Cualris video from last year

Bruthal

It has the motor and prop out of the radian on it at that time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wb1K9Wl-V5w

Kashkai

That was a long climb out with the motor - 1 min 45 secs or so. I though the Rad motor was only supposed to be used in short bursts or it would cause the esc to overheat? There's been some talk on rc forums of Parkzone motors not going the distance in reliability terms and they tend to burn out quite soon.

The Cularis must have been a speck in the sky by the end of that climb out. I had my Radian up fairly high last week but wouldn't push it to being a "speck" in the sky as my eyesight was giving out at that point. Getting old is a b1tch:D

Bruthal

Prosperous Dave wrote: »

That was a long climb out with the motor - 1 min 45 secs or so. I though the Rad motor was only supposed to be used in short bursts or it would cause the esc to overheat? There's been some talk on rc forums of Parkzone motors not going the distance in reliability terms and they tend to burn out quite soon.

Well the radian ESC is a 30 amp ESC, and running full with that prop and motor it draws 20 amps with a fully charged lipo (the eagle tree system tells us that), and reduces down gradually to around 16amps towards battery discharged, so if a 30 amp ESC cant continously carry 20 amps then its not a 30 amp ESC.

As for the motors not going the distance, i dont know, any motor can suffer from that. Id prefer the motor to fail than the ESC, although on the cularis i dont use the ESC i got for it to power the receiver, i split the battery lead to seperately power the receiver through a regulator. Its a compromise between using the ESC to power the receiver or using 2 seperate batteries.
Last summer i had the t-rex 600 motor snap its shaft due to bearing failure i think it was, in mid flight:eek:, so the motors do fail.

The Cularis must have been a speck in the sky by the end of that climb out. I had my Radian up fairly high last week but wouldn't push it to being a "speck" in the sky as my eyesight was giving out at that point. Getting old is a b1tch:D

No it was not as high as the radian would of been after the same run time as the cularis is double the weight but was using the radian motor set in that flight. I was waiting on the motor and ESC suitable for the cularis to arrive at that time, so now it does climb at a good rate.

I have seen the radian at 800 meters high, it is very hard to see at that altitude, at 1000 feet (305 meters) its easy enough to see though. The cularis is easier to see at the same altitude as the radian because its wingspan is 2 feet more than the radian, and bigger all round.
The main problem of flying high, apart from not being supposed to go that high, is losing sight of it and cant find it then.
We have flown it 1.1km high once before.

Kashkai

robbie7730 wrote: »

Well the radian ESC is a 30 amp ESC, and running full with that prop and motor it draws 20 amps with a fully charged lipo (the eagle tree system tells us that), and reduces down gradually to around 16amps towards battery discharged, so if a 30 amp ESC cant continously carry 20 amps then its not a 30 amp ESC.

As for the motors not going the distance, i dont know, any motor can suffer from that. Id prefer the motor to fail than the ESC, although on the cularis i dont use the ESC i got for it to power the receiver, i split the battery lead to seperately power the receiver through a regulator. Its a compromise between using the ESC to power the receiver or using 2 seperate batteries.

I've just bought a watt meter and I find that some of the stock set ups on my Parkzone birds (Trojan, Me109, Mustang) all run very close to or exceed the rated amp on their escs. The Trojan was pulling 29 amps and teh 109 was 30 amps on their 30amp escs. The Mustang came with an 18amp esc but that was pulling 22+amps so I put in a 30 amp esc. Haven't measured the Radian yet but will try it this evening as I plan on flying her in the morning before work as the weather forecast is for calm winds and clear skies.

When you say you now have a regulator on your Cularis, do you mean a UBEC? I've been meaning to fit these to all my birds as I'd still have power going to the receiver and the servos if the esc burnt out. Did you solder the leads from the regulator/UBEC direct to the wires of the esc or did you get a ec3 parallel harness to split the feed from the battery to the esc and teh regulator/ubec?

I have my first vid up on Youtube. Its the time my Radian went out of control due to dead batteries in my transmitter. She flew a mile away on her own and crashed into a tree, all recorded on my onboard camera. She was intact when I found her an hour later. Check out here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lj5vND4VWTk

Bruthal

Prosperous Dave wrote: »

I've just bought a watt meter and I find that some of the stock set ups on my Parkzone birds (Trojan, Me109, Mustang) all run very close to or exceed the rated amp on their escs. The Trojan was pulling 29 amps and teh 109 was 30 amps on their 30amp escs. The Mustang came with an 18amp esc but that was pulling 22+amps so I put in a 30 amp esc. Haven't measured the Radian yet but will try it this evening as I plan on flying her in the morning before work as the weather forecast is for calm winds and clear skies.

