Official Freewing Twin 80mm F-14D Tomcat Thread

[dk91105]

First, when you say "Looking at the specs of the replacement servos I see they are capable of running at 3 different voltage ranges." that is not true. They spec the output torque and speed at those three voltages. That does not mean they won't or can't (or can and will) work outside of those specific voltages. Most of these items have a specific voltage they work best at. Too low and they have to work hard to move what you want to move, too high and they may burn up with the load you are applying. Always a trade off.


The wing sweep servos are not really servos, they are repurposed retract units. They run on a max 5.5V spec. That said a few have run them at 6V and they have reported to survive.

There is a way to have separate voltages for groups of electronics. A picture is worth a thousand words on this one and, I'm sorry to say I don't have one.

"I can find no voltage input info on the wing sweep servos and someone who has one of these planes stated to me that 6v will burn them out. They didn't offer any more info than that. Can anyone provide some additional insight to this?

Second, I want to run any and all of my replacement servos at a higher voltage for the performance increase. How can I seperate those servos from the rest. I do not want to burn out the stocks that remain."

Thanks, I'll do some more poking around on that.

[Evan D]

First, when you say "Looking at the specs of the replacement servos I see they are capable of running at 3 different voltage ranges." that is not true. They spec the output torque and speed at those three voltages. That does not mean they won't or can't (or can and will) work outside of those specific voltages. Most of these items have a specific voltage they work best at. Too low and they have to work hard to move what you want to move, too high and they may burn up with the load you are applying. Always a trade off.


The wing sweep servos are not really servos, they are repurposed retract units. They run on a max 5.5V spec. That said a few have run them at 6V and they have reported to survive.

There is a way to have separate voltages for groups of electronics. A picture is worth a thousand words on this one and, I'm sorry to say I don't have one.

"I can find no voltage input info on the wing sweep servos and someone who has one of these planes stated to me that 6v will burn them out. They didn't offer any more info than that. Can anyone provide some additional insight to this?

Second, I want to run any and all of my replacement servos at a higher voltage for the performance increase. How can I seperate those servos from the rest. I do not want to burn out the stocks that remain."

[dk91105]

Since you have the stock BEC, why don't you measure its actual output voltage yourself?

Sold it, the fans, and the esc as soon as I pulled them all.

[kallend]

I figured I'd ask this here instead of my personal thread. I'll put the info there as well for redundancy.

let me preface my question with a little background. I've pulled the stock electronics from the plane including both esc and the stand alone BEC unit. I am going to replace the esc's with units that have their own BEC's built in. I also plan on replacing at bare minimum the 2 elevator servos. Looking at the specs of the replacement servos I see they are capable of running at 3 different voltage ranges. I then checked to see what the voltage output range is on the esc / bec. I see that the lowest output voltage for my new BEC is 6v. Wondering what the stock BEC puts out I went looking online and the only info given that I could find just states that it is capable of delivering 8 amps. My next step was looking at the servos in the plane in and their specs. They all say 4.8 - 6v input range which is ok for the lowest setting of the new BEC.

Here are my questions...

I can find no voltage input info on the wing sweep servos and someone who has one of these planes stated to me that 6v will burn them out. They didn't offer any more info than that. Can anyone provide some additional insight to this?

Second, I want to run any and all of my replacement servos at a higher voltage for the performance increase. How can I seperate those servos from the rest. I do not want to burn out the stocks that remain.

Since you have the stock BEC, why don't you measure its actual output voltage yourself?

[dk91105]

I figured I'd ask this here instead of my personal thread. I'll put the info there as well for redundancy.

let me preface my question with a little background. I've pulled the stock electronics from the plane including both esc and the stand alone BEC unit. I am going to replace the esc's with units that have their own BEC's built in. I also plan on replacing at bare minimum the 2 elevator servos. Looking at the specs of the replacement servos I see they are capable of running at 3 different voltage ranges. I then checked to see what the voltage output range is on the esc / bec. I see that the lowest output voltage for my new BEC is 6v. Wondering what the stock BEC puts out I went looking online and the only info given that I could find just states that it is capable of delivering 8 amps. My next step was looking at the servos in the plane in and their specs. They all say 4.8 - 6v input range which is ok for the lowest setting of the new BEC.

