rcelement, your method is slightly better than nothing but not a lot. You are missing one of the best points in using the Voltwatch, it's ability to warn you of voltage drops between the battery and receiver when the Voltwatch is attached to the receiver. If you see the lights dancing over a broad range as you cycle the sticks, the Voltwatch is telling you that you are getting voltage dropouts (very short duration usually) at the receiver that could be indicative of problems somewhere in the power train. If you get into the 2.4GHz group, this can be especially critical as a voltage drop out of only a few microseconds can cause the 2.4GHz receiver to reboot with the accompanying loss of control for a few seconds.

What would happen if the flyer went inverted and the batttery fell out through the canope? Would the plane still fly?

I've seen that happen, by the way. We watched two things happen. 1st was the battery fall to the ground along with the canope that came undone. Next we watched the plane spiral in and crash. The applicability here is that no battery (it fell out) is just the same thing as a dead battery or one that is to low to operate the receiver and servos.

If you have never seen a plane crash due to a low battery, then I can just about guarantee that you will, sooner or later. There are lots of stories here on RCU about low batteries and of systems that simply die due to low battery voltage. Check the crash forum.

This is not a lecture, by the way, it's just sharing some practical experience and some common sense. The only point here is to remind beginners (this is a beginners forum) to keep their batteries charged, and a way to monitor them to make sure they are charged or when they should be charged. That's all.

I don't think many of us prefer to just shrug off a crash and go buy or fly another plane. I may not be the poorest person on the face of this earth, but I don't want to go out and spend another $350 or so to replace a plane that crashed because I just plain ignored the obvious and the advice of those with more experience than I have.. which is where I get/got my experience.
CGr.

I actually have, but is was low transmitter batteries that was the cause. There was a guage on the transmitter but the pilot wasn't paying attention to it.(maybe led lights would have drawn more attention)
The point is you can have the best ESV in the world but if you don't use it, it won't save your plane, same thing with voltwatch, but at least with voltwatch, mounted somewhere near the switch, you may notice a yellow or red light when you turn the plane on.

Yeah, I've seen that one too, Missileman. It was a sad sight because the pilot said he checked the transmitter 'gas guage' and he thought he could nurse just one more flight out of the TX. And, the rest was history and fodder for the trash can.. it was beyond repair, I'm sorry to say. Low batteries are just to easy to take care of.. recharge.. and it's a shame when a plane crashes because of it.

CGr.

Rodney.. for that very reason, I use 6 volt battery packs.. that 3.5 volt threshold for re-boot on the DC7000 receivers (they fixed that problem from what I understand in new RX's) is one that I take very seriously.

That's my main reason.. and of course they do offer faster servo response and more torque, but my main reason is for that 3.5 volt threshold, which I will never see unless the battery goes bad on me in flight, in which case, no gadget in the world would help.

CGr.

I've seen well balanced planes fly and land without power ( think free flight and failsafe for instances, but others as well) but if the battery falls out (and it wasn'tperfectly positioned on the CoG before falling out )a crash is inevidable. I check my planes every time I fly just like I always fill the tank). I had a Voltwatch on my first trainer, nothing against them, just more weight, more wire connections to come loose.
Mike

I had a plane go wierd on take off a few months back, resulting in a gentile crash. The cause was in the battery circuit, but I know not where. How do I know that? The volt watch when I retrieved the plane showed a red light. The battery came off the charger about an hour and a half before. It was good on the bench just before the almost flight. The plane did an abrupt right turn and would not lift even with full elevator even though it had speed. I chopped power and nothing, suddenly, the engine quit, and the plane lifted off just clearing a fence and landing at the edge of the stock pond behind our field. When I got it back to the bench, and turned on the battery, there was a solid red light on the voltwatch. When I got the plane back home, I turned it on again and the same red light. I then took it to the bench do see what I could find and this time when I turned it on, I had a full charge indication. I pulled the battery and checked it. I cycled it, OK. I skinned it and checked for bad welds, none found. I could not repeat the failure. I trashed the battery and the switch harness. One of them was bad, the voltwatch told me so. A loaded voltmeter, or what ever else you plug into the switch would only have left me scratching my head. Seeing that the receiver was receiving a very low voltage probably kept me from loosing the plane again.

The voltwatch didn't prevent this incident. That doesn't mean that it made me less likely to trust it, but in fact reenforced my trust in them. They tell you what is happening right now under real conditions. Period.

Don

I have my Voltwatch installed toward the rear of my plane mounted against the covering. The LED is bright enough that I can read it through the covering. This saves me from from removing the wing or sticking it on the outside of the fuselage. I can monitor it with the motor running just before take-off.

I cut a small rectangular hole through the balsa either above or below the switch on the side opposite the muffler. The hole is the same size as the voltwatch LED strip. I secure the voltwatch to the inside of the fuselage with the LED's showing through the hole using about a 3 inch length of Blenderm tape. I put a little bit of white (or matching color) fingernail polish on the balsa then put a small strip of clear monocoat over the hole.

It is fuel proof, and very visible when I want to look at the voltwatch, which is just before and just after each flight.

CGr.

CG ... you gotta picture of this setup?

I have seen two planes crash due to receiver batteries being low. In one case, it was a large ~25% scale gas plane, the other was a nitro plane.

In the first case (large gas plane), the pilot had just taken it off the charger at home, brought it to the field and flew it. He forgot to check it first with his loaded meter. 4 minutes of flying and then, no control. It crashed into the ground about 10ft from another club member's truck! Battery pack was intact, he put it on his meter, it was way too low to fly.

In the second case, the pilot checked it before the first flight, flew twice, took it up for a third, and the RX batt died in mid flight. He figured he could get 3-4 flights in before checking his RX pack again, and he was wrong this time!

