I had a airtronice vg.6 did about the same thing happen to me come to fine out on one of the controller in side on the ruder a screw came lose.so one day the ruder lock all the way over so have some one check it out or they have great deals on hers.</p>

OK only five flights in the morning and only about thirty minutes. Did you have any trouble starting the engine a time or two maybe, bet you included nothing of all the down time between those flights that the radio was on and control checks so forth. Now you go home and later in the day go back for three more flights with no charging? Lets see did I get that right and am I correct that your rx pack was a stock pack (typically 5/700 mah). Now when did you plug that Rx pack in to be recharged and was it a full night before?

This is no mystery, you dumped the Rx pack while you were in the air. That makes the airplane do funny things in the air and usually crashs. No gadget or widget such as that failsafe is gonna help in this situation.

Now as far as a second flight pack battery, my opinion bad idea for you. First you are gonna have more batterys to charge and more stuff to worry about properly charging and "thinking about" and remember Nimh and Nicd batteries loose their charge substancially even over just one day so don,t even think about depending on a battery that was not charged the 'Night Before' .

So yes the solution would appear on the surface to be to purchase higher capacity batteries but that not gonna help if you do not have a capable charger as noted by the fellows . But remember you have to also have a capable charger for the transmitter battery.

So maybe the best solution of all if there is two of you flying the same airplane then you need to each get your own period. Two folks sharing the same airplane especially if both are trying to teach themselves how to fly usually never works. That's a fact.

John

Hi Slider_buck I would agree with JohnBuckners assessment of what happened. I usually get only 3 flights out of my battery pack, which is a stock 4 cell. I will test the rx battery after every flight under load(resistor, 500ma), it is surprising how fast the pack will go dead if you have a stalled servo. Having an extra battery pack might be a pain to replace, I know mine are buried deep, wrapped up, and barricaded in place so as to not move around. I do not like doing Jobs like this at the field as I tend to hurry things along too much and maybe not double check things. A bigger battery pack does seem to be the way to go, and I may go that route myself, I just have so many other goodies to get before I lay down any dollars on a better charger(I would not even have thought of that, thanks to whomever mentioned one would need a better charger!). I hope you have no more mishaps, it is never fun losing your plane to a mystery, especially if it is your only bird.Calvi

Ok, Sorry for the clumped together reply(again). I did my post in paragraphs, but when I posted, it went up all in one paragraph? Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong? Should I be composing my reply using word, then cut and past? Calvi

He said he gave his slightly old battery packs a full charge, maybe I missed it, but I don't think he said how many hours he charged both tx and rx packs.

fliers1

If you wish to fly more than 5 flights in a one day period you either need to switch to lithiums which can be easily fast charged at the field or get a second airplane.
The thing about nimhs and nicads they need to be fully charged the night before going flying. In fact if I charge on a Friday to go fly on Saturday and for whatever reason do not go fly on Saturday then those batteries get cycled down and then recharged fully for Sunday. That is just my personal preference and comfort for flying when using nimh/nicads.
I am slowly converting over to lithiums.

i ordered a charger and a 2000mah hobbico battery as well as i just installed the hobbico low voltage alert below. hopefully be good to go now. for awhile anyways. already thinking about another plane.

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...0335&search=Go

OK with an appropriate charger you may be good to go. What charger and does it also do the Transmitter battery. Remember just using a high capacity battery and a good charger is only going to work if you also go high capacity in the Transmitter. If you use a properly charged 2000mah in the airplane and still have the 700mah in the transmitter then you have not gained anything.

If not then don,t expect so many flights and remember always without fail using NImh/NiCad packs never fly without having charged (all) batterys at least all night the night before.

Yes some folks Fast charge at the field or enroute using high charging rates but for someone who is new and struggling with poor battey management so far that is a ridiculous thing to try to do at least for now and those same high charge rates in the case of NiCad/Nimh packs will materially shorten the packs life.

