Dezynco

Just installed a Feigao 3808412L onto my Eco 8, and wow what a difference!!! It really got the rotor speed up and the heli is so much more stable now! I'm only pulling 12 amps with a 10 tooth pinion. Rotor speed is around 1800 rpm at half throttle! I programmed my throttle curve so that i won't over rev the machine because it actually reached around 2300 rmps, which is way too fast! I had to make a little adaptor plate for the motor to bolt onto, but otherwise so far, so good!

Does anyone else have any combinations of motor and pinions that they have tried?

credence

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What did you pay for that motor? Sounds like it's a real beast. I think i've seen people using that on the logo 10.
I'm currently using a Jeti Phasor 30-3 with a 24T pinion. It gets me around 1600 in idle up on 10 cells which is pretty good. But 2300? Man, that's some serious power. I'd be concerned for the life of my bearings at that speed, since most of the bearings on the eco are axial, and not thrust.

On the bright side, if you bring your headspeed up to about 1700 or 1800, you should have a seriously capable 3D machine aslong as you get some of the nice aluminum upgrades and a good set of symmetrical blades. If your headspeed is to high, you could get away with going to an even smaller pinion. Atleast that way you can use the motors horsepower instead of wasting half of it on a bottled up throttle curve. Motors always operate at their best when they're running at full speed. If you're getting that kind of rpm, bring your pinion down a bit untill you get a full throttle headspeed of about 1700 or 1800. In theory, you should be able to do heavy aerobatics without bogging the motor down at all. I'd suggest getting the thrust bearing set for the rotor head if you continue to keep your headspeeds in that range.

I'd like to try a 26T pinion at 10 cells, it would probably cook my motor though. It would give me a theoretical headspeed of about 1700 RPM though, which would be nice . I can't seem to find 26T pinions for the eco-8 though, so it's a no go!

You probably won't get too many responses to this post though, I think only like 5 people on all these forums own an eco-8

dyonis-my

6 people

i own one too, but not ready to fly yet

x-planes

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If you have that rotor speed get the echo 16 upgrade, aluminum rotor head and symmetrical blades and don't look back.
I've built the echo 16(started as an echo 8) with an aveox brushless and it's good but now you need a longer tail boom with faster rotor
and tail speed.

Dezynco

I don't know if there is a lower count pinion available as a helicopter pinion. I might try some from an RC car. The motor only costs around $60.00, so if it holds up, it will be a great motor for the money. It's only about 1 inch in diameter and about 3 inches long, so it's not very heavy. Remember though, I had to make a little plate with some fiberglass to make it fit the frame. I had to bolt the motor to the plate, then bolt the plate to the frame.

As far as head speed, I have since increased the throttle curve to about 70%. The motor gets pretty hot, but the Lipo's do not seem to be overheating. I'll keep and eye on it and let you guys know how it is going.

credence

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I found some new brushless motors the other day searching around. They're called Tornado motors. They (claim) to be as good if not better than hacker motors (specifically a B50) and they're like half the price at only $98

Dezynco

Hacker motors are too expensive for me! They seem to require so much voltage to get them turning at peak performance. I thought about getting the H8 from Ikarus, but it's $150.00. I've had one before and also had an H16 - they both got damaged when I crashed my planes (bad speed controller, long story) Both of those motors were BAD AS@#$. The little one would turn an 11x6 prop at about 11,000 rpm!!! Both of them are paper weights now!

I don't want any more outrunners - it's just too easy to bend the shaft in them, and apparently they can't be fixed if that happens because it also warps the case. The Feigao seems to be doing a very good job for $60.00. I'm thinking about cutting a vent hole in the canopy to cool it off, any suggestions?

credence

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I've seen a few people do that
I'd also suggest a heatsink
I don't know what the body diamter is, but fxaeromodels.com sell a few different heatsinks that should probably work. My jeti is about a 600 size, so they had a heatsink that just fit right over (albeit with a little effort ).



You can see it in that picture there. My only problem was that the heatsink was a little to big and got in the way of the frame at the front there, so i had to cut two channels into the heatsink fans to get it to fit properly, ever since i did that it's been running much cooler now though, with the heatsink getting nice and hot (as it should) but the motor only getting warm.

credence

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Where did you get that feigao motor Dezynco? I'd be interested in having a look at it and comparing it with some others.

Dezynco

Bought it at the LHS, but they are available from balsapr.com. I think the heatsink would be the way to go, I wouldn't have to butcher that expensive canopy! I'm thinking about upgrading to the Eco 16. That should burn off the extra RPM's, and still have plenty of battery amperage to spare. What do you think?

credence

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Would be a good course of action aslong as you have no intention of moving up to a scale body, as all the current scale bodies for the eco are made for the eco 8, not 16

Dezynco

Credence, I notice you're using conventional batteries in your Eco8, have you tried lithium yet? What I did is taped 2 - 1500mah Kokams (3cell) to a paint paddle, wired them in parallel to get 3000mah. Only weighs 8oz! Really gets the brushless to cookin'!

credence

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I've considered using smaller packs but hadn't thought of any way of mounting them. Now that you mention the flat panel idea, I can't believe I never thought of it before. I was convinced that to go lithium with the eco i'd have to spend $100 on one of the larger 5000 MAH packs.

