BIuehawk

I'd like any consensus you guys might have on HobbyKings "Orange" receivers (air) with 2.4 GHz radios.
Real world experience please, not something you've heard.

j.duncker

My Feedback: (2)

Worked for me. As did yellow ones.

BIuehawk

I seem to recall seeing the yellow ones but was some time ago.

jester_s1

They work just as well as the original Spektrum until you get one that doesn't. What you aren't paying for is quality control and service. Essentially, you are the final inspector when you put that $7 receiver in your plane and take off. I'll suggest you put together a plane that you don't care about like a combat foamy or SPAD to get an hour or so of flight time on a new cheap receiver before putting it into a plane that you like.

BIuehawk

jester,
Do you have any real world experience with them?

jester_s1

I own 2 that I use in park flyers. I haven't done any scientific testing to see if their range is the same as the real Spektrums. They work as well as I need them to and haven't given me any trouble.

There are plenty of mentions of these on RCU and other forums. Every time something cheap comes out the forums are all aglow with it.

My comments above are from working in manufacturing before. Nobody takes a faulty design to production if there is any way to avoid it, lest they have to throw away a whole batch and have a failed product launch. The difference between bargain basement stuff and high quality stuff that a company might want to put their name on is the quality control. Components are tested for quality and bought from reputable manufacturers. Then products are inspected and tested at multiple steps in the process with a final function check before shipping. A bargain basement product skips those steps and hopes for the best. The fact is in electronics, that works out 99% of the time. It's honestly hard to screw up electronics assembly. The problem comes when its your plane the 1% happens to.

mgnostic

I've run the Orange receivers in several airplanes and have had good luck. That being said the airplanes were .40 size and smaller and I have used analog servos only. I use five cell NiMH batteries for my fight packs. My understanding is that Orange receivers are voltage sensitive. Even a momentary low voltage can cause them to reboot or "brown out". This is just my personal thought In the course of flying, the voltage that the receiver sees is not constant. It varies with load, especially if the battery is partially discharged. It was an eye opener for me when I put a digital volt meter on the transmitter output and watched the voltage bounce up and down during a servo work out. A half dozen digital servos in even a small 3-d plane can draw a lot of current causing a voltage drop. If the voltage drops below the threshold the servo reboots and you crash. The Orange receiver is labeled as working with 3.7 to about 9 volts ( I don't have mine in front of me to give the exact number). Most modern servos will operate with at least 6 volts so in my case running the 6 volt flight pack makes sense. Even if I do get a voltage sag the voltage stays above the minimum voltage threshold for the receiver. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. All that being said, the satellite receivers are inexpensive and I have used a satellite in everything bigger than a foam board F-22. I think the satellite receivers are a good addition to any 2..4 radio regardless of brand. I also agree with Jester's comments on manufacturing and reliability.

BIuehawk

Thank you guys for the comments.