Hi all, What is your experience with max payload on a standard Cinestar 8? Thanks for any feedback Cheers, J
Jonathan what is your definition of a 'standard' Cinestar 8? Folks are operating with a number motors, props, battery types, boom lengths all of which help determine lifting capacity.
Hi Gary, Thanks for the reply. We are using the following components on our Cinestar 8. We are looking to upgrade to be able to support a 10 lb. payload. Okto XL Bl-Ctrl V2.0 Power Distribution Board QC-3328 Brushless Motors APC 14x5.5 blades 450 mm boom arms If there is anything in our collection that anyone feels is a weak link we would love any feedback as we are about to upgrade to a HL version using these items: Double Quadro 2XL Bl-Ctrl V3.0 Power Distribution Board Tiger 15x5 Carbon Fiber Propeller Tiger MN4012 Heavy Lift Motors 500 mm boom arms Thanks, J
You're looking at pretty much this: http://www.quadrocopter.com/CineStar-8-MK-Heavy-Lift-RTF_p_1156.html
Hi Ryan, I know this is a new-bee question but what is 24 AWU mean ? I have a pilot that flies for me and he is not available at the moment thankyou sir. J
All weight up Reason being is the amp draw per BL gets high above 24 and that is where most failures happen. Currently I am doing a short paper on the CS8/6 HL. How to best outfit them for the job at hand etc. For instance one thing I have started to do is run a pair of 6000 MAh 6s instead of a pair of 10k 6s when we fly the Carbon Dragon because the ~1200g weight difference adds nothing to my flights other then more amp draw on the BL's. The rig flys comfortable for 7 minutes with that setup (20% remaining) or 9 minutes with a pair of 10,000's (20% remaining). The amp draw per BL is about 1to 1.5a less and the whole rig runs a hell of a lot cooler with the smaller batteries. It also out performs a single 10,000 due to the lower amp draw per battery. Increased security too in a cell failure.
Thank you Ryan, I appreciate your feedback that was truly helpful. Quadracopter is telling me a max payload of 5 lb. for the Cinestar 8 with the gear that I mentioned in my previous post. We flew it fine at double that but now we are afraid we are pushing the rig to hard. With 10 lb. payload we are at about 55% power to get lift off. It seems to work great but after finding out the max payload is half what we were testing with we have sat her down until we find out what max truly is. I only have Quadracopter to rely on so we are grounded until further notice and will be upgrading to a heavy lift kit and selling our brand new Cinestar8 if need be. Hi Dave, Can you enlighten me a bit about your rig and what you have done to it to perform at those weights. We are ready to buy just want to make sure we purchase enough power for 10 lb. payload Thanks, J
QC's HL octo is what I run and it suits almost all my needs. What I should have said is amp draw per BL on those motors and props gets high above 24 AWU. So far between that and the HL hex I have yet to run into a job I can't do
Thanks Ryan, We are putting in our order for the HL, putting the new Cinestar 8 on the market. I appreciate all your advice. Safe flying, J
Sure, I removed the battery tray above the MK electronics and installed 2 battery trays down closer to the booms. I installed them on booms 3 and 6. This significantly improves the CG and flight characteristics. I found one 10,000 QC battery extremely top heavy and even 2 of them are even worst. Here's a couple pictures of some of my older setups that have the battery plate mods I talk about. Ignore where the GPS is on the first picture. The 3rd picture is the setup I currently run it just doesn't have batteries on it. I have also changed how I mount the external compass (as pictured below) I now use metal standoff's that are 55 mm in height. I also relocate the GPS and Navigation electronics above the flight control and use the external compass to keep the EMI away from the compass. I also found that the 10,000 QC batteries gives me 3 minutes more flight time in comparison to twto 6,000 batteries and about 5.5 minutes more than one 8,000 mah battery. I also use metal clamps for everything on the frame (yes even in a flat configuraiton). So I use 16 metal clamps on the hub, and 16 for each motor. I also elimnate the EC5 connector where it splits into 2 EC5 connectors for the batteries. I hard wire the single end of the splitter to the board and it just splits out to 2 EC5 connectors. I do this to eliminate one possible point of failure. I am very careful and delibrate about how I hard wire it so that there's no possible way the hardwire can come loose. I don't recommend this unless you are extremely good with soldering and wiring. Here's a X8 rig with KDE 4014 motors that I converted back to a flat 8 using 4120 motors. Current rig except I use 2 55mm metal standoff's to fasten the compass. I found it gave a more secure positive connection and less side t side board movement.
Hi Ryan, Thank you for such a detailed response your information is a great help. The photos are even better, we have been trying to decide about a dual battery set up and this is a great help. Cheers mate, J
Dave: I think others would benefit from seeing a close up of how you've soldered the single end of the Y-cable to the power distribution board -- assuming you can get to that without disassembling anything. Andy.
I'll jump in here and show you what I did, which is to make a 'Y' in the main leads from the PDB. The old way, (two EC5s added inline) is shown next to it.
Here's some pictures of my splitter. Please note these are not finished wires of the time that I took these pictures. I am showing them to illustrate how I wrap the wires around each other before I solder them. I like to wrap them around each other tight so that if the wire ever got super hot and the solder started to melt (for what ever reason) there would still be a chance for them to stay connected. I use a lot of solder and have it flow very good on the wires without cold solder joints. I then use some electronic grease before I heat shrink the wires. In this picture you will see that I just started to solder the wire after I wrapped the wires together. This is by no means a finished wire just wanted to illustrate how I wrap them.