Glow or Electric
 

Purchased a 3D genesis, looking for some feedback on engines and motors.
I will be doing 50% pattern flying, 50% 3D (i know that this plane is not a true pattern bird).

I've got it narrowed down to these choices:

1. YS 1.70

2. New Hacker Q60

3. Plettenberg 30-10

Cons for the above:

1. Vibration, tuning, noise

2. new on the market, batteries expensive, short flight times

3. only heard great things about this motor, expensive batteries, short flight times

Love the feel of four strokes, great low end torque.
I'm open to something different as long as it can compare to the power of the YS, this will be my first large electric.

Any suggestions?

RE: Glow or Electric
 

If you want to fly glow, fly glow. If you want to fly electric, fly electric. Batteries don't have to be expensive. I fly Zippy Flightmax almost exclusively and they work great. They are very affordable too. Check them out at Hobby King.

RE: Glow or Electric
 

platinum1

There are plenty of other good electric motors on the market other than Hacker or Pletty such as Hyperion and Axi. You will be able to buy a motor / ESC /charger for less than the price of a YS1.70 and a mount.
If you want to fly 10S then two sets of batteries (which is probably the minimum you would want) will cost you around $200 if you buy Rhinos or similiar. These should last a minimum of 100 charges per pack which is $1 per flight. Your YS 1.70 will only get around 6/7 flights from a gallon of fuel which will be around $30. or $4 /$5 per flight. Your electric airframe / servos will last longer as there is no vibration and no fuel contamination. You can get around 8 minutes flight time from your electric setup which is long enough for most people.

John

RE: Glow or Electric
 

Each type of system has it's pros and cons.

I started flying electric this year and am really enjoying it. Clean, quiet, easy on airframes and servos, batteries can be shipped much easier than glow fuel.

Just do the research to get an appropriate system, batteries, and chargers.

RE: Glow or Electric
 

Having flown YS for years and been a devoted YS guy and just switching to electric after the NATS this year I can give you some perspective of what I found. First off, THEY BOTH WORK and they BOTH WORK WELL. Both have tremendous power and torque. Being electric the torque is delivered even more instantaneously than the YS, which understanding how electric motors work didn't surprise me, but I was surprised at just how much torque is at your finger tips. The cost of glow fuel seems to be going up, and the cost of batteries is coming down. You can run the cheaper packs from hobby city and they work really well. Some of the other packs do have more power with them, but they all have more than you will ever need. I really like having zero vibration on the airframe which electric provides. It's also nice to not have to carry all the extra support equipment. I have 5 sets of packs, and if they are all charged, i can just go to the field with the 5 packs and fly 5 times and go home without bringing anything extra. Our field doesn't have power, so if I want to fly more, I have to bring my generator as well as my charge box. There is definitely less routine maintenance on the electric stuff although I still check everything regularly. One advantage to the YS is flight time though as you can fly up to twice as long on a flight (depending on tank size) as you can with a typical electric setup. Bottom line is they both work. With glow I think the investment is spread out over time, whereas electric you need to purchase packs, chargers and everything else up front, but in the end, if you take care of the batteries as described they will last a long time and your cost per flight keeps going down with the more cycles you can get from a pack.

Arch

RE: Glow or Electric
 

Right Arch

With batteries coming down in price and Nitro going up it's a no brainer now. We get about 8-10 flights from a gallon of fuel. Fuel @ $30 a gallon versus a set of batteries @ $120 and the batteries (on the bottom side), 100 cycles the cost per flight is far less with electrics now.

Tim

See you in Green Sea.

RE: Glow or Electric
 

Heres my take,

With electric, what you lose by decreased airframe related maintenance, you gain with increased time and effort supporting the infrastructure to fly electric. With electric, you are in an endless cycle of battery charging and battery maintenace. Note the super-cool "charge-boxes" and such. A gallon of fuel needs no maintenance and "decharging" the plane consists of defueling it (seconds).

I would really like to know how many electric flyers actually sit and watch the charge cycle. If so, you must agree that a high number of hours are spent watching battery charging. So while the airframe maintenance drops, the infrastrure support time increases all the same. For the time I had two electric planes, I NEVER felt comfortable to walk away from the charge cycle. Are people actually walking away from the batterys when they are charging?

