HELP PLEASE! Suggestions on hand-starting petrol engines
 

Dear All,

Thanks for reading!

My situation is that at the moment, I'm bench running a petrol engine before I put it in my 5th scale Yellow Aircraft Spitfire. It's replacing the glow engine that has made it crash twice!

It's a Meiss 45cc inline twin petrol (http://www.meiss-motoren.de/Reihenmotore/45_R/45_r.html).

At the moment, on the test bench it has a small plastic spinner on it so that I can start it with my electric starter, but I won't be able to use the electric starter on it once it's in the airframe, so I've got to get it to the point where it will start easily by hand. The reason for this is that once in the plane, it will have a large spinner on it, too big for the electric starter.

At the moment it starts easily with the electric starter, but the best I've had by hand so far is a fire and a splutter that lasted about a second. My questions are:

1. Do you have any tips for getting large petrol engines to start by hand? (This is my first petrol)
2. Are there any solutions in existence for electric starting engines with large spinners? (It's a 5 5/8 inch machined aluminium spinner, that I'd rather not wear the paint off!)

Many thanks in advance!

Jason.

RE: HELP PLEASE! Suggestions on hand-starting petrol engines
 

Sorry no suggestions on tuning/operating your engine. It would be rare indeed here in my country but why not a large cone?

I have a home made one that slips over a standard starter cone and uses a large silicon cone.

The one on my geared starter uses a three inch hole saw and a store bought silicon cone insert.

John

RE: HELP PLEASE! Suggestions on hand-starting petrol engines
 

It's all a matter of getting it tuned correctly. Not being able to see the engine and not much info here it sounds like it is not tuned correctly. Once the engine is tuned correctly it will hand start easy. It may be a bit lean on idle and you may have the idle speed too low.
This is a Zenoah G-62 hamd start.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17aNAXFDeTQ&feature=g-upl[/youtube]

Cheers

RE: HELP PLEASE! Suggestions on hand-starting petrol engines
 

tuned correctly is very true, when i hand start my gas engines, i turn on choke, flip till it barks, make sure throttle is at idle, turn off choke and flip usally 1-3 flips and its running

RE: HELP PLEASE! Suggestions on hand-starting petrol engines
 

Most the time I would just tell you to go to the gas engine forum and ask around, I have never heard of a Meiss engine. I did something else I tell a lot of people to do, try doing a search and see what you can find out.
I wanted to see this engine so I did a search myself and located a thread with a bit of talk about the Meiss engine, found it in the war bird forum posted in 2010. Seems it is/was a German made engine. Some of them are Boxers too. Some of them used Zinoah parts. I didn't find a lot of information about them but I did find the email address for what looks like the manufacture. [email protected] I didn't dig too far and I did find some more threads. I think I would just use the big cone like John showed you. If I had one on my bench I'm sure getting it to hand start would be easy but there are some simple things I couldn't see in the photos like if the chokes butterflys have a hole in them or if they are like my G-62 and don't have a hole or close up all the way to choke well and need a finger over them to choke well?
Do a search and try to talk to someone that knows something about the engine and uses one so you can get better information.;)

RE: HELP PLEASE! Suggestions on hand-starting petrol engines
 

jasona

You haven't described what kind of ignition you have, I'm assuming it is magneto. If so, you can't effectively use the same technique as for a glow engine. A glow engine has the ignition constantly "on" so long as the plug is glowing, so starting the prop up against compression works well. With magneto ignition, the magnets pass across the coil to generate the spark, and need to pass at some speed to do this. Thus, need to begin the prop flip well before the magnets pass the coil so that when they get there, they are already at speed. What works for me is to position the prop so that it is at the 9:00 position when the magnets pass the coil, and I begin the prop at the 12:00 position, giving about 90 degrees of rotation to build the prop speed before ignition.

You may prefer a different position for the prop, but it is important to get it started in rotation before the magnets pass the coil.

Of course, priming/choking is the same for magneto engines as for electronic ignition.

Good luck.

After seeing pics of the engine, Ican't see where a mag would fit. I also don't see any electronic ignition, but that is easier hidden than a magneto. So, never mind! http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/js/f.../msn/71_71.gif http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/js/f...wink_smile.gif

RE: HELP PLEASE! Suggestions on hand-starting petrol engines
 

Dear everyone above,

Thanks so much for replying! The kindness inherent in taking the time to shoot a video, take pictures and then upload them is huge! Thank you very much!

The engine is much improved: It's set up well now and running and starting very nicely, but only with the electric starter. It's becoming increasingly obvious that it won’t start by hand.

The Ghost: Brilliant! Wish mine would do that!

Gray Beard: Very kind, but I included a link to the engine in my first post and am in direct contact with Meiss Motors. Responses come in somewhat broken English though as he’s German!

RCVFR: It’s electronic ignition, running off a separate battery.

John Buckner: I’m inspired! Absolutely inspired and enthused, particularly as you have the identical starter to me! You made up an adapter that fits over the original! Brilliant! Not the geared one, but the first three pictures. Fantastic.

A large cone is definitely the way I’m going to need to go and what you made is just what I need. It’s outside of my resources to machine up one like you made, but I wonder if I could bribe you enough to make one for me? What would it take? I mean what if I offered silly money for you to make one exactly the same as you have? $100? $200?

RE: HELP PLEASE! Suggestions on hand-starting petrol engines
 

Jason, Yup you really need a large cone setup. The slipover large cone was made for me by a friend as I am no machinists. But there is no need to resort to "silly money" just yet though.

