Jazz 55-10-32 on Ion

[FrittsLogic]

Well, rfaster tempted me to try out a Jazz 55-10-32 on my Ion. So I've done just that. I don't have time to get to the field until after next week (I'll post results once known), but I was able to get in a hover test in the back yard. This Ion is a two stager with 54T 1st stage reduction gear with stock Hacker motor. Flying Thunder Tiger 680mm blades on a Tempest 3D head. Test used TP 6000 prolites. Flew for 4 minutes at 1600rpm (55% thr curve) then 4min at 1800 rpm(70% thr curve), all in governor mode. I didn't have the elogger, but my main concern was how it spooled up, how well it shifted between speeds, and most importantly how hot did the ESC get. Well everything is sweet so far, just like in every other heli/Jazz combo I've flown. ESC was 110F at end of test. I would guess avg current was 25A, so I don't really expect the Jazz to be tested well until I get back from vacation. I'll use the micrologger with a temp probe attached to the Jazz. With the knowledge that there's no high current shut down when in Heli mode, and that the 65A surge limit is rated for a 15sec surge, I expect it should be no problem for the much shorter surges we put on 10S machines. The highest I've been able to spike this motor/gearing/battery combo previously has been 80A. If this works out well, the Actro bird will be the next guinea pig.

[Bert Kammerer]

You should hopefully have no issues at all. I have been flying an MXR500 prototype with the Jazz 55-10-32 and have tried several different motors. I am currently flying a Neu 1515 that pulls peaks of 100 amps! The ESC is handing it just fine! Of course, the average current is well below 55 amps. These ESC's work exceptionally well!

Let us know how it goes.

[rfaster]

Fritts -Great! perhaps I don't need the Vapor ware Power Jazz after all. Not sure I can wait until you get back for more flight tests... I may have to try it myself in my Acto Ion.

Btw - where does someone who lives in Hawaii go for vacation :D

[TomC]

Bert,

If you ever run this esc on a much heavier Ion-x, and can still pull 100 amps peak out of it with hard 3D, please let us all know. I really do not know, but I'd suspect it would flame-out pretty quickly.

Rfaster, try this out at your own risk/cost. I would think that the Actro motor would be the best/hardest test. Good luck.

Cheers,

Tom C

[Bert Kammerer]

Tom, the Jazz is an excellent controller, it has an outstanding thermal protection feature, it shouldn't frame-out, it should simply go into cut-off if its internal temp reaches 150 or above. If you guys are going to use this controller in the Ion, you might want to gear the helicopter to run a high throttle curve setting on the Jazz with the governor mode enabled, i.e. 90% or higher would be ideal.

[BobbySmith]

Frittz keep us posted as the Jazz is used in the Jokers as well i think for sport flying it will be a great controller but if you want to do some hard 3d you will see it thermal. I was going to try one untill i seen a SCHULZE 32.55 thermal in one of my machines every time i would load into a funnel or hard maneuver it shut down so i never bother to try the Jazz for my style of flying.

Whatever you do dont change the gearing and run it @90% gov mode as it will be useless you would be better off regearing and going to Aero mode and setting up throttle curve as we have done with Hacker 77-O-h for the last year

I am on vacation this week cant wait to get back can we say 12s :twisted: :twisted: :smokin:

[TomC]

Bert,

If you want to send me a Jazz 55 I'd be happy to try it out on my Ion-x. Even at flat 100% idle-up throttle curves (which I now use with my hacker 77, after I flamed out the first one!), I'd be surprised if it could handle it.

If it can, then the Jazz 55 esc is grossly under-rated (or maybe the hacker 77 is grossly over-rated).

In any case, this seems worthy of a proper test by MA.

