Engine Governors

Engine Governors

Engine governors are used to help keep the rotor disk at a constant set speed no matter what pitch is applied and are extremely useful devices for flying 3D. They can be set up through a channel on your transmitter which is switched to allow the engine governor to be switched off and on with usually two set head speeds, say 1500rpm and 1750rpm. You should always set up an idle up throttle curve as explained above just in case the governor fails - the governor should not be relied on completely - We have had a models governor sensor fail whilst inverted and if it weren't for the idle up curve disaster would have quickly followed.

Governors all work on the same principle. A magnet is glued with epoxy into the cooling fan (It is quite often better to fit two magnets with opposite polarity on either side of the fan so as to maintain balance). A hall effect sensor is then fitted to the engine mount using the supplied bracket and must be set within a couple of millimetres clearance from the magnet. The sensor picks up the magnet each time it passes whilst the engine is running and the governor calculates the head speed rpm from your model gear ratio. There is also an optical system which can be fitted to some sensors which works in the same manner.

As a safety feature the governor does not come on even if switched on by you on your transmitter until the engine rpm reaches over 20% of the desired head speed.

There are a number of governors on the market listed below:
 

Throttle Jockey Around £52.00	Throttle Jockey Pro Around £60.00	Futaba GV-1 Around £100.00	CSM RL10 RevLock Around £44.00	Robbie CSC2200 Around £107.00

Engine Rev Limiters

These work in a slightly different way to a governor in that they work only to stop the head over speeding. You typically set a much higher throttle curve than you want and set the governor to hold the throttle back to that limit. You can even set a 100% flat line throttle curve and the governor will hold the throttle back. This gives a much quicker throttle response and allows you to utilise the engines maximum power to your advantage.

There are a few throttle rev limiters on the market today and a few governors that can be set up as either a rev limiter or a standard governor:
 

Throttle Jockey Rev Max Around £55.00	CSM RL20 Revlock Around £55.00	Curtis Youngblood ATG - Active Throttle Governor Not Yet Available in the UK