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e-Electric General Discussion > Don't think elecs are for me.

MG
Key Veteran
Location: California

I just built a new Logo20 and I've been able to hover for about 6-7 minutes tops. I have 24 cell 3000mah nickel metals and a Super Nova to charge them. It takes well over 40-45 minutes to charge a pack.

I can't even begin to enjoy the heli because of the charging issues. At this point I'm really tempted to dump the heli and just stick with nitros. I'm not sure if I want to spend 250.00 on another charger, 25.00-50.00 on a battery to use for charging, and at least one more flight pack just to reap the benefits of electric flight.

01-10-2003 Over year old.

E-gpeden
Senior Heliman
Location: Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada

I'm sorry to hear that! I hope nobody told you that the SuperNova would be OK for this. I usually recommend the LOGO 10 for "Elecktro-newbies" for this reason (larger cell counts requiring significant support). The best seup is 3 packs - one charging in 20-25 minutes on a good charger , one flying, and one cooling. I often get by with two and a cooling tube. Two heli's (each with a pair of batteries) and two chargers and you start "multi-plexing"

Do you think that you could find someone nearby to check out the heli? Are your packs OK? 6-7 minutes seems too short for gentle flight on NiMh cells. I get 6 minutes of mostly amp-wasting aerobatic flight out 2400 mah nicads....

Cheers!
Glen

01-10-2003 Over year old.

HOMEPAGE

MG
Key Veteran
Location: California

E-gpeden,

Thanks for your response. I'll check with a couple of the guys at my local field that fly elecs. I guess I'm just a little frustrated.

01-10-2003 Over year old.

edg
Senior Heliman
Location: San Francisco, CA

MrGrantSr:

Yeah, you might have been a bit better off with a smaller heli requiring less cells. I've got both nitros and elecs. An Eco8 using 10 cells and a Joker that uses 30 cells. I got a LOT of batteries :-)

6-7 mins flight times aren't too far off from the average. A lot depends on your type of flying. I've recently tried the new Sanyo 3300 mAh Nimh's in my Eco and was very suprised to be getting quite a bit more time than my Panasonic 3000's -- maybe about 9 mins, My Joker will vary quite a bit (it's actually in a fuse which makes it heavier. All up weight around 12 lbs,). I only get about 4-6 mins out of 2400's, but can get a solid 7 mins out of CP3600 Nicds.

Anyway, to really enjoy electrics I think you need to have a good charger and at least 3 packs. You fly 1 pack, 1 pack can be cooling, and 1 pack charging. Or, alternate flights between your nitro and elec...

-edg-

01-10-2003 Over year old.

HOMEPAGE

FinnDave
Elite Veteran
Location: Kouvola, Finland

Not for me either! I tried a Voyager E about 18 months ago, mainly because my wife thought it looked cute in the shop. The box was small enough to carry home on the plane, too. Soon got tired of 4 minute flights and swapped it for a decent heli! (Ergo 50)

David S., Kouvola, Finland

01-10-2003 Over year old.

HOMEPAGE

Jarno
Veteran
Location: Finland

I'm not interested in electric helis until they keep brainless noise and smoke more than a small village

Jarno

Jarno

01-10-2003 Over year old.

HOMEPAGE

FinnDave
Elite Veteran
Location: Kouvola, Finland

Jarno, did you see Jari Ketoluotio's Voyager, the one he crashed at the model expo last spring? That was my old one!

Electric power - no noise, no fuss, no mess - no fun! (maybe I should put that in my sig!)

David S., Kouvola, Finland

01-10-2003 Over year old.

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Alan Szabo Sr
Key Veteran
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada

MrGrantSr

Do you plan to come to the Las Vegas Funfly at the end of this month. If so bring your logo 20 and we can go thru it with you and let you try some other type of batteries I have. Trying for free is always better than buying and being disappointed. Its the best I can do.

