jmir

My Feedback: (1)

I have been flying a Typhoon ever since they were introduced by Parkzone. I have never encountered the problem I am experiencing and, so far, have not been able to correct it. Perhaps some of you may have encountered a similar problem and found out how to correct it.

Set up:
Original Typhoon with HS81 servos and Spektrum TX/RX combo using a 2100 mah TowerPower li-po.

Problem:
Everything works fine so long as I don't advance the throttle beyond approximately 3/4 of the way up. If I do so, the motor stops running abruptly (like you slam brakes on) and the prop tries to continue turning giving out that sound you hear when the pinion motor turns and the gears do not. I can go down to less than 3/4 throttle and everything works fine again. The prop on ocassion can continue turing and unscrew itself form the shaft (that stopped when I put a couple of lock nots on the prop and tightened them well).

Things I have already tried:

1) Balanced prop and tried new ones (both the 13" and the 12")
2) Changed the entire gear assembly
3) Changed the motor
4) Tried a different ESC
5) Tried the original TX/RX that comes with the Typhoon
6) Used fully charged batteries and measure voltage with the WattsUp meter -- stayed around 10V through the test

I'm really at a loss! Can't think of anything else to do other than purchase a new Typhoon 2!

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Jmir

Xpress

Sounds like you are having an overload issue. You might want to try a bigger ESC. This may help with power also, as it may give you slightly more power. Try something from X-tra, or Castle Creations, as they have quality ESC's.

Flyin C

Maybe your programed you radio wrong? or are the motor wires reversed? Because the 3wires can only go one way to work correctly

Did this just all of a sudden start happening?

And what ESC are you using?

jmir

My Feedback: (1)

Good advice! I am still using the original ESC. I should probably try a 40 amp ESC. Perhaps it's possible for the motor to start drawing more power as it gets older and starts wearing out.

jmir

My Feedback: (1)

It is not the radio because it does the same thing with the original Typhoon radio. Also, wires are plugged in properly. I did try switching them around.

I had a rough landing where the Typhoon bounced off the ground. It did not damage the plane and I was able to fly it again right after that. The problem surfaced the next time I flew it so I took things apart to make sure gear, housing, shaft, etc were not damaged.

I'm still using the original ESC. I have a second Typhoon ESC and it does the same thing with that one. I'm going to try a higher rated ESC to see if it is an overload problem as previously suggested.

Xpress

A 40 amp would do nicely. I talked to a guy at my local field, and he said that his Typhoon ESC overloaded, but he was using a 3cell, 4200 mah lipo, not a 2100. He switched to a 40 amp, problem solved.

jmir

My Feedback: (1)

A friend who crashed his Typhoon still had the motor and he let me have it. I installed that motor and noticed two things: The prop does not spin as fast but the motor worked at full throttle on the ground.

Just got back from the flying field and had no problems with the motor cutting off, but I still noticed the lack of power compared to my other two motors. So, I still think is an overload problem with the other two motors since they show more power than this last one.

Anyway, I am back flying the Typhoon and I'll be able to stop by the LHS this coming weekend for a new ESC.

Thanks for all the suggestions. Because of it, I'm pretty sure I finally have the problem licked!

Jmir

Xpress

Good, good. If anything, you may have to buy a new motor, but that is the worst case scenario. It should perform nicely.

If your ESC isn't the problem, then it would be your motors. If two failed, then the one you have now is probably going to fail. Buy the ESC ASAP, and don't fly untill you do, or you may risk ruining the motor you have now. If you can, try to open up one of the other two, and check to see if one of the coils had melted. That may be your problem. If so, it's a heat issue, not an overload issue. Feel the motor after landing, and see how hot it is. If it is really hot to the touch, then it's most indefinately a heat issue. Open up the cowl to get more cooling airflow to the ESC.

jmir

My Feedback: (1)

lilbanche,

Thanks for the added tips.

You may be quite right about the heat issue. We had about six weeks of constant 100+ highs every day. Of course, since it wasn't raining and wasn't windy, I did fly quite a bit under the shade of the tail gate on my van. I probably fried one of the motors during one of those flights.

I've never taken one apart, so it will be interesting to see what's inside.

Thanks again for the help.

Xpress

You're welcome. I've seen a typhoon do fine out at the desert with high 90's, but that was with the stock battery, and a beginner pilot only tring to use 1/2 throttle. Yes, never flown before beginner. Was terrible, and when I took the controlls to trim it, he had a jaw dropping face at how good I was.

