View Full Version : Ion Belt Drive
Chris said it was going to be out this week, so where is it?
Cheers,
Tom C
OICU812
12-01-2006, 01:45 PM
I'd like to see some pics and info as well, even though I sold my Ion :roll:
Shawn,
LOL, why did you do that! With a belt drive and our Neu's, the Ion is going to be #1 on 10-12-14s.
Looks like you're going to be a 50 sized only guy, which is probably not a bad idea since many parts and esp batteries fit all. Although the Ion works pretty well with my 5s1p evo20 packs on 10s1-2p configs. Actually has a lot more power (but eats more gears!) on 10s2p's (ie 7400).
Hope you add a Razor and Swift cf 620 (don't waste your time with the current Swift, it's like a cheap logo 10 3D) to your list soon and let us know what you think of them, and how they all compare to the rest of your fleet.
I'm pretty sure that your Logo 14's will continue to the best flyers due to their low power/weight ratio, but worst crashers ($'s wise). I crashed my old logo 20 a couple of times and it was always cheaper (but not very cheap!) to buy a logo 16 kit for re-builds. Are you going to add the mikado v-stab to these? Look's like a fun toy if you have the $'s (~$1000 I think).
Best of luck, and please keep in touch.
Cheers,
Tom C
WillJames
12-01-2006, 07:05 PM
The belt drive stuff is still being refined from what I hear, I will wait, it should really add a lot of options for the AWESOME Ion-X. So far it is my favorite heli I have ever owned, I LOVE how it flys and I will be adding the belt drive soon as well Tom.
ChrisS
12-01-2006, 09:32 PM
"Chris said it was going to be out this week"
Did not!
It is on the way though. That kit shares some of the same parts as the Razor, which is why some delay.
Chris
"Chris said it was going to be out this week"
Did not!
It is on the way though. That kit shares some of the same parts as the Razor, which is why some delay.
Chris
Sorry Chris, thought you said it in another thread but it was someone else who said you were going to have these out around now.
Cheers,
Tom C
OICU812
12-03-2006, 11:49 PM
Tom, not too woryy I may revisit the heli later, right now am building an E-Raptor soon, a 600 rex, and yes most very likely a Razor as well when they are released. :smokin:
Shawn,
Once you see us all throwing around the 12s belt drive Ion, You'll be back!
Cheers,
Tom C
G'day Mates,
I had a look at the MA store yesterday and was impressed with all the new Razor parts listed. In general, I thought that their prices seemed reasonable. Not Align prices, but heh you get what you pay for!
I was esp interested in the Razor drive pulley selection since these will probably be the ones that many of us soon-to-be Ion belt drivers will be using (together with a new 5mm motor mount with revised support fingers, and appropriate 10mm belt, I'd guess).
My first impression is that the belt pulley selection, which goes from 13t to 40t (with a 44t shown as a special order), looks pretty good. However, when I crunched the numbers to see what I'd need to target ~ 1950 hs, I estimated that I would need a 13t and 42t pulley's (~19.4:1). Murphy's Law, of course MA do not show a 42t pulley available. Using the 13t and 40t would give ~ 18.5:1 or ~+2100 hs with my neu.
To put it into perspective, guys running the Neu and current 2 stage gearing with 48t secondaries have ~19.2:1 gear ratio and this seems great for pretty hard 3D but I don't think that I'd be comfortable with this. I'm currently runnuing a pretty soft 2 stage setup with a 52t secondary and getting 1840 hs. This is a little low but I'm doing it to help make my secondary gears last untill the belt drive mod comes out.
The current razor pulley selection looks really good for low KV (like Actro) Ion users. Almost an unlimited combination of gears could be used. For higher KV Ion users with neu 1521/1.5 motors, the current selection look pretty limited and hopefully we'll see 42,44,46,48,50,52,54 pulleys so that we can fine-tune things, using 13-15t bottom end pulleys, a lot more. If I was going to 12s lipos, I guesstimate that I would want a 13t/50t combo to start with.
I guess using 95t and 100t main gears in place of the stock 90t gear will give more options as well. Man this is getting complicated!
Anyway, these are just my 1st impressions and back of the envelope calcs so please do not take them as gospel. Personally, I've never used a belt drive on a heli main gear before and I really do not know what efficiency drops, if any, need to be factored in. I'm sure that our MA sages, like Chris, will enlighten us all soon!
Cheers,
Tom C
WillJames
12-10-2006, 06:17 AM
Shot some video yesterday of Clint wringing out his Ion-X at 10:1 with the belt drive at 1700 nad 1800 on the head!! Event got to take a pull myself!!
Hopefully I can share the video with you guys. We also did a CC HV-85 setup video. Hope to have it posted today. :)
Will,
This might work ok with an Actro motor but not a Neu 1521/1.5f. I've found that my neu performance is pretty poor at 1840 hs (10s and 52t gear). If I go more than +/- 11 deg pitch, it bogs quite a bit. With this set-up, the heli is very smooth, but not very exciting to fly.
I installed a new 50t gear last week and together with a bit tighter gear mesh, a little back-pressure on the bottom motor mount rubbers, and +/- 10 deg pitch, this gives a lot more performance, and so far, very little gear wear. Surprisingly, the mahr back into the batteries after a 7 min run was about the same (2600-2800). I think that this indicates that the neu is operating at a more eficient power band.
