Eric
My name is not Bob but I will start an answer for your questions.

ESC converts the DC battery voltage to three phase AC voltage to power the outrunner motor.  In place of a timer, which works for stunt, use a single channel servo control to input the throttle signal to the input of the ESC.

A problem if you used a DC motor, would be the amount of current the potentiometer would have to carry and heat it would have to dissipate.

I call my single channel servo control "U/Tronics".

Clancy

Eric,

Here's the way I was taught/learned. To get the best motor these days you have to use a brushless motor. They don't work on DC but an AC signal. It needs a controller to make the motor work. The ESC does that along with adjusting the speed. The ESC in RC models gets a signal from the reciever. Clancy's unit acts like a signal from a reciever as far as the ESC is concerned, you just need to modulate the signal to the ESC to control speed. Clancy's unit does that.

You only need one potentiometer. It varies the signal out of Clancy's unit. The pot changes the pulse width of the signal to the ESC. The input to the U-tronics goes from 0 ohms to 10K ohms. I use a 50 k pot since the full 0 to 50K is about one full turn. The bellcrank only has a limited throw so the 0 to 10 K ohms ends up being about 60 degrees of travel, just what the 3 line bellcrank can do. So think of the arm on the pot as the same thing as the arm on the carb. The rest is pretty simple electrical connections. Battery to speed control (2 wires), Utronics to ESC (2 wires), pot to Utronics (2 wires) and ESC to motor (3 wires). The only  other thing to add is an arming plug in one of the battery wires (this is easier and smaller than a switch since you would need a switch that can carry the 40 or 50 (or more) amps to the motor. This would have to be a big switch. The arming plug is just a simple plug that can carry that much current. It also makes it real safe on the ground since you plug in the battery, get everything ready, go out to your handle and just have the pit guy plug in the arming plug and you throttle up and he releases the plane. Nice and clean/easy. The motor can't run without the arming plug in place.

I hope that all makes sense. If you plan to attend the Phoenix contest I'll be there with my 15 Electric and you can see first hand.

Bob

Alan,

Very interesting comments. The E carrier plane I fly is  a 15 sized but the motor is not that different from Pete's (its a step or two down the ladder but is still an AXI). I have not had any of the squealing, growling or slipping? that Pete experienced. When he flew it in Muncie at the Nats he was still getting that harmonic or whatever on the APC. It was a pronounce growl at a certain speed that was very odd. I'm not sure what size prop he was using but I believe it was around an 11X6 or maybe 12X6. I am using an 11X7 on my motor and it does seem pretty big. I flew the plane last weekend and had two good flights. As  I think back on the flights I don't think I ever really "slammed" the throttle open during low speed. I did have to give it some substantial power bursts a couple of times to get out of trouble but I don't think I ever pushed it too hard. I also use the aluminum collet adapter for the prop. I'm not real pleased with it but its what I have, a steel version would be nice but then you run the risk that if it slips it could gall and weld itself onto the shaft. I did destroy one collet but not in the air, the thread snapped when I was installing a new prop. You have to torque them pretty good to get them to grab. I can see where your idea that collet might spin on the motor shaft is really possible, if you don't have it cranked down tight.

One other point of information is that Pete now has a data logger on his plane and has flown it a few times to gather data. I have seen a couple of the the graphs from the output and don't remember seeing any huge spikes during throttle up. In fact its surprising how little voltage is used during low speed flight. As I recall it was about half voltage with some increases here and there as he needed to keep it hanging.

At any rate your comments are interesting and as I fly my plane more I will keep an eye/ear out for anything unusual as the power is applied. Its worth some attention.

Hi Bob, enjoy reading about your E-flight experiences in carrier.  This post about the collet slippage.  Isn't it possible to grind a flat on the shaft for the set screw to tighten down on?  I would think it would not upset the balance of the shaft that much.  I do it on wheel collars to keep them on.  I even had some that were loose, but, stayed with the axle until I cinched them down again.  My thought for collet slippage.  Have fun,  DOC Holliday

Doc -

The issue is that there is no set screw - The collet is a tapered OD collet with a tapered ID ring around it.
If you remember the prop drivers on old Supertigre .35's, some Foxes, etc., you'll have the picture.

