I'm brushless

[soulreaper]

I finished the Rio tonight. I've had a few setbacks, but its all good now. I will be heading out to the lake tomorrow morning as long as the weather holds. I hope this works.

Reaper.

[Steven Vaccaro]

Great, post some pictures if possible.

[soulreaper]

Its raining hard right now. Supposed to rain all day, (FIGURES). If the rain lets up just a little I will still attempt a test run. My plan is to place a plastic bag over the radio, however rain drops hitting the surface of the lake make it hard to see things clearly. This probably wont happen today. Sorry guys.

Reaper.

[soulreaper]

On my way to the lake even though it is still raining. If I dont test today I wont be able to test until Wednesday. I'll be back in an hour.

Reaper

[SweetZ28]

On my way to the lake even though it is still raining. If I dont test today I wont be able to test until Wednesday. I'll be back in an hour.

Reaper

Cool i had to do a test run in the rain one time and it was actually fun!
will be waiting on the results

[chummer]

What motor and ESC did you put in it? Waiting to see how you made out...

[soulreaper]

Hi guys had a couple of problems. First the Pistix that Im using in order to use my airplane esc would not let me go full throttle. When you applied full throttle it would reach max rpm for one second and then go to 75 percent throttle. I noticed that when I originally set up the Pistix it did that with the servo (thats how you orginally set up the Pistix). The servo would go to full travel and then back off by itself. Second the prop walk was uncontrollable. No matter how slow I tried to apply the throttle the boat just tried to roll itself over. I tested with the stock prop that came with the boat. The boat was still alot faster than stock.

Solutions. I finally figured out how to make my airplane esc work without using the Pistix. Now I get full throttle. (Problem solved) second I found a smaller prop that I had ordered my Apache 24 that did not fit the shaft. Well the prop fits the Rio. I dont remember what size the prop is. It is alot smaller. So after typing this I'm headed back to the lake for another trial.

The motor never got hot on the first test runs. The motor is a EZrun 2350kv monster truck motor. I run the same motor in my traxxas E-maxx, which weights 8+pounds. The Ezrun has more torque and power than the TWO stock titan 550 motors that came with the truck. The esc I'm using is an Hobbywing platinum 100amp airplane esc. I'm using a 3cell 30c 3000mah lipo. Thats all for now. Be back in hour. Stay tuned

Reaper.

[SweetZ28]

cool hope all goes well.

[Rumdog]

How'd it work without pistix? What tx, The tactic?

[soulreaper]

Rumdog I didn't use the Pistix because it would not let me go full throttle. I figured out how to get by without it. I had no issues at all. In my "PISTIX HELP" post, I mentioned that I could get the esc to arm and learn max and low throttle but once you unplugged the battery and then plugged it back in you had to repeat the throttle postion learning again. This went away when the Pistix was plugged into the system. I dont know why but it did. Anyway I found out that with the Pistix removed all I had to do was turn on the tx and hold or rubber band the brake to full on, during power up. After it armes let go or remove rubber band and let the trigger return to neutral positon. Works fine after that. Problem solved.
l
Reaper

[soulreaper]

THIS IS GOING TO BE A LONG POST. Second test was very good. No major problems. The prop was a little small, but the boat still got up on plane fairly quick. The EZrun motor never got hot. In fact it was barely warm (hard to believe right?) but its true, this motor has so much torque its not funny. Anyway the esc as far as I could tell did not get to hot because it Never shut off. Prop walk WAS controllable this time around. The motor reached Max rpm after the first twenty feet. I know this is true because if the motor did not reach max rpm it would have heated up, but it didnt. I dont have any speed measuring devices but Im pretty sure I broke the twenty mph barrier. I did not go faster because prop is a little small and the motor reached max load rpm. The motor is a 2350kv x 11.1v=26085 no load rpm right? Since prop walk is controllable I dont know if I should increase prop size or buy a four cell 14.8v lipo and try that. That would give me a no load rpm of 34780 right? Boat would go faster and the walk would still be controllable.

Minor problem. After the Rio comes on plane and picks up speed it seems to sink down lower in the water and starts to plow the water instead of running ontop of it. I figure the extra weight of the 4th cell might help with that. SUGGESTIONS please.

Reaper

[Rumdog]

tyr to get the cg farther back. got any pics? It should be around 28-30 percent from the transom. What mah lipos are you running? The prob could be the motor is physically too large and adding too much weight forward of the cg. that hull only really needs a 540s or 380l to push it well into the high thirties.

[soulreaper]

I think your right about the cg being off, but everything that I have installed except for the motor are in the orginal places( water tight box). Besides adding a heavier battery I dont know how to move the cg back. Your right about the motor is it heavier than than most brushless motors. I used this one because I had it on hand, and did not have to order. Im running 3000mah. Since you read my post about the tests what do you recommend I do. Bigger prop for speed or bigger lipo for speed and CG?

Reaper

[Rumdog]

Bigger prop is gonna give you prop walk. Order up some plastic props from ose. Stay under 40mm and you should have little propwalk. If yo ran 2s2p for 4s total you could run them parallel the motor in the back of the hull. You would prob. have to lose the radio box though.

[soulreaper]

Rumdog thanks for the advice. I'll probably end up trying a 4cell for the CG. I dont know enough and I dont have the skill needed to relocate the motor to the back of the boat.

Reaper.

[Brushless55]

Where is your CG at?

[soulreaper]

Im not exactly sure. Rumdog said it should be 28-30 from the transom, Im still not sure how to properly check the cg. It would be easy if it were in "inches from the transom"

Reaper

[thegreat1]

soul measure the hull from bow to stern then multiply that number by .28-.30 and that is the distance from the transome where the ballance pint should be.

[soulreaper]

Okay I understand now. Thanks great 1

Reaper

[Brushless55]

I theck my SV amd and set my CG at 28% and picked up more speed!

[soulreaper]

Update on my setup.

In about an hour I will be heading out to the lake again for another brushless run. since my last post I have now upgraded to a 4 cell 2800mah 30c lipo. The prop I will be using today is a plastic 35mm prop that I purchased from OSE. I went to the 4cell lipo because Im thinking that the heavier battery will move my cg back far enough to get the boat to come up on a plane. I think the 35mm prop will be enough to get the boat moving and still be able to control prop walk. I must admitt that I AM NOT confident that this setup will work but I will keep trying because I really like this boat. I will post results good or bad by 2pm. If everything works out right I will then recharge the battery and drag the wife out to the lake with me to get some video. We dont have a video camera just a camera that takes video. I will then beg for some help on how to post a video on youtube and then on this forum. Thanks for reading.

Reaper.

[Brushless55]

Awesome, let us know and I hope your wife can help get the video for you..

[soulreaper]

Not a lot of change. More speed, but I was not able to go full throttle. Prop walk was again uncontrollable. I will switch back to the smaller prop. I tried bending the trim tabs but could not get it right. I will try again tomorrow. Boat came on plane a little better but still not like it should. Motor and esc still does not heat up. Im impressed with the esc, becaue it is an airplane esc, with no water cooling. Back to the drawing board.

Reaper.

[Brushless55]

make sure you have a good cog and your strut is set good..

[hyrulejedi86]

Take a video of your runs and post them so we can see what is going on better. I would like to see what it looks like anyhow! I hope you get it working consistently well, soon.