Paramotor parts (motor, servo, esc, ...)

MOTOR
For this project I have chosen a Turnigy Aerodrike SK3 3542 1185kv motor. In combination with a 3 cell lipo and an Opale 10 inch carbon prop I should get enough power for normal flights. With Ecalc and Drivecalc I calculated that with a 10x7 triblade prop I will operate at the max conditions for this motor and have enough power for acro flights. I'm going for a 3 cell setup because I already have some 3cell 3000mAh lipo. And these should fit nicely in to the battery bay of the Opale XS3 backpack.

ESC
To power the motor I bought the YEP 60A ESC. Nothing special to tell. It just fits the specs. The BEC of this ESC is used to power the mixer and RX.

BEC
As mentioned the BEC of the YEP 60A esc will power the mixer and RX and has a voltage output of 5.5V. To power the servos i choosed to use a secondary BEC. The Turnigy 8A-15A UBEC has a 6V output. This matches the specs of my servos.

SERVO
It took me some time to find a good servo for this project. I wanted a servo with good specs, high torque, high speed, but I did not want to pay the premium price. So I ended up with the Strakstar 621MG. It has good specs (on paper) and is not to expensive. But when this product was delivered I was not happy with the quality. I bought 3 sevo's. One was OK, One had some nasty jitter and the last one didn't work at al. But after an RMA request with the reseller I got a new one that works fine. The Strakstar 621MG also fits perfectly in to the Opale XS3 backpack. This servo has a 180 degrees swing range for a pwm signal from 500ms to 2500ms.

The Opale XS3 backpack can be equiped with an extra set of servos to operate the speedbar. As my wing (Cefics Edmund Race 1.5) has this feature I needed this extra set of servos. It was hard to find a servo that had the correct dimensions and specifications. But this is the one I found: Corona DS238MG Digital

RX & Mixer
I'm having a 6 channel TX system. For this paramotor I bought a OrangeRx R617XL cPPM receiver that is really cheap. Currently It's on sale for less than 4$. My TX system does not allow to program or mix channels in a way that I can use it to control a RC paramotor. So I need a mixer. At this moment the only rc paramotor channel mixer that is available is the RC-PARA mixer from Hacker. But this product is overpriced. They sell it a 40$ while the (mass) production cost will be less than a 1$. And keep in mind if you have an extra set of servo's to operate the speedbar you need 2 mixers. The R617XL receiver only has a cppm output witch is not compatible with the Hacker RC-PARA mixer. Solution for all this, I bought a 9$ Arduino nano and programmed it myself. I now have my own DIY CPPM compatible paramotor channel mixer that can operate the brake lines/servos and speedbar lines/servos all-in-one. But more about this in a later topic.

Opale-Paramotors XS3 backpack (unbox)

My Hacker Cloud 0.5 is a really nice RC paramotor to fly with, but not when there is some wind blowing. So I'm going to buy a larger RC paramotor, 1.5 class. At this moment I'm thinking to by a cefics edmund race 1.5, but more on that in a later post.

For a medium parawing (wing area 1.5) I need a larger gondel or backpack. I checked the 3 main RC paramotor destributors. Hacker, Opale and Cefics. There is a lot of variety in models and prices. Gondels, backpacks with our without pilot, trikes, ... The cheapest ready to fly backpack is the Hacker Cloud 1.5 backpack, for only 250 euro you have a backpack with servo's, motor, props, ... ready to fly at an unbeatble price. It just does not have a pilot with moving arms. Do you need a pilot with moving arms to fly RC paramotor? Ofcourse not, but it is much nicer to watch it fly. A paramotor with a pilot flying and steering the parawing with its arms.

The cheapest backpack with pilot that you can find at the moment is the Opal-Paramotors XS3 backpack. If you don't buy this backpack as a kit don't forget to add the Pilot Ben Jacket and the Mike/lea head (size M) to your shopping cart.

