Official Freewing Twin 80mm/90mm A-10 Thunderbolt II Thread

[Ah's Availble]

Flew it again today with batteries swapped. Same result 45% left on UBEC battery and 65% on other battery. I checked all or the servos and made sure none were stalling or growling. Open to any thoughts.

[xviper]

Flew it again today with batteries swapped. Same result 45% left on UBEC battery and 65% on other battery. I checked all or the servos and made sure none were stalling or growling. Open to any thoughts.

That's really strange. That kind of extra draw may be caused by a poor connection (solder) on one side. Check them all. Could the UBEC be using more power (and putting out more power) than normal? If nothing looks out of place, might be a good idea to cut the UBEC from the battery lead and power it with a small separate battery (eg. 2s, 1000mah).

[Hugh Wiedman]

Flew it again today with batteries swapped. Same result 45% left on UBEC battery and 65% on other battery. I checked all or the servos and made sure none were stalling or growling. Open to any thoughts.

You may want to get a amp/watt meter and use a fully charged battery on each side and see if one side is drawing more than the other. Could be an ESC or fan difference/problem.

Motion has a relatively inexpensive one you install between the battery and ESC, then run it up to full throttle for a few seconds and take a reading.

Just a thought.

[Ah's Availble]

Appreciate the advice. I replicated the issue three times with different batteries and swapping battery locations (front/back), so I am pretty sure it is not necessarily battery related.

I went ahead and replaced the stock 10Amp UBEC with a 15A ZTW UBEC that Motion sells. I will give that a try and see if the draw differential continues. If so, I would be led to believe it is more likely ESC related.
Will post after I run my tests.

[xviper]

Have you considered using a small (1000mah) battery just to power the UBEC? You could likely get away with a 2S LiPo. Then neither of the flight batteries are affected.

[Haltombuff]

The post I hate to make..

On my maiden flight of our bran new a10 we had some sort of malfunction with the freewing gyros self leveling feature. This was at a fairly large event at our flying field so the crowd watching made it even more heart breaking. The plane flew amazing, needed very lil trim and even though i was nervous I was immediately comfortable woth some rolls and low altitude high speed passes, with all the people watching I almost felt obligated to give them something. Any ways 3 minutes into the timer we still had 57% on the batteries, I made another loop around the strip and decided I wanted to put it in to self leveling mode just to see how it behaved and how well it worked. It worked great, it immediately leveled the plane and held it there but sadly that was it. After activating self leveling mode we lost all stick input except for throttle, gear, flaps etc.. we tried flipping the mode back off repeatedly but had zero luck. The plane flew off perfectly level at 40% throttle. We searched for hours for the plane not so much in hopes of recovering it but in actual fear it hit a house, car or god forbid a person. This plane was well tested preflight and it flew so well id even consider buying another, but would absolutely ditch the freewing gyro. I may be the only one whose had this issue but I would warn all, these are very expensive models and if you cherish it and the safety of others I would absolutely have zero faith in freewing gyros.

[GliderGuy]

The post I hate to make..

On my maiden flight of our bran <SIC> new a10 we had some sort of malfunction with the freewing gyros self leveling feature. This was at a fairly large event at our flying field so the crowd watching made it even more heart breaking. The plane flew amazing, needed very lil trim and even though i was nervous I was immediately comfortable woth some rolls and low altitude high speed passes, with all the people watching I almost felt obligated to give them something. Any ways 3 minutes into the timer we still had 57% on the batteries, I made another loop around the strip and decided I wanted to put it in to self leveling mode just to see how it behaved and how well it worked. It worked great, it immediately leveled the plane and held it there but sadly that was it. After activating self leveling mode we lost all stick input except for throttle, gear, flaps etc.. we tried flipping the mode back off repeatedly but had zero luck. The plane flew off perfectly level at 40% throttle. We searched for hours for the plane not so much in hopes of recovering it but in actual fear it hit a house, car or god forbid a person. This plane was well tested preflight and it flew so well id even consider buying another, but would absolutely ditch the freewing gyro. I may be the only one whose had this issue but I would warn all, these are very expensive models and if you cherish it and the safety of others I would absolutely have zero faith in freewing gyros.

Hi Haltombuff,

Sorry to hear of your loss. I am a long-term purchaser of...and not affiliated with...MRC products.

Before extrapolating your experience to state "have zero faith in FW gyros", further investigation is warranted. Folks will argue other gyro brands are better, and they have their own valid reasons for making their claims.
However, I fly several MRC EDFs with stock FW gyros and... for my flying style... they work just fine. The more current list of my birds with a stock FW gyro include: B-2, SR-71 and A-10 V2.

