My 2008 season indoor packs. From (L to R) Evo20 400 mah, 300 mah and Evo lite 350 mah packs. When i become Flight power team member i start testing FP lypo batteries. Durring seven months of hard testing i can say Flight power lypo packs show them selves as reliable hi quality products with top performance. As you understand from article title this time i will review smallest packs from FP for indoor flying. These tiny packs probably are most universal product from Flight Power. My interest is not only F3P and F3A, i also fly with F3K gliders, and 350mah packs have place in every class where i can use them.
Battery is quite small, (58mm/22.6mm/9.6mm) and weight for 350mah capacity pack is very good, only 20g (+-1g). Cells are rated as 18C (6.3A) continuous and up to 28C (9.8A) bursts. Considering that most modern super light indoor motors use no more than 6-8amps, packs can handle indoor flying of any kind with light planes up to 200g with no problem.
With light competition F3P models (from 110g (monoplane) up to 180g (biplane)), 350mah have enough power for secure F3P-A and AM flight. My current Deluxe weight with lypo pack is 147g (with battery), and with one fresh pack i can fly F3P-A routine 3-4 time with no problem. Depending on how oft you use full throttle/how much Amp's draw your motor and what is plane RTF weight, flying time can be from 5 to 9 minutes on ussual F3P plane.  My best design for indoor pattern to date, Deluxe. New milled Deluxe RTF weight expecting to be about 135g. My best design for aeromusical to date, SUltimate, this plane RTF weight is 131g with extra servo for special FX.
Naturally Aeromusical program will require much more power than F3P-A sequence, so you can expect flying time to be little shorter, but its not a problem for 350mah packs. They work just fine for ussual 2;00min and 2;30min aeromusical flight with Sultimate. Very fun class is micro 3D models, this tiny Sultimate (48cm wingspan) have amazing power with FP 350mah packs. Because of small size/weight and pretty big capacity 350mah packs are also perfect RX packs, for F3K gliders, mid size electric planes like Vanquish, and even modern 2x2m F3A planes when it used as double rx pack with two regulators.
Technology move forward, and it is normal thing that heavy NiMh/NiCd are replaced with light and powerful Lypo packs that require much less care and have better characterystics. New Blaster's with happy owners Mindaugas, Ilja, Me, Ricardas and Vitalijus, practice flying in Vilnius, 2007 summer.
I start 2007 F3K season flying my Blaster2 with 4cell nimh 360mah packs, i could fly safe for about 70-80minutes when batteries was fresh, affter 80 minutes i had recharge. In middle of season i notice flying time become shorter, so this was good reason to switch from nimh to lypo packs, naturally i pick FP Evo lite 350mah packs (with 6v regulator), for this purpose. Safe flying time was litlle less about 50-60 minutes, but i save some weight on glider, battery changing become very easy plus servos always get same 6V from regulator all time, this mean all 60 minutes they work same. Since i have some 350mah packs from F3P flying, having 2 ore 3 packs with me at field make sure i have more than enough flying time. And also i have to mention one more very important thing safety of flights/glider. Probably every F3K pilot was in such situation;
Sometimes at the end of flying day, when rx batteries getting weak, you find really nice thermic, you climb up (naturally you don't want to lose it), but hi in sky you start to think, how is my nimh battery holding up;) If she dies almost for sure you can say bye bye for your 200-400 eur worth glider, with lypo packs you can be calm even if voltage brops bellow 6v, (most likely this will kill your 14eur cost lypo pack), but you still have control over 200-400eur worth glider!!!
Such RX system will become even better/more reliable when we remove regulators and use 2.4ghz radios with such receivers as AR6100 that can work directly from 2s (7.4v) lypo packs! Naturally not every servo can handle direct voltage (8.4v) from charged lypo pack, but we are lucky to have such servos as Dymond D47, D47s, D60, that have special motors, that are designed to work from 3.6v up to 9.6v.  My friend Vitalijus, first ussed 2S lypo packs with regulator in his Blaster, he ussed other brand 450mah packs, with such capacity he had safe flying time for about 80-90 minutes. Durring all summer season he had no problems because of battery. Im pretty sure next season more F3K pilots will switch from Nimh/nicd to lypo. From top;" Graupner, Power-BEC " (2/7.5A (3s) ) regulator ussed in Vanquish and F3A plane, 350mah lypo pack, and noname 2A regulator from LHS for F3K glider. Here is link to shop where you can find Graupner Power-Bec ussed in my 2007 F3A plane Onyx from Protech (Glow). Small 350mah ore 400mah 2S (7.4v) lypo packs can be used as RX packs not only for light F3K gliders, but also for aerobatic planes. Here is few examples of my setup and successful flying with small RX lypo packs, in 2007 season. In past i had few accidents because of battery failure, one of the ways to prevent crash, is to use double RX system. Two small lypos with two regulators, are perfect option for light and reliable RX power supply. From last season, i use double rx packs in all planes that use more than 3S lypo batteries packs for motor, and i did not had any problems since then. I don't think it is safe to use main motor battery for powering RX if you use big more than 3s pack. Here is example of my Vanquish setup; Two 350mah packs connected to regulators, one regulator is connected to battery slot, second to any free channel. Most serious brand receivers have no problems with such power supply, i tested this on JR RS10DS, JRRS77S rx's and it worked perfect. When you connected two 350mah packs to rx you will have total 700mah. With Vanquish flying hard 3D it was enough for 2-3 safe (9 minutes flights) flights, for this normally i use about 60 percents of each battery capacity. Few very important notes using such double battery setup; 1. Batteries must be same size (capacity).
