Tachometer recommendations

I think that I need a tachometer to get a repeatable setting on my engines. does anyone have any recommendation, good suppiers, ones to avoid etc please.

I had a pleasant afternoons flying of the 5 flights I had all but one were either too fast (sub 4sec/lap) or too slow (6+ secs/lap) but getting a setting on my Stalker 35 seems to be a bit hit or miss so something that I can refer to would seem to be a necessity

Regards

Mike

Hi Mike
I bought a (too) small pocket tacho which I didn't get one with. Finished up with a nice unit called Supertacho Multiblade Digital Optical and distributed by John Perkins. I bought it locally (Canterbury) at Nexus Models for about £25 I think (usual disclaimers). Reads to nearest 100rpm. We generally tach per flight and has been proved extremely useful

Don't bother getting anything real expensive. The Digital LCD mini tach from Tower is all you need stock #TOWP1221 $35 It takes inexpensive AAA batteries, stay away from watch style batteries.

I went out and got a $110 TNC tach because, I do performance R&D for speed and racing engines but, I don't think I need it. I got by for years with a $35 Hobbico tach.

Inconsistant runs might be more than just ground rpm or needle settings. It may be in the tank, an air leak or the engine might have a bad fit.

Here is the one I use and it seems two work quite well. It will read 2/3/4 blade propes.
http://www.horizonhobby.com/Shop/ByCategory/Product/Default.aspx?ProdID=HAN156
Lee TGD

So does that mean you are willing to sell me your TNC?

If he is - Buy it! I have one and it is the most stable read in any light. Even gives good reads off of the combat carbon fiber props.

Cary,

Shhhhh!

Oops!

Hi,

I am using a PDA running some guitar tunner software (Phonature guitar tunner - the others I have tested too were not able to find the proper frequency too often - there should be quite good algorithm to filter the harmonics, I think) to get the engine RPMs. A little problem is you get no RPM but frequency in Hz. The (big) advantage is you are able to measure the engine RPM really remotely - even in flight.

We have tested some tachometer but it was not able to measure F2D engines (one had to try to find proper placing of the senzor which varied for different propellers ). The manual said that the maximum RPM is 99000 but it was rather only the LCD resolution ...
So I would recommend to test the tachometer with your engine/propeller before you buy it...

Regards
Dalibor Toman

Hmm, interesting. I did some work a while ago with a friend who competes internationally in F2C to try to understand what was happening with the engine in flight under different settings. He hung a portable recorder round the neck of his pilot and recorded each flight. I then imported the resulting sound files into CoolEdit, a program I use for slowing down music when I am learning a new tune. We were able to extract a lot of good data on what happens when the engine misses a few beats and watch the revs alter as the engine gained heat with successive tanks. a very useful days work.

Thanks for all the advice I have now ordered a tach and will report on its usability when it comes - and what it is as the one I wanted was on back order so I went with the shops recommendation with out the luxury of trying it out.

Regards

Mike

Mike,

What did you order and what are its features? I'm still lookin'....