Dre

My Feedback: (2)

It is mounted on the bottom of the fuse, below spinner. No airflow. I have found the Spin ESC does not get overheated no matter where it is placed relative to air flow.

Could it be a bad solder joint causing resistance?

Andre

grantb

My Citrin has no exit holes and the spin 99 remains warm but not hot. Clint and my setup is near identical with Pletti Advance, Spin 99. The ESC is positioned high on the right side of the fuz just behind the motor. We'll do a proper temp test this weekend now that the weather is high 20's low 30's (Celsius) and report back.

Have you checked the timing on your ESC?? Maybe something changed somewhere along the line.

cartercg

I does not sound like a cooling problem, and I agree that you should look at the timing settings, and swop the speed controller to see if it makes a difference. Have you measured the max static current draw? Your problem may be elsewhere, like a problem with the motor? Is the motor running cool?

GlennO

Hey guys,

I took the citrin out for for fly this afternoon and found the following.

I checked the amp draw on the ground with a 21x14 PT prop which is what I run on my Pegasus and found that it is pulling around 75 amps.
I relocated the ESC to the underside of my battery tray temporally which made it almost line up to the gap between bottom of the motor
and the top of the ducting. This would give it some direct airflow at least.

I flew a full flight of P and touched the ESC upon landing and found it to be hot to touch. I also plugged in my programming
box before unplugging the batteries and it showed an in flight high temp of 58 degrees and a current temp on the ground of 70.

The ambient temp at the time was 28 degrees, and over the next few months we will fly in temps up to 40 which concerns me.

I also forgot to mention that I also tried a smaller prop 20x13 on the ground and it was pulling around 70 amps.
It seems to me that this is not a ESC problem, more a airflow issue but after reading other comments posted, it seems that lack of airflow doesn't directly relate to high ESC temp readings.

Now I am confused. I am considering mounting the ESC in a similar way to my Pegasus, which has a ramp type duct with sides made from light weight composite board which forces airflow directly over the ESC. My Pegasus has vertically the same motor,prop and ESC set up but never gets hotter than 35 degree upon checking temp after flight.


Cheers GlennO

cartercg

Hi GlennO, well at least some of the possible problems are being ruled out. The current draw sounds right, but how did you measure it? The built in current measurement on the spin99 is generally very inaccurate. If it was measured via the speed controller then it may be much higher than the reported 75amps. If it was measured with a separate ammeter then clearly current draw is not the problem.

Note that I have had spin99s that reported a max current of 35amps but was measured at 75amps. That is with both measurements being made at the same time, static on the ground. The error in the spin99 current measurement can be huge, and it can't be trusted.

As mentioned by grant, we will measure the temps of the spin99s in our citrins this weekend and let you know know much above ambient it gets to in the air and after landing. A 40 deg difference seems very high. I would not expect it to ever get to more than 30deg above ambient.

I would temporarily suggest that you set the temp cutoff to 100deg, so that you are less likely of having a temp cut off at the wrong time which could cost you some damage to your plane. That is if your cut off is at some lower setting.

There is certainly no harm in improving the cooling as you did with the Pegasus. More cooling can only be a good thing.

Clint

GlennO

Hey Clint,

I got my amp readings from a watt meter not the programming box, I also had my temp cut out set at 100 degrees.

Cheers GlennO

cartercg

Ok, so it's not drawing too much current, and there is no obvious other problem. Only thing that remains is to further improve the cooling to the esc.

How many mah are you using for a p schedule? Is the motor cool to touch on landing, or is it also hotter than the same setup in your Pegasus?

Clint

Jason Arnold

Hey Glenn,

Is it the same Spin99 that you used in the Pegasus? If it isn't, I'd try fitting the one from the Pegasus.

It's possible that some of the many FET's aren't pulling their weight i.e. faulty or damaged and the rest are being pushed harder hence dissipating more heat.

Cheers,
Jason.

GlennO

Hi Jason,

No mate its a new Spin that I brought solely for the CItrin. I will try what you said by changing them over.

Cheers GlennO

GlennO

Hi Clint,

I'm using the usual sort of 3500 mah or so on the Citrin for a flight of P. I did get a reading of the engine and it was only about 30 degrees and it feels Luke warm.

