Matt,

I presume your after a good stable reliable set up without spending a pile of cash
May io suggest trying a YEP (YGE copy) speed controller, get them from hobby king, 120AMP 14S compatible they are cheap and so far everyone is having success with them, Vbar compatible too. I think they are about $140 or less
Dan Garland has a scorpion 4524 LE motor for sale on Ark heli for $250 I think, I can vouch for Dan and his gear.

Those would be a great set up without blowing the budget

 

Thanks for the info Dale. The budget isn't too much of a problem, so I'd rather get good quality gear just no need for top of the range stuff.
I had a look at Dan's motor, but the LE is delta wound and if I was to go with a Scorpion I would probably rather a 4525 ultimate to get the star-star winding configuration for better efficiency and possibly longer flight times.
I run a YEP speedy in my Warp and have never had any troubles with it. Is it worth spending extra and getting a Castle or even a Jive esc for 'better(?)' reliability?

 

Ive had the kontronic powerjive 120 and scorpion 4525 ultimate for a while now. It suits my flying style at the moment and should see me out for a while.

 

I think all of the speeds are ok, it is more a case of being electronics sometimes you get a bad one…no matter which brand it is.

As for the Ultimate over the LE having longer flight times, this maybe the case in theory but I can assure you that you will not tell the difference in flying as i have had both and flight times were the same.
Lets face it with a 700E set up for decent 3D flying with around 2000HS your lucky to get 4:30 at most.

 

Any one got an opinion on the Xera/Xnova motors? The XTS 4530-525 looks like it stacks up pretty well spec wise for only a slight compromise in weight. It may probably bring flight times back a little bit though.

 

I have not used one but they should be fine

From my experience all this talk of weight is a little overboard when it comes to flight times, The fact is if you snap and work the pitch more in a flight you will cut your flight times down and work everything harder, higher amp peaks, more temperature.

Work and building a reliable setup, where you get to fly it not work on it !

 

Reliable is definitely what I'm after.. I wasn't thinking that because the motor was a tiny bit heavier that this would cause shorter flight times just the fact that it is a more powerful motor. If there is more power then I would be likely to lean on it a bit more then it would suck more juice out of the batteries. Thanks for the input Dale, it is appreciated.

 

You're welcome Matt.

I wouldn't worry about the weight difference in the motor, honestly
If your worried about flight times I would recommend you do this, with your E7 as I have done with mine and so has Radar now too.

Use the higher speed tail ratio (cant recall what it is) so the tail is speed up, this way you can use a lower head speed, around 1950-1980 is plenty.
use 11-12 and no more on the pitch, And 12 if you are a decent pilot with reasonable collective pitch management skills, if not stick with 11.
It will have plenty of bite with this Head speed and if you want more "pop" add some collective pump or pitch pump to your FBL unit settings.
This way you won't be having big amp spikes and you will find no matter how you fly the flight your flight times will remain a consistent time "V" discharged amount out of your packs.
Then you can fine tune how long your flight times are to get the best flight time out of your set up, then set your time on your transmitter flight timer.

There is nothing worse than a bad set up on a E machine where some flights you come down with 35% left and others 10%…sure way to kill your packs.

Hope this helps you make your choice.

 

I'm running a Kontronik Helijive with heatsink fan ad scorpion 4530-540KV motor. unboggable setup but it does empty the packs pretty quick so I'll be getting a 4526-520KV F3C edition which will give similar power but much longer flight times. If you're just a sport pilot id go with either a Kontronik Pyro 700-52 or Scorpion 4035-500KV with a helijive. The pryo or 4035 will give flight times of 5-6 minutes safely with 5000mAh packs and the helijive is a really easy to setup ESC with a really good built in BEC.