550 first really happy flight

[moonmanflyer]

About that yes, good batteries but doi die off a bit about half way through, hoping they will get better with age.
The price mind you is not to bad, it really is a quality piece of kit with very good quality componants, have to buy the motor and speed controller mind as this is not supplied like a trex

[squeaky pete]

have to say, even tho my g5 is grounded still and gave me constant gip, they are really well made helis, im thinkin i mite get the hole range lol!!! overtime i here i come lol

[squeaky pete]

oh yeah, did you get the 25c or 30c pack? lol

[SRH990]

About that yes, good batteries but doi die off a bit about half way through, hoping they will get better with age.
The price mind you is not to bad, it really is a quality piece of kit with very good quality componants, have to buy the motor and speed controller mind as this is not supplied like a trex

Snap with the Outrage pack, I bought one with the heli and it's been a little disappointing, same performance as yours, it seems to drop markedly around half way too. I've got 6 of the Turnigy 20C 5000 6S packs, only $59 each, and they don't have quite the same pop as the Outrage pack at the start but remain very consistent throughout the flight, overall a better pack IMHO.

[moonmanflyer]

Snap with the Outrage pack, I bought one with the heli and it's been a little disappointing, same performance as yours, it seems to drop markedly around half way too. I've got 6 of the Turnigy 20C 5000 6S packs, only $59 each, and they don't have quite the same pop as the Outrage pack at the start but remain very consistent throughout the flight, overall a better pack IMHO.

Where do you get them from Steve, would be interested by them.
Shame about the outrage pack, you have to back off half way through the pack, try transitioning your tick tocks after half the pack is not good.
The only other issue i had was a stripped main gear but that was more my fault as i bogged it when i got a bit to low on a piro tail slide and punched out a bit to eagerly

[Ashley Davis]

very often on big electrics drop off at mid flight can be down to how you are governing the motor as much as it can be voltage drop on the pack. The two can compound each other as well. ESC governors aren't particularly clever when it comes to holding RPM, I got best results using external governing where regardless of pack voltage you can get rock solid RPM for the whole flight.

[SRH990]

I don't use an esc governor, I just run throttle curves.

I've managed to strip two main gears now, the first was due to having the mesh a little loose, the second was a delrin gear which proved to be out of round, it had a tight spot which left quite a wide mesh on the opposite side, there weren't many teeth left of this after a rapid climb out! I've now fitted a moulded main gear which I bought from Helidirect in the US as I havent seen them in the UK yet R550200-2 - R550200-2 High Quality Plastic Main gears (2pcs) 140T 0.7M - Outrage 550. This gear is very round, I've adjusted it for zero back lash and it's running very well, the pinion isn't hot at the end of the flight so it isn't too tight plus it's much cheaper - I still have another 3 in stock as spares

The Turnigy packs I'm using are available at Hobbycity Online R/C Hobby Store : Turnigy 5000mAh 6S 20C Lipo Pack $59.99, I did have a problem with one pack, a cell went down after 2 cycles but a replacement is on the way, although it cost £12 to send the faulty one back.

[Ashley Davis]

I don't use an esc governor, I just run throttle curves.

That's probably the worst way to run a big electric, as the voltage drops (as it will on any pack during flight) you will get a one for one drop in headspeed.
Generally start of flight you will have around 3.7V per cell under load to play with, as the flight progresses that will drop to around 3.4V per cell. So you have a total delta of .3V per cell or 1.8V.

Doesn't sound much right but let's multiply that up and look at it in terms of headspeed on the 4020-1390kv motor.

1390 * (3.7 * 6) * 11 / 140 = 2424 RPM
1390 * (3.4 * 6) * 11 / 140 = 2227 RPM

So in essence by having no governor you are sacrificing over 200 RPM in headspeed......that's a lot of power to loose over a flight.

[scallybert]

That's probably the worst way to run a big electric, as the voltage drops (as it will on any pack during flight) you will get a one for one drop in headspeed. [...]

I'm so pleased to read this - I was starting to think I was the only person that thought this.

I've had 2 problems with the 2.0 governor mode CC HV45 on my G5s. One was the headspeed droping under heavy load, the other was it dropping right at the end of the flight (but before the battery monitors triggered).

Both were down to my misconfiguration. I'd not left enough throttle headroom. Raising the gearing (11 to 12 motor pinion), made the CC set-up much happier, and (no surprise) it seems to work much better.

[moonmanflyer]

The Turnigy packs I'm using are available at Hobbycity Online R/C Hobby Store : Turnigy 5000mAh 6S 20C Lipo Pack $59.99, I did have a problem with one pack, a cell went down after 2 cycles but a replacement is on the way, although it cost £12 to send the faulty one back.

Thanks for the info on the packs Steve, i have ordered a couple of 3s packs to give them a go first, 30C packs 2200mah for 17 quid, bargin if they are alright, lets hope