slevin1

My Feedback: (23)

He's going to torque roll it out the sliding door.

Saul

slevin1

My Feedback: (23)

Greg,

I forgot, what is the total mAh of the combined LiPo packs?

Saul

Greg Covey

Hey, I like Saul's idea!

If you're an NCIS fan, you may have wondered how Gibbs got the boat out of his basement. Although my situation is similar, I have the advantage of removing the wings.

My 12s3p pack is 15AH total.

LDHFlyguy

Paul,
How about you building one of those canopy hatches in one of the familyroom walls? You can probably make some really big servo arms for latches! Of coarse that's only if Saul's hovering idea doesn't work. And, I guess you'd have to hover it without the removable wings. If the batteries are in the plane, you may also need an overhead crane. I really don't know about that one.

EchoBravo

My Feedback: (220)

LOL, it'll be like Dinozo wandering around in the basement looking for the secret door, even when Abby took it apart she couldn't figure it out.


"how did he get it out of the basement?"

Greg Covey

There you go, Ed, thanks!

After I mounted the second cabane, the guides could be removed. I'll keep them as part of my setup gear for the Ultimate this summer.

I used some cable tubing to route the top aileron lines into the fuselage through an opening made with a plastic piece I found in the electrical section of Ace Hardware for $0.55. A second one sits next to the installed one. I simply traced it with a marker and then cut through the sheeted foam with a razor knife.

The 1/2" cable tubing fits snugly through the plastic piece. The top aileron servos are then connected inside the cockpit.

slevin1

My Feedback: (23)

Hi Greg,

I found this. It is an arming switch that can be armed from your transmitter:

http://shop.rc-electronic.com/e-vend...11&c=764&p=764

They sell them in multiple sizes:

http://shop.rc-electronic.com/e-vend...11&c=764&p=764

I'd love to see you review it seperately as part of your Amp'd column.
Saul

Greg Covey

Hi Saul,

The SPS XL 180/360A looks like a sweet design but at today's conversion rates, 290 Euros equals $408 US. My $10 solution from Harbor Freight seems to be working out nicely with my theme of low-cost giant-scale conversions.

I'm off to Toledo on Friday so I'll see what new products are coming this year. Perhaps the guys at Castle Creations will surprise us.

Regards.

ldeese

My Feedback: (3)

I'd be interested to see how the Harbor Freight solution is wired.

Thank you, in advance for anyone providing a link where I can see an up close picture.

(also... subscribed... AND thank you for providing this log... VERY interesting)

-Lee
http://www.youtube.com/helipassion

Greg Covey

Hi Lee,

It's a very good question as I sometimes have assumed knowledge in my posts. This image and [link=http://mgm-compro.com/pdf/en-antispark-d230808.pdf]link to MGM-Compro[/link] should help out.

Picture the momentary switch wired across the Aux connector and the Battery Disconnect Switch wired across the Power connector. By connecting the 100ohm resistor first, for a second, the spark is eliminated when turning the battery switch to On.

Regards.

slevin1

My Feedback: (23)

Thank you Greg for that great diagram. I could never figure out how to assemble an anti-spark wire.

Saul

ldeese

My Feedback: (3)

I Agree with Saul... Thank you Greg. I had seen a similar diagram before, but it didn't make mention of the resistor.
That makes all the difference...

I poked around on your website last night. VERY interesting, and such a multitude of r/c interests or projects!

Great Job!

Lee

ca_fingers

Hi Greg,
im a big fan of all your builds , especially the 1/3 wm clipped cub electrified. how do you think the ca120 would perform on 10s . im working on a nitroplanes 103" su 26. im gutting as much weight as i can but it will most likely be around 28 lbs all up. just wondering what kind of power this will give for mild 3d. any thoughts on this? the reason i ask about 10s is i have 12- 5s 5000 30c zippy's that i would like to get more use out of. thanks

Greg Covey

Thanks guys. I helped give a seminar at Toledo last weekend and was surprised at the amount of people that are so hungry for information on electric flight. This is information that has been available for years now. There was also a big disconnect with on-line forums and articles. It sometimes amazes me how pocketized our hobby really is. Even in my own city of Rochester, the West side clubs don't know what the East side clubs are doing unless there is a national name involved. Perhaps I need to think about writing some basic topic articles for AMP'D. Anyway, I appreciated the feedback and questions.

As for the performance of the CA120-70, I cannot yet testify to it. However, assuming that it doesn't throw magnets, it should work fine for your 28lb Su 26. A basic way to calculate things is like this...we have two setups using the CA120-70 motor that produce about 7500 watts. One uses 12s with a 27" prop and another uses 11s with a 30" prop. On a 28lb plane, 7500 watts would provide 268w/lb of power...basically a crazy amount that is more than you need. This gives you choices to reduce the prop size from 32" (best guess) down to say 29" to 30" when using a 10s LiPo. You can also increase the pitch of the prop to fine-tune the throttle setting for hovers and other maneuvers.

Team Futaba's, Dan Landis, is mounting the CA120-70 into a smaller 1/3 scale aerobatic plane so perhaps he can provide us some further information.

Pack Leader

Greg,

I have gotten the motor and dad has it mounted. It looks great! Not 100% sure on final props yet, but I am planning to start with a Mejlick 27x10, maybe a 28x10 and see how that does. It is mounted on the front of an Exteme Flight 110 Yak. I am running a Castle Ice 160HV and it will be a 12s2p 10,000 Sky LiPo set up.

