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Flying High With Electric Power!
The Ampeer ON-LINE!
Fly the Future - Fly Electric! |
Site Table of Contents
| President: | Vice-President: | Secretary/Treasurer: |
| Ken Myers | Richard Utkan | Rick Sawicki |
| 1911 Bradshaw Ct. | 240 Cabinet | 5089 Ledgewood Ct. W. |
| Commerce Twp., MI 48390 | Milford, MI 48381 | Commerce Twp., MI 48382 |
| (248) 669-8124 | (248) 685-1705 | 248.685.7056 |
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| Board of Directors: | Board of Directors: | Ampeer Editor |
| David Stacer | Arthur Deane | Ken Myers |
| 16575 Brookland Blvd. | 21690 Bedford Dr. | 1911 Bradshaw Ct. |
| Northville, MI 48167 | Northville, MI 48167 | Commerce Twp., MI 48390 |
| 248.924.2324 | 248.348.2058 | 248.669.8124 |
| Mailed Ampeer printed subscriptions are no longer available.
The Ampeer is FREE on-line in Acrobat .pdf format and HTML with active links! | ||
| The Next EFO Meeting:
Date: Thursday, Jan. 15 Time: 7:30 p.m. Place: Ken Myers' house, address above | ||
| What's In This Issue? | ||||
| Review: aerofly RC 7 RC Flight Simulator for the Mac (Windows too), Standard Version 7.0.7 Ken reviews and relates his experiences with this RC flight simulator. | Horizon Hobby - PRODUCT RECALL: Power Supply and 3S Li-Po DC Balance Charger Found In HobbyZone® Super Cub S RTF (HBZ8100) and BNF (HBZ8180) Products, Jim Yuzwalk alerts us to this danger. | |||
| The December EFO Meeting The happenings at the Dec. meeting as well as extra information on the Scorpion Backup Guard (SBG). | A Quick and Easy Throttle Lock for Non-computer Radios and the Spektrum DX-6i Ken shares a simple throttle lock for non-computer type radios. | |||
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RC Flight Simulator for the Mac Standard Version 7.0.7 Ipacs of Germany http://www.ipacs.de By Ken Myers The article has its own page on the EFO site so that it may be edited and updated in the future. It is located here. Horizon Hobby - PRODUCT RECALL: Power Supply and 3S Li-Po DC Balance Charger Found In HobbyZone® Super Cub S RTF (HBZ8100) and BNF (HBZ8180) Products
Jim alerted me to this important recall via email. Horizon Hobby has a .pdf of this notice on their Web site, dated December 8, 2014 From the notice - "Defect Issue: This product recall addresses a problem with the power supply and 3S Li-Po DC balance charger included in the Super Cub S RTF and BNF. There is a possibility that the power supply and charger could cause damage to products or start fires, which could result in injury. The affected power supplies and chargers are found exclusively in the HobbyZone Super Cub S RTF (HBZ8100) and BNF (HBZ8180) aircraft. Only power supplies and chargers without a green circular label are subject to this recall. What To Do: Discontinue use of the power supply and charger immediately. Follow the steps below to identify and return the product to Horizon Hobby for a replacement charger." If you have this product, check the charger and power supply. See the Horizon Hobby Web site for complete details. Click on the Bulletins link on the right side of the page under Quick Support. Follow Horizon Hobby's instructions and stop using the charger and power supply immediately. Thanks Jim for the quick heads up. The December EFO Meeting The monthly EFO meeting was held at Ken Myers' house on Thursday evening, December 11. The turnout was very good.  Hank Wildman recently acquired a Byron F-86. He is going to convert it to electric power using a 120mm fan and 12S LiPo. He brought it to question the group about whether all of the 'cheater hole' in the bottom of the fuselage was going to be necessary for the conversion. Several members gave responses and once Keith Shaw arrived, he was able to help Hank with his questions. 
The MAN Article and its author, Jim Young Jim Young had several things to share with the group. He brought along the February 2015 Model Airplane News featuring his fantastic MiG-17 EDF model. It is available in short kit form from Jim through his T&J Models Web site. 
