Andy-H

So I finally chickened out of building a Lion field pack in favour of buying a 50Ah 12v Lifepo4 battery, due to be delivered today. Before buying a suitable charger from the same company, I thought I would try out the chargers I already have, namely a ToolkitRC charger which has a setting for charging LiFe batteries (set the cell count for voltage) or alternatively, I have CTEK MXS 5.0 car battery charger which charges at 14.4v and then float charges at 13.6v. Any thoughts, advice or experience on charging this type of battery, and whether I should use a purpose built lifepo4 charger or something such as I’ve mentioned above ?

Thanks for the suggestion but the problem still persists. I suspect the charger’s USB socket has gone awry. Most of the updates though seem to relate to other countries so at least the unit still operates.

Both good practical suggestions, thank you. I have ordered a spot welder as mentioned above, which seemed less likely to cause heat damage.

Thanks all. Will mull it over - on the one hand a diy pack Li-ion pack would be cheaper & lighter, but with risks associated with soldering 30+ battles together. On the other, it would be simple to just buy a couple of 30ah Life batteries which are fairly small. Very interesting to hear others’ views on the subject.

I’ve been reading up on this forum about assembling a battery pack from li-ion cells for field charging, say 6S5P to give me 24v 30ah capacity or 6S8P for 40ah. I can understand why they are preferable and potentially safer than using big lipo packs. However, my concern is I believe e-bike batteries use this type of battery and there’s lots of press coverage about them catching fire. The alternative might be to use a couple of LiFePO4 leisure batteries, but they would be heavier. Is the difference that e-bike batteries tend to be fast charged, which is when problems can arise, whereas a battery pack for field charging use is likely to be slow charged ?

As it happens, this Spit was heading for a skip if I didn’t take it ……..

Thanks All. Interesting idea around separate treatments for the open and sheeted areas. I did think it might be worth installing independent servos for each aileron, but plenty of food for thought. Fortunately, although I don’t have the plan, I do have all of the magazines covering the build sequence, so I can see how it was put together. This will be one of my winter projects so once under way, I’ll post some pics. Thanks for your help and advice, much appreciated as ever.

I’ve recently been given an old model Spitfire by someone who has given up the hobby due to health reasons. It’s in need of a lot of TLC as the original covering (shiny iron on film ) is peeling badly so it really needs to be recovered. I’m also intending to convert to electric (from Leo 2 stroke motor) in the process. The model was built from a DeAgostini weekly magazine kit. Wings are built up with front & rear sheeting and open structure capped ribs in the middle. Rudder & tail surfaces are built up. Fuselage seems to be fully sheeted. Wingspan it’s c.56” This would be my first attempt at a warbird (my experience is mainly with building Mr Foss models) and I’m very taken with the Warbirds Replica approach but I think the open structures probably wouldn’t suit a brown paper solution. I would hate to spoil the model by duffing the finish so would really appreciate advice on ideas for replacing the original shiny film. Your thoughts & advice would be most welcome. Many thanks.

Thanks Both. E.D. - that sounds like a very practical solution, so much appreciated. Jon, it was your guidance that informed my understanding of tank location in the first place, so that’s very helpful. I’ll move the back tank into a position where I can set it the correct level.

Firstly, thanks to everyone who contributed to my request for advice on 4-stroke engines earlier in the year. I picked up a very clean OS 48 Surpass engine at the Old Warden show, together with some SMC Laser mix fuel. Put it in a test stand this week and lo & behold, it fired up almost immediately, thanks to the good advice received from the forum. Quite separately, I picked up an old Flair Puppeteer airframe (no engine) off eBay, initially with the thought of converting to electric. However, the firewall seemed to have been tailored for a 4-stroke, probably an OS48 as my engine ended up as a straight shoe-in. A couple of questions, if I may. Firstly, the tank previously installed was a Slec square tank sitting on top of the engine bearers behind the firewall. Earlier advice was for the top of the tank to be positioned roughly in line with the centreline of the carb. However, in this case, the top of the tank is about 2cm above the centre-line of the carb. Is this likely to be a problem ? If so, I can always relocate the tank into the centre bay of the fuselage, behind the old tank location, and set it at the correct height. Secondly, this OS48 has a choke fitted to the carb. Do I need to use this to prime the engine manually before using an electric starter, or would fuel be drawn in once the starter is applied ? I think later engines do away with the choke. Many thanks

Great stuff ! Thanks everyone, this is all really helpful.

ATM, my thoughts are to probably start off trying to print small parts - eg something like Mike has shown above - just to learn the basics. Also, there are designs for parts like scale pilots, vintage wheels to practice on. I’m playing with Fusion 360 to see how to put together a small design such as a receiver clip mount, and build up from there. I’m a long way off wanting to build a complete airframe just now !

Thanks. This is going to be my winter project, learning how to use one of these gadgets. Current thinking is either Ender 3 V3 / Bambu Labs A1 for ready assembled or at the other end of the scale, possibly a kit build Prusa MK4, based on a recommendation from a friend who’s given me a demo.

Great, thanks all. I did wonder whether ABS capability might be useful later on, so the guidance on what to use for what purpose is very helpful. Thank you.

I am thinking of buying a 3-d printer. One of the main parameters of which printer to buy seems to be the type of filament likely to be used. Just wondered what range of filament people use when printing parts for rc planes, bearing in mind component strength requirements and exposure to the elements, given the fact that these are flown outside. Would welcome any guidance on this.