Word of warning EP550

[Jungle Bob]

Hey Guys, keep an eye on your BEC batteries, mine has just given up the ghost after only half a dozen flights, could have been nasty!

[thedrill]

2 Crashes due to BEC battery. Changed to a 1320mah 3c, flight power evolite. and ultimate BEC no problems since.

[Pinecone]

Later ones don't come with that setup. I am running a Dimension Engineering SportBEC off the main pack.

[mjdee14]

Are we saying the lights are not accurate or the batt just died suddenly.

it took several flights before even 1 light went out....i kind of liked this arangement, are we saying there might be a problem....or just that ther might be some bad batteries out there?

[thedrill]

In my case the battery died suddenly Or rhte lights are not super accurate I don't know which It was after 2 flights at 5 min each

[Wazzer]

It was a dead Battery

Lights on BEC are not super accurate they are there as an indication only.

On Jungle's Hurricane battery was showing fully charged on charger but only one light was showing on the BEC.

Putting the voltmeter on the battery whilst it was plugged in and switched on, but no servo's running, the voltage was showing 5.5 volts Less than 3 volts per cell.

The pack did not Puff but it has deformed so it has been ditched and replaced with 1800 2S pack should provide plenty of flight time!!!

This was the standad pattery pack that came with the heli and has only had a few flights.

Please check you BEC packs regulary just in case!

Cheers

Ben

[bbagle1]

How heavy is too heavy for a receiver battery for this heli? I have a 1500mah 5 cell nimh from Nobs that weighs around five ounces but I am already building heavy so I don't wanna add too much extra weight. I also have a 6 volt reg if I decide to go lipo. Are the extra 2-3 ounces I would save worth it?

[Phoinix]

I use 800mAh 2S BEC packs, and i have never had a crash becouse of low BEC pack. I had one close call though. My experience: when your gyro or tail servo for that matter has some lag in its command axis, land as soon as possible, turn it off and replace the pack.

[istandalone]

i ordered a couple electrifly 2 cell lipos, 2100 mah. hopefully these won't be too heavy. but, then again, if i have a step down for the tail servo, i shouldn't need the bec, right? i'm running the rcp 18 1100kv, pheonix 60 esc, and the align b3x (i think that's the model) bec that came with a step down.

[Pinecone]

What servos? And the step down normally only reduces the voltage by 0.7 volts or so.

Remember 2S pack is 8.4 volts fuly charged. Spektrum Rxes can take it and some high end servos (JR 8717 and 9000s that I know of). But most other stuff can't.

[istandalone]

tower hobbies brand digi's. i know the servos are rated for 6v, and my esc i believe will send 6v to the rx/servos and i'll use the step down between the rx and tail servo. i'm just trying to figure out if i need to use the bec. in the end, probly i'll get better flight times if the bec is installed. i just wish i'd bought a esc that can handle more then 6 cells. i screwed myself on that one.

[bstock]

bbagle1 - don't worry about the little bit of extra weight on that pack. Since you are just starting out... the little bit extra is not going to hurt you. A little extra weight will actually make it more stable for you in learning to hover... and even when you move to forward flight, loops, rolls, etc. - it will be ok.

A lighter heli provides a higher power to weight ratio... but you are not going to need to worry about that until you want to really throw it around. (a lighter heli also gets slightly longer run times on the batts)

Get you center of gravity (CG) as close as you can with your batteries... that does help in having a more stable hover.