If you look at the geared starter close you may recognize the large 3 inch cone cup is actually a common three inch hole saw. The only tedious part is grinding the teeth off. The mandrel parts are just removed and it is bolted on the motors shaft just like the normal small cone cup.

The silicon insert you will have to obtain and I cannot tell you who has them since I did some horse trading for that one. I beleve they may be had from Sullivan or Miller and the three inch fits into the three inch hole saw perfectly.

John[8D]

RE: HELP PLEASE! Suggestions on hand-starting petrol engines
 

Hi John,

Great to hear from you! As regards the insert, do you mean this kind of thing?

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...P?I=LXUSG3&P=8

RE: HELP PLEASE! Suggestions on hand-starting petrol engines
 

Yay! Problem solved!

It turns out that a long-standing supplier of mine does this as standard, I won't have to fabricate anything and it's not silly money, either! Look at this, plus the optional larger cone and insert:

http://www.justengines.co.uk/acatalo...15.html#aJENST

Perfect.

It came up when I was searching on "silicon rubber insert" to go in the hole saw!

Thanks again for all the very kind replies though.

RE: HELP PLEASE! Suggestions on hand-starting petrol engines
 

Yes they list the outside diameter as 2.85 inchs (also a metric equivilent) and what you must to is go to a tool shop and find the size hole saw that will be close to this. Sorry I cannot help with the metric sizes.


John

RE: HELP PLEASE! Suggestions on hand-starting petrol engines
 

It's OK, I'm sorted John: See last post above. Very handy.

RE: HELP PLEASE! Suggestions on hand-starting petrol engines
 

Fantastic Jason and that will certainly do the job And please do post some pictures of your Spitfire if ya' can when your done right here on this thread. Would love to see it and pictures of your flying sites.

Always loved to see model sites around the world via this magic we are communicating on;)

John

RE: HELP PLEASE! Suggestions on hand-starting petrol engines
 

Great, thanks John, will do. It's for this:

RE: HELP PLEASE! Suggestions on hand-starting petrol engines
 

It's the Yellow Aircraft 5th scale Spitfire: Crashed on its first maiden because of the bloody engine. Crashed on its second maiden because of the bloody engine, hence my now switching to the petrol engine I need this starter for. Hoping for 3rd time's the charm or "3rd time lucky" as we say here in England!

RE: HELP PLEASE! Suggestions on hand-starting petrol engines
 

Nice plane Jason. I hope the gas engine solves the relibility issue.

RE: HELP PLEASE! Suggestions on hand-starting petrol engines
 

Thank you! Me too!

The pictures are after I finished repairing it the first time and just before the second maiden. Fortunately, the damage was relatively light when it crashed the second time. Just some minor repairs to do now and to fit the new engine.

RE: HELP PLEASE! Suggestions on hand-starting petrol engines
 

A lovely ship Jason, appears to be a model of one of the later marks. Best of luck on the maiden and do post any pics or vidio's you may get.

John[8D]

RE: HELP PLEASE! Suggestions on hand-starting petrol engines
 

Thanks John! Yes, it's a MKIV, done in the markings of Ginger Lacey, as my Dad knew him in real life! Airbrushed all the camouflage myself: My first ever time with an airbrush!

RE: HELP PLEASE! Suggestions on hand-starting petrol engines
 

Just out of curiosity what kind of glow engine was in it and what kind of problems were you having with it?

RE: HELP PLEASE! Suggestions on hand-starting petrol engines
 

It was a Super Tigre 60cc inline twin glow (only one carb for the two cylinders though). It kept going on to one cylinder.

On the first maiden, it went on to one cylinder and then no cylinders! Big crash, lots of debris.

On the second maiden, despite having fitted onboard glow to both cylinders and other mods, it went on to one cylinder straight after take-off (tried to upload a video but it won't let me)

I think it doesn't like being mounted inverted: It seemed fine when we were running it upright when we were running it in on the bench. I'll be putting it on eBay shortly. I'm now switching to petrol with nice, safe, reliable spark plugs that fire every single stroke!

So how do I attach a video to this?

RE: HELP PLEASE! Suggestions on hand-starting petrol engines
 

on my 56 cc i turn on the radio open the throttle close the choke flip it about 15 times on first cold start , pull back throttle turn on ignition flip prop engine will hit then stop open choke flip once or twice then it should run ,, after intial cold start just close choke till it burps then open choke and should start easy hope this helps , they start easy with the electronic ignitions

RE: HELP PLEASE! Suggestions on hand-starting petrol engines
 

I have a DLE with electronic ignition. Its easy. Just turn on the ignition, choke, flip till it it pops, turn off the choke, flip till it turns over which is just about two flips. If you have a magneto you will need a starter, more reason to get rid of the plastic spinner.

RE: HELP PLEASE! Suggestions on hand-starting petrol engines
 

HAND START WITH A HOCKEY GLOVE .HAVE USED ONE FOR YEARS!

RE: HELP PLEASE! Suggestions on hand-starting petrol engines
 

Whether magneto or ei<div>You have to set propeller on shaft in such a fashion</div><div>That one blade is at 1 or 2 or 3 o'clock position</div><div>
</div><div>Then</div><div>When you go to flip</div><div>Either sensor on magneto or ei must be prior to its sensor position</div><div>When you flip it and prop begins swing counterclockwise</div><div>This is why it starts with electric starter</div><div>Since this obviously wil cause spark on second go around</div><div>Which you do not get hand flip.</div><div>Of course, always use a glove.</div><div>I have 6 gas engines</div><div>All start easily</div><div>I have never used electric starter on those engines.</div><div>If you learn to flip it</div><div>And also how to use choke</div><div>Then this becomes very easy!</div><div>Let me know how it goes</div>