Measure the radian to confirm as that will be no more than 20 amps, them readings seem a bit high. The trojan for example has the same motor setup as the radian, so 29 amps on the trojan seems very high.

When you say you now have a regulator on your Cularis, do you mean a UBEC? I've been meaning to fit these to all my birds as I'd still have power going to the receiver and the servos if the esc burnt out. Did you solder the leads from the regulator/UBEC direct to the wires of the esc or did you get a ec3 parallel harness to split the feed from the battery to the esc and teh regulator/ubec?

I soldered on an EC3 to the 2650mah battery i use in the cularis, and also a JST lead with male JST on it shown here, and a female JST to the regulator so i plug them both in or out on each flight. So the EC3 goes into the ESC to power the motor and the red JST goes into the regulator to power the receiver. If ESC fails the battery will still power the receiver. The regulator is acting like a UBEC but it is sort of deceiving calling it a UBEC, as with a seperate UBEC you usually use a second battery so its not eliminating a battery. It is in my setup because i have the main battery made up with the Y lead as in the photo. A true battery eliminating circuit is whats in an ESC to power the receiver.

Its worth noting that to use a seperate regulator, you have to disconnect the red centre wire of the servo lead from the ESC to the receiver throttle socket as its this which is the positive feed to the receiver from the ESC BEC. And you cant have this powering the receiver when its powered from the seperate regulator. Im not sure if i would do it on smaller aircraft myself though, although with the Y lead and a single battery its not too bad.

The regulator is simply reducing the 12v from the lipo to 5 volts for the receiver.
Here is the flight battery anyway with JST lead on it.

I have my first vid up on Youtube. Its the time my Radian went out of control due to dead batteries in my transmitter. She flew a mile away on her own and crashed into a tree, all recorded on my onboard camera. She was intact when I found her an hour later. Check out here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lj5vND4VWTk

Just watched there, very good. What camera is in it?

Kashkai

robbie7730 wrote: »

Just watched there, very good. What camera is in it?

I wouldn't ever say it was "good" Robbie as I find it embarrassing that I was dumb enough to let my batteries run down to such a low level that I lost signal lock with the Radian:o.

I was using a cheap "keyfob" camera that I picked up on ebay for 1 penny (plus a fiver postage). Here it is (but I didn't buy it from that crowd)
http://jalopnik.com/#!5645032/20-key-fob-camera-could-make-online-videos-crazier

I have it velcroed onto the Rad's wing. Used it in the Phoenix Park this morning before work so will post up another vid tonight.

Couple of questions for you:

1. What battery do you use in the Rad? I'm still using 1300mah (the stock one) but would a larger battery, say 1800 mah help with levelling her out in flight. Despite trimming her, I find that my Rad has a tendency to rollercoaster, i.e. up and down a lot, especially into the wind. I'm thinking that a bigger battery might give her more stability?

2. While performing a range check this morning, I walked 30 paces away and did the check. Nothing happened. I walked close to the plane and the control surfaces moved. I walked away again and they still moved. So to be sure, I walked 50 paces away and they still worked. Any ideas why the glitch showed up on the first range check?

Bruthal

Prosperous Dave wrote: »

I wouldn't ever say it was "good" Robbie as I find it embarrassing that I was dumb enough to let my batteries run down to such a low level that I lost signal lock with the Radian:o.

I was using a cheap "keyfob" camera that I picked up on ebay for 1 penny (plus a fiver postage). Here it is (but I didn't buy it from that crowd)
http://jalopnik.com/#!5645032/20-key-fob-camera-could-make-online-videos-crazier

I have it velcroed onto the Rad's wing. Used it in the Phoenix Park this morning before work so will post up another vid tonight.

Its a good quaility video from it, my neighbour often asks me about a cheap camera for his radan, i might show him that, i wont mention the batteries:eek:. Mistakes are made though, my best one was not long after learning to fly, i took off my hi-boy and forgot to extend the tx aerial, out of range in 100 meters and straight into the ground.

Couple of questions for you:

1. What battery do you use in the Rad? I'm still using 1300mah (the stock one) but would a larger battery, say 1800 mah help with levelling her out in flight. Despite trimming her, I find that my Rad has a tendency to rollercoaster, i.e. up and down a lot, especially into the wind. I'm thinking that a bigger battery might give her more stability?

We use 2200mah batteries in ours, they do make them more stable and better into the wind. The rollercoaster thing can be caused by a little too much up elevator trim. Try trimming it down slightly and let the glider fly without any imput. It should smoothly fly without any rollercoaster movement what so ever, if it very slightly tries to rise then dips slightly then it needs more down trim. A nice calm day is needed to do this test.