These birds have TONS of flights on them...ample opportunity for "things to go wrong", and nothing ever has. Note: I leave my FW gyros in the default "standard flight mode' and don't switch modes.

The only issue I had was my fault. It happened when I turned on the SR-71 RX then later turned on the TX. The gyro did not initialize (duh), and I took off with an "interesting' behaving bird. But, I got it back down OK.

The loss of control in your instance needs to be further investigated. You just may have uncovered a bug! If so, then notices can be issued in this forum. But, let's approach this with the scientific method and determine the real cause before making broad-stroke, negative comments about any product(s).

Probably not related but....While I am at it, I would like to again state as I have many times before that flying high-current ESC birds, such as these, without installing clip-on RF chokes is risky. Many prior posts discuss the benefits of installing these (search RF Chokes).
All my high-current ESC birds have add-on RF chokes installed. Again, their benefits have been measured in other posts and forums. Fly at your own risk of potential control loss if you fly without them.

Anyone out there up for some experimentation and follow-up reporting on what they uncover (if anything) related to the loss of this awesome bird?

-GG

[xviper]

Probably not related but....While I am at it, I would like to again state as I have many times before that flying high-current ESC birds, such as these, without installing clip-on RF chokes is risky. Many prior posts discuss the benefits of installing these (search RF Chokes).
All my high-current ESC birds have add-on RF chokes installed. Again, their benefits have been measured in other posts and forums. Fly at your own risk of potential control loss if you fly without them.

Anyone out there up for some experimentation and follow-up reporting on what they uncover (if anything) related to the loss of this awesome bird?

-GG

Your RFchoke thing is quite relevant, particularly in this model. I had the first version of this A-10 and I noticed that momentary "loss link" was an issue. This model has an awful lot of wiring throughout the plane from nose to tail. This is where these chokes play a big role. When I first got the Version 2 of this plane, I loaded up with chokes in as many "sensitive" areas as I could get at. Still, there were the occasional "lost link", but very few. THEN, I decided to install a better receiver with dual serial satellites placed in different locations. I have NOT experienced a lost link since.
Part of the problem where I fly is that there are "dead zones" that are connected to high voltage power lines that run at the edge of our flying area. The other one is in direct line with a very tall cellphone tower. Depending on the distance from these structures and the height (AGL) and also whether or not the plane is flying ACROSS or ALONG these dead zones, lost link can be momentary (less than 1 second) if crossing or permanent if flying along. Frame losses and holds will tell the story after the flight. Did you take note of what losses and holds there were after the plane flew away? When switching in and out of modes don't work, this indicates to me that there was a lost link. The RX was just not getting the command. This is when "failsafe" on the RX is very important. I've never had an issue with any FW stock gyro or the latest flight controllers although a couple of my flying buddies have and they take them out before finishing the set up.
PS. He indicated that "all stick input was lost EXCEPT for throttle, gear, flaps, etc". What was the "etc"? All that's left is ELE, AIL, RUD. With throttle and any of the "etc", the plane could have been brought down before it flew away. If it reached a point of "lost link", then none of these would have worked. Lot's of head scratching on this one.

[Haltombuff]

In my instance I never lost signal until the plane was completely out of sight, there were no alarms or alerts of loss signal untill the extreme range came in to play. I specifically lost ail, ele and rutter but still had flaps, gear etc. This all happened when I switched into the self level mode and the plane refused to exit said mode or give any stick input. Id like to add the the plane was equipped with an 8 chan spektrum receiver mounted near the gyro with one antenna going back and one down and a satellite in the nose. The frame loss was at 2100 but these didnt start to accrue or give alarms till the plane was at an extreme range. While the plane was in acceptable range we still had controll of everything that wasnt plugged into the gyro and had full telemetry reading like alt, voltage etc.. failsafe was set up so at loss of signal it should have cut throttle, and had a spiraled decent.

