supremebeholder
June 14th, 2008, 08:00 AM
Don’t use cheap batteries.
My P-51 is now in pieces because I had some cheap batteries that I picked up someplace on sale in the transmitter.
I went flying this morning and before I left the house I checked the voltage on the batteries. I kept the batteries out of the tx and I put them in when I go flying, and I always check the voltage with a multimeter (I’m a little paranoid in this aspect). They were all above 1.5v.
So I’m about 5 mins into the flight and while the plane is going away from me I notice a brief (about a second) loss of control. It wasn’t an immediate problem because I was going straight and level, but when it responded again I brought it in for a landing. I got it back to me and started circling it down to where it was low enough to land and while it was doing this it stopped responding completely. I didn’t have a lot of time, but I tried everything including shutting off the tx, but to no avail. It stalled in the gentle turn and nosed straight down into my field, hitting one of about 3 rocks in a football field sized area.
When I got everything back inside, I checked the tx and it didn’t come on, so I pulled the batteries and one of them is now reading less than half a volt and it is leaking.
The cheap batteries that might have saved me $4 are probably going to cost me close to $100 in parts. From now on I’m using only brand name alkalines.
My P-51 is now in pieces because I had some cheap batteries that I picked up someplace on sale in the transmitter.
I went flying this morning and before I left the house I checked the voltage on the batteries. I kept the batteries out of the tx and I put them in when I go flying, and I always check the voltage with a multimeter (I’m a little paranoid in this aspect). They were all above 1.5v.
So I’m about 5 mins into the flight and while the plane is going away from me I notice a brief (about a second) loss of control. It wasn’t an immediate problem because I was going straight and level, but when it responded again I brought it in for a landing. I got it back to me and started circling it down to where it was low enough to land and while it was doing this it stopped responding completely. I didn’t have a lot of time, but I tried everything including shutting off the tx, but to no avail. It stalled in the gentle turn and nosed straight down into my field, hitting one of about 3 rocks in a football field sized area.
When I got everything back inside, I checked the tx and it didn’t come on, so I pulled the batteries and one of them is now reading less than half a volt and it is leaking.
The cheap batteries that might have saved me $4 are probably going to cost me close to $100 in parts. From now on I’m using only brand name alkalines.