hey guys,
i just finished up my son's goldberg 400 electric plane and had one of our flying buddies take it for a spin and trim it out.
i had everything pretty close and the plane few exceptionaly well even in the wind with the stock 400 brushed motor and 11.1 volt lipo pack.
last night the winds died down and i let my son fly it,it took off o.k and he was flying for maybe 2 minutes and i told him to give it some throttle to get above the trees and it started climbing but then you could tell the motor was losing power and he tried to bring it in to land but ended up crashing it!
the motor was pretty warm so i am assuming it overheated but not sure why?
i really don't know much about planes as i am into the heli's big time.
any idea what would cause the loss of power?
rich

Rich,
The life of a stock speed 400 brushed motor on a 3S lipo will be short, real short. The stock motor is designed for 7 Ni-cells, 3S lipo is close to 10 Ni-cells [X(]
In the long run you will do better with a brushless setup in that plane.
Good luck,
Pete

I was going to go with a 7 cell nimh battery but the instructions said it could also be run on a 2s or 3s lipo pack as well.
would it burn the motor up that quick?
the plane has less than 5 minutes of total flight time on it,I guess it doesn't matter it looks like it is totaled anyway.
any ideas if these are good planes or not,I need to get another electric trainer and the price of these ones were decent $89.99 from tower hobbies.
he already has a tower hobbies 40 nitro trainer but we were looking for something smaller to fly in a big field across the street from our house when we are not at the ama flying field.
any help would be appreciated
rich

well I did some checking on his plane and turns out the screws that hold the gearbox to the motor loosened up and when one of the guys at the flying field was coming in for a landing with the plane it flipped over on it's prop.
well it moved the motor to the side and all i did ws loosen the screws and move the motor back in place,but i never checked the mesh on the gearbox.
the gear mesh was so tight that i beleive that is what caused the whole problem.
I readjusted the gear mesh and ran the stock motor for well over 5 minutes and it never even got warm.
I ordered a few props and bought a few pieces of balsa to fix the plane,less than ten bucks and we will give it a try and see how it works.
i should have known with all the heli flying i do not to trust the factory when it comes to putting loctite on.
hey like anything else live and learn.

rich

Rich,
Glad to hear you sorted out the problem[8D]
Pete