Okay, although we're still argueing with Plettenberg to get the money back, I will post our experiences since the first SkyJibs are falling from the sky:
We started to test the engines back in February with the Herkules board II v3, but two boards went up in flames during testing at about 50% power. This happened to another user in the MK- forum aswell, but we could not find any solution nor a problem which caused this, and the producers could not help us either, so we tried the standard BL-Ctrls 2.0 and ordered the Aerodrive board aswell.
We did some tests on the ground and had to adapt the max_setpoint value for different prop combinations, since the engines ran into rpm commutation problems at higher speeds. Not a big problem, this happens with other engines aswell.
But we saw another problem during the tests, which you can see here too:
http://youtu.be/EIR4DlNYrro
When hoovering and applying a faster throttle burst, you run into a torque overload. The engines can't deliver the torque to spin up the props fast enough and the copter starts to tilt away, engines start to scream the same time ->
see this video at about 1:00 after the fade out/fade in: http://youtu.be/EIR4DlNYrro
You can here this strange noise, similar to DKTeks video and you have a huge power loss which causes the copter to roll to a side. This happens with the standard MK-Bls aswell and even with 15x4 props and 14x5 props, which we tested afterwards.
The collegue from Germany who had issues with the Herkules board and the Orbits, did some tests too and experienced the same thing.
Soon after that, user achta who lives in my hometown, had similar issues. He had a small crash with this setup before and sent his engines and his Beta-Aerodrive in to the manufacturers for a hardware check, but everything seemed fine according to them. After getting the parts back, achta did some further checking with our input, and experienced the same problems with the Orbit 15 and Orbit 10.
The problem is now, that neither the distributor nor the manufacturer of the engines could help us. Aerodron (manufacturer of the Aerodrive) gave us some hints, but they're using Orbit 15 with slightly changed specs.
A Plettenberg technician explained the problems quite well to us, and gave us an advice to use much smaller props (12" for example) or go up to the Orbit 20 series (for quite a lot of cash of course).
The distributor (Dirk) called us individual cases and claimed, that hundreds of users are very happy with the engines and nobody has found any flaws till than. He said that he had tested hundreds of different setups and never experienced these problems. It got quite rude, and since then we're three companies sitting here with engines (achta has 30 of them) we can't use.
I sent my engines back to Plettenberg last week, since I bought them directly from them, and I hope I will get my money back.
The PDF from Dirk clearly stated a thrust table with 5s and 15x4 APC prop, and he wrote in the MK-Forum that these engines are especially "designed for the MK-Bl Ctrl 2.0".
Well, at least he is now stating, that you should stick to 4s instead of 5s. Too late for some of us.
Sorry DKTek for holding back these first hand information, but the manufacturer and the distributor told us not to post any of this issues on the internet. Nevertheless I'm doing it know, since this can cost a lot of money and even cause serious injuries...
We started to test the engines back in February with the Herkules board II v3, but two boards went up in flames during testing at about 50% power. This happened to another user in the MK- forum aswell, but we could not find any solution nor a problem which caused this, and the producers could not help us either, so we tried the standard BL-Ctrls 2.0 and ordered the Aerodrive board aswell.
We did some tests on the ground and had to adapt the max_setpoint value for different prop combinations, since the engines ran into rpm commutation problems at higher speeds. Not a big problem, this happens with other engines aswell.
But we saw another problem during the tests, which you can see here too:
http://youtu.be/EIR4DlNYrro
When hoovering and applying a faster throttle burst, you run into a torque overload. The engines can't deliver the torque to spin up the props fast enough and the copter starts to tilt away, engines start to scream the same time ->
see this video at about 1:00 after the fade out/fade in: http://youtu.be/EIR4DlNYrro
You can here this strange noise, similar to DKTeks video and you have a huge power loss which causes the copter to roll to a side. This happens with the standard MK-Bls aswell and even with 15x4 props and 14x5 props, which we tested afterwards.
The collegue from Germany who had issues with the Herkules board and the Orbits, did some tests too and experienced the same thing.
Soon after that, user achta who lives in my hometown, had similar issues. He had a small crash with this setup before and sent his engines and his Beta-Aerodrive in to the manufacturers for a hardware check, but everything seemed fine according to them. After getting the parts back, achta did some further checking with our input, and experienced the same problems with the Orbit 15 and Orbit 10.
The problem is now, that neither the distributor nor the manufacturer of the engines could help us. Aerodron (manufacturer of the Aerodrive) gave us some hints, but they're using Orbit 15 with slightly changed specs.
A Plettenberg technician explained the problems quite well to us, and gave us an advice to use much smaller props (12" for example) or go up to the Orbit 20 series (for quite a lot of cash of course).
The distributor (Dirk) called us individual cases and claimed, that hundreds of users are very happy with the engines and nobody has found any flaws till than. He said that he had tested hundreds of different setups and never experienced these problems. It got quite rude, and since then we're three companies sitting here with engines (achta has 30 of them) we can't use.
I sent my engines back to Plettenberg last week, since I bought them directly from them, and I hope I will get my money back.
The PDF from Dirk clearly stated a thrust table with 5s and 15x4 APC prop, and he wrote in the MK-Forum that these engines are especially "designed for the MK-Bl Ctrl 2.0".
Well, at least he is now stating, that you should stick to 4s instead of 5s. Too late for some of us.
Sorry DKTek for holding back these first hand information, but the manufacturer and the distributor told us not to post any of this issues on the internet. Nevertheless I'm doing it know, since this can cost a lot of money and even cause serious injuries...
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