John

i ordered the one listed below. so far everytime i have flown my plane the indicators on the transmitter have never went down any. should i trust it at all or not? i have 2 transmitter batteries that are the stock ones.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/290792889845...84.m1439.l2649

The bad part about some of the equipement sold it don't tell you a thing. You just trust it to have done the job. Then Pick up the well whats left!

I put one of those warning beepers in a pane in Hawaii due to the rough terrain that a plane can get lost in after one day of the annoying beeping I canned that thing but fast. I used volt watches on my planes. They are cheap and easy to use. Look at the lights when you move the surfaces on preflight. If the lights that are yellow light up do not fly until you charge. I always did the readings while moving servos to get an idea of loaded voltage as opposed to just sitting there and getting a no load reading.

I just don,t know what to tell you. You put a high capacity battery in the airplane and try to use one of only a third that capacity in the transmitter is just asking for trouble once agine, Ya I know you got two tranny batterys for a spare so now you are gonna be plugging chargers in all over the place and you think good battery management is difficult now just wait.

That charger is a fast charger made for peaking car and boat batterys and not a proper overnight charge rate. The lowest it will go is 1 amp and what is considered the best overnight rate for a 2000mah NiCad/Nimh is .2 amp. Its not one I would recommend.

John

Yep, Re-bay that Onyx and get yourself an actual programmable peak detecting charger for probably $10-$20 more. You can fast charge at the field with no worries about hurting your battery and you can cycle test them to verify their capacity and quality.

We all have been looking at the receiver battery, however the transmitter batteries of Airtronics has been bad. I have not have one last more than a few years. I usually replace them higher capacity batteries 1500-2700mah ;even the new RDS8000 come with batteries that dont even last 40 minutes of use. they also still use the old style connecters with the red wire on the outside.

what charger would you recommend then? i just dont want to put a bunch of money in it yet intil i make sure i'm going to stick with it. i'll put that one back one ebay for sale.

This one is only good for nicads and nimhs. There are a lot of other ones out there but I am not going to spend too much time searching for you. This one has selectable charge rates from .1a-5a and works with ac/dc input and is only 41.99
For your 2000ma battery you would select .2a charge for overnight.

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...LXTSA4&amp;P=7

This one does not cycle batteries though. You will need to spend more money for that option. You don't seem to want to spend a lot right now so that is why I showed you this one.

As JB pointed out field charging nicads/nimhs is a bad idea so if you want to do that I would switch to lithiums.

Ok. I really did not like that charger I recommended as it does not cycle batteries which is an important function in my opinion.
This one is not currently in stock but is very similar to the one I use and it works with all chemistries and comes with lots of cables.

http://www.venom-group.com/Venom-Pro...ategory=119269

ok im going to buy the above charger now and what about using the link below to wire into the charger to charge the batteries?


http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXVSR6&P=7

I am not sure I understand your question. The Venom charger comes with all the cables you need but it won't be in stock from them until mid July which is soon.
I did not like the Tower Hobbies charger as it has limited capabilities and does not cycle batteries.
I apologize for that recommendation, though it would work for charging.

Ok. That link was not there the first time I saw your question. That cable would work for connecting you battery to the tower charger. Just cut off the one end.
I still think you can get a much better charger for just a "little" more money. There are others similar to the venom that I use. You would just have to look around.

This Guy has this 1 strung out

what about this charger? decent price


http://www.ebay.com/itm/iMAX-B6-AC-B...item257eb132e0

Yep. Looks good.
Buy it.
Happy flying.

Boy are you going to have a collection
John and I have a lot of money and time invested in our hobby and do not trust it to something that does not do the job, That is why we have so many planes and have such a great time. You get what you pay for what are your planes going to be worth, and are they worth saving.
Just to say this hobby is not cheap, so if you are looking for a inexpensive way out your not going to find one

and that is exactly why i stated previously that i did not want to spend a bunch of money yet till i knew i would stay in it. im sure when you first started you just didnt go out and buy top notch everything. in a few months if im still in it i will buy another plane with the new 2.4ghz controls and better chargers/batteries.