$10 for a Voltwatch is cheap insurance and piece of mind. It's not just protection for the $$$ you have in your airframe, it's protecting bystanders and their property if you lose control of your plane.

I have an idea i would like to share. Would this work???

Take a sevo extension and plug it into an open channel on the reciever, then install an extra charge jack on the side/top of the plane. Just plug your volt watch into it and there you go. I can't see why this wouldn't work. I currently only have one voltwatch but will be purchasing more as i get the fleet built up again.

geoff

Sure, that will work, but then you still have to remember to check your battery before/after each flight. And unlike the loaded meter, you have to turn on your RX (and TX if you don't have failsafe settings) to check the battery.

Yeah, THAT would work. Using the charge jack will not work because, as I said earlier, the charge jack is hot when the switch is turned off, so you do not get a loaded measurement with the voltwatch. You DO with an ESV though, because the ESV provides the load.

Alex.. I don't have a picture here, but it's a simple thing to do. Just cut a rectangular hole through the hull of the fuselage, around the switch somewhere. Make the hole the same size as the LED strip on the voltwatch.. what about 3/8 " by 2 inches long? Large enough for you to see the LED's and at a location that is not blocked by the wing (high wing planes) or anything else, for that matter. Just somewhere where it is visible from outside the plane when it is fully assembled and ready to fly. Then tape the Voltwatch inside the fuselage so that the LED's are visible through the hole you just cut. Paint the raw balsa with nail polish, then cut a strip of clear monocoat and cover the hole.

On my Seagull Super Star, I actually mounted it in the bottom of the cockpit in front of "the pilot" figure and painted the area around it flat black to match the inside of the cockpit bottom. It is clearly visible from anywhere along the top of the plane.

Plug the voltwatch into a vacant RX channel, or if you prefer, use a Y cable and connect one end of the Y cable to a servo, ther Y part to the voltwatch and the Y connector into the channel on your RX that the servo was plugged into.

CGr.

We had a situation where low batteries almost cost us the loss of our flying field. One of our flyers lost control of his plane and it flew way out of the flying area an crashed onto some neighboring property. When he went to retrieve it he got into a confrontation with the neighbor and since we fly at a state park the neighbor complained to the state and our field was shut down for over 2 months. During that time we weren't sure if it was ever going to open back up again and the whole thing started from low batteries.

I like the idea of a beginner (me) using them at first, to get a basic understanding of battery life. I imagine that after my 2nd or 3rd plane I would switch to some kind of volt-ohm meter or something, instead of buying a new voltwatch for every plane. For now, it's a cheap insurance policy.

Well, I would agree with you on their use, but even now, after several years of experience, however, IMO, I use them on each and every plane I put together. At $10.xx each, it's cheap insurance. Again, this IMO.. or in my opinion.

And, what you need is not a volt-ohm meter, but an ESV or Expanded Scale Voltmeter that is exclusively for RC use. It has an internal load that works with the voltmeter to give you a 'true' representation of the supply voltage under the simulated load of a typical RC receiver system.

I have several reasons why I use the Voltwatch on each and every plane I put together:

1. It's a fast and simple method of 'seeing' the current load that the battery is under and use that before and after each flight.
2. It's a fast and simple method of 'seeing' how the load effects the source in terms of binding controls. This can happen as a result of a hard landing, or from something breaking in transit to the field, or in flight. So, the voltwatch gives you an indication of a problem that is either developing or has developed.

And it is adaptable to either 4.8 or 6 volt systems by a simple flip of a switch on the voltwatch.

I find it worth while to have them. Some don't, but again.. Ford-Chevy issue here.. either you do or you don't.

CGr.

Same here. I started out using them, and still put them in every aircraft I own. Once you get used to having a Voltwatch in your aircraft, you won't feel right flying without one.

So true, feels like I am flying naked

Please, Missileman, I don't need that image at lunch time.[:'(]

I don't need that image EVER!!!!! [:'(]


Ken

"Brokeback Mountain" springs to mind...

a lot of you say that you use the $10 voltwatchers and that it would be too expensive to kit out all your planes, well go on ebay and you can find chinese copys for about $2 each (they are £3 over here) so you could get 3x as more units than you would with a voltwatch. and they actually work!

Yep and the ones they were "coppied" from probably came off the same production line.

It's not just this item, but about anything you get "made in China". I went to buy a tonner cartridge for printer a while back. I looked at the Refrubished cartridgs on Ebay that were "made in China" I decided I didn't want to risk it so I went to the big box office store and picke one up. On close examanition, it stated Refurbished in China. Back to Ebay and I kept the $50 difference in price. When one item is made in China and the other is made in the USA, there has to be quite a differenc in prices for me to go with the made in China one, but when both are made in China, go for price.

Don

Well you guys have convinced me to give these a try. I have never lost a plane due to low batteries, but I'll admit, I don't check the voltage after each flight either. I do have an ESV that I use to check the plane every 3 or so flights, but based on what I've read here, that's akin to playing "Russian Roulette". Well, that and the visual from Missleman have forced me to re-think my ways!

Seriously though, several club members have these on planes and in this man's opinion makes them look completely goofy. [:'(] That's the main reason I've stayed away. I will have to use some of the techniques discussed ealier to hide the ugliness without loosing the functionality.

It won't be hard to incorporate this into planes I am currently building - retrofitting into older planes might be more of a challenge.

-MA

Woah, wait a minute there, your mind seems to be painting with a bit wider brush than most [X(]
If you think about it, even $10 for a Voltwatch isn't all that much compared to the $500 or more people sink in to alot of their planes and realistically you only need a voltwatch on the airplanes your are flying. The $2 or $3 copies that you mention make it even more of a "why aren't you using them?" situation.