grimmy55

Hi everyone ,I,m into glow stuff but I,m seriously looking at electric as an option ,the question is how do you start in this realm no,one in our club has one if I run a 60 size motor what size is comparable what size esc and how does that work ?what size batteries do i get and how many ( Ive got a charger that goes into cig lighter in the van ),, I,ve been looking at the goods on United hobby site (Hobby city now ) and have only got more confused so I need a bit of a run down please thinking of sticking electric on Hog Bipe to start with
thanks for what ever help I can get

B.L.E.

So you want to do a .60 size electric plane? You might use a AXI 4130/16 outrunner powered by a 6 cell 4500 mah lipo and a 60 or better yet 70 amp esc. This isn't going to be cheap. Battery chargers capable of charging 6 cell lipos cost about $200. The batteries are about $280 each. I'll let you look up the motor and esc prices.

The look on the faces of glow flyers when they say "that's electric?" will be priceless.

perttime

First you go to the Electrics section and get educated a bit:
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/forumid_227/tt.htm

Also see:
http://www.wattflyer.com/forums/

I frequent "rcgroups" too.

Electric is different from glow. Not necessarily more difficult but different.

oh, I suggest you start small. Around 40" span or so, and running 150 to 200W motors on 3S LiPo batteries. And get a charger that will not blow up your battery packs.

simmo8

G-day

swallow 2 charger is very very good but i DO NOT THINK THAT IT WILL CHARGE A 6 CELL LIPO but it is very good for smaler planes
good luck

simmo

B.L.E.

A Thunderpower 1010C will charge lipos up to 10 cells off of a 12 volt battery but it costs about $199 US dollars. It really should be used in conjunction with the Thunderpower balancer which is designed to link with the charger and send individual cell voltage data to the charger. That adds another $90 or so to your charging system although it can charge batteries without the balancer. When charging 22.5 volt nominal, around 24 volt actual six cell batteries at 4.5 amps, the charger will be draining about 9 amps from your car battery so check to see if your car will still start after a couple of chargings. I use a 115 volt power supply to power my TP1010 (more $) just so I won't have that problem, however, 115 isn't available at all flying clubs.
Note, a car battery charger won't work as a power supply unless you also have a battery hooked up to it to smooth out the DC. Some people use a power supply from an old computer.

DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT CHARGING LI-POS WITH A CHARGER NOT DESIGNED FOR THEM!!!!

Campy

My Feedback: (1)

This is not going to be cheap !!!

As a "GENERAL RULE OF THUMB" figure 100 watts of electric power per pound for general sport flying (mild aerobatics ) The AXI 4013-16 (or the EQUIVALENT) would be a good start for a motor. Figure at least a 6 cell lipo and a minimum of a 70 amp ESC PLUS a ubec (ultimate battery elimination circuit).

You will need a charger designed for lipo batteries. Charging a lipo with a regular charger will most likely not only ruin the battery, but could easily start a fire or cause the battery to explode. If you already have a GOOD charger (one that will handle 8 - 10 cells nimh), SLK sells a "LIPO converter" that will safely allow you to charge lipos from a regular charger (I have one and use it with an Astroflite 110D ).

For 40 size planes I run a TowerPro 3520-6 or TowerPro 3520-7 motor, 60 amp ESC, ubec, a 4 cell 4,000 - 5,000 mah lipo and a 12x8 - 12x10 e-prop. I normally get 15 - 20 minutes of mixed sport flying (mild aerobatics) and equal performance to a 40 - 46 2 stroke engine.

You should also D/L MotoCalc. It is a free D/L that can be used for 30 days before you have to register it (after 30 days it quits working).

You will see with MotoCalc that gearing and/or prop dia/pitch can radically impact the performance of a given motor/battery setup.

-pkh-

My Feedback: (2)

Start out with some smaller electric park flyers first, then when you are more familiar with electrics, move onto the larger ones. It will be much cheaper to start out this way, and your mistakes won't be as costly.

opjose

Did anyone mentioned that "this is not going to be cheap?"

Remember that you'll badly want at least one ( or more ) spare set of batteries, so you can charge them while you are flying from another pack.

I agree with -pkh-'s advice.

Start with a smaller plane and work your way up. That way you'll learn the intricacies of EP's while using less expensive planes and components, etc.

You'll also be in better shape to decide how you want to support your larger scale EP "habit"...

Missileman

The closest I came to that size electric was a T-Rex 600 which is a 50 size heli.
It required 6s lipo just to run the motor and a seperate 2s lipo for the rest of the electronics.
6s lipos are $200 each.
I used an Astro Flight 109 charger $139 will charge up to 9s lipo. Along with the charger I also used an Astro Flight Blinky balancer $25. and a power supply $50.
The setup required a 75A ESC and a seperate BEC.
Add in the motor, servos, receiver ect... you can plan on real close to $1,000 plus the cost of the airframe itself. (I calculated that at buying 2 6s lipos so you can get more than one flight in)

aeajr

My Feedback: (2)

Everything you want to know about electric flight
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_7100376/tm.htm