Official Freewing 80mm A-4E/F Skyhawk Thread

[AustinChadwick]

I am new to HobbySquawk. Been a RCU and RCGroups user forever. But love this. I have the A-4, F-14 and F-4.

I saw a question about the 8s set up for the A-4. I have some experience in this. I am the idiot that will test the motors beyond their limits. So here is what I did. I used the stock motor 3530-1850KV and upgraded the ESC to Freewing 150A high voltage with the UBEC. From my experiences, the motors can handle the voltage because they generally stay cool enough. Especially the metal motors. It's the ESC that's the problem.

With this, I ran 8s 4500mm 40c-80c burst and HOLY COW!!!!!!! It's unleashed. Here's the problem. You definitely have to use some throttle management to keep the motor cool. But during the flight, you can manage to go balls to the wall for about 10 seconds, then it's wise to pull back and let it the motor cool.

It has gobs of power. Took off on half throttle with this.

So since this worked so well, I put 10s on the F-4 8s set up. The stock 8s Motor and ESC handle the voltage no problem. Same advice. Throttle management. But the F-4 on 10s is stupid fast. And doesn't bleed in vertical.

Take it for what it is worth, I have burned up so many 70mm and 64mm motors and ESC's over the years by upping the cell count. Seems to work beautifully on the 80mm and 90mm Motion stuff.

[dahawk]

Austin, Welcome to the Squawk.

Did you have that up on the wattmeter ? I'm not sure why the amp load would be that much higher. On my Phantom, I was going to try running 8S on the 6S 12B 1620kv inrunner setup I have. My thought is that the 130 amp esc I have only drew about 90 amps on 6S and will handle the increased 8S voltage but the motor might not. I was only able to generate 2300 watts on 6S . Maybe worth a try ? I'm swapping this out for the 90mm FMS 12B. anyway. Promises to deliver 3000 watts.

Cheers,

Hawk

[AustinChadwick]

Thanks Hawk.... Yes the 6s F-4 would easily handle that. Here's what is crazy, with the KV set up higher on a 6s set up, the watts of putting an 8s battery on the 6s set up is much higher than the 8s set up. Confusing I know.

I went to eCalc and tried to find comparable motors to test, because they don't have anything from motion on motors in their set up. What is the best way to measure watts?

[fhhuber]

Wattmeter

[Petronio]

Austin love your crazy experimenting...sounds very tempting to try it out.. Did you have any probs calibrating the throttle range on the 150A esc? (Theres some comments in the spare item in erc). Also any prob balancing or squeezing in those two lipos in the battery bay? Its not too spacious in there :Whew:

[jackdcannon]

New to the group so I apologize if this has already been covered. Looking to get a little more performance from the A4. Currently flying it stock out of the box, and would like to keep the stock ESC. Would like to purchase from MRC since they've been great to deal with. Also, in looking straight down the tail pipe, it looks like the motor and fan have a slight downward pitch

[WildBillG]

Thanks for the advice Austin. I have plenty of spare 80s and i already know there is plenty of room in the A-4 for two 4S 5000 or 6000 batts.

[EA-6B Geek]

Going through a radio upgrade here. 10J Futaba, and Hobby Eagle A3-L. I get the impression that most of you are flying with Spectrum radios, but I've been using the Futabas for so long, I just don't want to make the change. It's a lot like switching from Boeing to Airbus, don't want to do it. Gyro is just resting there, thinking about mounting it aft of the battery to get it closer to the CG.
Anyone have any motherhood on using this A3-L in the A-4?

[fhhuber]

I'd probably push the RX back and put the gyro close to the RX for keeping the wires neater.

(originally thought the RX was behind the battery)


*************

Spektrum captured a huge market share by being "firstest with the mostest" in 2.4 ghz. With the nature of 2.4 ghz being that nce you choose a brand you are pretty well locked in by lack f cross-brand compatibility, you end up with all who bought several DSM2 receivers to go with their Spektrum transmitters (when Futaba ddn't even have 2.4 ghz yet) being a captive market just to prevent having to buy several receivers at once in order to make the change to a different brand.

It helps that Spektrum has the "Model Match" feature which makes flying a model on the wrong model memory impossible. (that feature is not reliable if you use "Orange" or "Lemon" receivers with a Spektrum TX that is part of the "not really DSMX" encoding difference.)

Futaba still makes good stuff and if they had been making a good 2.4 ghz system earlier, I would probably be still flying Futaba.
They are kind of shooting themselves in the foot by having 3 different 2.4 ghz protocols that are incompatible with each other. They need to pick one and just stop making new products for the others.

[dahawk]

EA,
I use the A-3L on a lot of edf’s . They are pretty forgiving as far as placement. On the A-4, I have mine forward of where you have your Rx. Works fine that way. Some gyros require the placement to be centered near the cg.

Hawk

[EA-6B Geek]

EA,
I use the A-3L on a lot of edf’s . They are pretty forgiving as far as placement. On the A-4, I have mine forward of where you have your Rx. Works fine that way. Some gyros require the placement to be centered near the cg.

Hawk

Thanks Hawk, I'll probably do it that way then.

[RCjetdude]

I mounted everything under the tray.

[dahawk]

Steve, that’s way too tidy ! Lol

[EA-6B Geek]

That's way nice Steve. I already mounted it all up in the nose, have the gyro set up and working. Needs a test flight.

[Hardway]

I have a CC 20 amp Pro BEC in the rear of the battery, so I had to be a little creative in mounting it all... I am happy with the way it came out. Lots of wires to keep neat. Some are under the battery tray. The others I bundled with heat shrink.

[Hardway]

Each new bird is a challenge to make everything fit and be within reach for adjustment (gyro) and not be a rat's nest... I usually spend way more time on that, and servo set up and adjustments that building the plane... :Cool:

[EA-6B Geek]

:)Another way nice set up! That kind of attention to detail will pay off when you're wiring that B-17. Have you flown the Kiwi A-4 yet?

Mine still looks like a rats nest. Maybe I'll put a little more effort into it.

[Hardway]

Thanks!!! No to the A-4 maiden... It has been so hot here!!! I want to spray my panel line weathering and finish the clear coat first anyway... Last night it was 92 at almost midnight....:Sweating: As for the B-17, keeping it all neat is going to be mandatory to keep a measure of sanity... :Silly: Have a great week!!! Jerry

[fieldofdreamsflyer]

[purduephigam]

Steve pretty much sold me on this, but have been itching for this plane for a while now. Plus, I figure the second I purchase this thing, that's when FOIL will be released. So I think I have to get this, so we can all get FOIL! It seems unanimous that this is a superb flyer, but are there any reservations, or anything I should keep in mind? I've heard the rates need to be dialed down per the manual but that's about it. Thanks everyone!