The only way to get the tapered collet to hang on tighter, is to tighten the prop down more.  But since the prop shaft is aluminum, you risk stripping the threads before you actually get it tight enough.  Or, as happened to Bob, you simply twist off the whole shaft.

Allen's observation that the ability to go from zero RPM to max RPM in a short amount of time is interesting, and one that I hadn't thought of.  The simple fix for THAT one issue is to use the ESC's "soft start" feature.  It is there for the purpose of saving gears in gear driven helicopters.

My own observation is that there are probably several possibilities and they all need to be addressed.  I have had the prop fly off while the motor was on a test stand.  In fact, I've ONLY had it happen while on a test stand.  So my conclusion is that part of the problem is the large step up in force that occurs when the motor is physically unable to move forward.  The nature of our usage here, kind of precludes using a slower acceleration to address the problem.

The most important issues, I feel, are related to the actual quality of the prop driver - I have bitched to one of the manufacturers that the supplied prop driver was too short (you can barely fit an APC sport prop on and have ANY threads for the nut to grab).  Their answer was to send me another prop driver which, of course, was no better than the one I got originally.  If there were more threads out the front, one could try to find a nut with more length - like the union nut that comes with some spinners.  This would spread the tightening forces over more threads and lessen the chances of stripping them.

Also, there is no way to check the parallelism in the prop-shaft hole itself.  I think most can envision that if the hole is not a uniform diameter, the contact surface us reduced.  A related issue would be the actual taper cut onto the outside of the collet and the inside of the ring.  If the taper is mismatched, you don't get uniform tightening, you get a point contact and that can lead to a prop that stays on one time and flies off the next time you mount it.

Finally, this scheme of mounting depends on the width of two (or sometimes four) slits that are cut into the collet after it is machined.  If the slit is not wide enough, you risk running out of "tightening power" before you've actually captured the motor shaft.

Then there is the issue of which aluminum alloy is used, the actual thread used, etc.  (I'm not sure machinig them from steel would be the answer, if any of the above issues are unsolved.  A thread with more surface area might be helpful, though).  Since all of the above are actually quality issues when the part is machined, I think the BEST course for we who use them is to share information on which brands of adapters have (and have NOT) been problematic and where the "good ones" are available.

Also, be very aware of this issue every  time you change the prop, and keep the area clear, just like you would with a gas engine.

Oh, one final comment.  Most motors have a prop driver that attaches to the rotating bell, and requires that you turn the motor around and mount it using the T-shaped adapter.  I can tell you from experience that this mounting has a whole different set of issues, which may or may not make that a better alternative.  In the case of the Scorpion brand, which is what I've been trying to get going, it's not an issue, because there is no way to incorporate that mount in the motors, as they come from the factory.

Mike A

Eric,

Thanks for the pictures. Looks like your making good progress. My E profile plane is a bit behind yours. I've got the motor and ESC, a possible battery (not sure if I'm going to use 4 or 5 cells), and I have vacuum bagged some of the small parts for light weight/high strength. I'm still working out the details of where some things go. I just need to dive in and get things going.

For the arming plug the Ultra plug should work but they are pretty hard to insert and take apart. Here's a link to what I have used on the 15 plane.

http://www.aeromicro.com/Catalog/maxx_products_arming_switch_6970_5400546.htm

 These work really well and are much easier to make and break. (the pit person will thank you for making his job easier and its nice to be able to easily pull the arming plug if something goes wrong) You can shorten up some of the leads if you need to make it more compact.

When I looked at the pictures it appears you have a good place for the battery, my only thought is that it's a fixed location. I like to have a bit of leeway with battery fore to aft to adjust the CG of the plane. Since the battery is by far the heaviest element in the plane it's nice to be able to shift it around a bit.

I'm jealous that you are so far along. Keep up the nice work and we'll all be anxious to know how it flies. Keep the updates coming.

