jimbosstuff1

Hi Mike, I have been reading your and Gregs posts on the MJ system, I bought this stuff when they first came out...many months ago.. got around to building a Road Kill P-38 and installing the MJ..the servos act like they are making pudding...with short periods of pause..the range check is about 35 ft before the whole system goes wackO. Antenna is routed away from the esc, and the receiver is also safe from bad RF..but NG for flying..I think I may have got some of the earlier bad stuff.... You mentioned in your last post that maybe I could trade in for the newer receiver and servos, think Hobby People would go for this...still have the plastic box and other stuff that came with it. The push rods on the RK are music wire, and when I would tap the rudder rod, the result was kaos... connections are all good.battery is up...It seems to act the same with motors running or not. I don't see any caps on the motors...if the motors are not running would there still be the glitch problems in the system? Any ideas? Thanks for any help you may give me... Jim

Mike Taylor

My Feedback: (1)

Jim,

If you've had it for a while and it still looks new, and if it came from HP, they will take it back for refund or replacement. If yours are dancing with the motor off, I'd trade it in for a newer version. Hobby People has been moving a lot of them and their stock should all be fresh by now. If the motor is off, it should not produce any noise; the noise comes from the brushes making and breaking contact and the resulting sparking.

The tapping on the rudder (wire) pushrod suggests that there is something else happening here as well. I use K&B brass rod for the servo connection and it is attached to CF push rod, which in turn is terminated in another peice of wire riding in a wooden horm. I don't see any chaos when my controls are tapped, stroked or wiggled. I think CF is supposed to be radio-noisy, but it doesn't seem to be a problem to me. You might try replacing the wire with CF rod or even balsa sticks (with wire ends, of course) to see it that helps

jimbosstuff1

Thanks for the quick response to my MJ questions...I use CF rods on my other planes with the RFF100, and have good luck with range and glitch free (well almost) fights. All the control horns on the P-38 are wood, so no noise there, maybe the control horns on the servos, they look like copper or brass, I havn;t tried to stick a magnet on them to see whats up? Anyways I;ll try the trade path with HP and see what happens. Do you know of any Micro or indoor flying that might be happing here in our area? mid Calif. or so...The Stockton club had a indoor fun fly last year, with slow stick races and other neat stuff. Met a lot of great people and got to swop ideas and other lies.... maybe again this winter... again thanks Electric Jim

Mike Taylor

My Feedback: (1)

Jim,

We are having a number of indoor fun fly events in Simi Valley about every two weeks. That's pretty far from mid-state, but id you are interested, please PM me... We're pretty spoiled by year-round flying and aren't used to be driven indoors like most of the rest of the country...

BTW, the horns are brass, and they are made to distort under severe load.

Greg Covey

My experiment with using the MJ servos on a ShockFlyer proved not to work well. The force of the control surfaces on the little servos would twist the brass arm. I did not want to CA the arm in place because I felt it would defeat the purpose of protection.

I decided to try another project that will hopefully fly indoors. The Hobbico Classic Cruiser was a bit hot to fly indoors so I will now try the [link=http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/WTI0001P?&I=LXBLG0]Hobbico Classic Biplane[/link]. This model has a 20" wingspan and resembles the old Beech Model 17 Staggerwing. The biplane wings will give me 40" of wing compared to the 21.5" of wing on my original [link=http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXRX21&P=7]Classic Cruiser[/link].

After gutting the stock power system, it weighed in at 1.4oz. The wings weighed 0.7oz together and the empty fuselage was 1.1oz.

Greg Covey

For a light power system that draws less than an amp, the Astro Flight Firefly is a good choice. I have used this power system on other 3oz applications.
[ul][*] Firefly motor and ESC = 0.8oz[*] 2-cell Kokam 145mAh pack = 0.3oz[*] MJ Receiver and 2 servos = 0.3oz
[/ul]

The combination of my new power system and Cirrus MJ receiver and two servos weighed a total of 1.4oz. This matched the stock electric free-flight power system weight.

Greg Covey

Mounting the MJ servos was easy. I simply cut slots into the side of the fuselage and press fit the 0.1 servo in place. No glue was needed.

The linkages were made from Dubro micro control horns, carbon rod, thin solid wire, and shrink tubing.

Greg Covey

I replaced the cut out foam with a few balsa pieces; one to hold the 2-cell Kokam 145mAh pack and the other as a press-fit hatch.

My Hobbico Classic Bipe is RTF R/C at 3.6oz. All that is left is to finish the decals and paint the prop tips red. We'll see how it flies soon.

Greg Covey

My Classic Bipe is all dressed up and ready to fly.

bdavison

My Feedback: (1)

Ive seen more an more of these little packs showing up at the local indoor meets. I have to say Im impressed. Mainly by the fact that they are incased in metal and EXTREMELY durable. The price is rather steep, but your gonna pay for stuff that small, not to mention that the servos are built like a fine swiss watch.

