rmenke

My Feedback: (13)

YELLOW JACKET II & CEARMARK SWITCHES

Well, the shop renovation is complete, and its panic time. Our club races usually start in April, so I thought I had lots of time to develop something for the local go fasters and the Brothers "Buddude 8". Have been working on a idea like crazy for the past two weeks, and survived throu the maden flight with lots of scary stuff poping up. Honest, will post some pics in the coming days, but for now, must stay on the building board and get everything going correctly.

Ok, emagine a Q-500 Viper wing cut down to 45" and mated to a streemlined formula airframe. For power, we stick a Jett 60LX in the thing with black pipe, all new servos, switch and Berg receiver weighing in at 3.2lbs dry. Looks scary just sitting there.

Off to the field we go. Fuel up, check battery, range check good, crank her up. Ok tack the thing, yea, 19,850 with a apc 8.8 X 8.75. Wheeeee. Get directly behind my helper and let it go wfo. Well, no big run to the left, comes off nice and gently and starts to disappear rather quickly. Turn, come back and trim at 1/2 throttle. Ok, lets wfo and see what goes. Good, no trim change needed. Lets run a few turns around the pylons. Wow, that turn was more than asked for. At least the wing did not fold. Come off the power back to 1/2 which in reality is more like 80% with these engines. Wow, the thing moves, but does not feel right. Come back here, she finally turnds back when a speck way out there. Then its off to one side and then another, obvious problems, cut throttle, the thing stays at 80% for a few seconds and finally drops to idle. I am thinking, well that little light Berg receiver is just not so tough and full range as they claim. Now its try to get back to the field and the engine quit without command. She glides left, she glides right, but at least its not wfo and there is up elevator in it. As it nears the landing area, were back to weaving left and right without input. I get back a little control every few seconds and somehow keep the nose up as she drops into a adjacent affalfa field. Shi-Poo, must be toast. We go after the thing, supprise, supprise, wing and wheels still on, no major damage, just dirt, good old soft dirt.

Ok, I condemned the receiver during the flight because of the off and on control situation. Back in the cave (shop), I clean things up, yank the receiver and replace with a JR 700. After revising the pushrod congrol horn (darting), we start testing, or try to. Darn JR receiver not working. New battery, still not working. Wire around the switch, everything starts humming along with the typical digital servo dance. Ok, Burg, you were unfairly given the boot, but the trust factor is gone so its relagated to the rcx foamy.

NEW CERMARK SWITCH WITH OUTSIDE CHARG JACK

I have tried to make this creature user friendly, give up a little drag and keep the switch and jack on the outside for battery check convenience etc. It went away on its first flight and aged me 10 years in 10 seconds whiched seemed like foreaver at the time. DOES ANYONE OUT THERE KNOW OF A NEAR BOMB PROOF SWITCH? I would sure appreciate a word from you guys in this regard. ENJOY guys and will get back to you with some pics in the near future, promise. THANKS

freakingfast

My Feedback: (3)

I dont know about bomb proof but, I use the MPI (Maxx Products) charge switches with on-board battery checker. Have 4 of them, no problems. Selectable 4 or 5 cell reading.
I mount them flush by cutting through the mouting surface a hole the same size as the switches out side mounting flange shape (the flange is about 1/16 thick) and glue a thin ply frame on the in-side of the fuselage to screw it to. A bit pricy at $25!

vicman

My Feedback: (10)

Are you and Bdude going to be at Rabbit this weekend with said terror?

bob27s

My Feedback: (19)

for the real intense applications, I only use the larger JR gold contact switches (the big format switch). I know that one holds up pretty well.

I have also had good luck with the MPI switches.

I recently had one of those hobbico inexpensive switches litterally fall apart - in a 1/4 scale cub of all things. Not exactly a high vibration environment, but the switch litterally came apart into a few pieces.

daven

My Feedback: (1)

I agree with Bob, and so do many of the top racers.

JR Heavy Duty Gold Deluxe Switch. I wish I had the number.

They are rock solid in the enviroment you are looking at.

Crazy4Flight

My Feedback: (540)

I use the ones sold by Electrodynamics Ultra Switch II


klet the page load and then scroll down about 3/4 down

http://electrodynam.com/rc/conn/index.shtml#misc

DHG

My Feedback: (7)

Dave, it's JRPA001.

http://www.jrradios.com/Products/Def...ProdID=JRPA001

I've even begun mounting these on grommets, like a servo ... you know me, never can leave well enough alone. But a constant flow of voltage to your receiver and servos is sort of important. It MAY even be more important than beer. [X(]

Razor-RCU

My Feedback: (50)

I have used MPI for a couple years no issues...

proptop

My Feedback: (8)

Do you guys have a "duty cycle" or replacement time for your switches? How many flights under a high r.p.m. environment do ya recon even one of the expensive switches will function reliably before failure? 100 flights...200 flights...300???

