Brewerpaul

Hi-- as I anxiously await the delivery of my plane, I've been trying to find tips for setting up and modifying it to fly better. Wading through 450-plus pages of the Badius Boys is a bit too much, and someone suggested starting a Badius tips ONLY thread, so here it is. I think this will be useful, especially to newbie pilots like me.

Anyone who has a good idea for making this plane perform even better, please post it here and keep the OT stuff (lots of which is also pretty interesting) on the other Badius group. Let's see if this will fly (so to speak...)

yoster

Tips I found useful in my badius:

1) Ditch the stock battery. Discharge is not high enough and they overheat. Grab a 7-cell 2/3A.
2) Eventually upgrade speed controller. Stock speed controller fries easily once you add the extra output of the 2/3A battery.
3) Upgrade motor. I suggest a 400 or 480 (i've only used the 400). Prop it correctly! (stock prop is TOO BIG and will overheat the motor). Stock motor might last you awhile, but mine fried mid-flight rather quickly.
4) Transmitter. Might want to upgrade to a standard one eventually.
5) Wing. Either reinforce the stock one or go with a challenger/upgraded wing from raidentech. Stock one bends out of shape easily in high-g turns.

That's about it for me. Really, the only REQUIRED upgrade is the battery.. maybe the esc as well depending on how yours holds up. Using a similar capacity battery I saw flight times increase about 3x.. the stock AAA's are just have too low of a disharge. They overheat and capacity goes down the crapper. Mine wouldn't even fight wind until I went with the 2/3A.

edit -- wrong spelling

Brewerpaul

I'm TOTALLY new to this: can you explain what 2/3A means?
Can I still use the same charger?
I'm basically in this to have a plane I can take out once in a while and have some fun with-- not looking for super performance, or to spend a lot of extra money.
BTW-- My accipiter arrived yesterday, so naturally it's raining today...
First impression, I'm pretty impressed with the quality of the plane.

Oh, people have suggested doing a water break-in of the motor. How do I get it out? I haven't tried yet, but it looks like the plastic rack that holds the battery would get in the way. I'd really rather not have to take the whole innards out.

Slo-V Flyer

2/3A is a type/size of cell that makes up a battery, so for example you can have 2/3A > 2/3AA > 2/3AAA. Think of it as the regular AA or AAA batteries except only about 2/3 the height. You should be able to use your charger (I dont know what kind you have though) as long as your connectors match, and as long as the new batteries are the same volts (if you've got those slow wall chargers that you can't select voltage).

Generally the larger the cell, and I'm assuming the 2/3A battery is physically larger than your stock one, the more amps it is able to discharge thus providing more usable power to the motor, on the other hand you may or may not get better times depending on the Mah rating of the batteries, because the motor is able to draw more amps from the larger battery, up to a point. Think of it like drinking thick slushy through a thin coffee stir straw, compared to drinking through a large drinking straw. Which method is easier & faster to finish the drink?

yoster

Don't worry about going through all that. The motor isn't expensive enough to justify it. If you want to do it though, it is easy. The motor also comes out very easily as well. I wouldn't worry about it though.

On the part about that charger.. you really want to get rid of it. It is not a peak charger, nor is it a timed charger. So really there is no way for you to know when the battery is actually peaked/not charged enough/overcharged. Before you upgrade batteries I would upgrade chargers. You can get a decent one fairly cheap that will do the job just fine.
http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXHJB5&P=7
The one above would do fine. Will charge 4-7 cells, cheap, and will peak charge. Just gotta run it off your car battery is all. Make sure to not switch the charger above 1amp (the lowest setting) until you learn more about charge rates.
http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXDXA2&P=7

When you do purchase the 2/3A 7-cell (19.99 at your local hobby store.. typically.. ask for the 7-cell for the firebird freedom), you will also notice higher run times. Yes, it is drawing more, but the stock battery gives out early because it excessively overheats. (in my experience anyway.. maybe I had a bad battery).
The one above does the same as the duratrax, only it can charge 1-10 cells (your battery will be a 7.. so either will work).

Brewerpaul

Got my plane all assembled and it went together with no problems. All control surfaces are nice and square with each other. Even after flexing it lots of times the elevator hinge was quite stiff, so I cut the hinge except for about 1/2" at each end and hinged it with clear packing tape top and bottom. It's lots more flexible now. I did take out the motor and do the water thing, although I'm not sure I notice any diff.
One of my stock batteries seems to have charged just fine, but the extra one did not: didn't even get warm after 2 hr on the charger. I already wrote to Raidentech about a replacement. I'll probably stick with the stock batteries until they poop out, then upgrade my batteries and charger.

yoster

Sounds like a plan.. let us know how it flies. I couldn't get mine to keep altitude very well with the stock battery. But like I said, I think I received a faulty battery as well. Good luck!