I will try changing the spin 99 over out of my other plane next, this will confirm if it is faulty.

Cheers GlennO

kriszed

Hi Glenn,
Did you manage to sort your overheating problem out. I'm having similar problems with a hacker q80xl and a jetti spin 99 on my citrin.
I've had about 15 flights with no overheating problems swinging a 20x13 prop. Tried a 21x13 prop and all of a sudden about five mins into the flight the esc just cut out. On landing the esc is very hot to the touch. Did this twice in a row. Tried changing the timing, no difference. A mate has blown a castle creations esc and a spin 99 with his hackerq80 on a krill spark and this was definitely not a cooling issue as he had loads of cooling. Any ideas?
Chris

Mach1GB

Chris/Glenn,

See my comments on the Q80 and cooling here - http://www.gbrcaa.org/smf/index.php?topic=3196.0

Cheers,

Matt

GlennO

Hi Guys,

I did manage to get the ESC temperature down to about 35c from 60 after a full flight of P in 25-30 degree ambient temperatures.
What I did was, re-locate the ESC to near the bottom of the fuselage, cut out a couple of small vent holes and duct the airflow directly to the ESC.
This worked great for a number of flights and it seem to have solved my overheating problem.

Then a new problem came up. The front end of the Citrin blew apart in mid flight with the Q80 departing the plane during level flight at mid throttle.
The plane was landed safely, although a bit hairy to get down with about 700 grams missing off the front end.

I really don't know what caused this, possible causes maybe the ply ring that secures the carbon mount failed as the four mounting lugs were sheered off.
Some witnesses to the incident say the motor may have seized, I don't see how a outrunner could seize. The motor is badly bent and damaged so I guess we will
never be able to access it with confidence.

I have a new fuse (at my cost) coming from OXAI and I intend to fit a Pletty this time and also make a carbon mounting ring in place of the ply one supplied with the kit.

cheers GlennO

wingster

My Feedback: (26)

Glenno

Sorry about your lose. I lost a plane a few years back when the front end let lose. I think my rear mount was not secure.

As best I can tell from your pictures you don't have a rear mount. If so that puts a lot of stress on the front mount and surrounding area.

John

GlennO

Hi John,

Yeah I did have a rear mount, I wouldn't run a Q80 in any model without one.

cheers GlennO

cartercg

Hi Glenn,

Sorry to hear about your motor breaking out. It gives me cold shivers as it can so easily happen if there is any significant weakness in the motor mount. For your next fuze try the method that Grant and I have used whereby there is a single carbon front mount that the motor bolts directly onto. No intermediate mounting bolts, which means it should be lighter and there are less possible failure points.

Grant and I have had great sucess with the Pletti Advance, Spin99 combo in our Citrins. Motor and ESC run cool with no special cooling or ducting. Grant doesn't even have exit holes in his fuze. I'm running the Mejzlik 21/13 extra light which has loads of power with the Pletti Advance. The ESC is never more than warm to touch on landing. On a hot day only the batteries are fairly warm on landing (if the wind has been blowing and I've been fairly heavy on the throttle).

It is surprising that the combination of the Hacker Q80xs and spin99 is having heating problems. If the power is similar to the Pletti Advance (which I expect it is) there should be no need for any special cooling like external fans etc. Just seems strange that there are several pilots using this combo and having issues, which did not appear to occur with the older version of the Q80?????

Clint

GlennO

G'day Clint,

With the new fuse arriving early in the new year, I intend on setting it up in a similar manner as you have. I like the carbon mount that you have installed, it
looks strong but light. I still like the Q80 motors but I think I'll give a Pletty advance a go this time.
I posted some pictures on a previous post of the repair job done to the damaged fuse. It now has a 30-09 and a firewall wall which although will make the overall
weight higher than before, will allow me to keep flying until the new fuse gets here.

Thanks again for the advise, I wish I had of gone your way from the start.

Btw, what thickness is the carbon mount that you guys made up?

cheers GlennO

cartercg

Hi Glenn,

That's a pretty impressive repair given the time involved. At least you can still keep her airborne until the new fuze arrives.