01-10-2003 Over year old.

ju87bstuka
Senior Heliman
Location: Broadway UK

Mr. Grant,

You've just learned the first lesson of electrics. Duration is an issue even if you go up the scale with Brushless. Me too, I was fed up with waiting for charging batteries and was tempted to get a higher grade charger, but at some 250 UK pounds (= = 350 USD), I gave up and may consider a few more sets of Batteries, but at 40 UK pounds a slot, I'm glad I was advised to get an IC to get some stick time.
Electrics are OK if one spends quite a bit, but do have limitations.
... and the next lesson is?

Robin D T Mosedale, Broadway, UK, Schweizer 300 (Caliber 30), Venture 50, Pilot (Full Size)

01-10-2003 Over year old.

abankovs
Heliman
Location: Northern NJ

Question about cooling

When do you need to cool the batteries, after flying before charging or after charging before flying?

01-10-2003 Over year old.

E-gpeden
Senior Heliman
Location: Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada

"Electrics are OK if one spends quite a bit, but do have limitations.
... and the next lesson is?"

There's two sides to that coin. I suppose if you are only going to fly 10 flights a year, it would be rather costly. Me? I fly and fly and fly.... all for "free", all season long, once I've purchased a few packs. Now and then I notice a contemporary hesitating to fly his .60 powered X-Cell because the weather or sky isn't good enough to make the flight enjoyabe/productive enough to justify the cost of fueling it up. Very often I am the acknowledged flight time pig

My Last set of high performance nicads cost me $6.40 Cdn , US$4.00/cell. For the 24 cell packs in my LOGO 20, that would be US$100.00/pack. Considering I get 100 - 150 flights out of a pack, the cost of a flight does not seem that great to me. Cut that cost in half for 12 cells on a LOGO 10. What's it cost to fly the pi$$ out of a .45 sized glow heli for 6 minutes? Uh, including glow plugs, hehe.

For me it doesn't matter, even if it does cost more than a glow heli. I've flown glow and gas powered A/C, but electric helis are all I've ever had and I sure haven't EVER felt like I'm suffering for it.

Cheers!
Glen

01-10-2003 Over year old.

HOMEPAGE

E-gpeden
Senior Heliman
Location: Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada

"When do you need to cool the batteries, after flying before charging or after charging before flying?"

After flying. A ccoling tube made from a computer fan and a piece of pipe that slowly draws air over the pack really speeds up the cooling.

You can fly them "toasty" off the charger.

Cheers!
Glen

01-10-2003 Over year old.

HOMEPAGE

Jarno
Veteran
Location: Finland

Dave

Yep, I was recalling that it was your old heli. I do remember Jari was talking about trading his Ergo for Voyager E year or two ago..I suppose he did get that cool body for it afterwards, didn't he?

Jarno

Jarno

01-10-2003 Over year old.

HOMEPAGE

MG
Key Veteran
Location: California

HI Chris,

I read that post a week ago. I've been working on this thing for almost two weeks and at this point I plan to give it one more good try tomorrow. If it does not live up to my expectations I will place it on this board for sale on Monday

01-11-2003 Over year old.

steph280
Key Veteran
Location: Irvine, California

MRGrantSr,

A couple of us fly Logo 10 and 20s in Huntington Beach. You are welcome to drop by and we'd be glad to help you out.

I have flown glow and gas helis for years, and have dumped all of them and switched to all electric fleet. Only glow heli I still have left is a Raptor30, which has its electric conversion on the way as well.

Don't give up just yet. With glow helis, your setups are "fixed". Meaning you will get a certain flight time/power with a specific motor/pipe/nitro mixture. But with electric, your flight time/power can differ drastically with different gear ratios, headspeed, and battery charging method. The additional variables is what makes the E-helis complex, and will takes some getting use to.

With the new battery technology around the corner, I think E-helis will take off in a big way by end of this year, if not sooner.

Stephen
steph280@yahoo.com

01-11-2003 Over year old.

FlyinBrian
Veteran
Location: Illinois

Hi,

Just for the fun of it I came up with the following.

.11 cents a minute to fly a 24 cell heli. Based on 150 six minute flights @ $100 per battery pack.