Cheers,

TomC

[FrittsLogic]

Well, I'm back from my vacation in Alaska and had the first flights with my Ion using the Jazz 55-10-32. I flew the same profile I usually do for testing (FFF, tight turns, climbs, stall turns, etc.). I'm using a two stager with stock Hacker motor, governor mode at 1700 rpm, I also flew it with evo 3700's rather than the tp 6000 prolites. I was very suprised at the differences between before and after. I expected a small drop in amps due to lower weight and more efficiency from the Jazz ESC (that automatically calibrates itself to the impedance of the motor). On previous flights with the stock hacker esc at 1650 rpm, and a few more ounces due to the prolites, my average current draw was 25 amps during the standard test profile. Now it's 16.1amps!!! I flew for 6 min 30 seconds and only used 1775mAh!!! When I landed, I immediately took the ESC temperature...101F on a 85F sunny day! I'll continue testing, using a temperature probe on the logger next time, and push it harder to see what it can do. I seriously doubt I can thermal it with my abilities. After this project, I'll test it out on the Actro 32-3 to see how well it can be calibrated by the Jazz. For mere mortal flyers like me, I think the Jazz 55-10-32 is the perfect choice for an Ion.

[OICU812]

Man Fritts that is exciting stuff man! Keep these experiementations coming! :lol:

[WillJames]

Very interesting Fritts. Thanks for the info.

[FrittsLogic]

More data from today's flights. I got the RPM optical sensor and temperature probe working on the micro-logger. Same set-up as before, except I've got rpm down to 1600 rpm, because I can. My hardest flight, FFF ckts and stall turns, using FP 3700's: average current = 15.4A, 6.4 minutes, 1714 mAh used, Max temp on surface of the Jazz during flight was 100F on a 84F ambient sunny day. Next time I'll go to 1700, then 1800, and so-on. I did some prelim hovering tests with the Actro 32-3 bird and did not see the same dramatic drop in current. I think the Jazz 55-10-32 and stock Hacker, and probably the Neu work very well together!

[OICU812]

Hmmm, man oh man Frits I can't wait till you get to 1800-2000 and start throwing some smack to it, if the esc holds in there at that speed and abuse I am sold! :glasses2:

[TomC]

Fritts,

Sounds very interesting. I still have a pretty hard time believing that a 10s Ion can hover below 20 amps, let alone, 15.4 amps! Are your mah's used from your data logger and charger lining up?

In any case, please keep up the good test work. Thanks.

Cheers,

Tom C

[FrittsLogic]

Yeah, I didn't believe it either at first. But now I have three logged flights and am seeing the same thing each time. The mAh charged back as reported by my 2 x TP 1010C's jive within a few percent. The flight I reported here, for example, was within 50mAh for each battery. I think it's due to two main factors. First, the Jazz is probably much more efficient by matching itself to the motor impedance. If so, it would greatly minimize reactive current, and non work producing heat. Second, I'm also experimenting with lower head speeds, which apparently greatly lowers parasitic drag. When testing on the Actro 32-3 at 1750 rpm, I got 26Amps, which seemed in line with my experinces on a Hacker ESC. I'll be jacking up the speed in steps to try to see what's really going on, Don.

[FrittsLogic]

More testing today, at 1660 rpm and 1800 rpm:

Test results Ion Tempest 3D, 8/13/06

Flight #1

Head speed: 1660 in gov mode
Iavg: 18.3 amps
Imax: 86.8 amps (full power climbout)
mAh by logger: 2120mAh
duration of flight by logger: 6.83 min
80% safe flight time: 9.5 min
Pavg: 692.6 watts
Pmax: 3081.2 watts
Tesc: 110F

Flight #2

Head speed: 1803 in gov mode
Iavg: 20.8 amps
Imax: 41.2 amps (stall turns)
mAh by logger: 2087mAh
duration of flight by logger: 5.98 min
80% safe flight time: 8.5 min
Pavg: 778.8 watts
Pmax: 1454.3 watts
Tesc: 109F


Submitted for your viewing pleasure, Don.

[OICU812]

Man oh man fritts , this is looking good! I am just waiting till you get in the 1940-1970 range and do some tic tocs and full climbouts, that will be the tail of the tape, something tells me it is going to be surprising for the positive side on using this.

:)

[FrittsLogic]

One other tidbit. the same model Jazz (55-10-32) running on my Lepton today with a 4S setup, doing similar flight profile at 2500rpm was 132F at the end of flight. On the Ion, the same ESC is barely noticeably warm after a flight.