I'll slowly add a bit more pitch, and then a bit of higher motor timing. I'll put my Wattsup meter on-board to help monitor things and let you know how I make out.
I suspect that as I add a bit more power to the system, I'll start to see some white grear dust!
Cheers,
Tom C
WillJames
12-14-2006, 07:59 AM
This might work ok with an Actro motor but not a Neu 1521/1.5f. I've found that my neu performance is pretty poor at 1840 hs (10s and 52t gear). If I go more than +/- 11 deg pitch, it bogs quite a bit. With this set-up, the heli is very smooth, but not very exciting to fly.
The NEU is a LOT more powerful withthe 48T. Try different gearing.
Clint's heli is not bogging, the blades are actually speeding up when they are loaded. GOV Mode baby!!
Ok, another couple of weeks have gone by and Razors are out (sans canopy) so where is the Ion belt drive mod?
I agree with you Will, the 48t probably gets the best 10s power from a Neu but this will require a ~19.2:1 ratio, one that the current Razor belt drives do not go up to. Given the high secondary gear wear, there is no way I'd go to a 48t gear (if you can find them anyway).
On a positive note, I'm really re-enjoying my neu/50T (stock, single gear), 1940 hs setup. At +/- 11 deg pitch this heli is great. A bit tighter gear mesh and a bit more back pressure on the bottom motor mount rubber has given me 20 flights with very little secondary gear wear. I have got another spare 50t gear and will probably keep this setup until these wear out.
I know that MA likes to get things right before releasing mods, but this is starting to get a little hard to take.
Cheers,
Tom C
WillJames
12-28-2006, 06:29 AM
The belt drive is in testing Tom. There are a few Ion-X machine flying with it. From what I understand, and I could be wrong.....
I think the holdup is that Tim is tweaking the belt setup on the Ion to use the same parts are the Razor, right now, the prototype belt setups are running a few different setups that are not compatible with the Razor. I think another holdup is waiting on custom pulleys for both the Razor and Ion to share or something like that. It is worth the wait IMHO, I'll get the production release when it is available.
I am in my shop staring at my Ion-X now wishing I could go fly. :( It is calling me. :arggg:
Thanks Will,
Will wait a little longer!
Cheers,
Tom C
Well, another week and no Ion belt drives. Align could and would have had a couple of upgrades out in this time. I guess we are all getting a little spoilt with Align's speed of delivery.
On a more serious note, when Align comes out with a proven 600 tail shaft drive, this might possibly blow the Razor out of the water. During the development stages of the Razor, I expressed my concern about launching it with a belt drive. When Align moves this concept out to a 90-sixed heli, look out Ion-x.
I have had very good performance with my Trex 600 and old Ion hacker motor (C50/15xl) and 77 esc with 17:1 ratio (10t mikado steel pinion and stock 170t main gear). I added a 40mm 5v pc fan to blow over the motor and this is keeping the temps below 150 deg after 6-7 minute runtimes. The headspeed (~2350 nominal) is a little high for me and I think that a 180t main gear would help solve this. I'm pretty sure that this will be available soon and should also give me another 1-2 min runtime to boot.
I have over 50 flights on my trex 600 and main gear wear is minimal. The Align gear material seems a little harder than the whiter/fluffier MA gears and seems to wear a lot better. Again, this leads me to believe that the Ion maybe just needed stronger secondary gears to begin with. I do not think that the thicker (5mm) motor plate and double secondary gears have done much to address the gear wear problem. I've found that a little back pressure on the bottom rubber motor mount has helped quite a bit though.
I printed out and read Chris's Razor power systems guide from the MA WebPages. This was a very good read and I recommend that everyone has a look at this.
One thing I noted from this excellent write-up was that secondary belt ratio's above 2.5:1 would require higher belt tensions and more maintenance. I also assume that higher belt tenions means more power draw, and less runtime as well. This does not fair too well with Neu 1521/1.5 users since the current equivalent 50t secondary is 3.33:1, the 48t is 3.2:1 and a 12s setup would require ~ 4:1.
I think this means that Ion belt users will need 500-600kv motors. This is too bad since the 1100kv neu inrunner is much more efficient than lower kv outrunners.
Anyway, 2007 will be an interesting year for 50-90 sized electric heli's!
All the best for 2007 and cheers,
Tom C
Searched the Internet to find out the difference in mechanical efficiency between spur gear, bevel gear and flat belt drive.
Didn't find anything really useful, maybe somebody have some facts. But what I found was that the average efficiency of a spur gear is app. 97% and the efficiency of a flat belt can be up to 98%.....
Well, think it has a lot to do with the size of the gear system, gear ratio and the material used for the belt etc. as one clearly can feel the extra resistance with a tail belt drive. So donīt think we will reach 98% efficiency with a belt drive system in our helicopters.
To me it makes logic that the more the belt have to bent, the more resistance, the harder material the belt is made of, the more resistance, and the higher gear ratioīs, the more resistance as the belt have to bent more times a minute, which gives low KV motors and advantage on the gear side if a flat belt is used.
In a tail belt drive the belt have to bend a lot caused by the small belt wheels involved, but on the main drive, it is much bigger belt wheels there is used, so maybe a belt drive for the main rotor only is not that bad after all when looked at it from the mechanical efficiency point of view.
I am not an engineer, so maybe somebody who knows something about this can come with some more facts about the mechanical efficiency in small belt drive gear systems.