Finally decided on plane

Brianna81

Active member
I'm seriously considering getting a couple or those. I got a 4 pack of 12a esc's that were mentioned previously. Though I bought banana plugs that were a LOT smaller (any half the size) than the ones on my other motors. However, they worked great for the 12a esc and 1806 I bought that didn't have any plugs yet on either. The wires on those esc's and motors were smaller diameter anyway, so, it worked out :) might be visible in my previous picture, but they are definitely easier to work with.
 

FDS

Elite member
I just replace the plugs with whatever sets I have in stock, so long as they can take the current or just solder the motor wires. Those motors are good for the price IMO.
 

Brianna81

Active member
Well, I went to 2 local hobby shops and neither really had anything electric airplane related. The first was a big shop, but it was almost exclusively trucks. They had a small assortment of props, but it was either big props for bigger planes, or quadcopter props. Nothing in the way of any other parts really. Second shop was an old guy who'd been there for 35 years but was going out of business, so he didn't really have anything. I did get a 5 x 2.5 prop, but it's too small for the shaft on this emax motor. Same issue I have with the props that came with that eBay junk motor and ESC. He did have a ton of gas style engines and quite a few wooden planes. He said the foam planes went of style about 10 years ago and he just quit carrying stuff for it. He did have an old XP computer setup with a simulator on it that I played for a little bit, so that was pretty cool. As I suspected though, nobody cared one way or another about me, so my fears were unjustified. Old guy would have talked my ear off if I would have let him lol. So yeah, I guess it's back to shopping online. See if I can find a correct size 6x3 prop. I got this one, figuring it would be too small, but I'm thinking about probably just drilling it out. I don't want it to be out of balance and kill the bearings and burn up the motor though. Anybody had any luck in finding larger diameter shaft props or adapters? I'm thinking if I could find a prop saver like the one that came with the junk eBay thing (just a round aluminum ring with 2 screws on it that a small rubber o-ring uses to hold the prop on), but that might help me if a prop doesn't fit the shaft itself. Plus I could use other motors like if there's a sale on cw and ccw for quads, it wouldn't matter to me with one of those. Just not sure if there's a special way to determine shaft diameter to know what size prop/saver/adapter to get?

**Edit** ok, I went and looked at the auction again and found that the emax I bought has a 2 mm shaft, and a Lumiere I bought for my mini sportster has an even bigger 3 mm shaft. Ugh, these differing sizes are not going to be fun :/

**Edit yet again*" ok, so some prop savers have holes that go all the way through. So in theory, maybe I could get a few 3 mm prop savers, and they should work for either motor, assuming the screws will still hold the o-rings on the smaller shaft sizes......
 
Last edited:

FDS

Elite member
You can buy a hand tool called a prop reamer, they are not expensive, you can get stepped ones with 2-6mm cutting heads that will simply enlarge the hole in the prop. I just buy APC props for all my FT designs, they work great, don’t break and are fairly cheap. If the prop is too big for the motor use a prop adaptor, they come with the prop. Hobbyking or similar online hobby stores will usually be better than EBay for parts, especially when you are learning.
 

Brianna81

Active member
So, I didn't get a prop reamer, but I did go to harbor freight and got a regular reamer. I know it's probably not great for permanent use (won't know until I try out the prop", but I was about to use it on the 5x2.5 prop I bought yesterday and reamed it out until it fit on the propeller shaft of the motor. After that I set the plane up on my table with all the moving parts free to move, but put some heavy soup cans in front of the tail to keep it from moving. Everything seemed ok, except for maybe I have a bad servo connection. When I was using the motor, it seemed to work fine. But when I started trying to the tail servos, the motor would stop spinning and it would start beeping at me. Makes me glad I tried it in my kitchen rather than in the field. Will require more research though. But if any of you have ever experienced that and can confirm it for me, I would appreciate it. I know one of the servo leads has a one of the wires that keeps wanting to come out of the connector. It's weird though, they all seem to work fine on their own. Using just the motor, can run for over a minute, throttling up and down with no problem. Use the tail servos, they seem to work fine, moving things as they're supposed to. Try to the them together though, and the motor starts singing weird beeping music at me.


Link to video of weird (to me at least) issue
 
Last edited:

Hai-Lee

Old and Bold RC PILOT
The ESC sounds like the issue!

Your ESC would need at least a 2A BEC to support the servos and the Rx.
In addition if you are using a marginal BEC current capacity it will be running rather warm/hot and with a little added Motor drive Heat the over temp circuitry could be tripping and folding down the Rx volts. This in turn causes the Rx to stop functioning and the ESC therefore loses its signal and eventually shuts down the motor drive.

Just my thoughts based upon the symptoms described!

Have fun!
 

Brianna81

Active member
The ESC sounds like the issue!

Your ESC would need at least a 2A BEC to support the servos and the Rx.
In addition if you are using a marginal BEC current capacity it will be running rather warm/hot and with a little added Motor drive Heat the over temp circuitry could be tripping and folding down the Rx volts. This in turn causes the Rx to stop functioning and the ESC therefore loses its signal and eventually shuts down the motor drive.

Just my thoughts based upon the symptoms described!

Have fun!

