Yesterday we went to see Urs Leodolter at Leomotion.com to select and purchase our electronics. All the gliders built by members of our team in the last few year are equipped with electric components supplied by Leomotion. His electric engines are just great, and his support with choosing the best engine and components is unmatched. Together with Chocofly he now has his own Chocomotion servo range. We tested the 8mm and the retractable gear servos on the pre-production version of the new 1:3.5 Chocofly Diana2 in autumn last year and really liked them (this Diana2 is actually the commercial version of a previous development by members of our team, still the best plane I’ve ever flown). The retractable gear servo has plenty of power and automatically powers down as soon as it draws more than 2.3A (very useful when the landing gear is stuck). The 8mm servos also very powerful and precise with good centering. So we decided to go for Chocomotion servos, with the exception of the elevator, where we went for the ever faithful Futaba 3174, and the outer ailerons on the 5.14m (18m) outer wings, where we took the brand new and very powerful KST X08Plus.
Three of our planes will have an electric engine. This is simply because we like to go flying very often, our club’s airfield is too small for aerotowing and thermals usually only start from 80m upwards. Richie flies with another club which has an airfield up on a slope where he has more options to fly without an engine. And he is the best at landing his gliders way out in the valley, almost out of sight, when thermals fail (and likes long walks!). We will install an outrunner engine, as the fuselage is just about large enough to accommodate one. ESC will be a Castle Phoenix Lite 100, which never fails and is a dream to install and program. We will use the power supply from the ESC, but backed up by a backup power supply that was developed within our club (with and 1800 LiFe battery that automatically recharges from the power train’s LiPos and provides backup power as soon as the power supply drops below 7v).
The retractable gear is one that was also developed within our club and of which we had quite a few built. Unfortunately we’re almost running out, but Chocofly is developing a new gear that we hope can succeed it.
