scudrunner77

I'm back from vacation and am happy too see more progress here. I've been looking forward to building something all week. Having spent 1600 miles on the road you would think that I would have a design all worked out in my head...

CP- I like your wing but am kinds lost as to why is does not fly better. Maybe the GWS prop will help some? I also hate to say cause I'm not sure I will do much better, but maybe 7oz is too heavy?? I have a dozen of those rubber GWS prop adapters... if you want a few I can mail them up to you.

combatpigg

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If 7 ozs is too heavy, then we will need to fly planes with more lift. I figured this would be a bare bones plane with power to spare.

combatpigg

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Just got back from the field, more dissapointing news....changed to a GWS 4025 and the plane flew better, but it still sucked. I decided to run it to the charge cut off, but it fell out of the sky before that could happen, and now there is some repair work to do. Next move is to try a higher lift airframe. This SWR simply needs more power to fly right.

Raymond LeFlyr

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Darnit guys I hate to hear ". . . a discouraging word. . ." from out West. My first attempts at "electric elation" were dismal failures too. From the Astro can motors, through SP-400s I was not thrilled. However, outrunners and Li-pos have made a new man out of me (well in a manner of speaking).

I still haven't got my motors from the 'Hong but I have been researching these motor, prop, battery combinations on another "nameless" group of forums. That and my own experience with lekky's have convinced me that balancing propellor selection with these other factors is critical.

I have found plans for the "Blue Albacorde" (yes, that's the correct spelling) that looks promising for my first efforts with the J250. Its a pusher delta design that is reported to be moderately fast. I hope to be able to provide a positive report a day or two after those bloody motors show up. Oh, one of the J250 advocates suggests oiling both front and rear bearings before EACH flight. Maybe that would help a little.

scudrunner77

CP- It's my experience that some planes will not fly all the way down to the voltage cut-off. Some people do not even get an ESC that has cut off for lipo cause they never get that low anyways.

I did a little looking around...

http://www.stevensaero.com/shop/prod...57&page=1#tabs
They claim this racer can do 40mph on less power than a J250... it only weighs 4.0 oz.

Remember this one I made a while back. http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_29...tm.htm#2985797
Just a 6mm thick sheet of depron for the wing. It weighed 5.50 oz. Again same motor as above. Less power than the J250. It flew ok. I'm thinking about doing an all balsa version for the e-racer. It should be much better with the J250.

Point I'm trying to make is that I think a SWR is doable, just need to get the weight down by about 20% [:-]if you can.

scudrunner77

My first electric was a Graupner Terry... flew very nice. From there I tried fooling around with the E-powered stuff and got some crapy results. There are a lot of variables in deciding an electric setup and it does not take much to screw it up. Have you tried any of the GWS brushless motors. I have been using one for a while now and really like it.

combatpigg

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The adrenaline rush is a hot looking plane, but I don't see how the plane itself is any lighter than this swept winger I just built. The difference I see is that in the specs they are using half the battery capacity that I am. I am using a 700 mah lipo, they are using 300-400. I think it is time to go back through BipeFlyers' Mini Falcon thread and see if he lists all the onboard equipment. His 250 powered plane was flying with authority! I managed to burn out the 8 amp speed controller today, so I just ordered a 15 ampper, but it weighs twice as much as the burned out one.

Ragwing

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CP,

Sorry to here of your troubles - that's not how this is supposed to go! []

Your plane looks good, and the weight seems right too. I don't know, only time will tell I guess, but we'll get something worked out, I've seen Bipe's plane fly too so I would agree that there has to be a way to get these motors to perform. Part of it could be the prop, I've got a couple of the Hobbico props that Bipe has and I think will try those out first when I fly my plane (should be happen sometime within the week). In the mean time if you send me your address I'll mail you a coupel of the Hobbico Props - should be quicker than just about any online source. Out of curiosity, what happened to your ESC? Best of luck,

Derek

combatpigg

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RW, thanks for the offer, but I ordered some props last night. The ESC doesn't pass any current now, it worked up until the crash. I ordered the Adrenaline Rush, I think it is worth it to see how they skin a cat. Their little brushless combo is tempting, but the object here is to get those $2 J250 motors to provide some fun. To make matters worse, this brand new MULTIPLEX LIPO CHARGER turns on ONLY when it feels like it, plus the instructions that came with it are sketchy.