How well does the typhoon fly with a lipo, because I only got to fly that guys for about 20 seconds on the stock battery? I'm thinking about getting it, as it's a big enough plane for light-ish winds, and what's the vertical performance on it?

jmir

My Feedback: (1)

I fly mine with a 11.1v 1350 mah 25C Dualsky li-po. I get unlimited vertical using the smaller prop (so called high speed prop).
It's a great airplane and very strong foam.

indsolutions

I had a typhoon with the same problem once. The bearing in the gear assy. was bad. At high rpm, the motor became hot and overloaded the esc. I always had limited use with the gear reduction assy because of weak components. I recommend replacing the motor with a eflite 450 brushless outrunner. You will need another esc (30A) and will have to rebalance the plane because the outrunner setup is lighter.

Xpress

Or you can just put a drop or two of lubricant on the gears after a day of flying. If that solves your problems, then it's something you need to do. If it isn't, then it's probably a heat issue.

jmir

My Feedback: (1)

industrialsol,

Thanks for info. I've seen a couple of conversions to brushless outrunners, eliminating the gear box which sometimes can be a pain. This is the only plane I have that uses gears. The rest are direct driven with outrunner motors. They have been using the Park 480 motor with good results.

As to the gears, I keep them lubricated with a thin oil (the one used for sewing machines). That keeps them lubricated and seem to reduce the wear and tear caused by the metal pinion on the motor.

opjose

I ran into this myself...

I went as far as changing out EVERYTHING on the nose, but the problem remained.

Then I looked up the ESC's programming manual.

Unlike what Parkzone says, the included ESC - DOES NOT - default to values appropriate for the Typhoon 2.

You need to go into programming mode and adjust the ESC for a 2 pole INRUNNER motor. The default is for an OUTRUNNER.

I found that I also needed to set the 70% cutoff as well.

Once done my identical problems disappeared.

Note: Initially I flew my Typhoon 2 twice w/o problems, so it may be that the ESC comes correctly programmed from the factory...

Somewhere along the way it reverted to it's defaults though and the defaults are problematic.

jmir

My Feedback: (1)

opjose,

Thanks for this information regarding the Typhoon 2. I think this applies to the Typhoon 2 since it comes with an E-flite ESC ( if not, a very similar one).
The regular Typhoon has a different ESC, which is what I'm flying right now.
However, I will eventually end up with a Typhoon 2, so this is good info to have.

Thanks,
Jmir

opjose

If you've done this with yours, please post a pic of the mounts so we can see how you did it.

Thanks!

iamman711

Hey all I have 2 questions. I just purchased the RTF version that comes with lipo, charger, radio, and receiver and have 2 concerns:

1) My battery lipo charger takes more than 4 hours.. actually I've still been waiting for it to show a solid green light to indicate charging is complete. All I get is blinking red and green lights (normal charging plus conditioning). How long does it take to charge completely? 5 hours? I unplugged it and tested voltage with voltmeter and the voltage was around 12 volts which means its good to go, but why doesnt the green light go solid for me like its supposed ta.

2) I am really concerned about my upcoming maiden flight because I don't have a quality radio and receiver. I've read the reviews on rcuniverse and I want to know if problems with interference, etc .happens to everyone or just some people. Does anyone use the radio and receiver that comes with the RTF? How does it perform for you? I don't want to spend $300 on a new radio because I'm tight on money right now. I don't want to buy a $200 radio because you know what they say buy cheap buy twice. Aye dillemna, unless of course someone can tell me they haven't had problems with the stock transmitter/receiver.

Thanks in advance!

opjose

I had this problem with mine.

It turned out that at home I had the supplied charger plugged into a 12v source that did not provide enough voltage/current.

When I plugged the charger into my car, it worked great. It SHOULD take about an hour to charge the battery.

You may have to invest in a seperate LiPo charger... which is a MUCH better option...

I also changed the connectors so I could use standard Deans type connectors instead. That lets me use batteries I have for existing planes...



I've had NO problem with the supplied TX. I've flown with it hundreds of times already, simply because I haven't gotten around ( nor seen the reason to ) changing out the receiver.

I do mourn it's lack of expo, and I once made the mistake of taking off with high rates set ( I recommend you NEVER do this )... which resulted in a crash... a new Fuse, wing, gear, prop and aileron later and it was back up. Who is the idiot that said these things were cheaper than balsa models... for what I paid for the parts I could have purchased a new Balsa ARF... ugh...


Just perform a range check before you fly the plane.

MY concern is that you sound like a novice flyer.

If so, this is NOT a good plane to train with. You will end up destroying it rather quickly.

It is really a "light" 3D plane for a more advanced flyer.

If you are in the latter catagory, you'll do fine.

It's a fun little plane and it can fly SLOOOOWLY.

iamman711

thanks opjose.

I consider myself a pretty intermediate flyer. I practice on simulator a lot and couple guys at the field let me fly their Parkzone T-28 trojan and I fly fine.

