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

[MikeT]

Thats a great idea on using the 4-40 screws. Using the size slightly smaller than the 3mm dia screws in that you used #4 Std screw size has me curious. I could not find any direct comparison of size but i think i finally found on Dubros' website a chart that list American Std and Metric in decimal sizes. I think the 3mm is .118 but the Std #4 is slightly smaller at .112 but if i am interperting the chart right, the next size up from 3mm would be a Std #5 at .125 hole size. Now these are the BODY dia of the screw and NOT the outside of the threads.
So if one of these 3mm screws gets pulled out, a Std #5 would be the next size up to use i guess. Any reason you used the Std #4 screws?

I was looking at the rack of Dubro stuff at the LHS and the button screws (#537) looked about right so I bought them. There was plenty of meat to drill the hole a bit larger do that's what I went with. Guess I could have gone metric but the though never crossed my mind..
Here's mine (the camo version) and a friends at the maiden of mine yesterday. Uneventful maiden is the only words that come to mind.

Mike

[RCjetdude]

I was looking at the rack of Dubro stuff at the LHS and the button screws (#537) looked about right so I bought them. There was plenty of meat to drill the hole a bit larger do that's what I went with. Guess I could have gone metric but the though never crossed my mind..
Here's mine (the camo version) and a friends at the maiden of mine yesterday. Uneventful maiden is the only words that come to mind.

Mike

Beautiful Mike. Looks awesome!

[MikeT]

Beautiful Mike. Looks awesome!

Thanks I'm really happy with the end result. Looking forward to a full winter of flying it here. This 90+ degree stuff is getting old.

Mike

[T-CAT]

Looks so awesome Mike!

[themudduck]

At the Dayton D.O.G.S. show today!

[sam51401]

I was looking at the rack of Dubro stuff at the LHS and the button screws (#537) looked about right so I bought them. There was plenty of meat to drill the hole a bit larger do that's what I went with. Guess I could have gone metric but the though never crossed my mind..
Here's mine (the camo version) and a friends at the maiden of mine yesterday. Uneventful maiden is the only words that come to mind.

Mike

Mike yours and your friends looks awesome! Glad the maiden went well and you get many more flights. I found plenty of the stock 3x8 screws being used by the car guys. Picked a package at the LHS for replacements.

[RCjetdude]

Ok folks.... got an issue that I need some help to understand. On my Blacksnakes A-10 I have two 90mm 12b fans with 1550kV motors being driven by ZTW Gecko 125A ESC's. Timing is set to auto. They both run up fine and pull right at 100A each on fresh RT 5800 35C packs. The leads from the batteries to the ESC's are 10 ga. and I have capacitor packs with 6 caps each soldered directly to the busses that the ESC caps are soldered to. Both fans power up fine and advance smoothly to full throttle but one fan hesitates and sputters just a little when throttling down. Has anyone experienced this before or knows what causes it and therefore what to do to fix it?

[T-CAT]

Ok folks.... got an issue that I need some help to understand. On my Blacksnakes A-10 I have two 90mm 12b fans with 1550kV motors being driven by ZTW Gecko 125A ESC's. Timing is set to auto. They both run up fine and pull right at 100A each on fresh RT 5800 35C packs. The leads from the batteries to the ESC's are 10 ga. and I have capacitor packs with 6 caps each soldered directly to the busses that the ESC caps are soldered to. Both fans power up fine and advance smoothly to full throttle but one fan hesitates and sputters just a little when throttling down. Has anyone experienced this before or knows what causes it and therefore what to do to fix it?

The Gecko's had a firmware issue quite a while ago that was fixed and Altitude hobbies has the new firmware file if need be. They ship out their current batch ESC's with the new firmware already if I'm not mistaken, but not sure about other vendors, especially if the ESC's were an older batch pre-firmware change. The previous firmware with timing issues (on some motors) was causing sputtering and other issues on various motor types regardless of settings programmed into the ESC. It was frustrating for many customers. There is an RCg thread with the link below regarding the issue :Cool:.

https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show...-timing-issues

Before checking the firmware, what are the settings like currently, and do you have a programmer to more easily change the settings? I would try setting the timing to something direct, like Medium, retest, and then see if an increase in timing is needed, then check other settings (although we can first see what the other settings are like first). Some auto timing on ESC's can cause issues, but most of the time it's fine in my experience.

[bill34207]

Any time I get a motor stutter the 1st thing I check are the leads between the ESC and the motor for a connection that has managed to un solder itself. With it being your own soldering it cuts down on the chance but still a place I'd look. Other than that possibly a glitch in the ESC

[RCjetdude]

The ESC that is giving me fits is an older one that I had been flying in my F-86. I installed a new one (got it just today) on the other side of the A-10 and it is fine. As far as I can tell the integrity of the solder joints from ESC to motor appear fine. I tried setting the timing to low and then medium and both settings were worse than auto so I set it back to auto. I may have to try the firmware update. Is it difficult to do?

