Friday night I pulled an "almost" all nightery. I had planned to fly the new 330 Saturday, (which I did) so I decided I was going to make a revision in her power setup. I had originally planned the new 7.4v 8000mah Lipos I just bought for the Sukhoi. But that decision has changed with the final decision on a new radio purchase. I had always had that "here again", "gone again gremlin" in the Sukhoi and never have found it. After changing everything out except the batteries, the little creep would keep showing his ugly face. So...in response I was going to put the 8000's in the Sukhoi. But, since I was wanting a new radio for the Behemoth "Stang" anyway, might as well give her a workout in the known gremlin housing Sukhoi first. Oh, yes...I will be changing the batteries out too. Just wanted to try the setup on the new 330.
Out went the Fromeco 7.4 5200mah receiver packs and the 2600mah ignition pack. Swapped them all out for the two 2s 8000mah Lipos. And I must say I am very impressed. Weight difference between the two setups was a mere 2.7 ounces increase. But if that beast 157cs can't handle a shy extra 3 ounces then I might as well just give her to David. HA! Like that will happen. Sorry
@HRRC Flyer. LOL.
Not really much of a change up. All I needed to add was an extension from the Smart-Fly to the Opto-kill for power supply. This also required a "male to male" adapter. Other than that, nothing changed in the setup. I am anxious to see what mah usage there was on the lipos vs. the same amount of usage on the LiIon Fromecos. I can tell you all this. That after three long flights, I took a reading on the batteries before loading the plane to come home. Overall voltage went from 4.16 volts per cell to 4.06. Hmm.... For the same amount of flights, the LiIon's were usually around 3.9 to 4.0 per cell. The "REAL" awakening will come when I do a mah reading. I still keep a meticulous record of battery charge cycles and mah usage. The tell-tell will be when I compare the two setups. Thing that will be interesting to find is that now instead of having a separate ignition pack, the ignition is pulling from the two 8000's. So I expect to see a spike in usage. But overall, first readings look really promising.
Here's what I did to make the swap....
First, the Fromeco dual 5200's and the 2600 ignition are gonesville. No more connection to make when beginning a flight session for the day.
The power for the ignition will be drawn through the Smart-Fly with a single extension supplying the "zappity-zap" power.
Once the "male to male" jumper was installed, the extension was plugged into an open port on the SF to supply the power when the "Pin Flag" is removed and the transmitter "kill" switch on my radio is activated. I still keep dual redundancy engine kill with this setup. As per AMA, it is necessary to have two sources of engine kill in the event of an emergency. Loss of radio signal, i.e., radio signal interference or pin flag is reinserted into receptacle jack kills all ignition through the radio. And a flip of a switch on the tx. duplicates the feature. (We all should have that right?)
Crazy that the weight difference is pretty close. I have no problem running 16,000mah's over 10,400 plus 2600 for a mere 2.7 ounces.
And the final setup...
Still a fairly clean setup and definitely more attractive looking inside.
Best part is this. With that many mah's on board, I can easily fly as "Looooooooong" as I want (or need to) and never have to worry about not having enough battery power. I know a lot of people may or may not agree with me on a couple of my ideas on setups. Pretty much like my 50 oz. fuel tanks. True that the 157, 170 and 212 use probably around 22 to 25 ounces per 10-12 minute flight. (Depending on throttle management) But the thing is this... (and I have good reason for this)… "if" I ever have some kind of an emergency that I can not get the plane down in a reasonable time... (say someone has an accident on the runway or some issue with my plane that may take a few minutes to iron out before setting up for final), I don't have to "RUSH". I can take my time and know I have plenty of go-go juice on board. Both of the Dino and Electron persuasion.