The empty weith of this XS3 backpack (with clothes head and prop cage, but without motor, esc,...) is 500gr. This gives you a lot of margin or weight to add and still keep your backpack light. Max flying weight for this backpack is 2kg. So this really is a medium size backpack. The anti torque prop cage is included in the XS3 backpack. It's on the heavy side (180gr) but it has a very nice design, is has the anti torque feature and it looks and feels strong.

I also bought the Opale 10x45 carbon prop that they recommend for this backpack. It has a very nice carbon look and it's very stiff. It look likes it's good quality.

I bought this at the Opale-Paramotors webshop. Everything went well, packaging OK, shipment OK.
The XS3 backpack is not assembled. You have to assamble all the parts. For this you need a 5.5mm or 7/32" hex socket and a 2.5mm hex bit.
I did not bought the Opal Paramoters ESC/motor/servo's because I think there price is to high. These Opale servo's seem to be good quality and have good specs. But nevertheless I think there price is to high if you are building a medium size backpack or paramotor that does not need these high quality/expensive products. As for there 3530 ESC/Motor combo I think this combo is good for 1.5 class paramotors if you don't fly acro. And there acro kit is overpowered and to expensive for 1.5 class paramotors. So I'm looking at something in between. More on this subject in my next post.

Hacker Cloud 0.5 flight

This video shows my thirth flight with this paramotor. Rough start, because the wind was comming from the small slope. So I was on the wrong side of the slope, not smart :) This paramator is easy to fly. Downside is that it can only handle max windspeeds up to 10km/h if you add extra weight to it. It flies best a windspeeds arround 5 km/h

Hacker Cloud 0.5 review

So I have flown serveral hours with this RC Paramotor and it is very nice to fly with it.

This RC para does not need any tuning on the brake/steering lines. Out of the box it is plug and play or plug and fly. This wing is easy to handlaunch, the wing opens fast and is very stable. Ofcourse its a paramotor so beginners should get familiar with the swing effect of such an aircaft. The only downside of this paramor kit is that you can only fly it in low wind conditions (max 10 km/h).

I'm using a 3 cell 1300mAh battery which gives me 15 - 20 min flight time. With light thermals you can easaly extend the flighttime to 30-40 min on a single battery. For the price of the Hacker Cloud 0.5 kit you can't find a better starter kit. In the 0.5 class this is the best option for beginners.

For beginners that do not have experience with flying RC paramoter, my advice is to do your first handlaunches from a small slope. You don't need much. A 2m slope is enough! this 2m just gives you a couple of seconds to smoothen your throttle, accelarate slowly and to avoid the swing effect. Once you master the throttle and swing effect you can just handlaunch it from a flat surface.

Just one little remark on this kit. Use threadlock/loctite on the screws that hold the karabiner for the main list. If you don't use it the screws will come off on your second flight! I'm using bison lock bond and it works very well.

Hacker Para-RC Cloud 0.5 unboxing

So I bought the Hacker Para-RC Cloud 0.5 RED (ARF kit) remote controlled paramator. In Europe this RC paramotor is available in 2 colors: red & yellow. At the moment the RED version is almost soled out in all shops even at the official hacker website it has a 2-3 weeks ETA. But thaks to google I could find an Austrian shop that had the RED version in stock (last item) So here it is the unboxing of the Hacker Para-RC Cloud0.5 ARF kit paramotor

I was pleased to see that the propellor protection ring was red. This matches the red color of the parawing. On the internet you will mostly see pictures and movies of this RC model with a green prop protection ring. But my version version comes with a red prop protection ring which is very nice! You can by this here : Hacker Para-RC Cloud 0.5

Small box, but a lot inside:

• 1 Paraglider Cloud 0.5 red
• 1 Ready-made backpack set XS Carbon
• 1 Brushless motor
• 1 20 Ampere speed controller
• 2 Mini servos
• 1 Lighting set
• 1 Instruction manual and 1 ESC manual

The backpack looks good quality and seems ready to go. You only need to hook up your RC receiver and battery.