I tried my Like90 blades and motor today
06-26-2004, 12:21 AM
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I tried my Like90 blades and motor today
I stripped down my Hummingbird CP because I can't get parts for it. I stripped it so that I could rebuild my Hummingbird v.II.
The HB v.II is still my favorite between the two. Mostly because of its capacity to survive crashes. So I've had a couple Johnson 250 motors and some like90 blades sitting around waiting for me to rebuild the HB v.II and I finally did this week.
I started with the just swaping out the stock motor for the John250 with the 9 tooth gear. This was way too much power and just not enough range between climbing and falling... I really couldn't get into a hover that I could transition up and down smoothly with. It was either up to fast, or worse, down too fast. After about 1 minute on this new Johnson 250, the motor burned out. It was probably just a bad one. I'm using the stock Hummingboard with a somewhat heavy ThunderPower 3-cell 1320mAh battery. The 3-cell lipo may be too much for it.
So I put the stock motor back in.
I've been doing pretty good on learning to fly this thing. I'm into forward flight now and I've even done a few scrape-and-goes. I'm to the point where I don't freak out any more when the heli faces me. I can hover, nose-in, for a few seconds at a time. Well I was doing all of this and I ended up perpendicular to the ground, in a steep, swooping dive. I could have recovered... except I didn't. Snap! One stock blade breaks at the grip. This is a perfect opportunity to try the like90 blades.
I put the like90 blades on. I kept the stock motor, even though I had heard that this isn't a good setup... and you know what? It isn't a good setup. I was able to get off the ground, but the stock motor, going through the stock Hummingboard, with a fully charged 3-cell (11.1v) Lipo, just barely got off the ground. I had full throttle and didn't have any climb rate. Not a great experience. But I had read (here) that this is what I could expect, so I went back inside to try the Johnson 250.
I installed the Johnson 250 with the 10 tooth gear. This gear seems to mate better with the main gear than the 9 tooth model. I was able to get the mesh just barely looser than snug and it had an acceptable smoothness. I still have the like90 blades on. I went to try it. Yes, it works. I had to re-adjust my rudder trim, but it had an acceptable climb rate and even a decent descend rate. This motor is a bit noisy, but you forget about that when you get into flying it.
The head speed is a lot faster than with the stock blades. You can notice it just by listening, and you can feel it in extra responsiveness. This extra head speed caused one of my flybar paddles to come off. So I landed soon thereafter and put it back on, tightening both of then now. [Yes, I landed. I landed on the skids with one missing flybar paddle. I did that. I'm so proud of myself.]
While flying the rest of the battery out, I noticed that my radio range had dropped down to something like 50 feet. Any futher than that and I was glitching a couple times a second. scary! It could have been caused by lots of things, but I'm starting with the motor. I'm going to attach more capacitors to the Johnson 250 before the next flight and see if that helps. I was up above 100ft for a bit today. It didn't start glitching until after that, luckily.
Does anybody know what type of capacitor has the best characteristics for preventing radio noise? I was going to try some electrolytic caps, or maybe some tantalum ones. Whatever works.
I flew the rest of the battery out, and went inside to inspect. Total flight time, about 20 minutes.
Even several minutes after taking it all inside, I burnt my finger on the motor. A closer inspection of the motor revealed that the spindle had started to melt through its plastic bushing. This motor may be good for one more flight, but probably not. The spindle bushing has moved about 0.5mm off-center and is causing the motor to rotate roughly. Could this be a source of noise that caused my glitching?... Possibly.
I had great fun flying around with the like90 blades. They aren't impressive with the stock motor, but with the Johnson 250 they really shine. They were responsive and tough. (I did crash them a couple times to be sure.) I would buy them again. I'm going to buy a brushless motor and see how they do with that.
I don't think the Johnson 250 is suitable for my 3-cell lipo setup. I'm reserving judgement for now, however, because I consider it somewhat unfair that I used a 3-cell lipo and probably could have used a 2-cell lipo just as well... with less heat damage.
-Mark
The HB v.II is still my favorite between the two. Mostly because of its capacity to survive crashes. So I've had a couple Johnson 250 motors and some like90 blades sitting around waiting for me to rebuild the HB v.II and I finally did this week.