The carbon plate we used is around 2.5mm. It's a bit of a job to make up but works great and if well glued in should not break out unless there is some serious form of resonance or imbalance. Let us know how the new motor works out.

Clint

kriszed

Matt,Glenn,Clint ,Neil and Grant,
Thanks for the advice regarding the overheating Q 80. I seem to have got the issue sorted out. My mate who blew two speed controllers
running his new Q80 xs took the motor back to the supplier who exchanged it without question. We ran the motor up in his spark evo and all is good. Amp draw about 68 amps and the temps all way down. He has subsequently done 5 more flights and reports that the combo is now working well. I have also exchanged my motor now and did five flights this morning. Two with a 20 x 13 xoar prop and three with a 21 x 13 mejzlick el prop. I am pleased to say that the motor and esc are all cool now and the esc never cut out at all. I wasn't shy with the throttle either. I'm not sure about the amp draw though, my jeti box won't give amp draw from the jeti pro opto spin 99 esc. Weird!.
It sounds like there could have been a batch of faulty motors from hacker. (hard to believe).We will find out from them soon enough i am sure as our supplier is going to pass on all the info to them for some feedback.Thanks to Dean Grobbelar from aerial concepts for swopping these motors and going the extra mile to get us sorted out. I know a lot of other dealers would put up a fight. Dean always looks after the pattern guys. It would be nice If someone from hacker read these threads and gave us their opinion.
Chris.

cartercg

Hi Chris, great to hear you and Neil are sorted with replacement motors which seems to have solved the problem. Well done to dean for replacing them. Just shows the benefits of using a local agent that takes customer issues seriously. Now that is customer service!

The spin99 will only give a max amp reading if the tx throttle end point is sufficiently high such that it registers that you are giving full throttle. You will probably find you have reduced your throttle top end to less than 80% which is not enough for the spin99 to initiate a current reading. Problem is that the motor actually reaches full power when the end point is around 80% and if you have it at a higher value you end up with a dead spot at the top end of your throttle stick position. So if you want to see what the spin99 thinks the max current is then temporarily increase your throttle end point, but be warned that it is usually very inaccurate. But if you have reading from your last motor run on the same speed controller it will give you a relative comparison, but don't trust the absolute value.

Clint

villalbi2003

hello
about the nose damage of Citrin with Hacker Q80, i see another same case exactly,so i think must to take in consideration the action by a big
ring rotate of motor, i think it work like a gyroscopic system, and produce a big force that stress the motor mount
and entire structure;Citrin do not have in the nose a hard fiber structure,so is possible that the reacton force to motor is over
the structure resistance.
Someone have an idea about that?

NicolasG

Hi Guys,

I have just ordered my Citrin but after reading about that nose incident I am a bit worried.
Anyway I will use the C50 for my ship. Do you think that I should reinforce the front part of the plane or it should be OK with C50.
Anyone ever had any problem (nose) with that setup?

Cheers and happy landing everyone,

Nick

grantb

Hi Nicolas,

I don't think that motors pulling out of the nose is something specific to the Citrin.

My advice would be that you mustn't be too "clever" with the mount. There are better places to save a few grams of weight. Also make sure the motor is secured front and back to spread the load when the motor tries to twist in the mount with changes in attitude.

Clint and myself both fly our Citrins with the Pletti Advance and (touch wood) 7 month down the line we haven't had an issue.

The C50 14XL is a great motor if you are happy to grease the gearbox every 50-75 flights The weight you save (compared to the pletti) you will need to replace in the nose. My batteries (1135g) are hard up against the back of the motor using a Mejzlik Extra light prop and spinner and I am only just happy with the CG. A standard Mejzlik prop would make up the difference nicely.

cartercg

Hi Nick, there should be no need to put in any additional reinforcing of the nose of the citrin. As per the feedback from grant you should not need to do anything special. The c50 14xl will work great in the citrin. Access to the motor is great so removing it for regular greasing should not present any challenges. Just keep everything in your installation as far forward as you can so that you will have flexibility on the cg location.

Clint

NicolasG

Hello guys,