Either way, i've just obtained 2 more sets of sub-c cells to make two 8 cell packs, so i'll continue using it now untill I start to move into 3D, then i'll switch to lithium to shed the (2!!) pounds of weight those batteries add. If nothing else, it makes the helicopter more stable in the wind .

Dezynco

Credence, just out of curosity, what is the all up weight of your Eco8 with the NiCads? Since I'm thinking of turning mine into a camera ship, I was wondering how much payload it would carry. Since I'm using LiPo's, I can replace the battery weight with a camera buggy, especially since I'm not really going to flying around much.

My Eco is at about 2.5 pounds AUW.

credence

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I'm at about 4.2 AUW with an 8 cell pack, probably about 4.5 with a 10 cell. Even with this configuration, the helicopter has lots of power and has no trouble getting it's self through the air. Power to weight seems pretty good. I'm sure I could manage 3D with it, if not very smoothly. I can whip it around very quickly, so i'd imagine that it could probably still go with another pound to pound and a half before really starting to bog it down and affecting flight. In otherwords, at only 2.5 pounds, you've got lots of room to work with if you want to make a camera ship . I'd suggest rigging your camera up to use LIPO cells too if you can, instead of use 4 or 8 AA batteries like most cameras do. If you do make a camera ship, i'd be really interested in seeing how you mount everything, because i've been wanting to do it aswell. Something for taking still shots at first (I was going to assign ch 7 to a servo to activate the shutter on a digital camera). But rig it up for motion capture aswell in the future, which has it's own problems in isolating vibration and jerkyness .

Sad Panda EH

Hello everyone i was just wondering im new to rc helis should i get the ECO 8 i mean everyone keeps tellin me to start off with a gas but the ECO is just so basic and looks great for starters.Plus can i fit any nice canopies on the ECO 8. Thanks

credence

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I'm sure you can get some 30 size nitro canopies to work on the eco, though i've never tried. Or even make your own canopy if you've got the tools and knowhow. The eco is a nice kit if you're starting out, and can grow with you aswell if you invest a bit more money into it. Either way, it's going to cost you all up pretty close to what a nitro ship is going to cost you anyways, so it depends on what you want. Total investment with a radio and a good set of electronics is going to be about $1000 or more. The only reason I would NOT suggest the eco for a beginner is that it's a bit more fragile than many other helicopters, and crashing is likely to damage alot of parts.

As a trainer, even if they're much harder to fly, i'd suggest a micro fixed pitch. They're cheap, extremely resiliant to crashes, and if you can learn to fly those, you can fly just about any helicopter out there.

Of course, it's up to you, many people start out on bigger helicopters, and it is easier, and electric power has so many tasty advantages over nitro that i'd never even consider nitro now. Electric, especially bigger electric helicopters, are much more expensive to their nitro counterparts, so that's also a deciding factor aswell. If you go the eco route, i'd suggest alot of time on a flight sim before hand, to save your self some costly repairs.

Sad Panda EH

hey thanks a lot credence i appreciate you telling me this info im still trying to find a good deal and a nice helicopter thanks

Dezynco

The Eco8 is not quite as fragile with the Lithium batteries, the extra weight of the NiCads or NiMh's can cause damage from the momentum that they pack! Of course if you are starting out, the LiPo's will cost you even more, and you'll need to go with a brushless motor to get any good out of them.

Mine is set up with brushless and lipo's and flies great, I've never crashed it and I'm still a beginner. However, I have tipped it over while I was fiddling with the transmitter and stripped the main gear and bent the tail boom.

I'm with Credence though, the Eco8 is a little expensive to start with. I don't really like the little fixed pitch micro's though, I got frustrated with mine and thought about stomping it!

You might look at one of the smaller collective pitch machines like the Blade or the Shogun. The fact that they are collective pitch instead of fixed pitch will make them more stable (the rotor turns faster, therefore you get a nice "gyroscopic" effect). Leave the throttle and pitch connected so that you can stop the motor in an emergency. The parts should be fairly cheap. The Blade, for example, costs about $220.00 for the complete set up, transmitter and all! If you went with the Shogun, you would have some set up to do, and it will cost you around $600.00, but the parts seem to be fairly inexpensive fot it too!

The main thing is that you need to be able to afford replacement parts, because you are gonna need them!

Sad Panda EH

yo guys i was wondering where to buy a bell222 airwolf body for a eco 8 thanks

credence

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www.fxaeromodels.com and www.helihobby.com both carry them. I suggest fxaeromodels.com. They've been very good to me personally . helihobby has messed up my orders on more than one ocassion.
I think you'll need to modify it and stick some wheels on it though, because the 222 fuse with a landing skid looks silly.

Sad Panda EH

Hey guys does anyone know if I could put the Raptor Decal set on my ECO 8 I will be putting pics of it on this site soon

Thanks

Sad Panda EH

Yo guys again ya i was wondering if i should get the JR HAWK COMBO from century it comes with everything u need and its only $684!!!


thanks