Hi guys,
As we all know, inverting an engine has both positives and negatives.. and one of the major negatives is the fact that fuel can and will sit in the glow plug above the coil and cause dead sticks, and as most inverted engines are in cowled low wing planes, dead sticks can = dead plane. But even more importantly, dead sticks cause a lot of problems for ducted fan jet owners.. so after chatting to my mate down the club who flies a ducted fan jet running an OS91 in it, he was sick of trying to land when his plane went dead far from the strip.. basically he came up with a simple yet impressively effective solution to the problem to stop deadsticks occuring.

Basically if you take a 'D' size battery, it will power a glow plug.. so how bout just making the plug permantly glow with power? Simple... make a small onboard power source. So grab yaself a remote glow plug kit, a couple of rechargable 'D' sized battery's (only need one in plane at a time), grab yaself a 'D' size battery cradle from ya local electronics store (the small plastic single battery holders with positive/negative wires coming off them), a switch (can be either a normal switch as used with your radio gear or can be a switch ya pick up form the local electronic store also), and a short amount of wire.

So.. Take the remote glow plug and snip it just before the dummy plug that you normally mount to the cowl or fuselage or wherever you have them, so that you can clip the other end onto the glow plug on your engine with the two wires coming off it. Solder some more wire onto the positive end so that you have enough length to reach into the radio compartment through a small hole your drill in the firewall. The other wire will need to be a ground wire which you simply bolt to one of the bolts ont he engine mount, and also run this wire through the same hole you made in the firewall into the radio compartment (wrap the wire between the engine and firewall in some heat shrink to insulate or even some spaghetti/convoluded tubing.. Once you have run the wire into the radio compartment run the negative wire to the negative wire coming off you battery cradle. Then run the positive from the battery to the correct side of you switch, and obviously the other side of the switch to the positive wire runing to your remote glow plug.

There ya have it... you just switch it off/on when you turn you planes radio gear off/on, and the even better bit, is that it allows you to start the plane without the need for a glow plug driver, so when you hit a rabbit hole taxiing and it causes the prop to touch the ground and stall, theres no need for you to have to get out the glow plug driver and what not to get it fired up again.

The battery lasts for about 5-6 flights obviously its a good idea, to have a couple of 'D' cells charged at the field which you can simply change when needed.. but its cheap insurance to save your plane from deadsticks and potential disaster!

P.s. So far its been about 5-6 weeks now that we have run this set up and have had not one issue with the plug dieing from the permanant power source. Happy flying!!

I been intending to do this for 10 years. Just never got around to it. My only alteration was to have a micro-switch near the throttle servo that would turn it on at approx 1/4 throttle. Maybe next week...

How about replacing the D cell with a high capacity AA NiMH? Lighter, and lasts longer.

Theres a few options you have with batterys, you be the creaters

The setup is simple
http://www.geistware.com/rcmodeling/...low_system.htm

This idea of a cheap switch came from another source (somewhere on the Internet).

I use those metal clothing snaps (bought in Fabric section at Walmart) as the "switch" for my on board glow setup. They are cheap, light, and easy to setup. Plus it provides an easy "visual" method to see if the system is on (snap together) or not (snap apart). Just cut the negative wire, crimp male end of snap on one side, female end on other side, done with switch.

This setup is great for all setup of engine (inverted, sideways, or normal). Especially for four-stroke that runs on low nitro fuel.

Fly NB

I'm extremely sceptical about having the plug lit all the time at full throttle. I admit I have not tried this though, but would anticipate burning out glow plugs and over heating with the leanest of runs.

Ernie

I don't get it. I have a Saito .56, Saito .82, Magnum .91, and two OS 46's all running inverted in cowls, and the only dead sticks I ever had were with the .56 before I knew how to set it up properly..... I am a firm beleiver in OS "F" plugs in the 4 strokes, and A8 plugs in the 2 strokers.... The main issue I have is the 46FX sometimes dosen't like to start unless the plane is turned upside down..... Am I doing something wrong here?


Andy

Amen brother... I started using an OS "F" and have had exceptional performance inverted. Saito FA150 2100 at idle and 9100 high end with a 16X6. I didn't bother to lean it out any more. I can get vertical on takeoff with no worries about sputter. When I put the F type in and it was like getting a different engine.

How is this idea? Just get an onboard glo driver. It can be set to turn on and off anywere you want on range of throttle. Set it for idle to about third throttle and no worries of it burning while at full throttle. It also shuts down when you kill the engine. Joe

Better yet, get the version that senses glow plug temperature and will turn off and on at any time, regardless of throttle position.

Ernie

[X(] Didn't know this was so widely known lol Ah well, thought i'd share it anyway, good to see.

I've built and used many of C. Brent Dane's [link=http://www.cliftech.com/pdf/Optoglo.pdf]OPTOGLO[/link]. It works very well. I still have enough parts to make a couple more but when I have to reorder parts for more, I plan on giving the [link=http://www.cliftech.com/pdf/OptogloII.pdf]OPTOGLO II[/link] a try.

Check this link out. This is highly recommended by Clarance Lee of RCM.

http://www.nelsonhobby.com/electr.html

This is really a great idea, thanks Freestyln and others. Guess it will work in inverted and any other engine position. Cant beat it if it really makes deadsticks much more unlikely.[8D]

Andy,

If your engines run well inverted, but are difficult to start inverted, well....that's common. I've had models that would run all day once started, but tended to flood too easily when inverted. Had to flip the model over to get them started.

With an electric starter, you can many times start the engine invered only if you start out with it 'dry', and allow it to draw fuel on its own. Don't prime it in that case. Just connect the glow plug battery and turn the engine over with the starter.