Laser engine virgin, glow sceptic, advice and thoughts on use please.

[martin collins 1]

AS some of you on the forum know i am not a fan of glow engines having given them up 25 plus years ago due to the oil residue and mess they make of many models, i still occasionally have to pick one up, both two and four stroke for club mates following a flight and get covered in the same oily mess. I have flown mostly electric with a few larger petrols over the intervening years but now find myself considering flying a glow powered model again. The reason being i am a member of two clubs, one of which is mostly out of use over the winter months due to waterlogging of the track across to it and the length of grass for anything with undercarriage during those months, come the summer weekends are out as full size gliders use the site as well. My other club which i can fly at 24/7 from 10am till dusk has a noise limit of 82db which i am struggling to get down to with my 2 stroke petrol models, i am currently finishing off a quarter scale GeeBee Sportster which has an NGH 48 4 stroke petrol on it which hopefully will get under 82db. I bought a model at the BMFA Buckminster Swapmeet which would be a very nice large general semi scale sports flyer and it was fitted with a Laser 4 stroke which Jon tells me is a 100. Initial thoughts were to sell the glow engine off and put a petrol in it as to go electric would require 8s and i tend to limit myself to 6s due to the costs involved on the ESC and multiple expensive batteries to get 3 or 4 flights in a session. However to fly at my main site a 2 stroke petrol is going to be too noisy, i was leaning towards a Stinger 26 RE but there is a thread on here about making a new custom silencer with stinger tubes and filled with wire wool and still being 2db over 82. So the other option (and cheapest) is to put the Laser back in the model and fly it, i know they have just finished as a business and they have a great following on here but how much mess do they put out of the exhaust, i see there is a low oil content Laser fuel, would that work on my 1993 100 and what advice would laser users give to a glow sceptic like me re operating this engine?

[john stones 1 - Moderator]

I.C will make some mess on your model, tuned well and on good fuel, plus careful thought on the exhaust, It isn't an off putter to me, it's a down side to I.C, there are plus sides also.

[Andy Stephenson]

As far as the low oil Laser fuel is concerned, there was some suggestion that older Laser engines should use the standard Laser fuel since they weren't engineered to cope with low oil.

I have a 1986 Laser 75 which I will play safe with, the 150 I've had since the mid 90s I'm not sure about.

[Ron Gray]

Good luck with getting your NGH down below 82db! having owned a couple (now sold on) I found them to be noisy even with aftermarket silencers fitted, dirty and boy did they vibrate. Over the last couple of years I have sold off all of my petrol engines as they were all just too noisy with the exception of my remaining Laser GA 30 which I will keep! Stinger engines are extremely noisy, more so than DLEs! Regarding Laser engines running the low oil fuel are very clean and on average I would say that mine are no messier than the petrol engines I used to run but they are the newer Lasers. I do have 2 or 3 older ones running on standard fuel and they are certainly a bit messier but I'm OK with that as it means I can fly around with a model that sounds so good!

[Paul De Tourtoulon]

As said, no way will you get a 2 stroke petrol down to 82dB, I have a couple of old lasers, I put a couple of % of castor in all my fuel, to protect them, and as with any 4 stroke you can always add on another silencer, even an aluminium tube with wire wool in it, to silence and deflect the oil.

[David Davis]

Nearly all of my models are powered by four-stroke engines. I have a Magnum 52 and a Thunder Tiger 54 in my Barons and I've found that they do not leave a great deal of oil on the model after a day's flying. A squirt of household cleaner and a swift wipe down with a rag and that's it.

 

I have an old Laser 62 in a Big Guff vintage model. I run this engine on fuel containing 15% oil and I have an extension tube on the silencer which terminates just below the bottom of the fuselage. Some oil is left on the forward underside of the fuselage after a day's flying but otherwise its fine.

 

I use a more modern Laser 80 in a large ARTF clone of the SIG Kadet Senior. I run this engine on the new fuel which contains 7% oil. This hardly leaves any oil on the model at all.

 

My experience leads me to the belief that four-strokes burn the fuel more efficiently and therefore there is less mess to clean up at the end of the day. Not that I mind getting my hands dirty anyway! 😉 This view is reinforced if I ever have to drag out the club's Boomerang trainer currently powered by an Enya 50. This engine being a two stroke leaves the side of the model covered in unburnt oil.

 

Finally, and as a rule of thumb, if your Laser has a vertical glow plug, it's alright to run it on the new 7% fuel. If it has a forward facing glow plug, I'd be inclined to use a fuel containing 15% oil.

[martin collins 1]

This engine was made in 1993 and has the vertical plug in it so safe to run on the lower oil content fuel, is that the general consensus?

[Jon H]

4 hours ago, martin collins 1 said:

there is a low oil content Laser fuel, would that work on my 1993 100

 

yep it will be fine

 

4 hours ago, martin collins 1 said:

what advice would laser users give to a glow sceptic like me re operating this engine?

 

Tank in the right place, OS f plug, correct prop for model (what is it?)

With that sorted, start it, tune it, fly it. Repeat until tired, go home, crack open a beer (or beverage of your choice) and reflect on your day of flying. 

 

 

Hopefully the engine is in decent mechanical condition. I would recommend you whip the front housing off the engine and take peek inside before you run it. If its rusty or otherwise not nice change the bearings etc and then go from there. 

[martin collins 1]

Thanks for your advice Jon it is much appreciated, prop on it was a 15x8 and the airframe is a MedelTech Nutten Special, similar to their Dragon Lady but different cowl and tailplane.

[Jon H]

15x8 would get my vote in that model. use apc, master are rubbish. 

[martin collins 1]

The prop fitted to it was a Super Nylon, i know APC are great props.

[Nigel R]

Super nylon are fairly decent props. I prefer them to apc.

 

I wouldn't go out and get a new apc prop yet, use what you have.

[john stones 1 - Moderator]

Super Nylon, Graupner ?

[martin collins 1]

I believe so, it says made in Germany on it.