- Planes
- Engines
- Props
- Glow plugs
- Fuel
- Pit boxes
- Handles
- Fingers shields and chicken sticks
- Stooges
- Plane racks
Suggestions to Preston Briggs
This site was last updated on February 15, 2008.
This section is under construction. Don't get your hopes up too high though; I'll won't be able to do much more than scratch the surface.
Unless you're simply tossing your batteries whenever they run down, you'll need a charger for your glow driver. Most commercial units will come with yet another "wall wart," but homebrewers have to adapt.
I built this constant-current charger from plans published in Model Aviation (The Universal Slow Charger, by Bob Kopski, September, 2000).
Batteries
First, you'll need to know what sort of batteries you're using. Important characteristics include:
- voltage, expressed in volts (e.g., 1.2v),
- capacity, expressed in Amp-Hours (e.g., 2ah or equivalently 2000mah), and
- chemistry (e.g., NiCad, lead acid, etc.)
Voltage
Capacity
Chemistry
You can't really recharge Carbon-Zinc batteries.
Generally, you can't recharge alkaline batteries either. Even the rechargeable alkalines are quite limited (perhaps 10 cycles).
Nickel-Cadmium has been the standard rechargeable battery for many years.
Gel Cells
Lead-Acid
Many combat fliers in the US are using Cyclon lead-tin batteries, made by Hawker Energy (formerly Gates). They come in a variety of sizes. The X cell was used in the old GloBee Fireplugs. It's rated at 2 volts and 5.0 Amp-Hours. A few people even use the very large BC cell, which is rated for 25 Amp-Hours. It's less portable, but they only need to charge it about twice a year! Various approaches to charging these batteries are described in Hawker's application manual.
Don't attempt to recharge Lithium batteries; they may explode.
Lithium-Ion
Nickel-Metal-Hydride