[Haltombuff]

Your RFchoke thing is quite relevant, particularly in this model. I had the first version of this A-10 and I noticed that momentary "loss link" was an issue. This model has an awful lot of wiring throughout the plane from nose to tail. This is where these chokes play a big role. When I first got the Version 2 of this plane, I loaded up with chokes in as many "sensitive" areas as I could get at. Still, there were the occasional "lost link", but very few. THEN, I decided to install a better receiver with dual serial satellites placed in different locations. I have NOT experienced a lost link since.
Part of the problem where I fly is that there are "dead zones" that are connected to high voltage power lines that run at the edge of our flying area. The other one is in direct line with a very tall cellphone tower. Depending on the distance from these structures and the height (AGL) and also whether or not the plane is flying ACROSS or ALONG these dead zones, lost link can be momentary (less than 1 second) if crossing or permanent if flying along. Frame losses and holds will tell the story after the flight. Did you take note of what losses and holds there were after the plane flew away? When switching in and out of modes don't work, this indicates to me that there was a lost link. The RX was just not getting the command. This is when "failsafe" on the RX is very important. I've never had an issue with any FW stock gyro or the latest flight controllers although a couple of my flying buddies have and they take them out before finishing the set up.
PS. He indicated that "all stick input was lost EXCEPT for throttle, gear, flaps, etc". What was the "etc"? All that's left is ELE, AIL, RUD. With throttle and any of the "etc", the plane could have been brought down before it flew away. If it reached a point of "lost link", then none of these would have worked. Lot's of head scratching on this one.

When i said throttle, flaps etc. The etc. Would have been rev thrust which i obviously did not activate. But flaps and gear were seen as the plane flew past us from the far end of the runway at what I would calculate to be 40-50mph at 40% throttle with take off flaps deployed. I 100% for safety should have cut throttle and let the plane fall into the lake but in that moment the only direction my mind was going was to save the plane, which was wrong. We drove around for hours looking for the plane honestly because i was terrified it may have caused damage to a house, car or god forbid a person. We left our info at the booths for all the all the core of engineer parks that surround the airfield and even left info with the local police department.

[GliderGuy]

So, you did not have RF chokes installed?
One F-4 and one other A-10 in the past stopped responding BEFORE I began using RF chokes.

They (chokes) may have prevented your loss.

-GG

[f4u ausie]

Glider guy. I no U have been over the choke thing a good amount!!! Put up with me just 1 more time.. I lost a beautiful wunala dreaming al37 some time ago.. it simply flew away on takeoff . and suspected my dynam detrum radio.. and have now changed to spectrum .. I now believe it was likely RF related.. I have 2 8s. 90mm jets that I'm sure need RF chokes.
. I'm ordering now there is a large size difference. 2 to about 6 or 8 mm. What sizes should I order. And where to place them.. and how many?? U have done diagrams. .
But I can't remember what thread. Thanx in advance. After reading hbuffs loss. I gota do it

[Elbee]

f4u ausie

Your post was flagged and it is not anything you have done.

Aros is trying different methods to rid us of these TEMU Spammers.

Don't worry about the "Unapproved" Flag, you are definitely "APPROVED"!

Best, LB

[GliderGuy]

Only the one that is installed on the factory installed bec.

For such expensive planes, a few $ spent on RF chokes is cheap insurance. Go to Amazon and search clip-on RF chokes and get a variety pack. Then place them in the following places on all your high-current ESC birds:
- All the leads coming FROM the ESCs going from the ESC to the battery, receiver and add another small one by the green toroid one going to the receiver.
****Place them as close to the ESC as possible.***
Note: It isn’t critical to place them on the motor side wires of the ESC.
- On all long wire runs to servos. Place as close to the servo as possible.
- Anywhere else you feel is critical.

Use as large of a choke as you can fit. A little foam carving may be needed. They are light weight.

Good luck!

-GG

[GliderGuy]

Glider guy. I no U have been over the choke thing a good amount!!! Put up with me just 1 more time.. I lost a beautiful wunala dreaming al37 some time ago.. it simply flew away on takeoff . and suspected my dynam detrum radio.. and have now changed to spectrum .. I now believe it was likely RF related.. I have 2 8s. 90mm jets that I'm sure need RF chokes.
. I'm ordering now there is a large size difference. 2 to about 6 or 8 mm. What sizes should I order. And where to place them.. and how many?? U have done diagrams. .
But I can't remember what thread. Thanx in advance. After reading hbuffs loss. I gota do it

Smart man!

If you order one of the several variety packs on Amazon, you will have a lot of “size” choices. Use the largest size for any given location that will fit. Obviously, the power lead wires will take the larger size, and you can put several wires down the choke’s center valley/trough.

For added RF noise protection, put a small one near each servo that is on a long wire.

Place the choke(s) as near to the ESC(s) as possible. Include ALL the wires on the non-motor side. No need to put chokes on the motor side of the ESC(s). The motor side of the ESC(s) is relatively RF “quiet. Several wires can be in one choke.

I always add a small one near the green ring one near the receiver, too.

Here is a rough image covering the above.

-GG