ryanf420

I have a 380 electric motor(7.2v i think)..when I fly my PZ decathlon w/ the 2c 7.4v 1320mh(thunder power) I may get a little more flight time from the lipo(because of wieght and the 1320mh)but the power is noticeably decreased because of the lower 7.4v coming from the lipo vs. my stock 8.4v 600mh Nimh..

and from what I can gather there are 2 types of lipos(for park flyers) that are normally used..7.4v and 11.1v..but if I use the 11.1v lipo on my 7.2v motor then I will have greater power and flight time but the motor will burn out in about 3-4 flights, not to mention the non lipo esc(and whatever else it may burn up) from what I gather...

!?!?!?! MONEY PIT ?!?!?!?

So, is the only advantage for lipo is longer flight time? Are brushless motors the only real way to utilize the advantages of a lipo? Are there different lipos that I do not know about? what is the deal??

Sorry if this has already been a thread somewhere in the plethra of this forum but, I haven't really found anything that has really answered my ?'s ..So on that note ANY AND ALL INFO ON THIS SITUATION WILL BE APPRECIATED! THX

clovus

All things being equal I think the idea behind brushless is more power - so if you put it to a NiMH of the same mAh it may have a shorter flight time then usual. Combining brushless with a lipo gives you more power (of the brushless) combined with longer flight times (of the lipo). Factor in the added weight saving and you've got super power!

Brushed motors by themselves are not too expensive. I use a 3 cell 1500 mAh 11.1v lipo on a stock GWS 400 and stock ESC..but... I hardly use WOT (don't need to). So I would say try ia 11.1V and see with your existing setup before going to brushless motors. Just go easy on the throttle management.

In the end its all gonna cost you some brass, whether it's a moment of inattention/bad luck and you plant your plane, servo glitches, reduced battery charges... etc eventually you need to update/upgrade. The way I see it is the NiMH have a short charge cycle ( I got about 20-30 cycles before they were cactus-anyway) so you need to buy new batteries eventually. Why not upgrade to Lipo. When I measured how much actual flying time I got, it was greater with lipos and I spent less time sitting around on good flying days charging batteries- isn't that what most of us want?

Woody 51

I'm flying 2 x Speed 300 5:1 Gearbox powered Alfa Prop models on 2 cell Lipo's.
The weight savings alone over 8 cell NiCAD packs totally negate the reduced power of the 7.2 V Lipos v the 9.6 NiCADS. Add the increased flight time and in my opinion, its worth the switch.

As an example. I get 45 minutes or so continuous flight time from my Alfa P47 with a 2200 Ma/H 2 cell Lipo pack. I flight from that model and 1 x 30 minute flight from the 1500 Ma/H 2 cell packed FW-190 and I've had enough for the day.

HOWEVER there is a penalty. You cannot fast charge Lipo's with a field charger as you can NiCAD packs.

So as I slowly build my electric model collection to include some Brushless Outrunner powered models, so I build my stock of Lipo packs. Rome wasn't built in a day
after all.

ryanf420

So, to actually utilize the power of the lipo's volts and mh is to go brushless and currently being at brushed motor the advantage w/ lipo is the longer flight times w/ slightly less power?

And, clovus advised me to try an 11.1v lipo w/ my brushed motors to get the power and there seems to be no problem and doesn't use WOT(doesn't need to).....I will try this but I need to know what ...WOT...means?[&:]..and why is it not needed(which I will probably figure out why once I know what WOT means).....


Thank you for the info.

rckid90

wot = wide open throttle

ryanf420

right..thank you very much.

U2Steve

Actually, you'll get more run-time out of a brushless motor, period, regardless of battery. The big "brushless advantage" is greater efficency- a brushless motor is able to use more of the battery's power to turn a prop, instead of just making waste heat. That's why it seems more powerful- when you're pulling everything out of the battery that it can give, more of that power is actually moving the prop.

Li-po batteries give you either 1) the same capacity as a NiMH pack but at much lower weight, or 2) for the same weight as a NiMH or NiCd, much more capacity.

Add the two together, and you've got less weight to carry, and more amp-hours (or milliamp-hours) to boot. Results are faster planes (or faster climbs) that fly longer.