You should go towards
more
cooling, rather than less, and pay particular attention that the area
of the
exit
area for the cooling airflow is at least as big as the air entry area. Open up the cool-
ing entrance in the lower front of the cowling as shown in the photos.
Cut out the full triangular shape in the front of the cowling and build a baffle from foam-board to
direct the air over the speed-controller and battery, as shown. Make your 1st engine test-run, or
flight, quite short, without using full power, and after landing check the temperature of the motor,
LiPo battery and speed controller. If they are too warm, then you
must
increase the cooling air-
flow over these components - or they will be damaged and could even cause a fire in the plane
in extreme cases.
Battery Handling
As battery technology advances at a rapid rate,
the use of LiPo flight and receiver batteries is
becoming quite common, but (like with all batter-
ies) there are still dangers and it is
most impor-
tant
that you exactly follow the battery manufac-
turers advice on storage and charging, and use
the charger and charging rates that they recom-
mend. Do
NOT
leave your LiPo batteries un-
attended during charging.
Important:
When installing the battery(ies) in the model before a flight, make sure that no con-
nectors can touch each other and cause a short circuit. To be safe apply a bit of masking tape
to
all
connections while installing them in the plane, and glue a short length of clear silicone or
plastic tube over each male and female connector (see photo) to make sure they cannot acci-
dentally touch in flight.
So that you can make the final connection between your batteries and the motor just before your
flight, after you have switched on your R/C system, we use a pair of the standard 4mm gold con-
nector pins glued into the outside of the airframe and use a very short thick cable with opposing
connectors to ‘arm’ the system without having to remove the canopy or cowling.
Composite-ARF IMPACT
29
Please note:
The Electric-Flight scene, and it’s technology, are advancing so rapidly that new Motors,
Speed Controllers and Batteries become available all the time. At the time this manual
was written the Hacker C50, Plettenberg 25-13 and other components mentioned here
were top-of-the-line products suited to this aircraft. So don’t be surprised when some
of these parts are already outdated by the time you receive your Impact !