Caving to Social Pressure

batjac Mon Nov 20, 2023 4:29 am

Okay, I am going to cave to the will of the weak and progressive. There is a large park/expo area about a mile from my house. It’s usually pretty empty, and I’ve checked the rules on flying RC planes there. There are no posted rules against it, and I’ve checked the city park regulations and nothing prohibits it. But I figure that flying 1/2A planes might draw unwanted attention. So I’m giving in to the socially approved narrative and working on an electric plane to fly.

I was straightening out the closet and came across a spare EZ Bee fuselage and a couple of wing sets. So, what to do for power? About three years ago I bought a power pack from Willie Nillies. It has a motor, ESC, battery, and engine mount that looks like a Golden Bee. Yup. Should work. And it at least looks Cox powered.

I tried looking up the motor specs, but Willie Nillies no longer sells the package. Typing the motor into a search engine brought up a few references. Power outputs stated were 52W, 58W, and 85W(?). We’ll just call it 50 Watts. I went to Sceptre flight to find a review on the Babe Bee that the EZ Bee came with. Looks like about 42 Watts for a Babe Bee. So the motor should pull the EZ Bee just fine.

I pulled the engine out of my flying EZ Bee and traced out the firewall. The slot for the firewall in the cowl is 1/16” wide, so I took some 1/16” ply and cut it to the firewall shape, then two more pieces front and back to fit the slot outline. If you’ve had an EZ Bee you’ll understand what I’m saying.

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This is the motor. It’s actually a small quad copter motor. You can see how it mounts to the front of the motor mount. Unfortunately, even though the motor is the same size as a Golden Bee, the mounting pattern isn’t the same. That’s why I have an extra set of holes in the firewall.

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It should look pretty good when it’s done. I think I’ll call it my e-EZ Bee

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The Weak Mark

**944_Jim** Mon Nov 20, 2023 6:04 am

I'm "ee-mpressed" by this and am looking forward to the flight test.

getback Mon Nov 20, 2023 7:04 am

Cool that should Help keep you out of trouble with the sound laws Leaves

Yes flight report .

rsv1cox Mon Nov 20, 2023 7:53 am

Well if that isn't the darndest. I'm drawn to that false Golden Bee. Is it 3D printed or cast resin? Thinking the latter. To bad an electric motor would not fit inside the GB fuel tank. It's going to be fun to see the results.

rdw777 Mon Nov 20, 2023 7:58 am

Nice Mark, If it opens up another flying site for you then that’s a good thing….. I do the same thing, Electric in the city park which is a lot closer….. I look at them as good practice for the little screamers…. Fly’in is fly’in after all ….I use the B4UFLY app which gives you a green light if air traffic is clear and take a screenshot of it before flying in the park…. Just in case was ever questioned about it ….

cstatman Mon Nov 20, 2023 10:30 am

rsv1cox wrote:Well if that isn't the darndest. I'm drawn to that false Golden Bee. Is it 3D printed or cast resin? Thinking the latter. To bad an electric motor would not fit inside the GB fuel tank. It's going to be fun to see the results.

ya can find em here:
https://willynillies.com/buy-here/ols/categories/cox-motor-mounts

https://willynillies.com/buy-here/ols/products/cox-td-010-power-pack

I wanted to get into electric, a little, but it turns out I love being covered in castor too much! Smile

rsv1cox Mon Nov 20, 2023 10:55 am

cstatman wrote:
rsv1cox wrote:Well if that isn't the darndest. I'm drawn to that false Golden Bee. Is it 3D printed or cast resin? Thinking the latter. To bad an electric motor would not fit inside the GB fuel tank. It's going to be fun to see the results.

ya can find em here:
https://willynillies.com/buy-here/ols/categories/cox-motor-mounts

https://willynillies.com/buy-here/ols/products/cox-td-010-power-pack

I wanted to get into electric, a little, but it turns out I love being covered in castor too much!

Thanks for those links Charles, I have never shopped Willy. My tendencies are more toward the shabby side of the street.

My usual ebay search terms are - Broken balsa air plane, broken model airplane motor etc. etc.

batjac Mon Nov 20, 2023 1:50 pm

rsv1cox wrote:Well if that isn't the darndest. I'm drawn to that false Golden Bee. Is it 3D printed or cast resin? Thinking the latter. To bad an electric motor would not fit inside the GB fuel tank. It's going to be fun to see the results.

I didn't think about that. I know it's been done with Cox engines before. Looking at that mount, it seems that it should be easy to install a bearing in the front and work out something for the back to mount a motor inside or on the other side of the firewall.

The Passthrough Mark

HalfaDave Mon Nov 20, 2023 6:02 pm

Hi batjac,
The only way I can handle flying electric is,
To plug in my 70s era HeathKit pencil soldering iron, drop BeNol castor on it, and inhale !
Then go flying... Smile

The WillyNilly stuff is very inspiring. (too hard to get in Canada)
This summer, I have found many local sites with a 250g/24in span. Easy twice the wt and 36in span sites.
I have let Cops fly my planes...
It is just a matter of time,
We will fire up Cox Engines and it will be the next Cool, again ! Very Happy

Take care,
Have Fun,
Dave

batjac Tue Nov 21, 2023 4:06 am

Okay. I got all the electronics soldered and a battery charged so I could verify the control setups. The rudder and elevator servos were good, but I kept getting a continual beeping and jittering from the motor. I tried everything I could to figure out what was wrong with the motor connection. Then, just for fun, I decided to check what kind of model the transmitter was set on. Doh! The model was set to "Glider" mode. No wonder the motor was jittery. There was no throttle signal. Changing it back to "Acro" mode fixed it. I even had the motor leads in the right order.