Yes I will def do the range check, but others on the forums are complaining that it works fine on the ground but about 75 feet in the air this plane will lose communication with the transmitter. But it is reassuring to know that you are not having any problems. thanks again for takin the time to write all that. peace

opjose

I haven't had that happen at all.

I typically range check beyond the distance I'll be flying the plane.

One good thing to do is to have an assistant hold the plane during range check.

While the plane is at maximum range and you are moving the surfaces, have him shake it and put it into various attitudes, so you can check to see if there are any problems with noise, loose linkages, or problems with the RX.

I had one plane where this led me to find that the antenna wire was just barely hanging on by a wire strand or two.

You also might want to try turning OFF the TX after the plane is on, to see if it is picking up what it thinks are signals from other strong local sources.

In my home, some of my PPM TX's at certain frequencies, go absolutely NUTS because of my two WiFi access points and portable telephone...

If the TX overpowers their emissions, the RX settles down, but if I collapse the antenna, or turn off the TX my planes go back to going crazy again.

Keep this in mind. When in doubt test first.

That said my Typhoon 2 3D has held up well.

Note:

BE CAREFULL with the ESC to motor timing.

It comes properly set at the factory but the ESC will periodically "loose it's mind" reverting the timing to a setting that IS NOT compatible with the motor.

If you find that there seems to be an unusual ratcheting sound or effect as the motor initially spins up, or as you run it down then back up, the timing is WRONG!

If the plane throws a prop, the timing and the ESC setting is WRONG, and you must set it up again.

I replaced the motor and gearbox looking for a phantom problem... it merely turned out to the ESC timing.

I throught there was something wrong with the gearbox and I was stripping the gears or something similiar...

iamman711

Here's a [link=http://www.horizonhobby.com/ProdInfo/Files/EFLA1025_manual.pdf]link[/link]to the ESC manual

http://www.horizonhobby.com/ProdInfo...025_manual.pdf

By ESC to motor timing are you referring to making sure ESC is set to 4 pole or greater timing? From reading the forums, I heard that sometimes timing is set to 2 pole timing and when that happens you get less power output or something (I'm not that technical yet), like you're not getting as much juice as you potentially can. Thanks for the heads up.

LOL my wifi at home also makes my Rx go crazy! I didn't realize it was the wifi but now that you mention it that makes a lot of sense. My city is actually hooked up to wifi all over town. Its called Airmesh. I hope it doesn't affect my flying. Well I can always go somewhere else to fly. I'm glad you told me about that.

I actually have another question. How long, based on the stock 11.1v 1800 mAh li-po, are your flight times? I decided to enable 70% cut off (by programming my ESC), so I don't run the risk of over discharging my battery because I don't want a firy accident. The manual that comes with this plane says 12-15 minutes, but I told someone at the field and they didn't believe me. Would that be 12-15 minutes of flight at full power? The manual warns that flying at full power the entire time can damage electronics, so they probably mean 12-15 minutes at moderate throttle, right? I am going to fly only 6 minutes just to be safe. How long do you dare fly? By 6 minutes, how many volts should be remaining on my li-po if I had a multimeter to check? Is the rule of thumb to never go past 50% so if I have a 11.1v battery to never surpass 5.55 volts? (assuming my ESC is not programmed for 70% auto shutdown).

Also, if I have 70% cut off enabled and I happen to be in the air when my motor cuts off, I can easily reset the throttle to idle for like 2 seconds, and raise the throttle to start the motor again correct?

I have so many questions because I don't know a lot yet. thanks in advance.

opjose

I typically fly until I get tired and FEEL like bringing the plane in.

For me that means 14+ minutes. On my SS EP I'll fly 20+ minutes non-stop, so you can see that I go for longer durations.

I prefer the soft cut off. Don't bother with the hard cuts....

Why? Typically as the voltage starts to drop you'll notice a bit less "oomph" in the plane.

At this point I START to bring it in, and I may actually go around a few times while waiting for other planes to land when the field is busy.

I've never flown it so long that the engine has cut off, and that says a lot...

The flight times ARE VERY good with the 1800C battery....

When I charge the batteries I find that I'm putting about 1200mA to 1400mA back into the battery.

I've tested to stock batteries out to 1868mAh at full LV cut on my ICE charger, so by this I see that I am no where near their limits.... which is good.

Hint: change those connectors!

I'm also flying with other 20C and 2200mAh batteries. The plane has no problems with these.

Be very sure NEVER to take off or be low to the ground with high rates set... it's WAY too easy to lawn dart the plane this way.

At altitude you can go nuts with high rates.

I typically fly w/o the SFG's as they are annoying when transporting the plane...
they also dampen the roll rates.