kygah

Hi! Newbie here!

Ihave purchased the Brushed model of the F4UCorsair. This is my first experience with elec planes. Ibuild/flew nitro in the past. I hope this spurs my interest again to fly.

My question: Since I'm new to the electric scene, I'm ignorant of the battery choices. I know about Ni-MH battery that comes with the plane, but I've also seen a lot about Li-Po batteries.

Can someone help me out with a quick lesson on Li-Po batteries, and possibly suggest which battery I would purchase to upgrade this airplane? Would it help any or be necessary?

Thanks!!!!

hugger-4641

My Feedback: (6)

Welcome back! At the end of this reply is a link to an e-book on electric flight that will answere a lot of questions. I'm not sure what Corsair you are refering to and what size motor, speed control, and battery it has. If you could share that information we might be able to give a quicker suggestion. There is one issue you need to be aware of that I'm not sure is addressed in the e-book. A speed control (Esc) that is designed for Ni-mh or Ni-cad batteries will usually work fine with a lipo that is close to the proper voltage but the lipo voltage is usually going to be a little higher. This means the pre-set cut off voltage of the ESC is usually too low for a lipo. If you fly the plane until the Esc shuts the motor off it will let the lipo run down too far. Most chargers will not re-charge a lipo if the voltage gets below 3volts per cell. An ESC that is not designed for Lipos will let the voltage get down around 2.5 volts before it shuts the motor off. Some Esc's have a switch to change the cut off voltage to accomodate a lipo, most likely the OEM esc in your plane does not have this option. Anyway, welcome back to the insanity! Hope this helps, here's that link.

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_7100376/tm.htm

kygah

Thanks for the quick reply, hugger-4641!

I plan on doing some reading up on this. Thanks for the link.

I'm hoping this gets me back into flying. I have a couple nitro models (Great Planes Super Sportster, and an Extra 230) that I might wipe the dust off of, when I get my flying skills back.

Here's the plane I've purchased: http://www.nitroplanes.com/f4uco4elrare.html

Back when I was flying (15+ years ago) electrics were new, and quite frankly, didn't work. ARF's were just coming around, but weren't affordable, and you had to spend hundreds to get into the hobby, and countless hours.

I'm hoping I can replace some batteries and fuel lines, and get the nitros back up and going. I'm really looking forward to it!

Thanks again for the link and info!

G

hugger-4641

My Feedback: (6)

[link]http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/store/uh_index.asp[/link] Here's where I buy all my lipo's and Esc's, . I like the Zippy flightmax and Rhino batteries and have had good luck with them. You are probably going to want a 2cell lipo in the 800 to 1200mah and 10 to 20C range to fit in your plane with out a lot of modification. Measure your battery compartment and compare with the specs on the Lipo to make sure.
If you are looking for outragous performance and don't mind experimenting and modifying your plane, you might try a 3cell lipo (11.1volt) in the 800 to 1200mah range. It will probably give you unlimited vertical climb and 30min flight times if you don't stay full throttle all the time. But this could burn out the stock ESC, which you probably should change anyway due to the voltage cut off issue, and it might shorten the life of the motor! I've gotten away with it so far on several Parkzone planes that I have, but its a gamble if you do this with the stock motor and ESC!

kygah

Wow! Thanks again!

I've checked out the website, and is this what you would recommend, provided the battery size would fit?

http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/s...idProduct=7311

And maybe a new ESC? It's a brushed motor.

http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/s...idProduct=6468#

What charger would you recommend?

hugger-4641

My Feedback: (6)

That Esc would be more than adequate, great price too. That battery is also good. It might be a little heavier than the stock battery that came with your plane, but it would probably fly fine if it will fit. I use that exact same battery in my Super Cub which has a 480 brushed motor (slightly larger than the 370 motor in your plane). I get 20 to 30min flights depending on how hard I fly. As far as chargers go, its kind of tough to make a reccomendation as your needs might be different than mine. Since I started flying nitro planes, I don't fly any electrics that use a lipo with more than 3 cells. So I use this charger:
[link]http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=7898&Product_Name=Turnigy_420_Balancer/Charger_2S~4S[/link]

But I see one for $6 that I am tempted to try myself! It should charge that battery in a little over an hour.

[link]http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=6507[/link]

If you are going to get into larger electric planes that take more than 4 cells, or if you are going to charge several batteries at once, than you probably need to get a better charger. If so, I would do a little more research and ask for more suggestions here on Rcu!
Hope this helps, keep us posted!

kygah

Thanks again! Ithink I'm going to go with that Lipo config if everything works size wise. The ESC is out of stock, anyway. I'll let you know how everything turns out!

I really appreciate your help! I'm always hesitant to post a question in a new forum. A lot of them aren't very friendly.

G

hugger-4641

My Feedback: (6)

Glad I could help! This is a pretty good place to get help. Lots of knowledgeable people here who like to give back to the community. Of course, you will occasionally run into someone in a bad mood or who has nothing better to do with their life than to be-little someone else. But it's rare to run into those folks here, the moderators are pretty good about keeping an eye on things and they give a lot of help as well.

About those Esc's. If you log in and set up a user name/account with Hobbycity and select the products you are intersted in, they will automatically e-mail you when it gets back in stock. You can place an order for out of stock items but they usually have no idea how long you may have to wait. Also, don't order something that is out of stock along with something that is in stock, they won't ship anything until they can complete the entire order.

Hope you get that SS and that Extra in the air soon. Happy flying. Keep us posted!

mr.scale

My Feedback: (4)

kygah, how the plane flyies,handles etc..does it fly out of the box like its advertised or a few mods need to be done. I honestly want an airplane that would fly with no more investments to make. will this plane would be a good fun, careless and quik set up??
Fernando