What did you fly today?

[davegee]

Low Voltage cut off warning because of the imbalance under load caused by the duff cell as the esc reads total voltage divided by 6 or telemetry has just picked up the individual duff cell .

• Per-Cell Estimation (Most Common ESCs): Most standard ESCs don't have a balance lead plugged in; they only measure the total voltage of the pack (around 23.7V resting in your case) and divide it by 6 to estimate the average cell voltage (~3.95V). However, when you fly, the weak cell sags so severely that it drags the total pack voltage down past the ESC's calculated multi-cell threshold.
• Smart Telemetry / Flight Controller monitoring: If you are flying an FPV drone or an aircraft with smart telemetry (like Spektrum Smart or EdgeTX), your system may be monitoring the lowest individual cell. The moment that one 50% cell dips below your alert threshold under load, the alarm sounds.

Great information, paulrhytek! I figured that was probably the problem and have since disposed of the battery. Thanks for your thoughtful answer!

Cheers

Davegee

[paulrkytek]

I had three great flights with my FMS P-47D Penrod and Sam, but I have a question about my battery and ESC beeps warning on my Freewing F9F Cougar.

I have about 90 flights on the Cougar now, still in great shape. But when I took off using a SMC 5000mAh battery that was fully charged, I had bigtime problems after I made my turn to crosswind leg and reduced the power slightly to keep it in the pattern for a landing. I heard an audible reduction in noise from the motor, and it obvious I had lost a lot of motor power. Sensing an emergency return to the field landing, I didn't try to change anything except drop the gear when I was on short final. I was able to land and stop on the runway, fortunately.

I quickly came up to the airplane to try and see what the problem was. There was a rapid repeat from the ESC as I approached it: "Beep-Beep-Beep",
sounding continually. I took it over to the table to work on it. I noticed that when I checked the battery voltage five of the cells were near 70 percent level, but one was at 50 per cent level. I guessed that one of the cells had crapped out or almost so. The battery is puffed out on the sides, and I have retired it from further flying, immediately.

I flew another flight with a MRC 5000 battery and the plane had gobs of power and came around for a nice landing to confirm the airplane was ok.


Can someone tell me what the three rapid beep series repeated over and over means? I'm sure it is a warning signal but I couldn't find it in any of my literature or online videos.


Appreciate it!

Davegee

Low Voltage cut off warning because of the imbalance under load caused by the duff cell as the esc reads total voltage divided by 6 or telemetry has just picked up the individual duff cell .

• Per-Cell Estimation (Most Common ESCs): Most standard ESCs don't have a balance lead plugged in; they only measure the total voltage of the pack (around 23.7V resting in your case) and divide it by 6 to estimate the average cell voltage (~3.95V). However, when you fly, the weak cell sags so severely that it drags the total pack voltage down past the ESC's calculated multi-cell threshold.
• Smart Telemetry / Flight Controller monitoring: If you are flying an FPV drone or an aircraft with smart telemetry (like Spektrum Smart or EdgeTX), your system may be monitoring the lowest individual cell. The moment that one 50% cell dips below your alert threshold under load, the alarm sounds.

[davegee]

Took my venerable Flightline1.6m Corsair out for a few flights this morning before putting it back up in the rafters in the garage for the winter. Great morning to fly, plane has new main gear struts to replace the worn out ones it was using. Steady as a rock! My oldest airplane I still have flying, got it in 2019.

Cheers

Davegee

[davegee]

I had three great flights with my FMS P-47D Penrod and Sam, but I have a question about my battery and ESC beeps warning on my Freewing F9F Cougar.

I have about 90 flights on the Cougar now, still in great shape. But when I took off using a SMC 5000mAh battery that was fully charged, I had bigtime problems after I made my turn to crosswind leg and reduced the power slightly to keep it in the pattern for a landing. I heard an audible reduction in noise from the motor, and it obvious I had lost a lot of motor power. Sensing an emergency return to the field landing, I didn't try to change anything except drop the gear when I was on short final. I was able to land and stop on the runway, fortunately.

I quickly came up to the airplane to try and see what the problem was. There was a rapid repeat from the ESC as I approached it: "Beep-Beep-Beep",
sounding continually. I took it over to the table to work on it. I noticed that when I checked the battery voltage five of the cells were near 70 percent level, but one was at 50 per cent level. I guessed that one of the cells had crapped out or almost so. The battery is puffed out on the sides, and I have retired it from further flying, immediately.

I flew another flight with a MRC 5000 battery and the plane had gobs of power and came around for a nice landing to confirm the airplane was ok.


Can someone tell me what the three rapid beep series repeated over and over means? I'm sure it is a warning signal but I couldn't find it in any of my literature or online videos.


Appreciate it!

Davegee

[Aros]

Well, a different kind of "Flying" today, lol...

[Ivankant]

Not sure if this thread is dead or not but here's my flying day planes.

[davegee]

Flew a couple of my jets this morning. Each plane now has 85 flights on them. Great morning for flying.

[Hugh Wiedman]

Got out today with kinda an odd assortment of aircraft (fits me perfectly as I'm also kinda odd).

An 8S Canadian F18 (From the Great White North, Eh?), a US Navy 8S F4 Blue Angel (protecting us from the Gulf of America to Lake America ), a wood Extreme Flight FW-190 Red Tulip (hochgefahrlich-translate that one ) and one of my Extreme Flight Extra 300 V2 3D plane.