.15 cents a minute to fly a 46 sized heli. Based on one gallon, $6 plug every 10th gallon, 15 minute flights (what I got on my os 46's in helis) did'nt include the cost of cleaner

.10 cents a minute to fly a 32 sized heli Based on one gallon, $6 plug every 20th gallon, 15 minute flights (I usually got 18+ on most of mine)

.13 cents a minute for a pro2k 4 cycle, .23 for a os61wc, .25 for a 91sxh

Have'nt had a gasser yet so guessing on this one:
Gasser $.02 per minute (2.50 per gallon ($1.50 for gas, $1 for oil), 12 oz per flight and 20 minute flights, did'nt include plugs/etc)

None of those figures include total cost to start with, support equipment (charger's, fuel, starter, etc), wear items, etc.

Enjoy them for what they are, not what they cost

Crunch all you want, they will make more. Please use rr's pm feature to contact me.

01-11-2003 Over year old.

steph280
Key Veteran
Location: Irvine, California

Operation cost for a Porsche 911 is 38 cents per km. Operation cost for a Corolla is 20 cents per km. Guess which one I prefer to drive?

150 cycle per pack is a very modest estimate. I don't know the maximum cycles, but I had packs with over 200 cycles on planes and still going strong.

Electric is not going to replace glow. They each have their own advantages and disadvantages. I switched to e-power because of limited flying fields in the vincinity. Now I can spend my lunch time flying at a local park, and after work during daylight savings time without driving to flying field.

Yup, definitely enjoy for what they are, not what they cost.

Stephen

01-11-2003 Over year old.

Augusto
rrAdvertiser
Location: San Diego, CA

A very important thing to remember is that in an electric the consumption and therefore the flight time depends on your motor gearing. For instance the same motor on a different gear will consume double the amps and therefore provide double the power and half the flight time with the same batteries. You can fly a Logo 20 on 18 batteries and a high gear ratio as hard as one on 28 batteries but you'll get the performance of a heli with 10 batteries worth of less weight.

There are so many variables that your case is just one of the innumerable different combinations of an electric setup.

Unlike your typical glow engine the very same motor in the same heli can behave like a docile 32 or a monster 91 equivalent. If you haven't experimented with the ratios you haven't really seen the difference in performance/flight time.

Nowadays if you get one of the new Lithium batteries and the right ratio you can easily outperform the craziest 91 both in performance and flight time.

Take for instance my Logo 20 dragster. That Logo can outperform any supped-up 50 or 91 effortlessly so much that they don't let it compete against glow engines any more because they feel that competing with it is sort of like cheating. In a certain way they are correct. Having enough voltage and a controller capable of handling it you can sort of cheat.

Unlike a glow engine that has a power limitation the electric motor will give you more power if you apply more voltage no matter how hard you're flying it at that instant. Bogging a propperly setup powerful electric heli can easily end up in destroying gears due to the excessive power that the motor tries to deliver. In a glow engine you have a limitation as to what is the max power you'll be applying to the gears but in an powerful electric heli that power can be quite larger than what even the most beefed-up mechanics can take.

Your experience reminds me of the tale of the several blinds that when touching an elefant had a different impression. One thought the animal was like a snake because he felt the tail while another one though the animal was like a tree because he felt a leg and so forth.

Your experience with one setup is not giving you the whole enchilada. Get together with people the fly a lot of electrics and they can teach you quite a bit. You'll be surprised at how much stuff we glow engine pilots didn't know. The first time I flew an electric I had the very same reaction. Now I know better.

Augusto.

Avant Aurora Ultimate

01-11-2003 Over year old.

MG
Key Veteran
Location: California

Well, I appreciate everyones input and can see why many like elecs. I just don't think they are for me. Another thing that ruins it for me is my recent dealings with Mike at RCDirect. If I have to go thru that guy for parts there is no way I will stay with the Logo brand.

01-11-2003 Over year old.

E-gpeden
Senior Heliman
Location: Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada

MRGrantSr,

I'm sorry to hear that too, but take a look at this page and choose another dealer. Fitz at FXAeromodels gets rave reviews for service all the time......

http://www.mikadoamerica.com/

Cheers!
Glen

01-11-2003 Over year old.

HOMEPAGE

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