Eggtimer Quantum battery selection - some observations

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Charles_McG

Ciderwright
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Last night I finally got around to doing some ground testing with my Quantum. Not of the Quantum itself, but battery x igniter selections.

I started flying altimeters with an eggtimer Quark powered by the 180mAh ??C battery borrowed from my Boy's Cox Sky Ranger park flier. It seemed to work well enough. I've killed off a couple of those batteries (left in trees overnight :-( and replaced them with Venom 210mAh 20C which seemed to work equally well and were the same size. A size very handy or BT50, which is what my Quark Chute Tender is built in.

So now I have a Quantum, and have been working up to airstarts. My initial ground testing with the orange Estes PSII Sonic igniters was disappointing. They wouldn't light. Like, at all. The tip would glow under the pyrogen without setting it off. Cris (ever helpful) suggested that it was likely the battery. I happen to have a -bunch- of these PSII igniters collected up from Hobby Lobby. My avbay was already built around my current on-hand batteries, so I got some Wildman starters, which pop like a snap, and carried on.

I did, however, pick up the Turnigy 300mAh 45-90C battery that Cris recommends. For future projects. And last night I did the ground testing again.

Venom 20C starting Estes Sonic - No
Venom 20C starting AT First Fire Mini - Yes
Turnigy 45+C starting Estes Sonic - Yes

The difference was dramatic.

If you haven't watched them burn, the Fire Fire Mini was a little longer, much steadier burn. Like a tiny sparkler. The Estes kind of snapped and popped it's way down the pyrogen. Brighter flashes.

Take away. Listen to Cris. And Cs matter.

Aside: I've had a terrible history with the Venom batteries. They die left and right after 1-2 non-stressful uses. Single cell Lo V failures so my charger rejects them. I'm hoping the Turnigy do better in that regard, too.
 
Because wifi is a power hog, I have always used a minimum 2S 500mah Lipo in my Quantum. Never a failure & battery will last all day.
 
Because wifi is a power hog, I have always used a minimum 2S 500mah Lipo in my Quantum. Never a failure & battery will last all day.

That's what I typically use in Quantums (and Eggfinders too). 20C @ 500 mAH is 10A, but the peak output is a whole lot more than that. It will fire anything that the Quantum is capable of. The Turnigy 2S/500's you get from Hobby King are about the same size as a 9V battery.
 
I happen to be flying a really cramped model. Space is a premium. But now I understand how to think of mAh and C better.

IMG_0107.jpg

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I agree on the venom batteries. I tried one as well and after the first use, it went dead and could not hold a charge (even a storage charge). I now use nano-tech and have not had any issues.
 
Is that the Cosmodrome Rocketry kit with a tweak at the payload bay, or another variant from somewhere else?

That is an Estes PSII Nike Smoke with a Sandman turned interstage and a scratch built Apache. The electronics are tucked into the plastic Estes 55-60 transition from an OOP payload bay kit.
 
That is an Estes PSII Nike Smoke with a Sandman turned interstage and a scratch built Apache. The electronics are tucked into the plastic Estes 55-60 transition from an OOP payload bay kit.

So its a nice little kit bash sport scale, excellent work.
 
Keep in mind pad time. Go to a big launch and flying minimum mah pack that works well at a club launch because you can stick on pad and launch within 5 minutes, might
not fare well if it's sitting out for an hour or two. Especially if the device generally takes a lot of power. Keep that in mind. I had a TRS sit on the pad for over an hour but
with a 1300mah battery that did double duty as unit power and pyro power it was no problem. Kurt
 
Good thoughts. Maybe if LDRS ever comes back to Bong I’ll be able to put them to practice.


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