Here's what it looks like all set up.

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It'll look better from a distance.

Now I just have to figure out how to create a battery hatch for quick battery swaps and to hook up the battery lead before flight. I'm using between 500mAh and 1000mAh batteries, which are pretty small. I'm thinking I might just cut a hatch in the cowl on the right side between the firewall and the windshield area.

I'll probably be ~~lazy~~ resourceful and reuse the wing from the Thermal Hawk instead of making up a new wing. Having three of the foam wings presents storage headaches. And since the EZ Bee and the Thermal Hawk use the same wing, might as well do that and leave the NIP wings in pristine condition for later. Besides, I've always thought about building a custom balsa fuselage for the EZ Bee wing. Gotta be lighter than the solid foam block that the EZ Bee fuselage is.

The Jittery Mark

MauricioB Tue Nov 21, 2023 7:01 am

batjac wrote:

Mark

Friend, that adaptation configuration looks incredibly beautiful... congratulations!

rsv1cox Tue Nov 21, 2023 7:36 am

I like it.

The electric motor does not overwhelm either the false Golden Bee or the airplane. Colorful too.

A winner!

andrew Tue Nov 21, 2023 10:08 am

rsv1cox wrote:
A winner!

My sentiments, exactly! What an excellent conversion.

rsv1cox wrote:
My tendencies are more toward the shabby side of the street.
My usual ebay search terms are - Broken balsa air plane, broken model airplane motor etc. etc.

I prefer: For parts or repair only. Did not run when tested.

cstatman Tue Nov 21, 2023 11:39 am

[quote="rsv1cox"][quote="cstatman"]

rsv1cox wrote:My tendencies are more toward the shabby side of the street.

#metoo.

rsv1cox Tue Nov 21, 2023 12:26 pm

Thanks guys.........I am not alone - I am not alone.......... Smile

Mark Boesen Tue Nov 21, 2023 2:36 pm

Love it!

batjac Tue Nov 21, 2023 10:34 pm

Okay, I cut a hatch behind the firewall on the right side.

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I do not have any magnets to hold the hatch closed. My wife has surgery tomorrow, and Thanksgiving is Thursday, so maybe I can get to the hobby shop on Friday or Saturday. 'Till then, I'll just use tape to hold it closed.

The Nursemaid Mark

edit: I think I'll forego the magnets. I'm going to mount the ESC on the left side of the pocket designed for the flight pack battery, the LiPo battery will be on the right side. I doubt that the magnets would really cause a problem, but better to just avoid the issue. A little piece of packing tape across the top should do a good job of keeping the hatch closed, and be easy to pull open.

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The Cautious Mark

Yabby Wed Nov 22, 2023 5:05 am

we are very fortunate in Adelaide South Australia. The actual city part of 1 sqare mile is ringed by public park lands. The Adelaide Aero Modellers club has a lease on a field in those parklands that gives us exclusive use of the field on saturdays to fly CL models. engines 15 and up have to use mufflers if glow. for some reason diesels dont have to use mufflers. The field is big enough for four circles. we have another lease with the council on another field in the parklands that is 7 days a week. there are others available for electric models. hopefully they stay open to our use. Flying

rdw777 Wed Nov 22, 2023 10:41 am

Great place for a hatch Mark, Looks kind of scalish….. I really like the printed engine…. Just goes with the plane… Will be an awesome park flyer Thumbs Up

Sounds like a wonderful place to fly Yabby…. And a pretty good following of members to have that much room to fly in…. Hope it lasts a very long time for you guys!

batjac Wed Nov 22, 2023 11:44 am

rdw777 wrote:Great place for a hatch Mark, Looks kind of scalish…..

I carefully cut along the molded panel lines to make it so.

The Tracer Mark

batjac Thu Nov 23, 2023 1:36 am

Okay, it's all done. I scavenged a couple of servos for this. I used servo tape to hold the ESC and receiver in place.

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Plenty of battery room. This is the 500mAh battery that came in the Willie Nillies package. But a 1000mAh pack fits in nicely also.

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Metal gear servos are a little overkill, but they're all I had in that size. I didn't want to use 9 gram servos, and these are the only things that I have short of standard size servos.

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Now to find a calm day to try this out. I'm starting to get a little skeptical about the motor. I guess I just like more power in my models. I've found a couple of 1806 motors on Amazon in the 70 Watt range in case this one doesn't work.

The Tool Man Mark

getback Thu Nov 23, 2023 7:08 am

Hope it fly's good for you Mark and get a bunch of fun time with the model . RC Plane

andrew Thu Nov 23, 2023 9:56 am

batjac wrote:Okay, it's all done. I scavenged a couple of servos for this. I used servo tape to hold the ESC and receiver in place.

.................Metal gear servos are a little overkill, but they're all I had in that size. I didn't want to use 9 gram servos, and these are the only things that I have short of standard size servos.

I think your choice of metal geared servos is just fine. These small servos have such delicate gear trains that any lumps or bumps can crack or shed teeth, sometimes showing up at the worst possible times. Even with smaller electrics, I now use only full metal geared servos -- weight penalty is about 3 grams -- small price to pay for peace of mind.

Looking forward to the maiden.

andrew

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