     Thanks for putting me on to the arming switch, it sure looks like just what I am looking for. The box over the wing gives me about 12 ozs of battery in front of my CG on this plane. Also the box is made a little long just so I can move it back if its nose heavy. If it turns out to be tail heavy I'm a little screwed, OR I could put a bigger motor in the front. My motto for carrier planes is that whats up front that counts and the more power the better. Mike Potter offered to make me some real light weight tail feathers for this plane but I'm thinking I'll wait until I gain a little more knowledge on this electric stuff before I go full house. I do know that lots of HP and little weight spells good performance in carrier.
     Hi Alan, I see your message over and over, more and more, and I get the message but dont have to many ideas on how to handle it. In carrier we use a variable resister to control changes in power and I'm hoping that I will be able to control the motor ok with it. I've read the instructions for my ESC about a dozen times and I think it might have a delay of some kind that can be programed into it. In carrier smooth and gentle handling of the throttle is very important in the low speed portion of the flight so I'm hoping that the variable resister does the trick. I will keep posting to this forum and keep everyone up to speed on how this project turns out. The feed back I get is invaluable to me and this plane. eric

The Eagletree loggers are nice, I use one on my e-stunters, and in the long run I expect it to save some money by not runnning some lipo's or motor's to extinction.
If you add the LCD display to the datalogger, then you have the equivalent of a real-time "watt-meter"---you can see the amp draw and rpm on the ground. Since a wattmeter is on the order of ~$50, it isn't that bad.
In any case it is important to have some way of measuring currents and volts on these systems, because a meltdown could cost big bucks.

Here is a link to the one I have (and the one Pete has).
http://www.eagletreesystems.com/MicroPower/micro.htm
What is useful for carrier would be the Micrologger ($69.99) and add the brushless rpm sensor ($14.99) and the Micro temperature sensor $9.99. The micro-logger itself measures the battery current and voltage and the two sensors plug into it to add that feature. I bought the one with the integrated connectors and just plug my battery and ESC into the Micrologger. Like I said, the LCD display ($39.99) is nice--but pricey-- because it will display the real-time values if you run the setup statically on the ground (but be careful---the static run can really pull the amps and can harm the motor and battery if run for too long and if the amps are higher than what the motor and battery can sustain. If you mount it on the plane, it will record the maximum and minimum values of things during the flight---maybe good when you are at the field.
You do need a Window's PC (only negative thing I've got to say about it!) to readout the stored data. To see what you get, go and look at some of my posts in the electric forum on my E-Nobler, or my review on the Super Clown in the review forum (to get an idea of what you can do with it).
I of course added the altimeter and airspeed indicator, because I am curious what my stunter is doing during the maneuvers. I don't think they are particularly useful to carrier since the flying is basically fast and slow, and the stop watch will give you better precision.

I agree with Pete---my datalogger reads about 10% too high compared to a wattmeter and a high quality DC clamp-on meter. On the other hand, 10% won't burnup a motor.
I don't know whether the new model V3 out is more accurate than my V2. It uses a Hall Effect probe rather than a shunt, but I am not sure if my V2 uses the same or not. Need to find my original Advertisement blurb.

Eric

To setup your three wire controls:

Set up the three line bellcrank and the control arm on the 50,000 (50 K) ohm pot so that the resistance from one end terminal to the center terminal of the pot measures from zero to 10 K ohms as you vary the three line bellcrank.  Now you have the correct throttle range. 

If you want to reverse the three line bellcrank from "pull' to "push". 

Unsolder and move the wire from one end terminal to the other end terminal on the pot.  Then loosen the clamp holding the arm on the pot shaft and rotate the shaft to the opposite mechanical stop.  Switch the position of the three line bellcrank.  Tighten the clamp on the pot arm and verify that the resistance varies from 10 K ohm to zero as the bellcrank is moved. 

That is all that is required to reverse the throw on the three line system from "Push" to "Pull".

