Guillow conversions to electric

[anticoli]

Hello! If the weight all up is near 13 ounces with the battery pack, at 31' wing span you should fly ok. However, I have been building kits for 20 years and find Guillows kits to be tricky fliers. They need to have VERY straight lines and realy balanced to fly. Other manufacturers models like herr, peck/polmyers and sig produce small models of conventional structure that are great projects for free flight/ micro rc. I did a couple guillows models including the german 109 17 1/2' luftwafe (flew like a bullet and landed like a rock as a free flight) and a p51 also of the same wingspan w micro rc. westech 3.0 servoes and a hybrid reciever with 5 cells nmhd and a mini6 motor. Never got into the air (too heavy). Guillows makes a nice endurance model that flies quite well and would make a good micro rc project the "Javaline" now that thing flys! However if you like the sacle look I STRONGLY suggest you look into "Herr" kits, Yeh I know they cost 3 times the amount of a Guillows kit. Thats because they fly!

[Daunt6]

I just recently built a Guillows SBD-3 Dauntless with a 31 inch wingspan. I put a speed 300 mtor with a Jetti180ESC. I used two Hitec micro servos and the Hitec feather receiver. I plan on using a 7 cell350mah battery pack or a 7 cell 600mah pack. I am very new at this and have noy flown yet. The whole Dauntless weighs about 13.5 ozs. Is this weight OK . I am under the impression slow or park flyers which I consider my Dauntless to be are pretty easy to fly. Does anyone have any helpful hints for when I fly it for the first time. If this is successful I plan on converting a lot more Guillow kits to electric. Any info would be great Thanks Chuck

[Daunt6]

Anticoli, thanks for the information, it is very helpful. I will probably look into the Herr kits or try the guillows javilin if my Dauntless fails. Thanks agin.

[mike nill]

Anticoli, just wondering if you have any experiance with the herr taylorcraft 18" plane.I just bought one to convert to micro rc.Im gonna use 2 2.4 wes-technik servos asky hooks and rigging pro RX and an FMA mini 5 speed control that i modified,a 3cell 50ma batt.,and a N20 motor with a custom gear box.so the plane should weight about 1-1.5oz. the whole RC system will weigh .7349oz.do you know what this plane weighs?i might cover it with mylar.

[Kasra]

Mike, I am planning to use that setup in the Fairchild 24 except for a DC5-24 for motor. I also have an Arrow half done. That one will probably get the GWS DX-A.

Chuck, " ....I am very new at this and have noy flown yet...", If you mean you have never flown before, I would get some experience on something less challenging first. Good luck with your project.

[gjohnson]

Mike,

Please keep us informed on your progress. If you have a scale it would be nice to know things like the weight of the airframe prior to installing equipment. Post pictures of your equipment and installation if possible. Are you going to build a "brick" similar to the one in the March RCMicroFlight (RCMF)? John Worth says they will have an article on its construction within a couple of months.

I'm gearing up to build a Flying Aces Stick from RCMF plans. Improvements to lighten the bare-essential plane were written up in the February Electrict Flight International. That builder got the entire thing down to 50g (with WES servos, Pixie 7 ESC, Astro Firefly motor, and I can't remember receiver. If you can build a 29g to 43g enclosed fueselage plane, you will have gotten your electronics weight pretty low. The key seems to be your use of 3-cells. For my own plane I have both three and four-cell "double-time" 100mah NiMH packs coming from Cloud-9 so I can experiment. I've got a variety of motors/gearboxes/props to try out. I've also gone with the JMP HF9 ESC, which can be modified by shorting out something (don't know what yet) to work with a small number of cells. My plan was to try a lot of combinations in the Flying Aces Stick and then build a scale model using the lightest combination that worked. Perhaps I can follow in your footsteps.

Kenway KR-1 (N20+gearbox) 6.2g
JMP HF9 ESC 0.9
WES carbon prop 4.0
2 WES servos (2.4) 4.8
SHR "pro" receiver 2.1
3 NiMH 100mah cells 10.5
-----
Total, no wires 28.5g

Here are my calculations (Matt's Microplanes http://micro.rcplanet.com/ for most weights. Not all of my equipment has arrived yet, so I haven't been able to verify all weights). I believe most/all of these weights quoted by the manufacturers do not include wire and plugs. So, there aren't many grams left to "spend" on wiring, airframe, landing gear, push rods, etc. This is why I'd like to know about your progress and experience with a scale plane this light.

In terms of covering, see Dave Lewis' site. he sells a monokote-like covering that seems to be the closest thing to clear mylar in weight. But, it has great colors available and has a heat-activated backing. By my calculations, on a Flying Aces Stick wing the difference in weight will be about 1/2 gram. I'll post pictures of the covering job when I get it done.

Gordon

[anticoli]

Hey Mike Nill, the herr taylorcraft 18" plane sounds like a winner! don't know the wieght. If you really want to keep it down you can custom select your Balsa stringers and formers downsizing everything 1/32 of an inch. The Mylar sounds good to keep the wieght down. You can also remove a rib or two and space them out to compensate. You may consider covering only one side of the elevator, as you may know the wieght balance works like this - for every gram you cut off the tail aprox 3 grams can be cut from the nose to compensate. How much thrust will the n20 and gear box give you? I finished a plane 1 year ago and took a knights and paraham gear box and stuck the n20 (from one of those walmart planes)and got kind of a wimpy thrust out of it. The wingspan of my plane was 19" built VERY light. Its a 1913 "eastbourn monoplane" The thing looks so pretty I just could not bring myself to fly it! Am unsure about the thrust ability with my gear box so I did not risk the test crash Oh! I mean test flight!

Good luck!
Mike

[mike nill]

I took one of thoughs planes from walmart the e-machines and took the motor prop and gears out and made a gearbox with bearings.im not sure about the thrust but it has quite a bit much more than i need for a 1oz. plane i even 2.i think im gonna have to make a static thrust tester with my scale.

[james_a_moles]

These are all good ideas but you should know some stuff first. First, a plane that's that small but that heavy would fly very fast!!! You should either use lighter gear or go with a bigger plane. This is just my opinion...Usually the NiHM cells have a lower voltage than Ni-Cd so an extra cell should be added to the NiHM pack than what you would normally have on your Ni-Cd pack. So a Ni-Cd pack would provide more volts for the size while the NiHM lasts longer. Also you could go with a KP-00 motor instead, its only 5.4g with a JST connector on my scale. That would save a gram compared to using the N-20. I would go with conventional tissue because it comes in more colors, is cheaper, and is more widely available(I think). I have a Guillows kit under construction over at http://slowflyersandmicroplanes.rcplanet.com
the site isn't finished yet but hopefully it will soon provide some good info.


James

[mike nill]

james,just to get you clear on the subject this plane will only have a 2.9-3oz. wing loading.so it should fly nice and slow.and i am goin to use a KP-00 motor just with my own gearbox.the N20 is the same as the kp-00.

[ 04-18-2001: Message edited by: mike nill ]

[james_a_moles]

Thanks for the info. I'm pretty sure the N-20 is a larger motor than the KP-00. The N-20 w/ prop weighs 6g(that's w/o a gear box) and the KP-00 weighs 5.4g with prop and gear box. However, they both can power the same size plane, though...I think. I know my Guillows plane is going to be a rocket, so I was just trying to offer some information to someone who's also doing a conversion.


James

[Ralph B]

HI GUYS:
I have some info reguarding the N20 and KP00 motors. The N20 is 5.5 grams(bare motor). The KP00 is a little smaller and weighs 3.6 grams. The KP is also manufactured by Mabuchi, and is designated M20.
Ralph B