite impressed with Andy's views on the Turnigy G110 motor I decided to get one instead of my plannned Hyperion. I went for the 290KV version and reccomended 18x10 APCE on 8 cells, the motor was cheap at £50 or so.

I test ran and metered the motor at 1860 watts and around 60amps so all seemed well. On the first flight the motor quit about 2 minutes in, I was lucky to land it deadstick without damage. The cause was traced to a bad connection in one of the motor leads (almost no solder) so I resoldered all of the leads and tried again. The second flight lasted a bit longer, about 3 miutes before the motor started to get noisy and lost power. I shut it down and landed, again without damage. On inspection the windings were fried in places and some wiring was protruding between the narrow gap between magnet housing and the rear plate.

I was not a happy bunny! The motor looked like it had seriously over heated despite the prop / battery being as reccomended by Turnigy. I will send it back to HK UK and see what they say.

I have now replaced it with my AXI 5330/18 which is really a 10 cell motor but it puts out 1960 watts at 69amps on a 20x10 APCE on 8 cells and d flies the model well, I have only had 3 more flights but all of them finished with the motor still running! The rudder is very powerful with sustained knife edge only needing a touch of rudder. It tracks very straight and seems more stable than my Wind110.

Am I delighted? Still thinking about that, the motor issued have maybe coloured my opinion I think I will have to fly it some more before I make up my mind.

John

f3a05

"I was not a happy bunny! The motor looked like it had seriously over heated despite the prop / battery being as reccomended by Turnigy. "
Isn't that what would happen anyway, if you had poor motor connections?
Either that or a fried ESC?

john agnew

f3a05

Are you asking me or telling me? I don't know if the bad connection would cause the motor or ESC to "fry" ,the motor seemed to be ok on the first flight and just cut out suddenly. After re-soldering the motor leads I test ran it first and it seemed ok. (I took out the ESC and tried it in another model before I discovered the bad motor connection) I also ran the motor to check the watts / amps before flying it the first time. I am by no means an expert on electric motors and welcome any helpful advice. The motor was turning freely after the first shutdown, it was not after the second one.

John

Lazer

My Feedback: (27)

THANK YOU JOHN! Pardon my shouting. I was about to buy the G 110. I've been very fortunate in that I've own several Turnigy motors and no issues with anyone. There are a couple of other engines I'm looking at for my Monolog 110.
Terry

Andy P.

John, sounds like you got the 'Friday afternoon' motor, mine is going really strong still. I suppose there will always be that element of 'quality' variation with such cheap motors, that said, I would put mine in exactly the same 'build quality' and perfomance as my AXi 5330 F3a so draw your own line here. Would I personaly let it get me down?..........no I don't think so, hopefully HK will come good with the replacement motor and restore your faith in their products, please let us all know. On the other hand, I know that a friend of mine had exactly the same issues with a far more expensive motor which ended in 'berg' and that motor had just come back from a service by them! The motor had dropped a phase at the windings end, unfortunately for my friend the manufacturer wanted another 300 or so euro's to repair the motor [X(] which he flattly refused to pay and had the motor shipped back to him unresolved, he now has a rather expensive doorstop in his workshop!!!!!!!!

You pay's ya money and takes ya chance

On the subject of the Nuance 120, I'm now 6 flights in and just fine tuning the feel. After flying it on Sunday last, I found the need for right aileron trim so when I got home I set it up in the workshop and carried out an incidence check, all was good. This then led me to a static balance check, I now have 15g in the right wing tip to get it balanced exactly so my next sortie should be interesting. By comparison to it's bigger brother there's not much in it at all and I'm confident that with a few more flights I'll have it softened down to the exct same feel as the 170. Glad you found the F1 useful

Looking forward to getting the Bi-Side together at the end of the month [X(]........................did I REALLY just say that

Andy.

f3a05

I'm no expert either,but Plettenberg (and others) put great store by the need for good connections(and connectorsnot totally convinced myself there).
See Plettenberg's response in the recent thread about another poster's troubles with an Advance motor.

john agnew

I have e-mailed Hobby King UK with details of the motor failure and await their response which I will post here. Just another point on the Nuance 120, I have found that the model wants to tip onto its nose on take off (our grass field is a bit long at the moment) Is there an landing gear set with less rearward rake available.

