JPMacG

My Feedback: (2)

I have seen the "TowerPro" voltage monitor on Ebay and avoid it. It appears to be a ripoff of the Tower name. I have several Hobbico VoltWatches and love them. As far as I can tell the "Tower Pro" is not made by Tower or Hobbico, just an imitation. It may be a fine product but I don't like their business practices.

Missileman

Old batteries lose capacity but still charge to full voltage. Voltwatch shows voltage not capacity. An ESV or loadeed volt meter would have shown the same results. You should check your batteries capacity at least once a year with a battery cycler of some sort (I use the Hobbico Accu-Cycle)

landeck

My Feedback: (1)

One point that many seem to miss is that Voltwatch is an ESV or loaded volt meter where the load is the flight system (e.g. receiver and servos). It displays the voltage under load when the radio receiver is turned on by lighting up a corresponding number of leds rather than displaying it on a digital display or meter. An external ESV displays the voltage when the receiver is turned off by using an external load. They are the same thing. Plus both give only an idea as to remaining capacity since that is dependent on the mah rating of the battery and its condition (i.e. new, old).

Bruce

Campgems

The batery wasn't old. It only had about five flights on it. It had been setting for five months or so while I got around to repairing the damaged wing.

Here is what happened to start this off back when. I had scratch built the plane from plans in RC Model WOrld magazine. It is a 3D plane with a Mag 70 four stroke. It was my first build in about 35 years and was going to be my "trainer", as I had never flown RC. I took it to the field and one of the guys did the maiden flight. "Great flying plane, now take it home and put it away and get a trainer". Well, I took that advise and got my wings and and had destroyed a couple planes in the process and another couple since. I brought the Ruperts out and put new batteies and replaced a couple servos I had taken out for one of the other planes. I got maybe five flights on it. Great flying plane, then one day, it went nuts on take off. Nice straight roll out and just as it reached the speed where I would lift off, It took a hard right turn, I pulled full up elevator and it just kept going in a slight nose down heading for the fence. I cut the throttle, then the kill switch, and nothing for a second, then the engine quit and the plane lifted off just clearing the fence and landing right on the shore of the pond just below our field. The wrong edge, the wheels were in the water and the tail on dry land. It had gone in a little nose down and the water pressure blew out the LE sheeting on the bottom of the wing. I carried it back to the bench and checked things out, no water in the plane and as the engine wasn't running, none got ingested. One of the guys suggested that I fire up the engine and get it warmed up to drive off any water around the front bearing, so I did. After running a couple minutes, I shut it down when I went to shut the radio off, I noticed the Volt watch was showing just the red light. I had pulled it off the charger just about two hours before after a full charge on my Accu-cycle. Obviously, my battery died. I got the plane home and hosed the mud off the bottom and let it set in the sun for a couple hours to dry. I turned the receiver on again just before cleaning and again, just a red light. After the plane was dry, I took it to the bench to try to fugure what was wrong with the battery. This time, when I turned on the switch, I showed a full charge. I took the battery to the Accu-cycle and cycled it. It showed something like 925MAH left. I then skinned the battery and checked voltage on each cell, both unloaded and loaded with a 10 ohm resistor. All cells were identical. I checked for bad welds on a tab and nothing. at that point, I cut the leads off the battery and sat it aside. Fast forward to last week. I took the leads off a 4.8V pack that I had destroyed in a crash and soldered them on the 6V pack. Recovered it and put it in the plane. This is when I turned on the radio and it showed a full charge on the VoltWatch after setting all this time. I knew it couldn't be right, so I cycled the battery and it only had 129mah left. This is about what I would expect from a battery on the shelf for five months. I strongly suspect now that the VoltWatch is defective, and may have shorted, causing a PCM lockup.

Don

cruzomatic

My Feedback: (17)

These are back in stock. I got some, they work great.

http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/s...oltage_Display

HighPlains

My Feedback: (1)

Ripping off the evil empire. That's a noval concept.

Jetdesign

My Feedback: (8)

Bummer, they were out yesterday when I bought mine from ebay. I like hobby city.