Hi Jim,
I'm thinking that folks should just add pictures and any interesting descriptions to the list your setup sticky-thread. I hesitate to produce a gaggle of stickies that occupy the front page of this forum.
Dean

Hi Jim,
I'm thinking that folks should just add pictures and any interesting descriptions to the list your setup sticky-thread. I hesitate to produce a gaggle of stickies that occupy the front page of this forum.
Dean

Dean,

Understand and concur with the desire to keep the sticky count down.  Some posters are already adding thumbnails of complete models.  Maybe we could "encourage" folks to include closeups of construction details and/or add interesting tid-bits about the installation.  One poster - name forgotten - has a couple of wonderful pics of his motor installation in a full-fuselage, gorgeous red ship.  I was really curious/interested about his front-mount, rear bearing plate arrangement for an outrunner.  There are a couple of 1/2A ships that have cut the LE of the outboard wing for the battery mount area.  Given the focus on having people put the details of total systems, I hesitate to post questions in that thread.  I guess I'll just have to go ahead and PM folks about their arrangements.

Thanks,
Jim

Jim,

I have used the front mount on my profile it is basically a half round with a bottom tab that bolts via two brass "L" clips to the old mounts (see picture) at the bottom there is another L clip that secures the bottom of the mount wall to the plywood doubler to keep it from moving.

Hope this helps.                  DennisT

Jim,

The ship started life as a Tutor II, I cut the battery hole which also removed some of the maple motor mount and some plywood. This fuse is hollow, which was a suprise to me, so i ran the timer and some ESC wires inside. I opened the front and angle drilled a couple holes to direct air toward the motor. The alignment was not difficult, you need to make the clips square with enough room in the tabs to elongate the holes a little, that gives you the adjustment you need to level the thrust line. The brass needs to be around 0.030" K&S strip. I at first had it a little thinner (the reality was I looked in my tubing/metal scrap box and the first thing I found was around 0.018") this worked for a while but cracked, I haven't had any trouble in two years of flying with the heaver brass clips.

If I were to start from scratch I would do the hollow fuse from 1/16" sides with 1/32" ply doubler at least to the high point of the wing with hard wood motor mounts at the mounting hard points. I would run the bottom motor mount back to the wing for stiffness or add some other stiffening in the nose. For dimension make it around 5/8" in the nose and 1/2" at the tail with a "W" former structure to add as much stiffness to the tail as possible. The one thing I like is to have the battery adjustable fore and aft to adjust the CG, that's why I used the slot pocket with the Velcro on the outside of the pack into a "C shaped  holding strap.

Best,          DennisT

Here is the rear mount that I have used on several Profiles:

Vertical rock hard maple bar drilled and fitted with two blind nuts (T nuts), 1/4" six ply plywood semi X mount attached with two screws (nylon in one case). The motor mounted with four screws via the aluminum X mount to the plywood mount.

Here is the rear mount that I have used on several Profiles:

Vertical rock hard maple bar drilled and fitted with two blind nuts (T nuts), 1/4" six ply plywood semi X mount attached with two screws (nylon in one case). The motor mounted with four screws via the aluminum X mount to the plywood mount.

John, Great pics! Great description!  Thanks for taking the time to provide this info.  I found it very useful.

Jim

Hi Jim,

You have an excellent question. I think this is a very common question for those who want to convert to E power.

1. I agree with Traian that mounting from the front is ideal, for all the reasons he mentioned. It just seems very logical to do it this way. BUT, with that said in our model flying use (ERC or ECL) it does not seem to really matter much. I'm sure a scientific study would show a slight advantage to front mounting, but it would be small.

I was in the unique position of doing an early test on this in 2006. I had a beautiful aluminum ECL profile mount made by a gentleman in MN. This mount allowed me to mount the motor from the front or the back. I did both on my ECL P-40, please see photos attached. There was no difference in performance. I made 50 flights front mounted, then 300 flights rear mounted. I have over 1,000 ERC flights with rear mounted motors, and over 200 with front mounted. My friends have even more and we have never had any problems with either mounting method. One of my friends flies his 42 pound 40% ERC aerobatic plane with a rear mounted out-runner motor with no problems. My 12 pound ERC plane has no problems with a rear mount either.

My recommendation is: If it is convenient, then front mount your motor, but don't worry about it at all if it is more convenient to use a rear mount. If you are using quality motors (Plentenberg, AXI, Hacker, E-Flite) then you will not have any problems with rear mounting. Hundreds of thousands of ERC flights have been made with rear mounting with no problems at all. :-)

2. Dennis T's profile mount is elagent. It is one of the best I have seen. It is KIS in every respect, and looks sano too. His mount would also work well in a full fuselage plane with traditional MM along the side for someone converting their plane over to E power. There are many more methods. The other excellent design is Crist's beautiful use of angle aluminum, available at any Lowes/Home Deopt. Please see Photo attached.

3. I agree with you, Tim Stagg's P-47 E install is the best I have ever seen on a CL plane. I don't even do that well in my dreams!  

