Spektrum AR635 Receiver
#1
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Spektrum AR635 Receiver
Received 3 of these the other day from Horizon Hobby. Installed one in my Parkzone Extra 300 and attempted to set it up. Either the product is not what the manual was describing or it is the worst written user manual in the world! After binding the receiver to my JR X9303 2.4Ghz radio I had 3 blinking lights (red, green, and blue); the first step is to set all servos to 125% travel. Next is to tell the receiver what kind of transmitter you are using. (non-computer, sport, or computer transmitter) According to the manual for type 2 transmitters you move the throttle stick to the mid throttle position and move the right stick to the upper-right position, ( hold full right aileron and full down elevator ) and power on the receiver for computer type radios. After 5 seconds the Blue and Green light are supposed to turn solid (instead of flashing). WRONG! They just continue to flash. as they do for almost every other menu item you try to do. After fighting with the setup menu and getting very frustrated I called support at Horizon Hobby. (waited on hold for over 45 minutes) and finally someone answered. To say the it was a waste of time would be a laugh. I was told that they had not received any training on it yet and that basically I would have to wait until the next day when they were supposed to receive training on it. I was promised that they would call me back and help me as soon as the training was over. Still waiting.....
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RE: Spektrum AR635 Receiver
Just read/skimmed the manual because this receiver came in my Visionaire. My understanding is that you don't need to tell the receiver which radio you have. By setting all servo throws to 125%, the receiver knows you have a "computer" radio.
The manual is good in that it is very very thorough and we're talking about a rather complex receiver. I'd have to read it a couple more times before attempting to change/set the gains. Think of your gear switch as a flight mode switch that switches between fast-sport flying and slow-3d flying. You must set different gains for each mode. Higher for slow-3d, and lower for fast-sport flying. There is also built in D/R into the gear switch. Fast-sport flying uses less throw and slow-3d uses higher/more throw. These may also be programmable in the receiver as well- need to read the manual again. In addition to the receiver's D/Rs, you can set additional D/R on your D/R switches if you choose to "fine-tune" or make easy changes in your defelctions.
hope that helps,
Chris
The manual is good in that it is very very thorough and we're talking about a rather complex receiver. I'd have to read it a couple more times before attempting to change/set the gains. Think of your gear switch as a flight mode switch that switches between fast-sport flying and slow-3d flying. You must set different gains for each mode. Higher for slow-3d, and lower for fast-sport flying. There is also built in D/R into the gear switch. Fast-sport flying uses less throw and slow-3d uses higher/more throw. These may also be programmable in the receiver as well- need to read the manual again. In addition to the receiver's D/Rs, you can set additional D/R on your D/R switches if you choose to "fine-tune" or make easy changes in your defelctions.
hope that helps,
Chris
#3
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RE: Spektrum AR635 Receiver
In my opinion the AR635 receiver has a poorly designed menu system. For example when changing receiver gain, you can't tell when the receiver is set at 70% compared to say 90%. I think that the lights should blink a set number of times telling you what the gain actually is. Also as far as the manual goes, I've read it several times and it is confusing. At the start of the gain setting section it states that everything should be set at normal, normal. Is that for servo reversing or the receiver setting prior to making any gain adjustments? Like I stated above; the manual is the poorest written manual I've ever come across. BTW; Horizon hobby STILL hasn't called me back as promised! I guess I'll have to call again and wait another 45 minutes or so....
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RE: Spektrum AR635 Receiver
Completely agree with you, I am fighting with the setup aswell. It makes me very unconfortable if the first thing you do according the instructions does not provide the described result " solid lights". I moved on to find sensing direction is a puzzle too, figuring it out that you need to continue in the "0" gain direction after that the gain direction as described on page 11 changes. Pffffff you need to do that in both selections of your gear switch, not mentioned anywhere in the manual. This is really not the sort of programming I would recomment to a beginner, which is too bad as the gyro's would be a helpfull function for this group.
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The manual for this receiver is horrible. It contains a lot of misleading information and diagrams and some that are just downright wrong. I read it very thoroughly and tried to follow the instructions but I was not getting the response from the RX that the manual said I should be getting. This is pretty typical of Spektrum manuals. If you want a real puzzle look at the manual for the Alpha 6.
I also watched the set-up video that Horizon posted on You Tube and it is also bad. The camera is over the guy's shoulder. He'll say, see what the RX is doing and he is pointing at the receiver but his hand blocks your view of the RX so you can't see what the heck he is talking about.
I did call Horizon and they had the AR635 expert call me back. His name is Kenny and he is great! He walked me through the whole thing, explained everything that was going on and even had me write down instructions to use if I need to reset it. I will post those instructions on this and other boards once I type them up.
As it turns out I do need to reset it. When he was helping me set it up, he asked me what I wanted to set the gains at and stupidly, I said I would use the gains the AR635 manual shows for the specific plane mine is in, a Carbon Z Yak 54. How dumb can I be? I knew the manual was screwed up. Why did I think their suggested gains for that plane would be correct? Silly me. When I was all done, I powered up the TX and plane, turned on the switch on the plane and in low rates the rudder was oscillating about 35 degrees in each direction about two or three times per second. So I am going to set the gains to zero for low and high rates and fly it like I do the rest of my planes which don't have stabilization. I may try to set the gains in again in 10% increments and see what happens.
The plane generally flew well before I started messing with it but I was getting oscillations at moderate speeds so I wanted to try to turn down the gains. Silly me. It wasn't very broke, I shouldn't have tried to fix it.
Jack
I also watched the set-up video that Horizon posted on You Tube and it is also bad. The camera is over the guy's shoulder. He'll say, see what the RX is doing and he is pointing at the receiver but his hand blocks your view of the RX so you can't see what the heck he is talking about.
I did call Horizon and they had the AR635 expert call me back. His name is Kenny and he is great! He walked me through the whole thing, explained everything that was going on and even had me write down instructions to use if I need to reset it. I will post those instructions on this and other boards once I type them up.
As it turns out I do need to reset it. When he was helping me set it up, he asked me what I wanted to set the gains at and stupidly, I said I would use the gains the AR635 manual shows for the specific plane mine is in, a Carbon Z Yak 54. How dumb can I be? I knew the manual was screwed up. Why did I think their suggested gains for that plane would be correct? Silly me. When I was all done, I powered up the TX and plane, turned on the switch on the plane and in low rates the rudder was oscillating about 35 degrees in each direction about two or three times per second. So I am going to set the gains to zero for low and high rates and fly it like I do the rest of my planes which don't have stabilization. I may try to set the gains in again in 10% increments and see what happens.
The plane generally flew well before I started messing with it but I was getting oscillations at moderate speeds so I wanted to try to turn down the gains. Silly me. It wasn't very broke, I shouldn't have tried to fix it.
Jack