[OICU812]

When you get the rpms over 1900 and start abusing the heli abit I look forward to those results Fritts! Please keep us informed! :lol:

[TomC]

Fritts,

Could you also include your Hacker motor temp on each run. Many thanks.

Cheers,

Tom C

[FrittsLogic]

the Hacker motor was 150F by IR gun after landing, at its hottest spot.

[TomC]

Thanks Fritts,

My Hacker motor temps are 145-155F with a 56T gear, 10s1p Evo20 3700's, and 1900 rpm zero pitch headspeed (~ 1850 nominal). My Hacker 77 esc is 110 degF. So my temps seem to be close to your 1800 run but my mah's in for a 6 minute run (very soft 3D) are 2600 mah vs your 2100 mah (~+24%, or about avg 26 amps in my case).

The Jazz esc might be more efficient, but moter/esc temps are about the same so I do not think that this would be more than a few % at best. I think that the difference is probably mainly due to how we time things.

I do not start timing my runs until soft spool-up is complete (~35 sec). Your data-logger is probably starting to time thngs after you plug the battery leads in. This may be giving you a lot lower average amp draw (and avg watts) and lead you to believe that your averages are actual running time. This might lead you to think that your total potential run times are a lot longer than you will be able to do within the 80% capacity limit (which is a good one in my mind).

Please do not take this the wrong way. What you are doing is very important/useful, and is something that MA should have done a long time ago!

Keep up the good work.

Best cheers,

Tom C

[OICU812]

Well I figured I had a flight in this secondary gear left so I did some puchouts as hard as I could and used as much sloppy collective as I could on my setup and used my micro logger and go the follwoing data. Just under 90 amps pulled, now can the 55-10-32 take that mcuh I dunno, if anyone else can confirm that it can I think it might be a winner as long as it can take that and does not get too hot. The temp recorded on the graph is the esc temp as I stuck a probe in it. In the beggning I was trying to get the tail all setup, the 5 minute straight session is the one to note, amp averages will be way off as well as the watts average, but peaks and temps most importantly are accurate.

I will get more data to contribute once I can.

[FrittsLogic]

I time my instrumented data runs from initiation of spool up as seen by sharply rising current, power , and RPM until throttle hold is hit at end of run. So I agree my spool up time will lower the average a bit, but it's 10 sec or less.

As to Shawn's question, I punched out at 86Amps with no change in ESC surface temperature (inflight data).

[FrittsLogic]

Another thing to consider on motor/esc heating is that we run three phase AC systems, really high frequency, but AC nonetheless. In such a system we have to deal with both REAL and REACTIVE loads. The relationship between them is called Power Factor (PF). If our source (ESC) and load (motor) have different PF's, then there will be excess reactive loading, either inductive or capacitive. This reactive loading doesn't create real mechanical work in the motor, but it does cause actual current flow. This excess, unuseable current flow does cause heating of all components, and must stay within the protective limits of the system (for us the thermal shutdown features of the ESC's), but it doesn't do anything for us mechanically. So if Kontronics' claims are correct, that their ESC's match themselves to the electrical characteristics of the motor, then we should expect less REAL power drained from our batteries for the same amount of work. Also, note that we only measure current on the DC inputs to the ESC, and on the DC chargeback values from our chargers. We never know what's happening on the AC end of the ESC, where reactive currents exist.

So...I'll keep logging all of my flights, and see how well I can distill the data into usefull, practical knowledge.

I've decided I'll keep the Jazz on my two stager, but I took the other one off of my Actro bird.

[BobbySmith]

Frits that is cool i recentely put a 40-160 in my Ion on a 32-4 wiht teh New TP 4600 cells on 12s performacne is breath taking it gets a good solid 5 minutes only putting 3800 back in teh packs also iam using GOV mode which is real solid

Iam spoiled now i wont even visit 10s any more this 12s is everythign i have wanted HS is good and performance is solid. Now that iam back from IRCHA iam goign to try some gear ratios and try to get it to 7 minutes that would just be awesome :smokin:


Bobby