Sure, there are variables, but there should probably be an approx. replace before failure time...and that's something I have been wondering about.

I've been using the MPi switch with the charge port (has the little sliding cover over that part)...that sucker seems to be H.D.

bob27s

My Feedback: (19)

I tried that too Duane - helps a bit. I have also goop-mounted the switch for the same effect. What would be handy is switch mounting screws/nuts that are self locking. Loctite works, just looking for simple factor

In the QM40 planes, the switch ends up on the servo tray, and some numbers of years ago I learned about GOOPing in the servo tray to help a bit with isolating it.

As important as beer.... probably. Its hard to enjoy your beer while sifting through a pile of stuff that use to be an airplane.

diggs_74

Well Bob, nothing goes better with a pile of parts than beer

bob27s

My Feedback: (19)

cant argue with that....

Although Ed once taught me that Capt Morgan can be an adequte substitute

rmenke

My Feedback: (13)

Vicman:

As much as I would love go make a trip down there and give you young bucks a hard verbal time bench racing, I just do not have the time for now. The 24th of this months race is critical for the year, and I still must do some modifications to the original Yellow Jacket and must build another backup prior to the race. I give the Buddude8 brothers a hard time in our posts out of pure affection and respect in addition to having a ball with them. At my age, I feel safe saying things like that as there is little room for criticism. I have not punched anyone out for a few years, and the leader of "Hells Angeles" is now dead, so consider me nice and cuddley old defenseless man who never deserved the super mean, don't mess with him reputation. Manuel Victor was really a missunderstood person and was always good to me. Honestly, he did not really kill as many people as they claimed he did, and always did the guys that most needed it. I ranble, by.

rmenke

My Feedback: (13)

Crazy4flight:

These switches look exactly like the condemed Cermark!!!! I read their comments about rip offs, so ordered 2 as it looks like it will fit in the same hole as existing. Will keep the info for future use, THANKS for taking the time to reply!!! ENJOY

rmenke

My Feedback: (13)

Guys:

I truly appreciate your help here, will stay with the recommendations in the future, and hope you get something from the Cermark switch comments. Interesting that the thing cost me $19.00 at our local crappy shop. See ya. ENJOY

daven

My Feedback: (1)

As to "how many flights" can you expect out of a switch, it really depends.

To me, I get how ever many flights the plane gets before it crashes. Could be 10, could be 100+.

After anything other than a minor crash, I toss my switches and go with new. You can usually find someone willing to take your crashed switch before it goes into the garbage can. I've had two switches go bad in flight before switching to the HD type switch and haven't had a problem since.

I've never used Grommets, but on some installations I've used nylon plastic landing gear straps, one end on the switch and the other screwed to the servo tray. Works pretty good, and absorbs the vibration.

KC36330

it's one of those things, beer is great when the pile of parts are all new and ready for assembly, the Captain is better when they used to be fully assembled parts.

on the switches, in high vibration short flight duration setups i prefer the simple but very effective 'plug in' setup where you are just shorting the two connections with a Dean's plug, this eliminates the switch all together and has a gazillion flights before replacement time.

kc

Flyboy Dave

My Feedback: (21)

I'm down with the beer, and the Captn' too....but I replaced my OS switches
with Cermark....

....am I way behind the curve....burp ?

proptop

My Feedback: (8)

I gave up the beer and etc. years ago...now it's (too much) coffee [sm=lol.gif]

I usually use a switch one time...or on one airplane and don't re-use them...but sometimes my airplanes last longer than anticipated... (how 'bout that!?) and I have an airplane w/ over 400 flights on it...same original equipment (cheap Hitec) switch...maybe I should replace it.

Just thinking, because when I read the batt. voltage thru the charge lead/switch, the voltage is a few tenths lower than if I read it directly from the batt. lead.
That leads me to believe that there is increased resistance thru the switch. I figure the vibration is probably causing fretting between the contacts...(by cycling the switch (batt. disconnected) a bunch of times, the resistance changes/lessens)

I just talked myself into throwing that switch away...

The Internet Killer

With beer or the Captn' is much better to be behind the curve, than behind the wheel.[8D]