Clancy

     Made a little more headway. I found out that putting the bellcrank on the outside wing (like behind the tank) didn't work so good on the e-plane. I built a location in the inboard at the root to hold the ESC, u-tronics unit, and all the plugs and wires that go with these e-plane. Much to my dismay I had led the wires from the battery down through a whole on the inside wing at the fuselage. Well was real happy with myself until I noticed these wires were located right where the lines move back and forth with the line slider,whoops.
     Next time the bellcrank will be on the inside wing and the plane will be lighter and much simpler. Wight at this time is 37ozs so after its covered and the hook and push-rod are on it I still hope it comes in at 44ozs.
     I'm still jerking this pot or variable resister around in my brain (slow learner). When I put my meter on the pot at RX 1, I can get a reading of 0 to 10 ohms of HR short. Switch one lead and it reverses. Well and good? My question now is when the meter shows the 10 ohm short, is it at the full power point. Or is the idle at the 10 ohm point and the full power setting is at 0 on the meter. What happens if it goes over 10k ohms resistance.
     Went to my local Radio Shack and bought another 50 ohm variable resister just to play with and its either shorted or shows nothing when I move the arm? I've attached a couple new pictures. I sure like the lines of these 109Ts. eric

     Your not sure what I mean? Well partner that makes two of us. If its any conselation your comments helped a whole lot and I'm back to building. As far as throw goes on the pot if I measure from the center of the pot shaft to the center of the rod that comes from the bellcrank it is 7/8Th's'' and I think if I wanted too, I could go out to 1''. Looking at your pictures of you .15 ship it looks like mine is no different from yours.
     I'm trying to figure out how I can charge the li-po I got and not burn down my house. Right how we are at 19 to 43 degrees and I keep seeing this thing about don't try to charge the li-po in cold weather. Does that rule out my back yard? I got one of those thunder power TP-1010C chargers and the Smart Balancer THP-210V. Boy the instructions for the charger are pretty marginal as far as the novice goes. For the price you would think they would include a hard cover booklet. AND was I surprised to find that I would need a deep sink batt. just to run the charger. Maybe thats to discurage people from charging them in there homes.
     Its all quite different from adding fuel attaching the glow driver and off you go (well most of the time). eric

Eric,

If your having problems soldering to the Deans plugs maybe you are using to large of a soldering iron. I think the one I use is only about 15 watts. You just need enough heat to get the tab on the connector hot enough to melt the solder. I have a holder with two alligator clips that positions the wire and the connector tab together. Heat the tab and melt a small bit of solder on it then feed the solder between the wire and the tab. As the solder melts it should tranfer the heat to the wire and wet it. (hope that makes sense) If everything is lined up and touching it should only take a few seconds of heat at the most.

Be very carefull not to short out the battery while your doing this. It will damage the cells if you do.

You were asking about charging the lipos outside. Cold is not good so its best if you can do it in a warmer place when its really cold outside. I charge in my garage but I stay there the whole time its charging. I also have a 1 quart paint can that I use to put the battery in when its charging. I drop in the battery and just lay the lid on top with a weight on it.  (the wires just feed out under one edge so it's not really sealed) I check it often by looking inside to see if the cells look puffy and just feel the battery to see if its getting hot. I also charge a little under the rated max charge. I have also heard of people using an old BBQ with a lid to put the battery in when charging. If you charge slowly and don't try to push it too hard and the battery has not been crashed or abused there shouldn't be any problems. All the same I keep a close eye on the battery when charging. If you charge at a less aggressive rate and there is a problem with the battery it should give a warning, it will start to puff up and get hot before it explodes.

Eric,

I just checked my iron, its 40 watts. That's really more than is needed. I think a 25 watt iron is plenty for soldering connectors. Use a fine point, mine is about 3/16" at the tip with a flat on one side.

Here's a couple of other soldering tips that I learned on the job many years ago.

Heat the part that has the most mass, the smaller part will pick up the heat from the larger part.
You always want to draw the solder from the coolest part to the heated part. That means heat one part and apply the solder to the part farthest away from the heat. That draws the solder to the hot side and should wet the "colder" part well.