John

Andy P.

Hi John, not that I'm aware of for the 120, just the 170. I too fly off grass but our site is like a bowling green so no problems for me with the 120 but I did have to change the 170's for the reduced rake. I've just compared both the 120 & the 170 reduced rake versions and they are almost identical in rake so with a bit of grass cutting all should be good!

Andy.

john agnew

Andy

Would the 170 landing gear fit the 120? If it was a bit longer it probably wouldn't matter as long as the rake back was less. The mounting holes could probably be redrilled to suit the 120.

John

Andy P.

Hi John, I'm sure the 170 legs would fit with a little fine tuning here and there, the legs are much thicker in profile all around though, including the mounting area which is probably twice the thickness of the 120 legs. I'll get you some direct measurements so that you can decide if its a viable option.

Andy.

john agnew

Andy

Thanks for that, I am going to fly the Nuance again this morning as it is a perfect flying day here. I am going to change the 20x10APC for a 19x12. The Axi is turning the 20x10 at around 6000 rpm at max power and the Nuance looks slow, it feels as if it will fall off the vertical but it does not of course, it just keeps pulling up but I am used to a slightly faster flying style as my Wind 110 is running an 18x10 at around 7500 rpm. Maybe it is just a question of getting used to the slower airspeed but I want to try the 19x12 to see if I am more comfortable with it. Will report back on the results. According to e-calc the watts / amps are just about identical with both props.

John

john agnew

Ok

Managed three flights this morning in perfect conditions, cloudless blue skies, 6 knots of wind straight down the strip and 24oC, can this really be Scotland in july?!! The 19x12 is a bit faster and pulls very strong verticals, however I am not yet sure if I prefer it over the 20x10. I am not yet as confident flying the Nuance as I am with my Wind 110, I think I will go back to the 20x10 and have a few more flights.

No response from Hobby King on the Turnigy other than an acknowledgement of my complaint.Wll keep you posted.

John

john agnew

Have now had a response from HK suggesting I must have been drawing between 110 -127 amps for the motor to fail! That would be difficult as I was using a 90amp ESC and drawing 1860 watts divide by 30volts (8S pack) and we get 62 amps. I don't understand these guys, would they rather get a lot of negative publicity than change out a motor that probably costs them $20.

John

Andy P.

John,

That's dissapointing [&o], have they asked for the motor so that they can inspect it? As you say, for such a small item cost it's sad that they seemingly don't place much worth on the customer.......

On the other hand, Ive had to resort to emailing the pics I promised to upload to myself and then uploading from the home pc, my mobile device just wasn't getting the job done, even using Chrome [:@]

The images here are showing the rake difference, height difference and fixing point difference. The bolt holes are in the same place on both versions.

Andy.

john agnew

Andy

Thanks for the photos of the landing gear, The Nuance seems to want to tip onto its nose on initial acceleration on takeoff. it wasn't so bad last Friday after the grass had been cut so I am going to persevere with the original gear, I haven't had a prop strike so far!

John

rodney tanner

Hello John.
Sorry to hear about your experiences with HK. I had problems with an E-flight Power 90, when the magnets came loose. Horizon said they could´nt help as I had purchased it from a non authorized dealer. So I got some good tips here on RCU and fixed the problem with some metal resin glue. I was told at the time that the Power 90 was prone to those types of failures "like Turnigy motors". Some last forever, some crap out straight away. The Power 90s are also made in China, as are most of the motors out there apparently.
I have developed a simple philosophy regarding HK. Batteries and ESCs OK. Rx and servos - Futaba and JR only. Props - APC. Motors - based on very limited experience, I would go for Hitec. But I might try a Turnigy SK, as they are very affordable claim higher quality standards the other Turnigy motors.

