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| Issue 11 (May 2007) |
Words: Andy Winthrop |
There are many essential tools needed to get your heli to fly correctly. You open your toolbox and find a clutter of tools, gadgets, and electronics. You've spent tons of money on these gadgets, such as a tachometer to check your headspeed, a battery checker, a temp gauge, a servo checker, and so on. Wouldn't it be cool if all these devices were in one simple-to-use tool? Well there is a tool like this, and it's made by Bantam Broadcasting and Hobby Design Corporation, a subsidiary of Daehan Electronics, based in Korea. That device is called the E-Station Helimaster.
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Features
The Helimaster features a precision tachometer capable of reading up to 3000 rpms. It can store up to 10 headspeed readings for your models in its memory. The precision pulse generator allows you to test your servo's functionality. It tests the servo by its movement, deflection, neutral point, and bandwidth. No separate battery is required, as the internal rechargeable battery can also power the servo. During servo testing it also shows the electric current of the servo. The electric current feature allows you to choose a correct RX battery for your model by adding all five servo current loads together. The unit has a built-in wattmeter which is capable of reading up to 100A and 9999 watts. This allows you to see the draw on you motor and ESC. The wattmeter has an automatic voltage/amp calibration, which means there is no need to calibrate the voltage of the source. There is an included temperature probe, but the sensor is optional. The Helimaster is capable of measuring your receiver pulse which allows you to see the range of your receiver on each channel. The included RX battery checker/discharger allows you to check your Ni-Cd 4.8/6.0/9.6V and Lithium 7.4V capacity. Ni-Cd batteries can be discharged to 0.9V/cell, and there is no discharge feature for lithium batteries, for safety reasons. The Helimaster has a nice green backlight to enhance the LCD display. The unit shuts itself off after 10 minutes of inactivity. The entire unit is enclosed in a durable aluminum case.
Testing
I was very excited about getting my hands on the Helimaster when it arrived. I opened the box to find a nice and refined unit that was 80 x 113 x 28 in size. I turned on the unit and the green LED display lit up brightly. I went to my storage box and looked for two servos. One was bad and one was good. I plugged the good servo into the servo tester jack and began the test. I set the unit to manual test mode and pressed the INC button. The servo moved and the value read 2100 at the left end point. I clicked DEC button and the servo read 900 at the right end point, and 1500 at the center. I plugged in the bad servo and the numbers were all over the place. The servo made a screeching noise when it reached each end point. The power consumption of the servo was also displayed in the lower right-hand corner in amps. The servo tester works great except I don't know what numbers to baseline my results with. It would have been nice if the manual explained this feature further. For the next test, I took the unit to the field. My Raptor 50 has a RevMax installed on it and the head speed is 1950. I had my buddy fly my heli while I tached the head. Once the blades were visible as a single unit, I was set to read the display. The display read 1955 rpms. I had my buddy use another brand tack to verify my results, and they were dead on. To test out the pulse, I used a receiver and plugged into the pulse input jack and the channel being tested on the receiver. I powered the receiver with an external 4.8V battery and moved the radio sticks to read the pulse. It read something like 200us. What I didn't like is that they don't explain what 200us means. It would be nice if the manual gave us a chart on what a good reading on a receiver should be. Testing of the wattmeter was done by plugging in the source battery onto the left jack of the unit; the voltage of the battery was then displayed on the screen. We were able to see the battery capacity in mAh and the motor input power in watts by pressing the INC or DEC buttons. The battery checker functionality was tested as above, except that we had to select our battery type and set the current load of the servo to display the battery capacity. It told us the percentage of the remaining capacity of the battery. If the battery is very low, it will warn you with the word "danger," indicating that a charge is necessary. The unit will cycle your battery as well, if desired in a similar function. The temperature probe will allow you to read any external temperature with the optional sensor. We did not test this function, as we did not have the sensor. The same menu also displays the internal battery temp as well as the remaining capacity. The only thing I didn't like here is that it does not display the temp in the Fahrenheit scale.
Conclusion
This unit is very cool as it offers many needed features in a single unit. I like its compact size and the internal rechargeable battery. If you have clutter in your tool case or are just starting to buy some needed tools, then go out and buy this unit, as it will be cheaper and ergonomically better than having individual devices.
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HITS
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• Contains many necessary tools in one
• Simple to use
• Included rechargeable battery
• Small form factor
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MISSES
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• Instructions need baseline for the test results
• The temp gauge only displays in Celsius
MANUFACTURER:
PART NUMBER(S): HeliMaster
STREET PRICE: $135
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