For ruggedness and to just plain keep it simple, I am hoping that a SWR will work here. If I have to go with 300 mah packs at $25 each, just to be flyable and possibly another field charger to keep the little packs going.........hmmm [>:]!!

combatpigg

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The ADRENALINE RUSH showed up today, nice looking SWR, but there were no plans or instructions........you gotta be kidding me!

scudrunner77

CP- The instructions are online where you bought it. You have to download them....

combatpigg

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My machine doesn't do PDF files....I'm just going to wing it. I think it is ridiculous that they can't throw a piece of paper into the box to at least outline the build sequence. I picked up a couple of 480 mah packs today, they are significantly lighter. Now as soon as I get a second wind here, that Adrenaline Rush will get put together for some thrashing tomorrow.

scudrunner77

All you need is to download this http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html and you can open PDF files. It's pretty much a must have these days....

Not that the plane looks difficult to build, but the instructions are quite good and you would probably pay double if they printed them and added it to the kit.

Look forward to the flight report. I've had my eye on that kit for some time...

You can use 480 mah batteries if you want... we'll just add a half oz of lead on race day?

combatpigg

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Thanks for the link to adobe, but this machine doesn't have a pentium, so I'm still stuck in the dark ages. Well, the adrenaline rush has 2 speeds and ze fust vun ist called disappointment. [&o] It ended up weighing 4.8 ozs, which is .8 ozs over the advertised weight. most of that is from the 250 vs 180 motor, and the 15 amp vs 8 amp ESC, and possibly the 480 ma pack vs what the kit mfg offers.

It flys OK, but it is not very racy. I am still in search of the right CG location, I just moved the motor back some, waiting for the packs to recharge for round 2. I suppose that racing will be more fun than flying this thing alone is.....

If I knew how, I would hack into the mfgs' web site and replace their planes' promotional photo with this one [this one is the real deal, with all the junk hanging out]

Ragwing

My Feedback: (2)

Well....she's a 'beut....[:-]

I'm sorry you're having such a dissappointing re-introduction to electrics. It's hard to understand what's going on, if you are pulling 6 A from your 2S pack, with a 4.8 oz model (0.136 kg), then you should have close to 330 W/kg - which shouldy be plenty. But not speedy evidently. I dunno, maybe 45W just isn't enough to be exciting regardless of the airframe it's on.

I'm getting close to maidening mine, hopefully tomorrow. I can't believe how heavy these motors are, I ended up hacking an 1" off of the nose because the model was so nose heavy. It's still a touch nose heavy, but hopefully flyable - we'll see.

Derek

scudrunner77

Here's a pict of what I've been able to whip up this week.

CP- man I don't know what to say. I watched some video of Bipe's J250 Mini Falcon... does your fly anything as well as that? http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_23...tm.htm#2353903

combatpigg

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The Mini Falcon and Rascal is what I keep comparing these racer plane attempts to. The imagine I have in my minds' eye doesn't come close to what I saw at the Mission field. I'm going to try a delta now, keeping in mind that the target weight is more critical than what my first attempt came out at. The idea is to fully enclose all that electronic junk.

Ragwing

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I like the look of your plane Scud-I'll be looking forward to a flight report.

I finished up my racer test bed today, and took it out to the field to see what's what. To my great surprise it flew great! It's not fast compared to Cp's Nitro planes, but it is sporty, and moves along pretty well- quick enough to have some fun racing with anyway.

Here's the specs:

Span: 24", ≈75 in²
Length: 16 in
Weight: 183 g (≈6.5 oz)
Battery: Kokam 7.4V 2S 640 mAh 15C
ESC: GWS ICS-300Li
Berg Receiver
J250 Motor and Hobbico Prop

The power to weight ratio is better than 1:1 with a fresh battery. I made the cowl from .75 oz-ish glass cloth, with baking soda and Elmer’s glue mix to fill in the low spots. I'm not really happy with it, it doesn't mesh nicely with the fuselage and it is kind of heavy. The model is still a bit nose heavy, the battery is as far back as I can put it, and the receiver and elevator servo are about as far back into the empennages as I can push them. I ended up taping two pennies onto the horizontal stab to get it to balance where I thought it should (the pennies are included in the total weight above). Now that I know it flies decently, I think I'll put a bit of red paint on the cowl (what you see in the photos is from a sharpie) and maybe a stripe or two on the wing.

