Power for an Extended Wing Lazy Bee

[RichardTee]

I’m about to start building a Lazy Bee with the 50 inch span Extended Wing with ailerons.

I intend to power it with a GWS 2312/13T motor and a 3 cell LiPo about 2100 mAh capacity, the speed being controlled with a GWESC25A Controller.. I have the motor and speed controller already but not the battery. (I did buy an Impulse one but I allowed it to go flat so it won’t charge any more). The propeller is a vivid orange EP 9070 (9 x 7) but I can obviously play around with the choice of propeller.

This combination was recommended by my local model shop but I wondered if anyone could offer opinions as to whether it will provide sufficient power. With a Lazy bee I’m after a fun flyer, little more than just floating around but it is nice to have a bit of power in hand for emergencies (aka poor piloting).

[Geoff S]

My very old 48" ws Lazy Bee started out with a 7 cell NiCad pack, a 600 size motor with a toothed belt drive gearbox. It didn't cope very well with wind and when the teeth wore on the drive pulley drifted away downwind and was lost. Fortunately the farmer found it with an intact wing and damaged fuselage.

Now repaired, it has a brushless set up and I fly it on 3S LiPo 2200 pack. Can't remember what the motor/prop combination is - a cheap motor, certainly The most important tool an electric flyer can own is a means of measuring current draw in operation. Modern Wattmeters are very cheap compared to the Astroflight one I still use and well worth buying.

I'm fairly sure your set up will work and in any case it's worth trying as you already own it. But check the current draw and change the prop size (I don't think the colour matters ) to keep it withing the limits of both the esc and the motor.

You don't need much power for a Bee. They're very light (about 1kg?) so 150 to 200 watts should be adequate.

I haven't had mine out for ages. I'll take it up to the field next time I go.

Geoff

[RichardTee]

Thanks Geoff,

That's encouraging. At least I'm in the right ball park (I just noticed that I misquoted the motor number, it should be 2212/13T rather than 2312/13T).

Just in case I need to use a more powerful motor I'll make sure that fitting a larger motor is easy.

Thanks for the advice about the wattmeter, I hadn't thought of that. I'll look into it.

Richard

[Tim C]

You might check out a friends web site for details on his LB, currently powered by a motor a bit beefier than your 2212. Might help in your choice

 

**LINK**

Edited By Tim @ ModelMarkings.com on 21/12/2012 14:29:17