Jim with his prototype F-18 Super Hornet. EFO vice-president, Richard Utkan, to Jim's left. He also shared his roughed up, ready for paint, F-18 Super Hornet. It uses the same power system as the MiG, but in a much easier to build design. It looks great. It should also be available from Jim after it is test flown in the spring. He shared plans for an upcoming model. It is a Monocoupe 90 and the plans look fantastic. It is going to be a very nice size; not too big and not too small. Ken Myers shared the results of the voting for the Terry Awards Vendor category on RC Groups. EVERYONE was extremely surprised to find Armattan Quadrocopters with the most votes. It was surprising for two reasons; no one in the group had ever heard of this company before and it is a quad company in Taiwan run by a Canadian. The times, they are a changin'. Next Ken showed the video of the Scorpion Backup Guard, produced by Lucien Miller at Innov8tive Designs. He also shared a very entertaining video product review from NODD RC for the Backup Guard. From the Innov8tive Designs Web site; *quot;The Scorpion Backup Guard is a tiny, lightweight, self contained, Stand-by Power System for RC Helicopters and Aircraft. It works just like a UPS back-up power supply does to keep your computer running during a power outage. In the event of a failure of your BEC circuit in your speed controller, or loss of power from your on-board battery pack, the Backup Guard kicks in and provides 5 volt power to your radio receiver and servos so you can autorotate your helicopter, or dead stick your airplane, down to a safe controlled landing." After watching the videos, Ken set up his Fusion 380 and did a live demo of his SBG. He'd purchased the SBG from RC Dude in October of 2014. He thought that it would be a good safety feature for his winter build, a SIG Four-Star Forty. As he set up the demo, he noted that the radio output connector on his SBG was a Futaba style servo connector with the orientation rib, not the JR Servo style as noted on the Innov8tive Designs' Web site. With everything hooked up and ready to go, he powered up the radio system by connecting the battery leads to the ESC and then turned on the SBG. He wiggled the rudder and elevator controls on the Tactic TTX 650 and then ran up the throttle to the motor. For safety reasons, the prop had been removed from the motor. Next he removed the power leads from the battery and wiggled the rudder and throttle sticks and the system continued to function, as expected. The surprise came when he ran the throttle up. The motor responded to the throttle stick movement. EVERYONE was quite astonished and amazed. There were several comments made with the gist being, "ThatŐs not right!" Ken noted that the unit acts the same even with a different ESC and power system. He'd tried it earlier that day using a Castle Creations ICE 50 with a 6S A123 2300mAh pack. Ken had asked Roger Wilfong to bring over a multimeter, as his had recently 'given up the ghost'. The multimeter was hooked into the system through an aileron extension with the black lead cut and the throttle applied again. A bit of current was noted on the analog meter. Next the prop adapter was held and the throttle was run up again. The current went up slightly and then the motor stopped. It appeared that the ESC had 'hit' the low voltage cutoff point. After quite a bit of discussion, Ken said that he was going to use the SBG in the Four-Star, since a catastrophic failure of the ESC would cause the motor to stop in the air and even if the BEC in the ESC was not 'taken out' by the failure, the extreme drop in RPM would be noted. Also, since a catastrophic ESC/BEC failure would ruin the speed control, it would be best to have the backup onboard. There are diodes between the SBG and receiver. This should prevent the malfunctioning ESC/BEC from affecting the SBG and keep the radio system running. Ken's final conclusion was that it is worth a try. After the SBG demo, the snacks were broken out and everyone had a good time chatting and discussing their latest projects and what we were looking forward to in the upcoming year. As they say, a good time was had by all. Follow up on the SBG The following was not noted at the meeting, but is a follow up by Ken with more information regarding the Scorpion Backup Guard. There is a thread on RC Groups that notes the motor running 'issue'. In the thread, there is no resolution or any conclusions reached. http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1891339&page=2 Post 16 Title Scorpion Backup drives prop? The main thread is titled "Scorpion Battery Backup" 
Ken's SBG, charge chord & adapter E-mail to the guys on Sat. morning, Dec. 13 Hi Guys, I did a couple of 'tests' of the Scorpion Backup Guard (SBG) this morning. That is the unit I demonstrated at the meeting Thursday evening. I recharged the SBG LiPo for the tests. I bought a new Fluke 115 multimeter yesterday as my 30 year old good multimeter 'died'. Merry Christmas Ken. ;-) The numbers come from that. First I set up the power system for the upcoming Four-Star Forty; Castle ESC ICE 50, Cobra 3525/12 and 6S A123 2300mAh pack. The SBG was connected to the aileron extension with the split black lead, for measuring the amp draw, and the extension plugged directly into the battery port on the TR-624 receiver. I hooked everything up in the correct order by starting the BEC in the CC ESC by plugging in the 6S pack and then turned on the SBG. I ran the motor with an APC 12x8E prop on it for a few seconds. I closed the throttle and disconnected the 6S A123 2300mAh battery. I opened the throttle and captured 0.133 amps with the meter before the motor stopped. The motor stopped very quickly after the throttle was opened and significantly the amps did NOT go up with the motor stopped. Next I did the same test using the Fusion 380's 3S A123 battery, Scorpion Commander V2 ESC, O.S. 3820 Kv 1200 outrunner and 12x8 Master Airscrew G/F 10x8 prop. The motor ran a bit longer before stopping, but not very long, and the highest amp draw shown was about 1.4 amps. I am satisfied this is going to work fine as a back up power system for the radio in the Four-Star. Just thought I'd give you a follow up,
A Quick and Easy Throttle Lock for Non-computer Radios and the Spektrum DX-6i
The following is NOT my original idea. I cannot remember where I first saw it, but it came in very handy at our flying field this past summer. One of our young pilots had an incident when he retrieved his plane from the flying field. As he was walking back to the pit area, he accidentally bumped the throttle on his non-computer type radio with no throttle lock. The prop spun up and nicked his arm, causing a small gash. Once I saw what had happened, and we'd applied some first aid, I grabbed some rubber bands and applied this method to all of the radios at the field that day with no throttle lock. It was sort of like closing the barn door after the horse got out, but I now apply the rubber band throttle lock to all of my student pilots' radios, computerized or not, since most of them do not set up a throttle lock function.  |
To Reach Ken Myers, you can land mail to the address at the top of the page. My E-mail address is: KMyersEFO@theampeer.org