Though I have to admit, despite spending more time fling these 3D planes, I'm only at 2 1/2D at the moment. I can Flat Spin, Inverted Flat Spin, Blender, figure 8 knife edge, Hover (but not 1 foot off the runway yet like real 3D pilots), Rolling harrier and a few more crazy maneuvers. Just have to accept the fact that I'll never be as good at 3D as some of these younguns, but I do have fun trying. Must say the F4 and F18 fly great on 8S, the FW 190 is also a sweet flying warbird. Have 2 speakers from Model Sounds Inc (now out of business) in it, so it sounds great, but quite heavy with those speakers. Still flies for over 10 minutes on either a 6S SMC HiV 5900 or 6400. Can't ask for more!

[davegee]

Had a couple good flights on my HHH P-51D Flightline 1.6m airplane today. That brings me to 43 successful flights with this airplane, really enjoying it. Did a tank drop again, am working on a lightweight filament to make lighter and stronger drop tanks in the future, over the PLA tanks, which are more accurate detail-wise, but more subject to damage when they hit hard ground.

Took a pic after today's flights, undercloudy but interesting skies, I think.

Cheers

Davegee

[davegee]

Got in 3 flights yesterday on my HSD 747 turned Shuttle Carrier Aircraft piggybacking the Shuttle Enterprise. The first 2 glides were a bit short and ended in the grass, but the last one made it to the runway.

Very impressive!! Congrats on the successful flights of Both aircraft(spacecraft)!

Davegee

[Elbee]

Got in 3 flights yesterday on my HSD 747 turned Shuttle Carrier Aircraft piggybacking the Shuttle Enterprise. The first 2 glides were a bit short and ended in the grass, but the last one made it to the runway.

Incredilbe. What a great project. Congrats on the flights. Truly well done. Best, LB

[F106DeltaDart]

Got in 3 flights yesterday on my HSD 747 turned Shuttle Carrier Aircraft piggybacking the Shuttle Enterprise. The first 2 glides were a bit short and ended in the grass, but the last one made it to the runway.

[Grossman56]

I actually started out with a 1/32 size drop tank from my P51 and measured from there. How much the fore and aft sections were as a percentage of the whole length. That way, once the actual dimensions were know, it was pretty easy to upscale. The dang program is addicting, I swear!


Grossman56
(Dangerous Dan)

[davegee]

Just got through with version 3A for the 108 gallon drop tank.
For anyone that hasn't designed on Tinkercad, here's a little tour...
this is the fore section of the tank with the gas cap and blank separate.
This is the whole tank, its actually three sections.
The grey piece is the negative shape that carves out the positive shape. Just checking to see how it fits over the ring of the center section.
The tip of the negative shape shows that I'm leaving some thickness to the nose for strength. Previous versions showed a weakness there when hitting the ground.
This is what the finished piece looks like looking in.

As like anything in life, you get better the more you practice.


Grossman56
Dangerous Dan)

This revamped version by Dan should be much closer to the dimensions at 1/7 scale of the real 110 gallon Bowater paper tanks that were manufactured in England during WWII. Although not perfect, (leaky sometimes necessitating filling the tanks at the last minute before engine start up for their missions) but they filled a gap when steel and aluminum tanks were not available.

Dan has done a sterling job as we work through scaling these tanks for various airplanes like the P-47 and P-51. Then, to "flight test" where we see how well they did in practice, and learn from our mistakes. Then, we make improvements and go back and fly again until they are right!

Excellent job on the designing, Danger Dan!

[Elbee]

[QUOTE=paulrkytek;n452396]Revamped my pre covid Mig 21..../QUOTE]

Great work, Sir.

She's a beauty.

Best, LB

[paulrkytek]

Revamped my pre covid Mig 21 with the 3658 2159kv 12 blade, 4500Lihv lipo and repainted the top in desert scheme to contrast with original blue and white underside to make it easier to see in English grey skys. Just waiting for paint to go off for a couple of days before remaiden

[Grossman56]

Just got through with version 3A for the 108 gallon drop tank.
For anyone that hasn't designed on Tinkercad, here's a little tour...
this is the fore section of the tank with the gas cap and blank separate.
This is the whole tank, its actually three sections.
The grey piece is the negative shape that carves out the positive shape. Just checking to see how it fits over the ring of the center section.
The tip of the negative shape shows that I'm leaving some thickness to the nose for strength. Previous versions showed a weakness there when hitting the ground.
This is what the finished piece looks like looking in.

As like anything in life, you get better the more you practice.


Grossman56
Dangerous Dan)

[davegee]

Motion r/c need to retain you and Dan for added scale items for their fleet. Many modelers would be interested adding these. Be a great retirement adventure.
Best Regards, Rex

Thanks, Rex. Perhaps. Although it is a passion for Dan and me, I don't know how many people really care about scale stuff. RC Geek has been very successful, not sure if we could approach the same experience as him, though. If nothing else, it's good to work the old brain cells to come up with some stuff that not that many have done before. Even if no one else is interested, it is worth the challenge to me, anyway. I've had a pretty good run with my PrecisionAerospace.com venture over the past 15 years or so. I'm going to go to Washington, DC probably the first week of December to check out several projects that I did as contract work for the NASM. By that time, the last of the exhibit galleries will be open.

Davegee

[jetfool]

Motion r/c need to retain you and Dan for added scale items for their fleet. Many modelers would be interested adding these. Be a great retirement adventure.
Best Regards, Rex

[davegee]

I only got one flight in today because the winds came up, but it was worth coming out to do it. I did a drop tank release using the OEM stock foam silver drop tanks, a non-event these days. Might try again tomorrow if the winds stay light, but that might not happen. My Estes altimeter showed I attained a maximum altitude of 99 feet during the flight, for what it's worth! Danger Dan and I are doing a rework on the 110 gallon drop tanks as they were a bit too "fat" or large in diameter. Hopefully we'll get them spot-on for this iteration.

Cheers

Davegee