Here are my questions...

I can find no voltage input info on the wing sweep servos and someone who has one of these planes stated to me that 6v will burn them out. They didn't offer any more info than that. Can anyone provide some additional insight to this?

Second, I want to run any and all of my replacement servos at a higher voltage for the performance increase. How can I seperate those servos from the rest. I do not want to burn out the stocks that remain.

[xviper]

I'm still reading through this entire thread while waiting for mine to show up. Does anyone consider any of the stock servos "must replace" items and are all the servos besides the wing sweep servos the same size? Is there a list of servo sizes for this plane?

Go to the product page for this plane. It lists ALL of the servos. I have not needed to replace any of mine.

[dk91105]

I'm still reading through this entire thread while waiting for mine to show up. Does anyone consider any of the stock servos "must replace" items and are all the servos besides the wing sweep servos the same size? Is there a list of servo sizes for this plane?

[Gravythe clown]

You will actually be before me. The weather this year has been non friendly to flying rc planes. Like today. We actually have a 6% chance of snow. And currently it’s hurricane winds blowing. This is not even in the normal realm for this area.

then in a few weeks I’m off on a 20+ day vacation on the other side of the globe. So it might not be until May for I can fly her😔

gravy

[rifleman_btx]

I'm going to work on installing a airspeed sensor to my tomcat too. Basically do as you were talking about to find stall speed. You will probably get yours up before me, because I just ordered it yesterday.

[Gravythe clown]

Yeah she sure do spin like a too with wing swept. I use less roll rate and higher expo while wings back.
Im nervous and anxious to get her back on the air again.
only issue I’m really concerned about is landing her at me field. She has an unhealthy attraction to the curbs.

Gravy

[xviper]

I'm using a modified version of RC Geeks set up. My wing ailerons only go up a few mm (as per Geek) no matter the wings are in or out. I also have full span flaps and tailerons. Roll authority wings out is adequate. Wings swept in is like a drill bit - have to reduce the rates.

[Gravythe clown]

Ok that’s I’m either 95% or 100% done.
I got my stock / RCGeek setup all done and Programer.
I’m not sure if in stock she flies with tailerons all the time or only with wings back. Wing aileron throws per manual seam pretty aggressive, unless it’s only elevator and not tailerons.

With a flip of a switch it will go into RCGeek setup. Only thing is I can’t remember if he used ailerons as flaperons while in flaps or not. I have them added in because I had them setup in my previous setup and liked how it helped on final and all the way in.

So here she is with stock wings.

https://youtu.be/oBfbh2l_TyQ

Gravy

[rifleman_btx]

Man I am looking forward to seeing this fly!

[Gravythe clown]

Spoiler / flaps wing set and programmed ready to go.
dod go back after this video and make some adjustments. In my haste to clean up my program I deleted some changes I made. She all ready now though.
next I need to switch out wings and set up a different model setup for Stock wings setup and stock wing using RCGeeks set up.
then we can start flying her again.

https://youtu.be/GyGkUo0cv98

Gravy

[rifleman_btx]

No doubt man, no doubt at all.

[xviper]

I get vertigo quite badly. I'd have to tie myself to a fence post. Those 3D type rides at Disney really give me my money's worth.

[rifleman_btx]

I used to fly FPV in a chair, too. It got so bad, the chair would go over with me.

Oh man that is rough. At least you can still enjoy flying without, thats what I love about my setup, when I want to fly traditionally, just put the normal canopy on and go. I've always done that with all my planes I fly fpv.

[xviper]

I used to fly FPV in a chair, too. It got so bad, the chair would go over with me.

[rifleman_btx]

I get so dizzy following that thing round and round, I'd fall down and crash.

Thats why I fly fpv in a chair, I'd be on the ground trying to fly anything fpv standing up. Lol

[f4u ausie]

Sorry and rifleman