Honeybee FP battery mount "cure"
04-01-2005, 08:06 PM
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Honeybee FP battery mount "cure"
I don't know if I am the only one irritated by the battery mount method on the Honeybee FP, but I think I solved it, at least to my satisfaction.
My complaint was that it seemingly took three hands to guide the battery into the triangular mount, squeeze them together over the battery ends, and put the rubber band on. In addition, the battery heat shrink had to be slightly slit to allow the wires to come behind the mount since there wasn't enough room for the wire and the battery both to fit into the front of the mount.
I removed the gear and slipped the factory battery mount off the carbon rods. I cut a piece of 1/16" plywood that was the length and width of the rectangle described by the four landing gear legs. I made it about 1/8" wider than the rod spacing to allow space for an epoxy bead. I slid a piece of tubing over each horizontal rod and re-assembled the gear (without the factory battery mount). The tubing I used was the hard stuff that is the outer housing of plastic RC control cables. I then used a drop of CA at the end of each piece of tubing to temporarily tack the plywood shelf to the bottom of the tubing. Satisfied with the location of the shelf, I used 5-minute epoxy to glue the shelf permanently to the tubing. then I took some Velcro (the "hook" part), and epoxied it to the bottom of the shelf. I epoxied a strip of Velcro (the "pile" or fuzzy part) to each of my batteries on the 4-cell wide side.
Now to replace the battery, it's just a three second job to peel it off the Velcro, and stick another one on. Also, if you want to return to the stock mount for any reason, just slide off the plywood mount, and put the factory mount back on.
A plus is that if you are learning as I am, and find yourself "dropping it in" from three or four feet after a panic throttle cut as I frequently do to keep it from hitting the fence or house, the battery will "break away" on impact, which causes far less damage than the gear having to support the weight of the battery on impact.
A second plus is that if you switch back and forth from a hydride pack to a lithium pack, you can use either on the same mount, plus you can tweek your CG for a specific pack by moving it fore and aft.
I have a couple of electric fixed wing planes, and have used this method on them (Velcro on a shelf) for a couple of years and have been happy with the result since I use several different packs on all of them. I have standardized by putting the fuzzy part of the Velcro on all my batteries, and the other part on the aircraft.
Hope someone finds this useful.
Rick
My complaint was that it seemingly took three hands to guide the battery into the triangular mount, squeeze them together over the battery ends, and put the rubber band on. In addition, the battery heat shrink had to be slightly slit to allow the wires to come behind the mount since there wasn't enough room for the wire and the battery both to fit into the front of the mount.
I removed the gear and slipped the factory battery mount off the carbon rods. I cut a piece of 1/16" plywood that was the length and width of the rectangle described by the four landing gear legs. I made it about 1/8" wider than the rod spacing to allow space for an epoxy bead. I slid a piece of tubing over each horizontal rod and re-assembled the gear (without the factory battery mount). The tubing I used was the hard stuff that is the outer housing of plastic RC control cables. I then used a drop of CA at the end of each piece of tubing to temporarily tack the plywood shelf to the bottom of the tubing. Satisfied with the location of the shelf, I used 5-minute epoxy to glue the shelf permanently to the tubing. then I took some Velcro (the "hook" part), and epoxied it to the bottom of the shelf. I epoxied a strip of Velcro (the "pile" or fuzzy part) to each of my batteries on the 4-cell wide side.
Now to replace the battery, it's just a three second job to peel it off the Velcro, and stick another one on. Also, if you want to return to the stock mount for any reason, just slide off the plywood mount, and put the factory mount back on.
A plus is that if you are learning as I am, and find yourself "dropping it in" from three or four feet after a panic throttle cut as I frequently do to keep it from hitting the fence or house, the battery will "break away" on impact, which causes far less damage than the gear having to support the weight of the battery on impact.
A second plus is that if you switch back and forth from a hydride pack to a lithium pack, you can use either on the same mount, plus you can tweek your CG for a specific pack by moving it fore and aft.
I have a couple of electric fixed wing planes, and have used this method on them (Velcro on a shelf) for a couple of years and have been happy with the result since I use several different packs on all of them. I have standardized by putting the fuzzy part of the Velcro on all my batteries, and the other part on the aircraft.
Hope someone finds this useful.
Rick