I started with the just swaping out the stock motor for the John250 with the 9 tooth gear. This was way too much power and just not enough range between climbing and falling... I really couldn't get into a hover that I could transition up and down smoothly with. It was either up to fast, or worse, down too fast. After about 1 minute on this new Johnson 250, the motor burned out. It was probably just a bad one. I'm using the stock Hummingboard with a somewhat heavy ThunderPower 3-cell 1320mAh battery. The 3-cell lipo may be too much for it.
So I put the stock motor back in.
I've been doing pretty good on learning to fly this thing. I'm into forward flight now and I've even done a few scrape-and-goes. I'm to the point where I don't freak out any more when the heli faces me. I can hover, nose-in, for a few seconds at a time. Well I was doing all of this and I ended up perpendicular to the ground, in a steep, swooping dive. I could have recovered... except I didn't. Snap! One stock blade breaks at the grip. This is a perfect opportunity to try the like90 blades.
I put the like90 blades on. I kept the stock motor, even though I had heard that this isn't a good setup... and you know what? It isn't a good setup. I was able to get off the ground, but the stock motor, going through the stock Hummingboard, with a fully charged 3-cell (11.1v) Lipo, just barely got off the ground. I had full throttle and didn't have any climb rate. Not a great experience. But I had read (here) that this is what I could expect, so I went back inside to try the Johnson 250.
I installed the Johnson 250 with the 10 tooth gear. This gear seems to mate better with the main gear than the 9 tooth model. I was able to get the mesh just barely looser than snug and it had an acceptable smoothness. I still have the like90 blades on. I went to try it. Yes, it works. I had to re-adjust my rudder trim, but it had an acceptable climb rate and even a decent descend rate. This motor is a bit noisy, but you forget about that when you get into flying it.
The head speed is a lot faster than with the stock blades. You can notice it just by listening, and you can feel it in extra responsiveness. This extra head speed caused one of my flybar paddles to come off. So I landed soon thereafter and put it back on, tightening both of then now. [Yes, I landed. I landed on the skids with one missing flybar paddle. I did that. I'm so proud of myself.]
While flying the rest of the battery out, I noticed that my radio range had dropped down to something like 50 feet. Any futher than that and I was glitching a couple times a second. scary! It could have been caused by lots of things, but I'm starting with the motor. I'm going to attach more capacitors to the Johnson 250 before the next flight and see if that helps. I was up above 100ft for a bit today. It didn't start glitching until after that, luckily.
Does anybody know what type of capacitor has the best characteristics for preventing radio noise? I was going to try some electrolytic caps, or maybe some tantalum ones. Whatever works.
I flew the rest of the battery out, and went inside to inspect. Total flight time, about 20 minutes.
Even several minutes after taking it all inside, I burnt my finger on the motor. A closer inspection of the motor revealed that the spindle had started to melt through its plastic bushing. This motor may be good for one more flight, but probably not. The spindle bushing has moved about 0.5mm off-center and is causing the motor to rotate roughly. Could this be a source of noise that caused my glitching?... Possibly.
I had great fun flying around with the like90 blades. They aren't impressive with the stock motor, but with the Johnson 250 they really shine. They were responsive and tough. (I did crash them a couple times to be sure.) I would buy them again. I'm going to buy a brushless motor and see how they do with that.
I don't think the Johnson 250 is suitable for my 3-cell lipo setup. I'm reserving judgement for now, however, because I consider it somewhat unfair that I used a 3-cell lipo and probably could have used a 2-cell lipo just as well... with less heat damage.
-Mark
06-26-2004, 11:13 AM
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RE: I tried my Like90 blades and motor today
ORIGINAL: marked23
I don't think the Johnson 250 is suitable for my 3-cell lipo setup. I'm reserving judgement for now, however, because I consider it somewhat unfair that I used a 3-cell lipo and probably could have used a 2-cell lipo just as well... with less heat damage. -Mark
I don't think the Johnson 250 is suitable for my 3-cell lipo setup. I'm reserving judgement for now, however, because I consider it somewhat unfair that I used a 3-cell lipo and probably could have used a 2-cell lipo just as well... with less heat damage. -Mark
