zx11ninja

Hi all.


I am about to convert my 4G3's tail from brushed to 2.9g brushless using the Flea ESC.

At wowhobbies.com, they advertise many methods to upgrade the stock 4G3 tail. I was wondering if anyone had any specs on the Flea ESC chip.

According to Wow Hobbies, they will be coming out with a less expensive 2.9g brushless tail kit instead of the kit I purchased for $104.95.

Before I install the kit, I wanted to know if the Flea chip contains a more powerful ESC than the other ESCs that are used in the tail upgrade kits.

Does anyone know where I can get Flea ESC chip specs for the Flea 88V2 ESC chip?


Thanks.

-Z

Shadow99

I've got that exact set-up on my 4g3 from WOW Hobbies! I don't have the specs of the Flea BL ESC other than that it's the smallest BL ESC I'd ever seen (follows right in will all the parts on the 4g3, micro-scopic). The hardest part I found was removing the varnish off the standard 2.9g motor wires to solder the color insulated wires & soldering them to Flea, without melting anything else. Mounting the motor to the tail mount was also very easy, but be careful pressing the tail blade on, it's a tight fit.

Shadow

ehirobo ehirobo

Why don't you go with the Walkera factory brushless tail.  It should be out very soon (the complete heli is out and shipping already).  The tail fin design is much stronger than the orginal "carbon rod" and everything just fits right in.

zx11ninja

Hi all.


Thanks for the replies.


ehirobo.com, I would have loved to get the already double brushless 4G3 from Walkera. However, I had already gotten the brushless main 4G3. If I had known (actually, I guessed after the fact that Walkera would be doing this), I would have waited on buying the 4G3. Therefore, it made economical sense to upgrade the tail instead for $104.95 instead of buying a whole new helicopter for more than double that amount.

Shadow99, the red wires on the 2.9g should have already been stripped at the very ends. Perhaps yours broke off. An easy way to strip them is to use sandpaper and lightly rub off the red coating against a small block of wood or something.

Shadow99, by the way, how does your setup fly? Currently, I am experiencing a problem where the main motor will cut off after I raise the throttle stick half-way. This behavior happens on both the stock Walkera brushless motor as well as the Turbo Ace 91416 motor that I bought. I have consulted Tech Support at Wow Hobbies. I await their response. Oh by the way, Wow Hobbies is coming out with a slightly less 2.9g tail upgrade kit. It uses basically the same parts as the tail kit we bought. However, instead of the Flea, it uses a Walkera 10A ESC.


Take care.

-Z

Shadow99

I cut the varnished wires short at the tail motor so I could use the insulated wires, and my only soldering iron is a butane powered unit with a minimum of 50 watts, it didn't like the 30 gauge wire.
As far as the performance of the unit, hands-down 200% better than the stock brushed tail. The tail still wags a little bit, due to the weak gyro built in to the RX, but will hold OK flying tail first, were as the stock tail would blow-out in Idle-up or fast backward flying.
I don't have any issues with the main motor dropping out, have you checked the connections to the RX, could be a bad/lose connection with the microscopic Walkera plugs. I'm still using the stock Walkera BL main motor, cut down to 140mm Gaui plastic main blades (for the EP200v2).
I'll post some pics once I find the camera again.

Shadow

Here's some pics of my 4g3, Gaui plastic blades, Airy V2 swashplate, 2.9g BL tail & flea BL ESC.

zx11ninja

Hi Shadow99.


For some reason, I still am having problems with my Flea based tail upgrade.  Actually, the brushless tail works well.  However, the main motor is misbehaving ever since I introduced the Flea upgrade.

The main motor cuts off at half throttle.  Also, the level of throttle stick at which the main motor cuts on is inconsistent.

In idle up (3D) mode, the main motor does not spin unless I pull it down slightly from half throttle.  If I move the throttle slowly as I pull it down, the main motor will build full power.  If I move the throtte down quickly, the main motor will shut off.

In idle up mode, if I move the throttle stick up, the main motor may spin for a while, but as I move the throttle up further, the motor will shut off.

One thing I am realizing is that I can hold the throttle stick all the way to the left and slightly raise the throttle.  The main motor will spin up and build RPM.  But, at the same throttle level, as soon as I move the throttle stick full right, the main motor will stop.  When I move the throttle stick all the way down, the Walkera main motor ESC will chirp again as though I had just connected power.  If I weren't so invested in this, I would start over again, but that's too pricy.

I am wondering if I have a bad Walkera ESC.  The Flea tail seems to be behaving normally.  However, when it powers the tail, I wonder if it is robbing power from the Walkera main motor ESC or causing it to cut out somehow.  When I soldered the tail wires to the Flea, I carefully soldered so that each wire is exactly on the second pin from the left of each of the three chips.

I am sure that I have no loose connections.

Perhaps the receiver is bad, but I find that hard to believe, as it is spinning both the motors.  Also, it was fine before I performed this upgrade.  So, at this point, I do not know what is bad.  However, Wow Hobbies says all electronics sales are final, so I am stuck.