[T-CAT]

The ESC that is giving me fits is an older one that I had been flying in my F-86. I installed a new one (got it just today) on the other side of the A-10 and it is fine. As far as I can tell the integrity of the solder joints from ESC to motor appear fine. I tried setting the timing to low and then medium and both settings were worse than auto so I set it back to auto. I may have to try the firmware update. Is it difficult to do?

It's not too bad, and thankfully Altitude Hobbies put some directions on the first post of that thread. However, you'll need the program card and cable to do the update via computer.

[RCjetdude]

There's the rub... I don't have the programming card or cable. Yet.... just ordered it though. I WILL get this sorted out. From what I can tell this thing is a beast with the 90mm, 1550kV motors on 6S. Mwuahhahahaaa!

[T-CAT]

Hahaha! Can't wait to fly my 90 on 6S. The 80mm with inrunners is hysterical as it has more power than I imagined, and can be flown either very scale or all out bananas. It's nice to have even more power on tap, as I like it there when I want it to be.

[RCjetdude]

Hahaha! Can't wait to fly my 90 on 6S. The 80mm with inrunners is hysterical as it has more power than I imagined, and can be flown either very scale or all out bananas. It's nice to have even more power on tap, as I like it there when I want it to be.

You haven't flown yours yet?

[T-CAT]

Nope! Still needs to be maidened. Between the work schedule, hot weather, and local fire, this plane sits staring at me in anticipation.

[RCjetdude]

AHHHHHHHH!!.... It's enough to drive me crazy as well. Man you gotta fly that thing soon.

[Porkster]

That's a really nice Euro scheme MikeT :Cool:

i really love this jet but am having some issues with it, went and flew it yesterday and had three good flights then the dreaded bounce, not much I could do as I was too slow to get airborne again.
These struts are killing me on Tarmac, I'd just finished repairing it from the last bounce and now I've got to do it again!
The front is now proper mangled and I'm really devastated.
the front retract housing is all bust up and the front retract wouldn't retract so in a mood I I went to break it off, oddly I managed to break the trunnion to strut pin rather than the rest of the plastic mount (which was half broken already?) that's not right that pin which was a brand new retract shouldn't break before the rest of the plastic?

Im not sure if I'm done with is plane now :(

[ColtPilot]

That's a really nice Euro scheme MikeT :Cool:

i really love this jet but am having some issues with it, went and flew it yesterday and had three good flights then the dreaded bounce, not much I could do as I was too slow to get airborne again.
These struts are killing me on Tarmac, I'd just finished repairing it from the last bounce and now I've got to do it again!
The front is now proper mangled and I'm really devastated.
the front retract housing is all bust up and the front retract wouldn't retract so in a mood I I went to break it off, oddly I managed to break the trunnion to strut pin rather than the rest of the plastic mount (which was half broken already?) that's not right that pin which was a brand new retract shouldn't break before the rest of the plastic?

Im not sure if I'm done with is plane now :(

Sorry to hear of your issues. This bird needs flaps and throttle to get it down in one piece. Mine has done the dance and fortunately nothing broke. I have many flights on other manufactures A-10's so I have learned the landing curve. Just have to stay on top of it for landing. Every plane has it's own way of settling in for a nice landing.

[TomPatton]

That's a really nice Euro scheme MikeT :Cool:

i really love this jet but am having some issues with it, went and flew it yesterday and had three good flights then the dreaded bounce, not much I could do as I was too slow to get airborne again.
These struts are killing me on Tarmac, I'd just finished repairing it from the last bounce and now I've got to do it again!
The front is now proper mangled and I'm really devastated.
the front retract housing is all bust up and the front retract wouldn't retract so in a mood I I went to break it off, oddly I managed to break the trunnion to strut pin rather than the rest of the plastic mount (which was half broken already?) that's not right that pin which was a brand new retract shouldn't break before the rest of the plastic?

Im not sure if I'm done with is plane now :(

Man that's to bad... I had quite a few good flights and then a small bounce that wasn't really bad at all, pretty slow but nose wheel hit first after bounce and snapped the pin like a dry twig. Only damage was to the rear gear door and wrinkled the cannon some.
I met Marc alias the Muddock at Dayton yesterday and watched him fly his A10 and it slowed down great with a perfect flare to landing. I talked to him and he has his cg back further than the manual calls for. He said it would not flare with the forward cg. I am moving my cg back and give her a go...
Will report my findings...
If I didn't mention previously I fly from a grass field...

[ColtPilot]

Man that's to bad... I had quite a few good flights and then a small bounce that wasn't really bad at all, pretty slow but nose wheel hit first after bounce and snapped the pin like a dry twig. Only damage was to the rear gear door and wrinkled the cannon some.
I met Marc alias the Muddock at Dayton yesterday and watched him fly his A10 and it slowed down great with a perfect flare to landing. I talked to him and he has his cg back further than the manual calls for. He said it would not flare with the forward cg. I am moving my cg back and give her a go...
Will report my findings...
If I didn't mention previously I fly from a grass field...

Moved my cg also with better results. See you next weekend at E-Jets?