Well after a month of work here and there my E3D is almost done
Having to work for a living really gets in the way of playing with planes
As it sits here I should have it going this weekend.
The Bare airframe covered/hinged no radio gear or landing gear
weighs 14.7oz. I'm pretty happy with that as the average ones are around 16oz at that stage.
I'm going to be using a Hacker C40 12T brushless and 10 cp2400's.
I did some things a little different, using a pull-pull on rudder
and moving the elev servo into a better linkage position.

Looks good, good luck on the trim flights. Let us know how it turns out.

Yeah I'll be starting on mine as soon as I finish my GP Giles kit. I looked at the plan and it looks very clean. Should be fun. Let us know what you think of it after few flights.

Its all assembled and ready to go. With a 10 cell CP2400 pack
it weighs 53.2oz. Everything is great, with the only possible exception being the Great Planes gearbox. It sure is loud and I am not impressed with the runout of the main gear.
Perhaps I am being overly critical and it will hold up fine.
If the weather holds on the "wet coast" here I will fly it this weekend. That and three other projects I must get done this weekend. All work and no play........ :spinnyeye

The little GD600 gearbox holds up just fine, as long as the mesh is set correctly. You want a slight "tick" of freeplay. Just barely enough to feel. If you use the paper between the gears trick like they say, it ends up too tight usually. I just set them by hand. Unless I strike the prop on the ground taxying, or have an out-of-balance prop/spinner on it,.. I never strip a gear. Those are about the only two ways to strip them,..unless, of course, you have the mesh too tight,..which is much worse for things than being a bit too loose.

I should have mine up in the air right after the Toledo show in early April, as I'm waiting to buy the servo's for it. Thanks for a great design.

--Paul

I took the E3d to my local field sunday and let er rip.
It flys great, all the rumours are true. I was having a blast with it,
I had 5 packs charged so it was non-stop flying.
Soon I had a crowd of glow guys all around it and a couple
of old timers who refused to believe it was electric until
I showed em the battery.
All kinds of fun, loops, rolls, I even tried an IMAC sequence with it.
All was going great, I placed it on the grass in front of me, I planned to firewall the throttle and be airborne in 10 feet into a vertical climb. Bang! as soon as I hit the power the gearbox stripped 3 teeth off the main gear. In retrospect It was harsh to jam it to full power from a non-rotating state. But I will be calling
MEC today for one of thiere boxes.
Thanks Gary for a superb ship, I think your backorder list will be getting longer soon...... They tried to pry my second unstarted kit from me

I have looked hard at all the various motors which would work well with the E3D .
Here is my question:
Being at 4500 ft altitude - I know that I need to be lighter than these models ,flown at sea level -
I have done many glow setups -pattern/IMAC designs and what works great at sea level can be a piece of poop here.
My guess is that the 48 oz weight is still too high - OR I need even mor motor/prop/whatever performance.
So - having looked at Hacker - the Czech and US made motors/controller and batteries.
Does ANYBODY have any solid data on the best setup for this model -for me - - I understand that I will blow a couple of hundred bucks on the motor & controller.
Is direct drive viable in this size? I want a model I can use to do IMAC Unlimited sequences -
Am I asking too much?
I can do gas models to get there - but I keep hearing that electric will do it now - so far I have flown the teeny stuff - lotsa fun - but I want something about 600-800 squares. FULLY Aerobatic.

On the recommended setup of an Endo, geared 4.6:1 on an APC E 12 x 8 the E3D should hover, but not much reserve. Gary also uses a 14 x 7 APC prop, where it will hover a lot easier but you are really pushing the motor if you fly at high throttle settings a lot.

I'm gonna get a Mega ACn 22/20/2 or 3 and use the Great Planes GD 600 gearbox (as recommended by Gary Wright, and the E3D is designed around) run it on 10 cells (CP 1700 or 2400) which will give me in flight thrust on a 14 x 7 of like 65 oz, and static thrust of about 77 oz.

Direct drive unfortunatly is going to give you a fairly high pitch speed.

Gary Wright uses the Hacker C40 in the GD-600 geared 4,6:1 on 10 cells and a 14 x 7, it will hover on about 55-60% power.

Why dont' you shoot Gary an email. He always responds very fast, is very knowlegeable, and is one heck of a nice guy.
I don't recall his email offhand, but its on his site www.gwmp.net

--Paul

You could use the hacker C40 and just prop it up a bit more. With the 14X7 it's 39~40 amps static,..which is about like running a 46 glow motor two turns rich Get the 70 or 99 amp ESC and prop it up with maybe one of the new 15X8 APC "E" props. our field is only a few miles from the beach,.. the field is 29 feet MSL, so we have good thick air . Still, the 14X7 hovers the plane at 3.5 lbs,.. at roughly 1/2 throttle. At your altitude, just guessing,..the 15X8 should be about right,..if not, then try a 15X10. For IMAC,.. however, I think you'll need something with a thinner wing. Or,.. it would be interesting to see an entire IMAC pattern in a 100 foot box.

Your suggestions sound very reasonable -
I will do a litttle pencil pushing---

hello there
what is the cost for an airplane like that with a good motor and a battery that will 3d?
all parts exept for rx and tx...
thank you
roy

E3D kit from Gary $100
Hacker c40 12T $170
Hacker speed control $99
CP2400 pack(DIY) $33
GP gearbox $15
4 HS-81 servos $72
covering/prop/misc $40

Total------------------- $529


The look on your Glow engined buddies' faces when you pull vertical from a 10 ft takeoff roll and accelerate into a 300 ft vertical climb - Priceless.

knock $145 off the total if you go with the brushed endo motor setup, not quite as powerful as the hacker brushless.

Will you post were to buy the Hacker and ESC also that GP gearbox Thanks,
-gerald

I carry the hacker C40 12 turn motor, Hacker 40-3P speed control, and the great planes gearbox.

Hi All.

I was wondering if it is worthwhile to bite the bullet even harder and go with Lithium-Poly batteries in the E3D with the Hacker C40. . .

If so, where is a good place to buy what brand/size etc. of the Li-Poly batteries?

Opinions/options/other?

Thanks,

Glenn in Den.

charlie wang at thunder power. email is [email protected]

I'm flying some of his packs. 3series/4parallel pack in the E3D drops almost 1/2 lb of weight compared to 10-cell HR-SC pack and average flight time is just over 30 minutes. Pack is $200,.. but your simply not going to get that sort of performance from anything else, not even glow.

Gary, what are you using for a charger for the Li-poly pack in the E-3D? This sounds extremely interesting.
Thanks,
Jerry

The Orbit and Triton chargers work well. I use the Orbit with the Thunder Power packs.

The power to weight, and duration with the Thunder Power packs is phenominal. Out of this world.