BEC: Yes (linear) [Remove middle wire to dissable]
BEC Output: 5V/1A

From the stats on the eBay auction page of the 4 pack 12A emax ESCs I bought. If 2A is required, and mine is only doing 1A, that might definitely explain it! I also edited the above post with a video in case that helps
 

Kendalf

Well-known member
So, apparently those ESCs don't work very well Kendalf, just wanted to reply to you so you could see this, might be careful with those particular ESCs if you're using those in your planes

Strange! I've not had any problems with the three I've used in my planes (all of them mighty mini sized). They're still working fine. One is on the second plane now.
 

Hai-Lee

Old and Bold RC PILOT
Strange! I've not had any problems with the three I've used in my planes (all of them mighty mini sized). They're still working fine. One is on the second plane now.
Sadly it is a case of being on the limit.

I use the 1A BEC 12A ESCs from HK and because I use 3.7G servos I can get away with it.

If using 9G servos the stall current of a 9G servo is around 350mA so driving 4 heavily loaded servos can add up to 1.4 Amps PLUS the Rx and ESC circuitry requirements and the nett result can be a brown out of the Rx and of course a crash!

Have fun!
 

FDS

Elite member
Step or pin reamers will work fine, the RC one is just pre sized for common prop shafts, a pin reamer is very handy for doing servo horn holes as well.
I run a minimum of 3A Bec 20A esc regardless in my FT planes, I prefer a bigger ceiling for both motor and Bec.
 

Brianna81

Active member
So I got my smaller ESCs now and am waiting on my 5g servos from hobbyking to try to "rebuild" the TT but do it better this time. Made the mistake of not realizing that I was ordering from the global warehouse instead of US. You live you learn I guess lol. Since one of my servos already broke loose in a crash, I'm going to wait on the new ones to come in before putting it all back together. Definitely need to fix this nose heaviness that made it unflyable. Hopefully those things will help
 
  • Like
Reactions: FDS

FDS

Elite member
I mounted my servos about an inch and a half further back than the plans show, it helped, as did building the nose as light as possible and using an 1806 motor with 9g receiver.
The beauty of the TT is you can make the parts again really simply. Add a little up elevator trim next time you maiden and throw with the nose angled up, 70%+ throttle. Don’t make any sharp corrections until you clear 50ft. Nose diving is only partly a build problem.
Many beginners launch with too little throttle and over correct. I did, for my first 5 attempts! I was just lucky that I was flying in a field with tall, soft brush in it.
If you can’t get the plane to balance at a 5-10deg nose down angle then you might want to look at CG as the issue, but if it does balance then it’s simply that you are not getting enough lift to go up. If you then add too much Elevator and stall just after it leaves your hand, the result is a dive.
Add incidence to the wing too, free extra lift!
 

Brianna81

Active member
Didn't want to make a new thread just goyt this question, but are the cheap $0.15 for 2 6x4.5 props suitable for these mini planes I've mentioned previously?
 

mayan

Legendary member
Didn't want to make a new thread just goyt this question, but are the cheap $0.15 for 2 6x4.5 props suitable for these mini planes I've mentioned previously?
Really cheap props on the right size will work just be aware that they might break easily.
 

Brianna81

Active member
Really cheap props on the right size will work just be aware that they might break easily.
Well, the planes mention 6x3, which half of that twist is 1.5, so that means the 6x4.5 has 50% difference in some fashion or another. Seems pretty drastic, but I could be wrong as I don't know much about all this yet lol.
 

FDS

Elite member
You can run them at a lower throttle. Watch out for ESC load, for example if the motor is pulling 12A on 6x3 with a 15A esc and you go up to 6x4.5 then you could over heat the ESC. Check the motor data sheet.
 

Brianna81

Active member
So, after my disastrous failures with my mini sportster, I decided to repair and try the tiny trainer again. I used 2 small door hinges as weights a couple inches behind the wing and fixed my CG issue. Actually got it to fly! It was windy, about 13 mph with pretty big gusts, but I was determined. Went through a few props and lost yet another nose cone, but, finally got it figured out. I really needed some expo on the rudder, but, being careful with the controls helped. The tail end is now a little wonky from a break, and the power pod has got more play than Ron Jeremy ever got. But, it's still in one piece for the most part.

One thing I learned about these little cheap orange props, they're not trash until they actually break. Bent back in a crash but still there? Eh, just bend it back until the next crash lol. Probably not ideal, but, when you break as many as I did.....you do what you can. Makes me realize a prop saver probably does nothing for these cheap little props anyway. Now if I could find replacements nose cones (the part that screws on to the shaft to hold the prop on) for this motor (don't have to suggest anything, I haven't actually looked anywhere yet). Though if anyone has suggestions for something else to use on the cheap that's good to use in place of the nose cone, I'm all ears.
 

FDS

Elite member
If it’s held on by a thread then some blue Loctite thread lock will help keep the prop nut/spinner on. If it’s one that clamps over the motor shaft then those are pretty easy to get.
Build a light undercarriage to save props. Also you should cut throttle BEFORE you land (obviously difficult in a crash) but cutting the throttle then giving a touch of elevator just to pull the nose up as you come in should reduce prop breakage. If your motor is over 1000KV then it’s too fast for prop savers.
You set up low rates and 30% expo on the TT? It’s much easier to fly with lower control surface movement and a bit of wiggle room.
Well done for getting up and staying up. The Sportster is a low wing, much twitchier design than the TT, especially as a mini. I am not surprised it was hard for you to fly. My big one still scares the crap out of me every time I fly it!