E-Starter/Battery problem
 

Hi All,

Just had my maiden flight with a GWS E-Starter this morning. The flight went well but when I took the plane to full power the motor stopped running after about 20secs. All the control surfaces still worked. Now I do have a peak prediction charger and did run the battery through a number of cycles beforehand. After charging again before the flight the charger reported that the battery was at full charge (the battery is a Sanyo 8.4V 730MaH, charger is EflightPinnacle DC 1-14C Peak Charger ). I unfortunately don't have another battery to compare to.


Where do you guys think the problem might be. Do I have

a) Faulty battery
b) Faulty speed control
c) It is cold around here ATM might that cause the prob
d) Something else

Any help would be appreciated

Ian

RE: E-Starter/Battery problem
 

If the motor cut out, and you still had control, that means the LVC (Low Voltage Cutoff) feature of the speed control kicked in. There's nothing wrong with the ESC, at least.

~720mAh AAA NiMH cells are at their extreme limits powering a GWS EPS300/350C drive. Brand new, they can't cut it. NiMH cells need a few cycles to really get working. I suspect that this, coupled with the cold, is your problem.

If you can cycle the cells a few times before you go flying again, then you should see better results.

As an alternative, KAN650 or CBP650 cells work much better. These are "2/3 AA" cells that are slightly heavier than AAA, but are much more capable. You can get the CBP650s in custom packs at cheapbatterypacks.com. KAN650s are available from many sources.

RE: E-Starter/Battery problem
 

Take Matt's advice on the CBP650's! These cells will wake your model up. I would use 8 cells.
The CBP650 cells will give you a HUGE performance gain, and they outlast the 800MAH 5/4 AAA's
I was using. There is a slight weight increase, but this doesn't seem to hurt the flying properties of my models at all. The extra power is worth the weight gain!
Happy Flying!
Bud

RE: E-Starter/Battery problem
 

Thanks for your advice guys - I'll check out those KAN packs

Ian

RE: E-Starter/Battery problem
 

You guys are close but did NOT ask, what ESC (motor Controller) Are you using? You could be over heating it and it is cutting off to avoid damage.

RE: E-Starter/Battery problem
 

I'm using the GWS ICS300. Funny thing was (at least to me being a newbie) that after a 2 or 3 times of doing the early cutoff thing it stopped and now I'm getting reasonable 8min flights. Now all I have to do is keep the darn thing of the cold hard ground ;).

RE: E-Starter/Battery problem
 

Nothing funny about it. The batteries are getting broken in.

NiMH takes a few cycles to achieve best performance. Until they're broken in, they're not good enough to power planes like the E-Starter.

RE: E-Starter/Battery problem
 

Well I finally got around to ordering those CBP650 suggested by Matt and A1rench and after charging and installing what a huge difference! Its a completely different plane from using the Sanyo 8.4V 730mAh batteries - and the CBPs are cheaper too! I can now easily do loops from level flight and it literally jumps out of my hand on launching.

Thanks guys!

Ian