When I get home flying glow, the plane gets a mild once over (5-30 minutes), and it sits until I need it again. I walk away when I put the A123's on charge for the receiver pack. Really, its not a lot of maintenace if you can install things correctly the first time. Obviously, both are extrememly effective at what they do. Some personalties will like the battery specific flight parameter study, cell balancing, eagle tree, etc., and others will gravitate towards the "engine" aspects of flying glow. Really, its never been a better time to do either. YS hasn't been this easy to run sense the days of .60's, battery prices are dropping plus the onset of clone motors and such.

Practice puts you in the winners circle. How you go about getting good practice time is up to you...
Thanks,
Jim W.

RE: Glow or Electric
 

I have a Genesis 3D with a Pletty Evo in it. Ran TP 5300 10s packs. Plane is a little on the heavy side cause its the glass version and I have dual 9151's in the fuse at the back for elevator servos, so its 5200g RTF.

However it flies well, does some pretty damn nice 3D, although its not as good as a true dedicated F3A plane, but no problem with any sequence.

With this power setup, it has buckets of jam. For just 3D 10 minute flights are no problem, for pattern stuff the usual 8 minutes applies.

Chad Northeast

RE: Glow or Electric
 

I think the need to sit and watch packs is overrated now. The chargers are better, as are the batteries. The technology in our batteries is no different than that in a cell phone or most laptops, yet people don't sit and watch them charge. I do have a dedicated area in the garage in which I charge, but I don't sit out there with them. If a battery has been damaged in some way, then it is a different story, but to just sit and watch batteries charge at 1C is not really necessary. I find it hard to believe that people with Smart cars and other electric items, such as Seguay's and such sit and watch them charge. I never charge at more than 1C and I do periodically check on packs the first few charges, but after that, I will start the charger and walk away.

Arch

RE: Glow or Electric
 

I find charging a non issue because it's done at my leisure. I'm usually fartin' around in the shop most evenings and this is when I charge my batteries. I'm not watching them like a hawk but I'm not far from them either. besides chargers these days do all the watching work so you don't have to. Just have a quick look at the screen when the cycle is finished. Of course, there are people that watch their batteries very closely and they monitor every aspect of their batteries life. That's cool! Apparently they find that aspect enjoyable. But I don't do all that stuff and I've been flying large electric airplanes since the brushed motor and nicad days.

Just give your lipos some respect and you'll be fine. You wouldn't just haphazardly toss around a can of gasoline in your house. That's the kind of respect I'm talking about.

I wish this particular forum was available over at RC Groups. There is a ton of electric power system experience over there that you guys could benefit from. For instance Pat DelCastillo (Mr Castle Creations) and Steve Nue (Mr. Neu Motors) participate over there as well as many other very knowledable electric power professionals and enthusiasts.

RE: Glow or Electric
 

I do 14 min flights on my YS170CDI on the Oxai provided tank, and fly two complete P11 sequences against my new electric Onas wich I can get one complete and some maneuver practice. So I loose less time and get more flying on the YS.

The electric stuff (support equipment and batteries) are double the weight of glow at least, and I'm not planning on hanging helium balloons to pretend their are lighter.

Having flown both, I still like the YS better, there is more power control without the aircraft acceleration form current speed, and I don't like the fact electric feels like an old 2 stroke, but also have to say that I'm still working on a throttle curve I like, we'll see later on.

Anyway, after having all my options on the table, I will use my YS powered Axiome for the next world championships in Muncie, I still love to see the smoke trail and I think it really enhances the flight presentation.

Either option will be fine, and the good thing is that there are soooo many options on both, but for sure you will not be able to take the Lipo batteries with you on a commercial flight as they exceed the new and current regulations.

Regards to all.

Alejandro P.

RE: Glow or Electric
 

There is really, really no need to go and sit watch a battery charging. Take care of your stuff and always have your balancer board connected while charging in my opinion takes care of the safety issue. On top of that you can charge your battery inside a special bag which is fireproof, just in case.

Just to toss in a new argument: nitro is toxic, it will poison you. Also, you should always wear safety glasses while fueling (I have never done it, but just read this forum and you will know).

I really loved flying with glow engines but once I converted I have never looked back.

Volkert

RE: Glow or Electric
 

Gents,

Certainly e-vs-IC is a personal choice, and neither will make you a better pilot or improve your scores.

Certainly some of the arguments against electric are outdated now that we are in 2010, in 2006-2007 I probably would have agreed with some of them. Today, all anyone has to do is look at the growing number of pilots moving to electric, at both local and international levels. As well some very deep rooted IC flyers even making the move. In my perception this should only show that electric is certainly no more of a burden or any disadvantage to flying IC.