Curently I am deployed over seas and won't be home for about a month and a half so I wont be able to give any details of performance or anything like that till I get back and run it up and see how it does. If you guys have any questions please let me know.

Greg, The ultimate looks great!! I can't wait to get a pull on the sticks

slevin1

My Feedback: (23)

Greg,

I would love to see some basic articles on electrics. Perhaps calling them "Electrics 101." I work in a hobby shop part time here in Maryland and very very few people are well versed about electrics. I would suggest starting with the basics and make the articles multi-part. Talk about:
-connectors as well as how to choose the proper size wire
-choosing proper size prop
-converting gas/nitro to electric
-how to properly use amp meters & why they are used
-choosing chargers and power supplies
-LiPo verses NiMh verses NiCad, prop adapters
-charging safety
-properly mounting motors, ESC's, and batteries
-making battery access hatches
-positioning batteries for proper balancing
-safety at the field with electrics
-C ratings for both discharge and charging
-how to choose the proper battery i.e. voltage, C-rating
-how to solder
-storing batteries
-When good batteries go bad

I know to the experienced electric flier these topics may seem mundane but these are the topics I teach almost every day I'm at the hobby shop. Hope this helps.

Saul

ca_fingers

so greg, what prop are you running with 11s.? a 30x? xoar . for 11s i take it your running a 6s and a 5s series'd in a 3p config? i need some more 6s packs anyway so i may as well run 11s and be done with it. thanks

Greg Covey

Thanks, Dan...stay safe!

Saul,

Thanks for the excellent input. I will use this as a template for future columns.

ca,

If you go back a few pages, you will see my Xoar 30x10 prop and links to Tower Hobbies. My "Building a Giant" column should be out any day now. It will contain a consolidated version of this thread up until now. After this point, a future column will contain new posts pertaining to flying and charging considerations for giant electrics. Stuff like Honda generators, DC supplies, chargers, and pilots with crazy skills beating up my plane!

I am using a 11s3p super pack (for now) made up of a 5s and 6s in series. You could easily get away with a 2p configuration in 1/3 scale planes as the packs today can handle 100amp bursts without issue (times 2p equals 200amps).

At Toledo, I did get a hint that Castle Creations has not discarded their ICE SHV design efforts so we will see what is in store for 2011.

Greg Covey

I mounted the flying wires on one side of the plane using the supplied hardware. The steel wire was wrapped three times around the fuselage anchor and then secured with a cable tie to keep the wire in place when disconnected from the cabanes.

On the anti-vibration dowels, do you normally add anything to keep them centered on the flying wires?

I started to look at the CG by marking the center metal brace at 175mm from the leading edge. I then ran a string from wing tip to wing tip and you can see that the Ultimate wings are so swept back that I cannot use the wing tips to test the balance. The manual recommends hanging the plane from a wire around the front wing bar by slightly pulling the top wing apart. The top wing bar is centered on the 175mm mark.

I was hoping to test the CG in the back room so I'll look into this further. Perhaps I can grab the leading edge (with two people) near the end of the wing.

slevin1

My Feedback: (23)

Greg,

You should get the EZ Balancer II. It is designed to balance giant scale planes.
www.ezbalancer.com

Saul

Greg Covey

Thanks, Saul. I haven't seen that product before.

slevin1

My Feedback: (23)

Greg,

Make sure you get the supersize kit since the biplane is 42% scale.

Saul

Greg Covey

I discovered an advantage of having a drop ceiling in the backroom as there is a perfectly located stud right above the wing center.

Stay tuned for part II of, "Where there's a will, there's a way!"

Greg Covey

When we tested the CG by hanging the Ultimate from the top wing bar, we discovered that we were tail heavy even with the 8lb 11s3p super pack all the way forward. The plane required 5lbs of weight at the front of the motor box to balance. When I put the weights on the top of the battery box, as shown in the photo, it required 7.5lbs.

The flying weight when balanced at the recommended CG is 48.4lbs including the 8lb battery pack and 5lb lead weight.

While it was a bit disappointing, adding 10% of the plane weight for balance is not unreasonable on a biplane.

Greg Covey

We also used a weighing procedure used on full-scale aircraft. By measuring the distance from the recommended CG to the gear mains and the tail wheel (or nose wheel), you can determine if your plane is balanced using the ratio on the weight at these two points.

As shown in the diagram, I had about a 10:1 length ratio from the gear mains and the tail wheel to the CG. When we measured the weight at the tail wheel, it was indeed 1/10th the weight under the gear mains. In this manner, you can see how it makes checking the CG on larger models or full scale aircraft much easier.

The same technique can be used to determine the CG if you change the weight. By removing the 5lb of lead, my gear mains weighed 40lbs, which changed the ratio from 10:1 to 9.1:1. When you divide the new ratio by the total length from the mains to the tail wheel, you get 8.2" back instead of the original 6.7" so my CG without adding weight is about 1.5" behind the recommended setting.

On a swept wing like the Ultimate, CG changes have less effect. At this point, I will likely start with the added weight in five 1lb sizes and see if the pilots feel the CG can be moved aft...eliminating 1lb at a time.

Another alternative is to move the two rudder servos from the tail to the cockpit area. While this isn't exactly under the CG, you can make a rough estimate by using the 10:1 ratio. 4.4lbs - 0.25lbs = 4.15lbs for our new tail weight. This would mean that the gear mains only need to weigh 41.5 lbs instead of 44lbs. for a minimum savings of 2.5lbs of lead. Where the lead resides on the front of the motor box, it may eliminate the entire 5lbs.

Suggestions are welcome...