However the flight wasn't perfect, about 3 mins into the first flight I decided to land and adjust the expo to tame the handling a bit. As I reduced the throttle through about 50% the motor started make a really loud screeching noise. I chopped the throttle, made my adjustments and tried the motor again - and it was fine. But about 2 minutes into the next flight the screeching came back, this time at full throttle. As soon as it started making that noise the thrust went to almost nothing, I had no choice but to land. I checked to see if the prop was rubbing on the cowling-it wasn't. I pulled the cowling off - the motor was too hot to touch. I let it cool for a bit then re-launched without the cowl. The motor flew for maybe a minute before starting to make the noise again-so I called it quits. I should note that the performance without the cowl was noticeably worsened - still flyable, but less eager to climb and get on the wing.

I don't know if I just cooked the motor, or if I have a bad one. I will admit I hadn't built any cooling into the cowl - something I better do. I'll try oiling the bushings and see if that helps. I still have two more motors to play with if necessary.

I have to admit I'm already thinking of revisions and what I want in the next plane. I don't like the chunky front end on this plane - it could probably be stretched out a bit (might help with the nose heavy issue). But really I want even more speed, I may just keep this for a season of racing and start on something with closer to 100 W and a brushless motor....

I like the way your guys’ planes are looking, I’m sure it’s only a matter of time until you get them tweaked to perform the way you want them to. Lets get to racing!

Derek

combatpigg

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Nice work, RW! Maybe by next weekend, I'll have something worth running you with? Even running out in the open, I notice some heat generated, I'll bet all you need is to punch a few holes in the cowl.

combatpigg

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We have a winner! Finally got to see some of that performance I saw at the Mission Wings Fly In! Leave it to a delta to get the job done. This one is 24" in span and has 177 sq inches. It weighs 4.8 ozs with the 480 pack and 5.8 ozs with the 700 pack. It has unlimited vertical with the smaller pack and lands as light as a feather. with the 700 pack, the performance is still very good, the landing was still pretty slow. I'm ready, RWs' ready, are we just waiting on SR77 now? I'm going to build a few more of these, the main ingredient is 1/8x1/8 spruce sticks and 1/8 balsa for the ribs and center section floor. The elevons and fins are 3/32.

Ragwing

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Nice CP! Glad things are finally working out - so you wanna race tomorrow? [>:]

combatpigg

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Yes, I think some racing is a slendid idea. SR77s' plane looks pretty well done in that photo, hopefully he can come out too. Today would have been a perfect day, just a slight breeze and about 80. We can work together on a course layout and lap count per heat. I'm guessing 100-150 feet or so between the poles should keep the action intense enough. The other point to consider is that the further away the poles are, the harder it is to judge when to turn.

scudrunner77

Ragwing- Nice looking racer. Glad she flys well for you. I remember how much better my contest plane was with the cowl on it too. It's amazing how much aerodynamics can affect such a small bird.

CP- 3rd trys a charm. Glad you got something that not only flys but has good vertical too. I don't think you would be happier any other way.

I doubt I'll be racing tomorrow. There is still some work left on that plane and I did not see how far things had come for you guys until I got home at about 10:30pm. Leave it to CP too whip out a plane and test fly it in less then a day!

combatpigg

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SR, get busy! There can't be that much left to do, remember that you don't need to cover it until we get some moisture again. We could meet tomorrow afternoon or early evening in Seattle.

Ragwing

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An afternoon/evening race sounds good to me. I'm happy to meet wherever works best for everyone - I know where the field is in Arlington, and there are a series of 7-8 soccer and baseball fields about 1 mile form my place if we need space down this way. But whatever works best. Do you guys know if any of the hobby shops will be open tomorrow? I could really use another battery pack...

I'll be watching the board/pm's for a concensus tomorrow...