Just my 2 cents there

(An amazing British Open at Muirfield!!)

rodney tanner

Sorry that´s HIMAX not Hitec..

john agnew

Rodney

I hear what you say, I also have a Turnigy SK series motor which has performed just fine for a couple of years, I would not buy another G110 though, there is just too much money in a pattern model to risk this type of motor failure, I must say that this is the first motor I have had that has failed.
When you think about it it is pretty stupid to put a $70 motor in a model setup that is north of $1,400! I have learned my lesson on this one,. luckily I still have the model.

The Open- yes, great result for Phil.

John

john agnew

Guys

Hobby King has just responded that they will not honour the warranty on the motor, their position is that I must have over powered it. They sent me a calculator which I filled in which shows a power output of 1900watts on a 18x10 APC prop and 8S battery, divide by 30 volts and max amps are 63 amps, the motor is rated for 55 amps with 65 amps for 15 second burst, I never use max power for more than a few seconds on verticals certainly not 15 seconds. They will not even accept the results from the calculator they sent me.

I have been a regular Hobby King customer for some years, I will be so no longer, they will lose a lot more money than it would have cost them to replace the motor

John

f3a05

Sorry to hear that John-when I started F3A electrickery I began with a (then relatively cheap) Du*ls*y motor and H*p*ri*n ESC,and the ESC lasted into the first turnaround on the first flight.
The motor was OK for quite a while, on Jeti and CC ESCs, but it killed itself, and the CC, eventually.
Since then, I've stayed with Plettenberg/Jeti, with total reliability.
Back to your motor,did you tell HK about the bad solder joint?
My guess would be that it wrecked the three-phase timing, leading to current spikes well beyond the motor's (and ESC) rating, and thus to the burnt windings that you saw.

john agnew

f3a05

Yes I told them about the bad solder joint, they have just ignored that! I suppose I was lucky not to have the ESC burn out as well.

John

Lazer

My Feedback: (27)

Say John why not send a copy of what is being said here to the HK customer service. What would it hurt? You mentioned that you didn't want to deal with them anymore so this may give us all an indication of HK's resolve.
I too have been a long time customer of HK. About two years ago I purchased two large Lipos that would not finish balancing on on the very first charge on my HK charger. By the time I discovered that these batteries were bad I had put on the connectors I prefer and mentioned this fact in my initial correspondence with them. Several photos and returned batteries and some documentation. A couple of weeks later I received credit for the returned batteries. It may be John that their internal policies have changed. Hobby king should realize more of what took place up to the point of flight by seeing what has been posted here.
Terry
I'm on your side

Dansy

My Feedback: (53)

I understand your concern with HK but since I just come back to RC Pattern.....even if some is junk and shipping expensive the overall cost is so much lower on some items that I'm ready to assume some lost....it's too bad that they respond to complaint better but some hobby shop are like that these day...

Don't get me wrong I still buy at the LHS and not so local....but HK are a source for a lots of stuff that I would have to special order locally....

Lazer

My Feedback: (27)

I have to say there are a couple of motors that I wish I knew more about that HK offers. I ran across the [link=http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=17984] RotoMax 1.20[/link] . The plane I'm using is the Monolog 110 running 5000 mA 8s packs. The RotoMax is not a leading choice, as it may be to wide at the base to fit the firewall of the Monolog 110 (wish I knew the dimensions of the firewall). If anyone is familiar with this motor I would appreciate any information on it and the [link=http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__40691__Turnigy_Aerodrive_SK3_6354_260kv_Brushles s_Outrunner_Motor_USA_warehouse_.html]Aerodrive SK3 - 6354-260kv[/link] which is a leading candidate. Any other suggestions would be great.
Terry

bem

My Feedback: (1)

Lazer,
Since You run on 8 cells You have also Hacker A60-7XS motor that will work fine but it is more expansive.
I use that motor in my MythoS 125E.
http://www.hacker-motor-shop.com/e-v...&t=3&c=32&p=32
https://www.aero-model.com/8_72_1927...-7XS%20V2.html

I used first APC 19x10E but I use now Falcon carbon prop V2 19x12E.
Current on full power was with the APC prop was about 70 amp (and with my 8 cells it gave about 2000 watt), with the Falcon prop 77 amp (and give about 2300 watt).

/Bo