Honeybee FP Battery OPTION 8.4 or 11.4

[wallnut240]

I have a Honeybee fixed pitch that came with a 5 cell 8.4 volt 650 MA battery. Can I run a 3 cell 11.4 volt 1000 MA for more flight time. Would I have to change the 4in1, same part number as the HB CP2 except for the A at the end on the 4in1.:confused:

[eddiemoth]

I had run it with mine and that is OK. Some would say it will kill your tail motor. But I did not seem to have the problem. I used the same 3 S pack that came with Esky Honeybee CP2. I think that 4 in 1 for CP2 and FP is the same.

[swatson144]

Since you are buying a pack and don't have one already. I'd say buy a 2S pack. I have tried both extensively and there is no gain in a 3S on an FP. The tailmotors only last about 1/4 what they do on 2S. The 3S pack costs more. If anything else the 3S makes it less proper as you'll be hovering in the bottom 1/2 of the stick and TO is even more touchy, but you can gear around that. Why bother? 2S cheaper, lighter, great performance.

One of my FPs is full brushless and I run 2S on it. I've tried 3S and keep going back to 2S. I don't think anyone will tell you I like my volts in moderation.

OTOH if you already had a few 3S packs from a CP2 etc then I'd use them with a 9t pinion.

Steve

[estarter]

I would stick with the 2S lipo, the FP flys better with 2S lipo.

The Esky 10C 2S 800mah works best in the HB FP, you may have to place the pack up front to get the CG right.

[wallnut240]

What should the voltage read on a 7cell 8.4 volt 800 MA battery pack that comes with the honeybee fixed pitch when it is fully charged and what voltage would be considered low and time to charge?

I have a auto charger for my HBCP and what would be considered low and time to charge the 1100 MA 3cell. The 3cell 1100 came standered with my HB CP. Will the tail motor only last 1/4 the normal time with this battery pack?
:?

[ranger306ci]

Ok, the 1100 3s pack should be recharged after about 6-7 minutes of flight with the cp heli.
If you go with an 800 mah 2s pack for your fp, you should get about 7 minutes.
You can tell it is time to recharge when you are losing altitude( heli is slugish, will not climb high). At that point, recharge.
With a 2s pack, the tail motor lasts a long time. A 3s pack will shorten the time the motor will live. I would not say it will only last 25% of the time, it all depends on how much you work the tail.

[beeblebrux]

If you haven't seen this yet, there's a very nice wiki out there for the Honeybee FP. It has a wealth of knowledge including some information on Lipo batteries.

http://www.eflightwiki.com/eflightwiki/index.php?title=HoneyBeeFP

Some online shops sell an upgraded version of the FP that comes with a 7.4V 800mAh 10C lipo, so to me it seems like that would be a good choice.

[wallnut240]

Would a 7.4 15C 2S 1000 or 1300 ma work and would it give more flight time? Or even a 20C work. I gess I don't understand the c since there are so many batterys out there. With the anti crash kit on hover time is realy limited because of the weight of the crash kit and the heavy battery pack. Also there has been some talk about flat blades on the bottom being used on the FP, what would be the best pitch without changing the main gear and pinion if any? I have a cp2 and it kicks but and being a nubee I have been hovering with the FP and doing well. Any feed back would be great since I came along this far. Also my charger that came with the cp2 will charge a 2S but will it handel a 1300 ma battery? :D

[basic]

the C rating of a battery is simply the rate at which you can safely discharge. To figure out the actual value, you find the product of the C rating and the capacity. for example, the 800 mah 2s 10c battery listed above (the stock one for the esky lama 3 and 4, as well as others i'm sure) is good to 8A rate of discharge - 10 (c) x 800 (mah) = 8000 mah, which is 8A. the cell count doesn't matter, it could be a 1 cell or 6 cell, you still just multiply the C rating by the capacity to get the rate in mAh, then move the decimal to the left 3 points to get the rating in Amps. Drop any 0's at the end. Now, it should be noted that some packs list a "continuous" and a "peak" discharge rate. those rates are just that. Many, myself included, believe that you have much more discharge rate available in the battery than what you are using, simply because the batteries last longer. I know steve has a few applications where he is only running 1/2 the rated discharge rate.

[wallnut240]

So a 1300 MA c15 7.4 2S should give me 19.5 amps. were I would only need about 5 amps with my stock 370 motor? So the battery pack should stay cooler and give me about 30 minutes of fly time? the volts is the push and the MA is the volume if I am thinking right. But would the high amps burn out my 4in1 or smoke the motor? Should I look for a c10? which one would be the best?:confused:

[swatson144]

C rating? more is always better! Having a pack that can give a lot more current than the heli uses is good. The heli will never use more than it needs. In fact having less of a pack than needed starts a runaway process where the pack voltage gets depressed and amperage must go up to supply what is needed makeing voltage depress even more. etc.etc. The pack gets damaged and goes sausage.

There is always voltage depression as demands increase that's normal. In a healthy system the voltage will depress with increased loads but the pack is still very capable of supplying the current.

Watts is what we fly on. Amps is pretty meaningless except as a function of watts. Amps * voltage = watts. If a heli needs 100w to hover it doesn't care if it gets the 100W from 11.1V pack at 9A or a 7.4v pack at 13.5A (if all things are rated for the voltage).

I always try to have my helis setup for 1/2 the pack rating If I must have an actual 10C rating I go at least 20C. If possible. If not I go larger pack and if that isn't possible I don't build the thing. Well OK there was the x400s when I started on them a good battery was 12C the best was 15C and they NEEDED 10c. Packs were pretty short lived.

Heres a plot of my swift if anyone wants to see an example http://www.rchelicoptertown.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=1853&d=1202251121 the pack in use there is good to 60A 90A peaks.

Steve

[beeblebrux]

That makes a lot of sense. I like to think in terms of a DC power supply. If a circuit requires 12V at 2A, then you can set the power supply at 9A, but the circuit will only draw what it needs (2A) even though the power supply is set higher. Voltage is a push into a circuit and current is a draw from the power supply.

But then comes the aspect of protection. If for some reason that circuit has a short and starts to draw more current it can cause problems. For instance, in a crash the heli's motor will start to draw more power from the 4 in 1 if the blades are stopped by colliding with something. The motor will try to do its job and keeps the blades spinning. If the battery has the capability to provide that power, the 4 in 1 will try to provide it to the motor ultimately burning out the 4 in 1 since it is drawing more current than it can handle. I would assume this would be a good application of the fuse mod. In this case, instead of the 4 in 1 drawing all the current it can to run the motor, the fuse simply burns out when the current flow spikes, creating an open circuit and no damage occurs. Then you are replacing a fuse instead of your 4 in 1. Of course, the more powerful battery pack you use, the more important that fuse becomes.

Naturally, I am still new to this is and don't completely understand how these circuits in the heli work. I can only try to apply my electrical engineering experience to these systems. Maybe I should break out my DC circuits book and notes from school and review.

[swatson144]

Yep, the fuse mod is a good point but the fets in it are like 3A so even the stock battery has plenty power to blow them. I had forgotten about the fuse mod.

It's funny because when you move to other helis if you don't get TH on before the crash you can add a main gear/s to the carnage also. lol

When buying packs if the next highest C rating is only a couple $ more I'll buy it (assuming both fit my usages) If say it's a good bit more and the usages don't require it I'll go with the lower rating. I guess now it's from 25C to 30C decisions. A couple years ago it was choosing between 8C and 12C.

Steve