RE: Glow or Electric
 

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. . . and Lithium quiets the other voice in my head . . .
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RE: Glow or Electric
 

Well said Chad,

I'll end my portion of this with a funny story (funny if you are a glow pilot). At the Eglin AFB contest the AF decided to cut power to the field without telling the CD or club members. It was going to be several hours or into the afternoon before the power came on again. With everyone expecting AC, there were not enough generators to go around. The E-guys needed to milk batteries and not take practice flights (as there was no AC to recharge), where as I and a few other were able to take several practice flights at whim :)
Thanks,
Jim W.

RE: Glow or Electric
 

Wow, and nobody brought their cars to the event???

RE: Glow or Electric
 

Jim,

  Lets just hope that the last remaining nitro factory in the world (BTW - it's not located in the U.S.) keeps churning out the good stuff, eh?  Both power sources have their Achilles heel, so to speak. . .</p>

RE: Glow or Electric
 

That's why my generator ALWAYS goes with me to a contest regardless of the facilities. At the D4 Championships, a bunch of us were using generators because the club's electrical outlets were too far away from the closest available pits. Most of the guys were using CellPro's and from a distance, it was impossible to tell who's was beeping.

OTOH, I never take a practice flight on a contest day. Had a midair doing that one time and shredded my deadstick plane through a tree another time trying to avoid a guy who was taking his own sweet time retrieving his dead-sticked plane off the runway.

Verne

RE: Glow or Electric
 

Thanks guys for all the feedback, not 100% but I'm leaning towards electric.
Not being in the hobby for yrs now, I was impressed by the two small electrics I do have.
Thanks again!

RE: Glow or Electric
 

If you don't have infrastructure built up for either, electric is the only way to go. More performance, less vibration, more reliable. There's a good reason why so many are dumping their IC engines and making the switch.

RE: Glow or Electric
 

I agree with Tony. Electric power is the way forward. IC has it place for now but eventually it will fade away from the mainstream in this hobby. If you haven't got a bunch of glow engines and accessories for them now, don't go out and buy that stuff. That is unless you just really love operating engines. Use the money to get yourself a good quality electric stuff instead. You'll be farther ahead in the end.

RE: Glow or Electric
 

Honestly, both options are great, either one will work, I have been flying YS for 15 years and I can't love it more, I also started flying F3A with an electric and it works very well, but I still like the sound, the smoke and the low end torque of my YS engines.

So saying the IC engines will disappear is a very bold statement as it just undermines what other people think or like, I personally do not plan to quit flying YS no matter what, the electric is missing something for me still.

regards

RE: Glow or Electric
 

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You can tell when a guy is switching for good.  He sells his YS's in multiples of three . . .
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One in the plane, one in the box, and the one that just got back from rebuild . . .
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RE: Glow or Electric
 

Completly false in my case, I have three 170CDI, two on two Osmose Evolutions and one in an Axiome, non of them have ever been rebuilt, and non of my engines or my F3A flying partners have done so, so again, yes, I am veeeery good with the YS engines, so do not have other peoples problems, anybody can ask about that to Richard Verano, Marcelo Colombo and many other people from around the world who have seen our engines work.

Again, I have two electric F3A also, the Camodel's Onas and a Xurama(on final stages) and I like the simplicity of electric, but YS is much better in many ways, so, "we" are not changing anytime soon, and for sure anybody can see when someone leaves the YS because it has problems with them, but as the high performance engine it is it demands care when tunning it and patience.

Again, saying electric is the future and everybody will change is what I don't like, just because it does not cover or respect the people who believe the IC engines as the best option for them, I have many electric airplanes, but a little more IC engines, and I really enjoy both equally, but for F3A I still prefer the YS, and the electrics are for practice on the times IC are not allowed.

As this is an electric forum, I leave this as my final comment as don't think there is much more for me to say .

Regards

RE: Glow or Electric
 

I said, "unless you really like opperating engines". You are one of the people that grew up in the hobby with glow engines. You said it yourself you "can't love it more". That's great! I'm happy for you. We should all do what we love. But.... In my opinion, you are a dieing breed. As battery technology improves, we'll continue to have lighter and more powerful planes. Maybe we won't see this happen every year but every couple of years we will. IC has pretty much reached it's plateau with just minor refinements on the horizon. Also, I didn't say glow engines would dissapere all together. I said they would fade from the mainstream. I completely believe that..... The future IS electric.