Pre-tin both parts before you put them together. That way your just adding enough solder to fill the gap between the parts, they are already prepped and wetted. You are just reflowing the solder on the parts.

Most important is that the parts to be soldered are very clean, no oils on them. After pretinning them clean any flux left over from the pretinning off the pieces. Once any flux has burned on the part its very hard to get the solder to wet.

Use the lowest power you can. This prevents burning and charing of the flux.

Use rosin core solder if you can. Acid core will solder well but can corrode over time if it is not completely cleaned. Rosin fluxes are inert at room temperature and should not corrode. Most of the soldering for electrics is copper to copper and acid fluxes should not be necessary.

Lastly, use 63/37 or 60/40 solder. This is the best flowing and lowest melt temp solder. Use small diameter wire solder with a rosin core flux. You can also get a small container of the rosin flux and use it to pre-coat the parts before soldering. Just don't over heat the parts and burn the flux on to them.

This is all basic soldering technique. I don't mean to insult your intellegence if you already know them but thought others might be able to use this info too.

Bob

     So close yet so far. I should have started over on this plane when I discovered that I had made a mistake when I put the bellcrank on the outside wing. If I had put it on the inside wing I could slap the decals on it, epoxy the wing and tail to the plane and wait until MAy when the weather starts to warm up and then go flying. As it is if you look at where the wires from the battery go into the the wing you are also looking at where the lines come through the fuselage and go out to the slider. So it seems I can either hook up the lines to the plane OR I can hook up the battery to the ESC ''BUT'' I cant do both? I knew I was in trouble but figured I could work around it, heck I still think I can work around it but will probably have more exposed wires than I had wanted. Oh well like so many time when I finish a plane I'm already thinking of how much better the next one will be.
     This plane is coming in a little heavier than I had planned (so what else is new) at 45oz as it is now and I expect it to go up another 2oz before its out the door. Also I'm beginning to doubt my wisdom on mounting the battery like I have. Its hard to install and worse to get back off which is poor planning as far as e-planes are concerned. Like I say that next one is going to so much better. eric

Eric,

Nice looking plane!!! I'm really anxious to hear how it flies. I don't think 46 oz sounds too bad. When you think of  a regular profile at 40 oz and add 6 oz of fuel your right there. Hiding the wires is a problem. On my little 15 they just hang out all over the place. I also didn't cut them short since I wasn't sure how the whole thing would work. Now we just need to get some of these large electrics in the air and see how they perform. I haven't made much progress on mine, I've been working on some other projects for a  New Years Day fun fly. Hopefully in January I'll get moving on the 36 profile electric.

You might have a good idea about a speed limit type event for electrics. After we get some planes up and flying and see how they do it could be the right way to go. We really do need to get some experience and see how everything shakes out to really determine the best direction. I hope there are others building this winter too. Maybe we can show  off some electrics at the Woodland event in the Spring.

Let us all know when you get a flight in.

Bob

Eric,

 Nice looking test stand. Its good to know that the electronics work. Although it's good to run these setups on the ground there is some variability when in the air. Pete Mazur's on-board data logger showed at least a 10% to 15% unloading in the air (lower current). I have also seen this in my 15 e carrier plane by how much less battery is expended than static tests suggest.

As far as the RPM range, I wouldn't be too concerned until you get the plane up in the air. My 15 goes much faster than the static RPM measurement indicates that it should. I think part of this is due to the larger props used on the electrics and the efficiency of the motor. The only real measure is to get some flights in. The heat build up is something to watch but again, in the air you will get much better cooling. Just don't let the batteries or the ESC get too hot to touch or you could damage them.

Eric
Looking at the pictures of your test stand, I can't see my U/Tronics unit.  Is it under the plate in the picture?  I know it is small but "Invisible"?
Clancy

Your welcome Eric.

In the pictures, it gives a good size comparison.

Glad to be of help and glad that it is working for you. 

Good luck with the model,
Clancy