Dont forget they tend to climb as the airspeed goes up, so if its perfect in the above glide test and still does it then intuition from the pilot is required to feed in slight down elevator at times the glider tends to show a nose up. But we find slightly more down trim eliminates most of it. I definitely find they fly better with the 2200mah battery.

Dont worry about centre of gravity, it will be slightly more forward, too many people worry about absolute precise position for this, the one to avoid at all costs is too far back. Slightly more forward will make it slightly faster, and better handling.

2. While performing a range check this morning, I walked 30 paces away and did the check. Nothing happened. I walked close to the plane and the control surfaces moved. I walked away again and they still moved. So to be sure, I walked 50 paces away and they still worked. Any ideas why the glitch showed up on the first range check?

Make sure you dont point the tx aerial straight at the plane, perpendicular to the model is the best orientation, this is to do with polarization of the radio signal if you fancy looking it up. We have to considder that type of polarization of stuff with the FPV flying. So when your walking back from the plane, bend the aerial on the tx at its 45 degree position. If you point at the plane it will reduce the range by a good percentage, directly at it can drastically reduce it. Also walk backwards from the model so you are not between the tx and receiver and see if that all works. Also if you can, put the glider up off the ground and see what the range test limit is. Lying directly on the ground may possibly reduce the test range.

Just as a matter of interest, the radio range check button reduces the signal stength by 1000 times apparently, and seems to be the case as 1000 times more power gives 33 times more range which we have seen in real flights here. So 35 paces will give you a km or so in range. But you should definitely see more than 30 paces. But 30 is a range check pass.

Kashkai

Thanks for the response Robbie. I'll put in a larger battery to give me more airtime and to help give the Rad a bit more punch into the wind. Do you still buy your batteries from Hobbyking? They're doing a new line in Turnigy "nanotech" batts that cost more but claim better power delivery and endurance. I don't know if they're worth the extra few quid over the standard batts.

As for trimming her, I was trying that in this morning's calm conditions in the Phoenix Park while the motor was off and she was in level flight. On neutral trim, she would stall, dip and rise again i.e. rollercoastering. With some down elevator, she would gradually lose height. Couldn't get her to fly level.

Tell your mate to be careful when he's buying those keyfob cameras as I've seen someplaces looking for over €40 for one:eek:. I've got 2 of them, one from Hobbyking for a few euro (this came with a micro SD card) and a second one for one penny (no card though) on ebay. The video quality is good enough for what I want from them, i.e. the plane's view of the area I'm flying in.

Bruthal

Prosperous Dave wrote: »

Thanks for the response Robbie. I'll put in a larger battery to give me more airtime and to help give the Rad a bit more punch into the wind. Do you still buy your batteries from Hobbyking? They're doing a new line in Turnigy "nanotech" batts that cost more but claim better power delivery and endurance. I don't know if they're worth the extra few quid over the standard batts.

Yes still hobbyking flightmax ones, they do me fine. The ones i have are flightmax for the cularis and radian as well as a couple of rhino ones for the radian also. And turnigy for the t-rex 600. All working well.

As for trimming her, I was trying that in this morning's calm conditions in the Phoenix Park while the motor was off and she was in level flight. On neutral trim, she would stall, dip and rise again i.e. rollercoastering. With some down elevator, she would gradually lose height. Couldn't get her to fly level.

The elevator needs to be slightly down on them radians when you look at the tail from the side. If the elevator is perfectly level with the tailplane then its too elevated and they will seesaw.
When its correctly trimmed it will of course lose height, all gliders lose height when gliding assuming its not in a thermal, so it will be losing a little altitude if its gliding. It cant just keep flying level at the same altitude. When seesawing it will lose altitude quicker as its actually trying to climb then stalling, and then slightly diving and recovering repeatedly.

Tell your mate to be careful when he's buying those keyfob cameras as I've seen someplaces looking for over €40 for one:eek:. I've got 2 of them, one from Hobbyking for a few euro (this came with a micro SD card) and a second one for one penny (no card though) on ebay. The video quality is good enough for what I want from them, i.e. the plane's view of the area I'm flying in.

Well if he was getting one i would be ordering it so i think it will be a bit less than €40 i hope:D.

Bruthal

Here is a video from a flight before xmas, its just the navigation camera which is not a great one but does fine for the navigation. Can get much better cameras for it which at some stage we will. Its the eagle tree pro osd setup.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qS2ftfTtJo