Thanks again for asking this important question. Dean's solution is perfect. I hope everyone posts install photos with their "info." on that page.

Regards,    

PS: For those new to ECL, there is a long discussion about Crist's beautiful mount and plane on this forum. The "two" mounts are not needed, but it is a very interesting experiment and I'm sure his motor is happier than the rest of ours! ;-)

Another mount photo. I really like this mount. KIS!!!! I would highly recommend this mount to get started in ECL. It has another angle piece on the other side. I will research my records and try to give credit for these to their owners. And then I will post them on the sticky page. I have several more examples I will try to post later.

Hi Jim,

The pics were sent to me by members of this forum for use in a near future column in SN, they deserve the credit. :-)

My E P-40 mount is beautifully made by a master machinist to match my AXI motor, and yes the tolerances were very close. Just a crack of light could be seen around the motor by the MM.  Look closely and you can see the "scrapes" on the motor. This caused my motor to run very hot. In 2006 we did not have much ECL data to reference and I did not know that this scraping was causing a heating problem. It was actually the "screeching" sound that got me to grind down the mount for more clearance. (At the time I thought it was the ESC making some noise ;-). The Eagle Tree test Equip. I (and others) installed gave us the data that helped a lot to confirm temps. etc.

As a side note: I had < 1/32" of clearance around the motor. The motor was very securely mounted, and the mount was very solidly mounted to the plane. It became obvious that the rotating part of the motor was moving in relation to the stationary part of the motor. I made very accurate measurements as I opened the MM to gain more clearance. 3/32 was not enough, I went to 1/8" and it still scraped, but less than before. It is now at almost 3/16" and there are no more scrapes. And yes, it does run cooler and no more screeching (except from me when I blow a maneuver!  )

Not surprisingly, this scraping seems to only happen during the hard corners. Since our props are very strong gyroscopes and don't want to be turned easily, I am not surprised that the motor moves a little under stress. This is why Crist and Bob&Dean are experimenting with fore and aft MMs. As I stated before, as long as we give our motors this >3/16" room to move around in, I think we don't have to worry about our MM method.

Cooling is a different matter. I use a FAN on my two Pletenbers and on my Hacker, this solves the cooling issues. AXI now has inexpensive, easily installed FANs for most of their CL size motors.

RE: My ESC cover. It does help in cooling by channeling (forcing) the airflow over the ESC. I really made it because I could not stand how ugly all the wires and ESC hanging out in the breeze looked. This cover was an afterthought but it has worked out very well. ..... For a real eew moment for my AR, BOM, super painter friends in the crowd, I was in a rush so I painted the bare balsa (I did sand it, a little? ;-) with a metal handled soldering brush using testers paint. OH THE HUMANITY! If my friend "20" point Jimbo knew this he would disown me!  

Contrary to popular belief, a profile does NOT have the best cooling with everything hanging out in the breeze. A properly cowled motor (or engine), and ESC will run cooler than one hanging out in the breeze. Most modern FS planes are not allowed to be flown, or even long run-ups, without the cowl on because of the better cooling they provide. I have a large scoop on the other side of my plane that directs air to the motor. This was more important when I had a full size spinner on it.  Please don't misunderstand me, we do not really stress our E power systems in CL, and since we never slow down they always receive over 50 MPH of airflow. As long as we are reasonable with our installs we should not have any cooling issues.

Front mounts, one on a Cardinal profile that had an LA46 in it,then retro fitted with electric.
The other a different setup, still front mounted, on a new Lagg 3 profile, using thread inserts
for the front bolts into the ends of the bearer, and blind nuts for the support angle piece.
Paul Allen

Paul,

Great pics!  I encourage you to add these pics to the "set-up" thread.  I found them very useful.  I'll probably mimic the approach for your Cardinal for this Flite Streak/Dust Streak ARF that will be my entry path for ECL.

The Lagg3 method is wonderful!  What method did you use to create the metal "firewall" up front? That is one really nifty piece of metal cutting.  I can envision a CAD layout and a CNC metal cutter as the only possible way I could create something like this.  This method could be used for either front or rear mounting.  (Well, you couldn't use the front bolt/blind nut part of the approach.)

I like it, I like it!  Thanks for posting.
Jim

Front mounts, one on a Cardinal profile that had an LA46 in it,then retro fitted with electric.
...

Paul,

I could not find an entry on the "List your set-up..." thread for your Cardinal retro fit.  Can you tell me what motor you used and what thickness ply you used as the mounting plate on the nose of the Cardinal?

Thanks,
Jim

I've disassembled several different brands of motor in the 35mm size range. They all have double bearings at the enclosed end of the bell and a single bearing back at the fixed end. These motors all came with prop adapters to attach to the bell end and mounting plates that screwed to the fixed end. It seems to me from these clues that the motor was intended to mount to the fixed end and the prop mounts at the opposite end. In addition you don't have to worry about routing the wires past the spinning bell.

If you turn the motor around and mount the fixed end forward, you will have most of the prop loads on the single bearing.

Lots of different motors out there, your mileage may vary.

John Witt