Mike Taylor

My Feedback: (1)

If you go to Hobby People's web site and register for their e-mail advertisements, you can find them on sale for ~$120 like they were for Thanksgiving. That includes the RX, ESC and two servos. That compares very favorably with any of the other micro systems' flight pack prices. It all is complete and ready to plug-n-play... Go to http://www.hobbypeople.net/ and look at the top right hand side of the home page. Hope that helps with 'pricey' part of the system. I've got a bunch of them and they are great.

Greg Covey

This is the maiden voyage of my converted Hobbico Classic Bipe using the Cirrus MJ Flight Pack and Astro Flight Firefly motor on a 2-cell Kokam 145 pack. This model resembles the old Beech Model 17 Staggerwing and flew great!
[link=http://www.gregcovey.com/RCU2/AeroFlakes5.wmv]Hobbico Classic Bipe[/link] (5.0meg)

See the previous posts in this thread for my conversion details.

WarpdSpazm

Greg,

That is awesome!!! I just called my LHS and ordered the bipe and a crystal (he has the MJ set in stock). We fly in a school gym here by me and I'm dying for an "scale-ish" R/C plane.

For a good laugh, I will video my LHS owner's mirco on the 16th... He put the Cirrus set on a $3 guillows rubber plane!! 3ch. and it flies! It is a total riot.

What would be your thoughts to putting an aileron servo on the lower wing, You were are 3.6oz. I think I could do it and keep her at or under 4.0oz.

Also, what did you find to be a good CG for her?

I have been into the Glow for a few years, and cars forever, but micro indoor is so satisfying, it's a pity we only have the gym 2x a month during the winter only. Thanks for doing all this work on the hobbico planes.

Thanks

Greg Covey

Hi Ray,

An additional 0.4oz would be another 10% jump in weight. It will only make it fly hotter so it all depends upon your flying skills and available indoor space.

You might try it first with rudder and elevator only since it has plenty of turning response. My control surfaces were dialed down pretty good. My recollection is that they only moved about 10-15 degrees in either direction. A computer radio makes it easy to add negative exponetial to soften the center of the sticks.

Good luck!

WarpdSpazm

You make a good point... I wasn't thinking in % when I though about 4 "measly" tenths of an oz... That'd be like adding a full pound to my 60 sized Extra = not good. I will weigh the items before doing it... maybe .2oz will be OK... I'm going with a different motor and battery, so i will try to save a few grams on that end. The Bipe should be here sometime next week; I hope to have it flying by next sunday for our next indoor. This is gonna be fun!

Mike Taylor

My Feedback: (1)

I posted this a few days ago, but it got lost in the shuffle some how...

I converted one of the staggerwings a couple of years ago with the smallest gear available at the time, an MRX-4, 2 x 6 gram servos, 3 small LiPolys (210s or 350s) and a firefly. It came in at 4 1/2 ounces. Balance was right at the top wing's LE. Control throws needed to be very small (like a 1/4" either way). It flew great, but it was too fast for any of the indoor venues we had. I finally wiped it out doing an inverted pass that rolled out into a fruit tree BTW, they can't maintain altitude inverted...

With lighter gear like the MJ you could get it down to 4 oz or less and it might be OK for a larger indoor area; 2 sma;; LiPolys would be plenty. The plane was pretty srurdy (read heavy) inside, and I think you could safely dremel away a lot of the interior foam and save some more weight. With lighter gear, lightening up the read of the fuselage would be a good idea to help make it balance easier.

WarpdSpazm

Well I got her last night. We pulled it out of the box and put all the parts on a gram scale... 67.2g (2.37oz).
I then proceeded to gut it like a fish. The fuse, wings, struts, prop, and gear came in at 31g (1.09oz) I then added the Cirrus gear - 3 servos w/ hardware, rec, esc, 2 150mah lipos from the Wattage MF, and the gearbox,motor,prop combo from the MF also... AUW before assembly. 68.4g. (2.42oz) !!!I figure some glue, hinge tape and a tad of soldier and I will be just under 3oz! Not bad considering I haven't lightened the fuse yet, and I was eying 4oz. To shave 28g's is very nice. I'm also looking at shaving 2 more grams by switching to a set of "Vintage Wheels" 3/4" are 1.3g from the almost 4g i have on the stock ones... I think this should fly real nice indoors. I have pics as I'm building. I'll post when i get home.

glideher

anyone know if these CIRRUS Micro Joule Airborne Systems are being produced or is the company out of business? these would be perfect for these nano hlg rc gliders

coriolan

The Cirrus Micro Joule is long gone, there is much better options today for that application:
https://micronwings.com/
Micro Flier Radio
The old Cirrus MJ weighted more than that glider and there was issues with the servos.

glideher

fantastic, thank you