akpilot

As described in the subject, I went and bought a Hangar 9, 12v PowerPro HD Starter, and it's associated, attachable, Starter Source. The Starter Source comes with a 12v 1.3Ah gel cell, to power the Starter.

After charging it overnight, the battery was at 13.5 volts. The wallcharger showed the charge cycle was completed.

However, when I put it all together and tried to turn over my Alpha's .40 motor it couldn't turn it the prop at all. It seems to be way under powered.

Am starting to realize that 1.3Ah might be pretty weak, but why would Hangar 9 pair this together if their Starter combo can't even turn over their Trainer's engine?

Any thoughts? Should I get a different Starter combo?

My desire is to get away from carrying a motorcycle/lawn tractor battery. Everything else I have (remote glow plug igniter, manual fuel pump, etc.) has been purchased with this in mind.

akpilot

Bump

JohnBuckner

My Feedback: (1)

Then voltage is king - Raising the voltage is your solution and here is yet another thread raging on right now about getting starters to perform.

There are a number of good approachs that work very well.

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_9853844/tm.htm

akpilot

Thanks for the reference to the other thread.

Am still a bit perplexed as to why Hangar 9 would offer a 12v gell cell, if it doesn't have the necessary voltage to turn a .40 size over. Any ideas?

As of this morning, my battery was up to 14.25 volts after an overnight charge.

opjose

There are a few things going on...

First if your engine is brand new, the high compression will make it difficult to start with your starter.

You are best off hitting the engine with a heat gun and letting it run for a while.

After the engine is broken in, the starter will have less problems with it, even when the engine is cold.

Once the engine has been run on a given day the starter has an easier time.

H9 and Tower have similiar battery packs for their starters. Both suffer from the "problem" you are seeing.
Both also end up lasting me no more than one season!

Toss em!

I ended up using a pair of NiMH 3600mAh 7v racing packs in series, which I was able to place within the Gel Cell enclosure for my Hobbico starters.
Other people merely wire tie the batteries to the starters.

I used Tamiya connectors so I could quickly disconnect the packs from the starter motor for recharging purposes.

After changing the cone for a larger one ( more torque due to a higher lever moment ) I found I could even turn over my 50CC engines with this arrangement. I have absolutely no problems with my 1.80 four strokers as well.

Some guys at our field run the power up to 22v... but I'm quite happy with the results I've had.

The Gel Cells were a waste of money IMHO.

akpilot

Thanks I may have to take the battery core into my LHS and do just that, look for lipos that can fit into the holder.

Still can't believe though that a reputable hobby company would produce a product that, for all effective purposes, isn't feasible.

opjose

Oh it works alright, but just not very well nor for very long.

That's what happens when the vendor is trying to hit an overly low price point.

Putting in NiMH racing packs, ended up costing me far more, but the starter has worked reliably for four years now, as opposed to one season with the Gel Cells.

In retrospect I should not have bothered with either the Tower or Horizon battery packs.

Haoye makes a nice metal mounting system for NiMH packs for starters. I wish I could find a vendor that carries this.

I've used the NiMH packs instead of LiPo's because of the high instantaneous demands of the starter motors. This does far less damage to NiMH than it does to LiPo's... though I'm tempted to try the latter as I have packs I could use for this.

Thankfully the Starter themselves are over engineered. Most use big motors with heavy windings, so they seem to last forever.