Earthdrill

Hi all. I finished my Slow Stick a couple of nights ago. Charged the battery, range checked, whacked the throttle for takeoff, and......glitching. Motor kept cutting out, control surfaces were fine, no troubles. We relocated the esc and reciever, no change. Relocated the antenna, no change. Finally swapped the motor to a spare 280 we had lying around and.....serendipity, the problem was resolved. Went home happy with dreams of the next nights flying dancing in my head. Arrived at the field last night, charged the battery, whacked the throttle for takeoff and.....glitching. Identical to the night before. I'm running a Hitec Focus III flight pack and a 7.2 volt, 600MH battery. The esc was previously operating a speed 400 in my sky scooter with no problems. What's going on here? Thanks for your help.

Bud

Greg Covey

Bud,

Make sure that you have installed the filter capacitors as shown in the diagram. Often, the values given to install change slightly...it is not too critical.

Also, the stock Slow Stick uses a Speed 300 motor so a Speed 280 motor will not have sufficient power for it...if it even fits.

Good luck!

Earthdrill

Greg,
Many thanks for the info. I'm going to the shop tonight to redo things and get this straightened out. I'll post in the morning to let you know how it turned out. Thanks again.

Bud

Matt Kirsch

My Feedback: (21)

Was it really glitching? Glitching is when the motor "stutters," switching off and on repeatedly.

On the other hand, if the motor is simply shutting off, you have a battery problem. The ESC has a circuit called a low voltage cutoff (LVC) which automatically shuts the motor off if the battery voltage gets too low. This is to allow you to land the plane safely, under control. Crashing sucks.

The higher the load you put on a battery, the lower its voltage gets. If the battery is not big enough to handle the load you're putting on it, its voltage can get low enough to trigger the LVC circuit, shutting off the motor. A Speed 280 motor puts a much smaller load on the battery than a Speed 300, so the battery could maintain a higher voltage.

Since you imply that it flew with a Speed 280, I can only assume that you're using a very small battery. This is the only way the Pico Stick would be light enough to fly using a Speed 280.

What battery are you using? You need to use at least a 600mAh NiCd or a 720mAh NiMH to handle the load from the motor. The stock 150mAh NiCd pack from a GWS "Pico Pack" will not cut the mustard in a Slow Stick.

Earthdrill

Okay, I got it figured out. The speed control I was using was not compatible with the motor that the SS comes equipped with. After a change to a speed 400, no further problems and I'm having a blast. Thanks for all your help.

Bud

Matt Kirsch

My Feedback: (21)

Ah, you were overloading the speed control! Let me guess, you were trying to use a GWS ICS-50. That's only a 2 Amp speed control. The EPS300C power unit draws upward of 7-8 Amps. The ICS-50 is underrated, but it's not THAT underrated

Earthdrill

Matt,
Yes, you are correct. Another valuable lesson learned by me here on RCU. One of these days I'm going to get all of the numbers and ratings memorized. Maybe then I can be of help to some hapless newbie like you guys were to me. Thanks again for everybody's help. See you guys in the sky.

Thanks again.

Bud

LuckyArmpit

One thing to keep in mind, you can always use an ESC rated higher than the amount of amps your gonna draw. Example...
speed 400 w/8 cells around 10 amps or so. You can actually use
a 50 amp speed controll if you want. You can't harm it. Just never go under the intended amps you are going to draw.

Dave...