2. Batteries must be same size age, it is not very good idea using new and old packs in same plane. 3. Batteries must be charged equally. 4. If you using such system in electric airplane don't forget to disconnect red (+) wire from ESC. Only black (-) and white (+) should be connected to RX, now esc will only operate motor.
5. Be sure that manufacturer of your RX, allow such setup. 6. When using such system in bigger 3D plane with multiple hi torque servos, make sure you have higher capacity lypo packs, and more powerful regulators, that can handle higher amps required from servos .
Once again main reason why i do this; 1. Increase safety. 2. Reduce weight! Usual batter weight in F3A plane was; 5cell (6V) AA Nimh pack - 105g, now i have double power with only 70g weight (each regulator is 15g and each pack is 20g). 3.During all flights servos get same voltage, this mean same performance (speed/torque) in first and last flight, and this is very important in F3A. I had about 60 flights with Vanquish, and about 110 flights with Onyx (2m F3A) in last season using such system, and not a single problem so far!!!
Extreme Flight Vanquish RX powered by two separate Evo lite 350mah 2S packs and two 6V regulators. Check out Vanquish in action ussing double RX power, VIDEO. Vitalijus and me with 2007 season F3A planes, RX powered with double Evo20 400mah lypo packs. I learn such setup from my good friend and top F3A pilot from USA, Mr.David Lockhart. Dave RX setup explained on his Prestige; For Prestige #1 2s1p480 plugs into voltage regulator #1 and that plugs into RX, and then #2 2s1p480 plugs into voltage regulator #2 and that plugs into extra channel on RX. Since I am already inside plane every flight to plug in motor lipos, I have no switches in Prestige - I simply plug the RX lipos into the voltage regulators - this setup is super light - only 85 grams for both RX lipos and voltage regulators. Prestige uses about 60 mah for PO7 flight - much less mah than glow - very easy to get 10 flights from 2x480 RX lipos. For glow, I used about 200 mah per flight. If I did another glow plane today, I would use 2 regulators and 2 TP2s1p730 lipos (and charge after maybe 5 flights).
Evo20 400mah are more powerfull packs for bigger Aeromusical planes. Battery is bigger, heavier and is different shape than EL350. 400mah 2S (7.4V) 20C is capable of 8 amp continuous and (30C) 12amp bursts. Packs size is 6mm X 37mm X 76mm. Weight of 2S battery, right out of package is 29.5g.
29.5g right of package.
One really good thing to do would be write date of first flight on pack, to have idea later what age is pack. Arrow V3, will be powered with 400mah packs, expecting RTF weight 165g.
From experience with first flights with EVO20 400mah and SUltimate, i had great feeling about these packs, enormous power from fresh packs, give crazy performance to plane. Im pretty sure these packs will be perfect even for VPP flyin. I will post more info, and share my experience when first flights with new Arrow V3 will be made.
SUltimate video , show what i have in mind. These 300mah packs are very simmilar to EVOlite 350 mah packs, size and weight is same. Capacity is 50mah smaller, so naturally flying time is litlle less than EL350. C rating for these tiny packs are 20C continous and 30C bursts, wich give almost same amount of amps. From personal experience i fell 300mah packs are just little more powerfull than EL350. For better battery care don't forget to use V-Balancer when charging batteries. Conclusion;
Weight of Flight power packs are very good when you compared them to other brand batteries, anyway for myself when i prepare for top F3P competition, i remove most part of heatshrink and make shorter wires to save some weight. I do this because i know that every saved gram improve flying characterystics of my planes, this is very important for me, but i don't recomend to do this for any other person, unless you know for sure what you are doing. From my experience i know, you can save 1-1.5g by removing part of heatshrink, so if you are not very strict for equipment weight i don't suggest to do such modification. Removing heatshring ore making any other modifications to FP pack will voids warranty!!! Flight Power homepage UK / USA Flight power packs, now also available in Lithuania. Official FP dealer is RC shop in Kaunas RC-Hobby . For more information please contact me ore Mr.Ramunas (RC-hobby) owner. |
