My A123

[ghostrider414]

Just built these and so far there great tried them out today 4 flights. :D

[Finless]

Man... that battery looks like it weighs more than the heli!

Bob

[spork]

Mine was nose-heavy when I tried to put all four up front. How's your balance?

[ghostrider414]

Not bad A little heavy but not in to 3D just sport for now but i like them so far got plenty of power get 10 min easy and i like the fast charge!

[rcboosted]

Bob, I have my A123 pack here, I'm about to mod it. If you have a charger capable of charging A123 (I don't have one yet) you can take a few test flights with mine if you want. I can bring it to Arbor and you can charge and let it rip. That way we can finally know what Bob really thinks of these A123s.

[Finless]

DANG MAN.... I dont have the update in my 1010 to do A123 but I would sure like to try them! How do you plan to charge them?

I wish I knew someone out at Arbor that had a 1010 cable... I would bring my laptop and flash mine.

Bob

[rcboosted]

I don't have a suitable 4S balance connector yet, I'll probably have it by next weekend. For charging, I have Cellpro 4S, but I need to send it back to FMA for reflash. This is going to have a 2 week down time... I can't wait that long! So I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I'll be sure to have the balance connectors hooked up by next weekend though. It's going to be an align/apex/dn power type balance connector.

[Finless]

I bet I have a balancer that will work! In fact I know I do... It is hyperion style not TP. Want it?

bob

[rcboosted]

I will need 4 of them. :) But sure I'll take that if you have no use for it. :)

[xStatiCa]

Not bad A little heavy but not in to 3D just sport for now but i like them so far got plenty of power get 10 min easy and i like the fast charge!

If you have the spare time and an extra helper could you load up the heli with the canapy on and take a side profile picture while holding the heli by the flybar and the blades are straight with the boom and canopy? It would be great if you could do it with a normal lipo too to have a reference :). It would help show how far the balance is off.

If the balance is too far off for me I won't even consider them.

[ghostrider414]

Here you go pic with A123's cg not bad.

[Finless]

Well I flew a set of these last weekend.... Power was good... Weight on the other hand SUCKED! Can you do 3D sure but it will suffer do to the 4S weight.

My thoughts are if you just doing basic studd these will be fine. When you want to trow it around....NO WAY! Again power was there but the trade for weight was the issue.

Bob

[DarkWombat]

Hmm that's a bummer. But I'm sure that in a few months they will develop lighter weight packs. In any case the technology does have a lot of promise, maybe not with micro helicopters but I wonder if they work well in a T-Rex 600....

Or for any scale/AP project with a little T-Rex the fact that you get good flight time and short recharge times sounds cool.

[Finless]

DarkWombat, that is AGREED! I keep telling people that 3-5 years electrics will dominate Nats and IRCHA and Nitros will be the minority! I get LAUGHED AT but mark my words... I do beleive that will happen why? Becasue that is where the money is being spent now and THAT is where manufacturers are investing!

Bob

[spork]

Well I flew a set of these last weekend.... Power was good... Weight on the other hand SUCKED! Can you do 3D sure but it will suffer do to the 4S weight.

I've wondered about this myself, so I did a few calcs. But let me preface this by saying the heli is definitely noticably heavier with 4 A123 cells, and I believe Finless when he says he doesn't like how it flies at this weight.

So...

Going from Pro-Lite 4S to A123 4S: disk loading increases by 11.6%

If you then go from 325 to 335 blades the disk loading is now increased by only 5% using the A123's

I'd love to compare this to a T-Rex 600 in Bob's favorite configuration (i.e. blade length and battery type/config). I suspect the T-Rex 450 with A123's may still have lower disk loading - but I just don't know.

[ghostrider414]

I agree there heavier my reason for trying these were
1 safety
2 quick charge
3 no need to discharge for storge
4 longer flight time