At this point, I don't know what to do.  I will continue troubleshooting though.

Could you please tell me if you experienced any anomalies after your Flea tail brushless upgrade?  With the throttle centered, if you enter idle up mode, does your main motor spin up correctly?  Can you move the throttle fully up and fully down and maintain full motor speed?


Thoughts?


-Z

ehirobo ehirobo

It seems like it may have something to do with the battery as it don't have enough power to power both ESC.... Are your batteries old? New one's may help on this issue.

Shadow99

I would also check your lipo 1st, as ehirobo suggested.
Is it the 20c lipo? The stock lipo is only 11 to 15c.
Has it swollen at all? That could mean the cell has been over-discharged (drawn below 3.70vdc), equals toasted lipo!

Next I would check the stock Walkera BL ESC, I think the Turbo Ace motor draws too much amperage off the ESC, the stock BL motor has plenty of BALLS! If the stock motor doesn't freak-out like the TA, then get a larger main ESC for the TA if you really think you need that kinda power.
Last would be the ESC settings or TX programing, if you have the 2801 TX, you should be able to check the throttle curves for NORMAL MODE & IDLE-UP. Mine is the 2601, which requires moving DIP swiches to activate certain set-up modes.

Shadow

zx11ninja

Hi Guys.


Thanks for the advice.

I am positive that the batteries are fine. I also use the same batteries in my brushless main 4#3B, and its main motor is the same as the stock brushless main in the 4G3. The batteries are in good condition and are not swollen or damaged in any way.

Both my stock brushless Walkera main motor and the Turbo Ace motor exhibit the exact same behavior as far as the motor cutting off.

Shadow99, earlier, you mentioned that your setup and mine are exactly the same. After you wired up your Flea-based tail kit to your 4G3, were you able to fly it right after? Did you have to adjust your throttle/pitch/mixing curves before you could fly your upgraded 4G3? Did you have to get a bigger ESC?

Unfortunately, I too have the WK-2601 transmitter.

I will investigate adjusting the curves. I sincerely hope that none of my electronics are damaged in any way.


Thanks.

-Z

Shadow99

The only adjustments I made after installing the BL tail motor were, turn the mix pot fully to the right (allows max tail rpm), then I had to adjust the gyro by turning DIP switch #12 on the TX and adjusting V1 till the tail held OK in Idle-up, then turn off DIP switch #12.

Shadow

zx11ninja

Hi Shadow99.


Well, I have gone through the permutation of different things I could adjust to overcome the issue of my main motor's cutting off at half throttle. It seems as though the receiver may be damaged.

Today, I will bite the bullet and purchase a new receiver and speed controller. Luckily, these two items total to less that $50.00. I will let you know how it turns out.

Thanks for your help.


-Z

zx11ninja

Hi Shadow99.


Quick question for you.  What type of batteriesdo you use in your upgraded double brushless 4G3?  Do you use the stockbattery that came with it?  Or, did you have to upgrade to the 20Cbattery, which is a more powerful battery?

I have replaced themain motor ESC (still kept the old one), and I still had the sameproblem.  I am thinking that the ESC was not the problem in the firstplace.

Then, I did an experiment.  I disconnected allconnections from the receiver except for those for the main motor andpower to the Flea.  Presto!  My main motor is behaving normally againand spins to full throttle both in regular mode and idle-up mode.

Assoon as I connected the signal wire from the Flea into the Tail MotorSignal connection on the receiver, my problems came.  So, ehirobo.comwas onto something.  It seems like the stock 10C battery is notpowerful enough to power two ESCs and two brushless motors.

So,are you using a 20C battery in your upgraded 4G3?  If you are stillusing the 10C stock battery successfuly, then I still must be doingsomething wrong.

ehirobo ehirobo

hello zx11ninja:

Sorry as I don't have a aftermarket brushless tail so I can't say much about it. (I only got a flea brushless main in one of my older 4#3). But with the double brushless I had flow it with new and very old (around 1 year old lipo with don't know how many flight) factory one without any issue. For aftermarket kit higher C rating would sure help but for the factory kit the stock battery should be ok for normal flight. But sure using higher C battery with mini Deans would sure give you better performance.

Happy flying!
ehirobo

zx11ninja

Hi all.


ehirobo, I resolved my problem. The issue was that the stock 10C battery that originally came with my 4G3 was not strong enough to power the main Walkera ESC, a Turbo Ace 91416 main motor, a Flea ESC, and a Turbo Ace 2.9g tail motor. As soon as I switched to a 20C 1S lipo, my motor spun up normally.

I got the clue of using a 20C battery from the double brushless 4G3 that wowhobbies sells for $409.95. It uses a main Walkera ESC, Turbo Ace 91416 main motor, tail Walkera ESC, and a Turbo Ace 2.9g tail motor. More importantly, the kit includes four 20C batteries and one 10C battery.

