Thursday, May 17th, 2012 08:36 am GMT -7 Thursday, May 17th, 2012 08:36 am GMT -7Thursday, May 17th, 2012 08:36 am GMT -7
This new product might just free up a lot of space in your flight box.
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Click here to buy the Turnigy 7 in 1 Mega Meter from Hobby King.
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Carlos, nice practical review. I checked it against a known accurate EmeterII and it was pretty reasonable. Overall decent all-in-one device to have in the field box. A couple of things:
1) I agree that the thrust function is hardly sensible.
2) More importantly the IR measurement is useless and misleading.
Here’s what I wrote on the HK site.
Well designed clever meter. The bullet connectors are smart since you add your own preferred battery connectors and can swap the IN and OUT easily for load and charge tests. Seems pretty accurate on current and as a wattmeter which is the big test. The other measurements are easy to do accurately. Uses a 1.0 mOhm sense resistor for current which is a lot more in-circuit resistance than the 0.2mOhm of the Emeter and similar quality Wattmeters. Combines pretty much everything anyone would need and the screen is fairly readable (better than the PowerLog which is similar in functionality). The thrust measurement seems useless as it ignores propellor pitch on the grounds that it does not affect static thrust – really. Maybe I missed something here. The IR measurement is hopeless. Uses a roughly 0.5Amps load and two wire method which is useless for modern LiPos. I got readings varying from 104mOhm to 41 mOhm per cell on a 4S 3700 mAh battery as I watched. The actual IR per cell is between 3.96 mOhm and 4.20 measured with an ESR/IR meter!! Might be OK for comparative cell measurement but certainly not for correct IR values. Overall excellent value – just don’t use it for IR.
Have you tried to use the tachometer? I forgot to mention in the video, but my old tachometer (Great Planes?) had no trouble taking a propeller reading in my workshop.
I was a bit disappointed by the device. But like you, I also thought it was a solid value. Did not give much thought to the IR readings. I get those from my charger, so I don’t plan to use the function, anyway. I mainly bought it for the wattmeter, and I have no complaints there.
Thanks for the feedback!
I’ve continued to put the Mega Meter through its paces. Sadly, I have to agree with your conclusions regarding the internal resistance meter. The values that it computes are just too high. My iCharger seems to have no trouble computing these, so I will rely on that instead.
No, I have more tachos built into things than I can use.
I will give it try outside next time I go flying.
Bit disappointing if it doesn’t work as a tacho is about simple a thing to make with modern microprocessors as you can imagine.
Okay. It worked, but it was very hard to get it to read the propeller. My other tachometer had no problem at all.
Yep, I agree the tacho is useless. Couldn’t get it to read reliably in daylight front or back of a big prop on a gasser at idle at any distance.
I have a 30 year old one with an analog meter that works far more reliably.
My experience was similar.
I have been forced to remove a star from the rating. The poor performance of the internal resistance and tachometer functions cannot be ignored! It has worked very well for me as a wattmeter, and the cost of the unit for just that function is not unreasonable.
I’m new to electric and was told that I need one of these. I’m mainly interested in the watt meter. Can someone explain to me how to read the numbers and how to apply the readings to my electric setup. Examples are best. what is Peak(c) is that the “C” on my battery ( 14.4 30″C” 2500mah) Dont want to exceed the “C” rating? And I have a motor that is 710kv (Turnigy G25) What number should I be looking at on my watt meter? PLEASE HELP
Hi. I have written quite a bit about model airplane electric power systems. The information you want is on this website, though I do not know if I can point you to a single article that will answer all your questions. I typed in “C rating battery” into the search box and got this as the first result:
http://rcadvisor.com/rc-battery-capacity-rating-relationship