When you say you have the double brushess 4G3, do you mean the version with the Walkera brushless main motor and the Turbo Ace 2g tail motor and two Walkera ESCs? And you can fly it on a 10C battery? How long a flight do you get?

How does it fly for you? I have yet to fly my upgraded 4G3, as I am now trying to resolve a vibration/head shake problem. One thing I do notice is that the 91416 main motor gets hot to the touch.


Thanks for your help.


-Z

Shadow99

Sorry for the late response Z, I've been really busy.

Yes, I am using the 20c lipo's on my 4g3 (I have 2 20c's & 3 12c's). The stock lipo's that came with my 4g3 are 12c, and with the stock BL motor I get about 6 minutes of flying in IDLE-UP, which is pretty much were I am always with the 4g3. I find the higher headspeed makes it easier to handle. I still use the 12c's from time to time, but my flights are cut down to 4 minutes, and the 12c's get warm, where as the 20c's are still cool to the touch, and the stock BL motor is at 100 degrees.
I still think you should ditch the turbo ace, that's alot of Kv's to be running on a 400mah 20c lipo!

As for your rotorhead vibration, did you balance the blades? Are you using the stock foamies? Don't forget about tracking the blades as well. It took me awhile to rig a way to balance the blades & even more to fuss with the linkages for tracking the blades, but once I had those in-line, the little booger flew like a nano-sized version of my 500.

Shadow

zx11ninja

Hi Shadow99.


Thanks for the response. It was a great help.

Actually, Wow Hobbies sells a "souped up" 4G3 that uses the TA 91416 brushless motor as a main motor and a 2.9g brushless motor as a tail motor. It sells for $409.95. The only difference between this 4G3 and mine is that I am using a Flea ESC for the tail, and not the Walkera ESC. I wanted to get the best performance possible. I still have my stock Walkera brushless main motor. When you say that 14000kV is a lot to be running on a 400 mah 20C lipo, do you mean that the lipo will suffer from too much of a current draw and grow warm very quickly? Is 400 mah too small a rating to power this 4G3 configuration? I only did it because Wow Hobbies did it. Please, make me smart :-) I'm still new to this electric helicopter stuff, and have been flying them only since October 2008.

As far as my stock 12C batteries (even though the casing says 10C) are concerned, what I notice is that when my TA 91416 main motor is installed, I can get to full throttle if I raise the stick slowly. But, shortly after, the motor will cut off. This even happened with the stock brushless main motor. However, with the 20C batteries, this never happens. I guess I'll use the 10C batteries in my 4#3B and the 20C batteries in my 4G3. I assume that using an underpowered battery can cause it to get damaged. Is this correct?

As far as the head shake is concerned, I think I found the problem. It seems that the main shaft is bent. The bend is so slight, you can barely tell by the naked eye. However, when I spin my blades with my finger, I see the tell-tale warped spin of the blades. When I look down at the head button, it does not stay in the center of the imaginary circle. If that is not the problem, then perhaps the blades are not balanced. FYI, my blades are carbon fiber. I got tired of damaging the foam blades and spending a small fortune to replace them.

By the way, how did you balance your blades? I am very interested in hearing your method.


Thanks again.

-Z

ehirobo ehirobo

I am flying the factory double brushless with both walkera ESCs and motors. I don't have any issue flying it with the factory 10C battery. I think it is because both the main and tail motor is smaller than the after market one. For the factory 400mah I can get around 6min normal flight, if I push it I think I can get 7 but really don't wants to damage the lipo.

Happy flying!
ehirobo

empty_space

Is there a big difference in the performance between the walkera tail esc and the flea? If I use the 2.9 BL tail motor with the walkera tail esc will there be a big difference between that motor with the flea esc?

Aloha Flyer

Just got this in from Eflite. Is something going to bite us in the neck
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttOLB...layer_embedded

Shadow99

Z,
What I've been using for a blade balancer for the 4g3 blades is an extra 2mm OD flybar for my MX300, that I cut down to a shorter length. Then I slide each of the blades onto the shaft with the leading edges in the same direction (both up). A couple of shaft collars can apply pressure to the blades so that they don't slip. The rest of the jig is an old syle teeter-totter base that I sit on a level surface. I use scotch tape as a balancing-aid, cut off a small piece & stick just a touch of it to the leading edge (so if you need to move the tape in or out you can), once you find that perfect point just press it equaly down over the upper & lower suface of the blade.
When I get my new camera batteries in I'll upload some pics.

Empty Space,
Are you talking about the brushless ESC for the tail? The Flea is a converter that takes the signal only out of the RX (from the tail), and converts it so that it's built in BL ESC can control the BL 2.9g outrunner motor. If the stock Walkera tail ESC is made for BL motors than you should be OK, but if your stock motor plugged directly into the RX, than it's the brushed motor & the 2.9g BL will not work without a converter & BL ESC or just the Flea.

Shadow