DICKEYBIRD

Ask Unca Google or Aunt Wikipedia. They know everything.

ps, c/p: "have gun will travel"....reads the card of a man. A knight without armor in a savage land. Who's next?

KidEpoxy

Regarding the push in crystal sockets & pins,

I have an ElCheapo rx with a loose pin fit
that I remedied by just wrapping a rubberband around the rx & over the crystal to maintain a side force on the crystal... that keeps pin contact to the sockets real good

I move my radio gear from plane to plane enough that the rubberband gets frequent replacement

Andrew

... and dear to the hearts of us old f**ts.

When he fired his sixgun, it always looked like he was flinging the bullets out of the barrel.


His fast gun for hire head's the calling wind. A soldier of fortune is the man called Paladin.

digital_trucker

I always preferred The Saint.

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

How bout that opening scene of the Rifleman where they show Chuck Conners with that psycho look on his face, blasting away as he walks right down the middle of Main Street? Picture that nowadays.

rainedave

My Feedback: (1)

I remember that Rifleman sequence. I also remember a Chuck Conners show where he gets kicked out of the army and the colonel or captain breaks his sword over his knee. Was that the same show?

And, I remember Richard Boone as Hec Ramsey.

BOT, I have been wrapping a piece of foam tightly around my Bergs with rubber bands. It seems to keep the crystals snug.

David

dbacque

My Feedback: (3)

I received my replacement 4L receiver and crystal from Castle and still had the same problem with the light always being on dim. But if you look closely and move it around you can tell it's actually flashing quickly. This means that the receiver is having trouble with the signal and is rejecting frames of data.

I called Castle. First they told me to test it outside, not inside. And test with at least 10' separation between transmitter and receiver. Same thing. Then they told me my transmitter probably needed tuning. So I sent the transmitter out. $100 later I STILL have the same problem.

I'm completely frustrated with this thing. I have a freshly tuned Futaba 9CAP transmitter, a brand new 4L and crystal and the frame reject light continues to flash. Meanwhile I've got a newly refurbed Sykosis that is just begging to go flying. Not to mention the plane that I've already lost to the same problem with the previous receiver.

Next I'd like to test it with a different transmitter but I'd have to buy another crystal to do that. I'm fed up and ready to just smack this receiver with a hammer.

So here's the question: when you power on your transmitter and 4L receiver, does the light on the receiver flash dimly or does it go out after initial power up?

Dave

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

Dave, I've given Berg a fair shot and have decided that it's time to move on. I'm back using the Electron. Now Hitek has another small RX [I know nothing about]......a Neutron?
Anybody know anything about that one?

Thanks for keeping us [me especially ] informed. I do a lot of 1/2A flying, I'll bet 100 flights per year, so my odds of seeing equipment crap out is going to be higher than someone who only gets in a couple dozen 1/2A flights per year. Still no excuse for the collection of dead Bergs I've got.
The only Electron I've failed was crash damaged from either a dead battery or dumb pilot, don't remember which.

skaliwag

My Feedback: (1)

CP.. You can always blame the "Moose"

dbacque

My Feedback: (3)

What are the symptoms you're seeing? Any similar stuff with the light? Have you tried different transmitters?

The Neutron is the only dual conversion micro I could find with a little searching this evening. If it doesn't break OUR Sykosis I may just have to get one. It's 4.4 times heavier than the microstamp but if it works we can at least strip the case off it and save a few grams.

Are there any other suitable dual conversion receivers micro receivers out there? Anybody?

Dave

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

Dave, my Bergs work perfectly 99.999% of the time, so the only symptoms I see is a plane lose control briefly, or lose control until impact, then work perfectly while I'm picking up the wreckage, work perfectly all the way home, work perfectly in some plane I don't care about, etc.

I won't remove any cases any more, I used to do it. I don't care that much about a few grams any more. A hot TD can crank out 18 ozs of thrust, a Norvel even more.....that's more than enough to fly a 12-13 oz plane pretty well. I suppose if you do a real good job of padding a stripped down RX, you're pretty safe....but the ones I've done that with had solder traces fail.

I wouldn't be surprised, in fact I would hope that the Neutron is shock and vibration tested.

Skaliwag.....never blame the Moose! It takes 6 of them just to get the courage to get the plane out of the car.

MJD

My Feedback: (1)

I'd like know how to protect the Rx as well as the original case with less weight..

RD - I watched few Hec Ramsey episodes, and I still remember the one where he'd done something to his hand when he was stuck out in the boonies, had to dig out a thorn or stinger or something. Then, to cauterize the wound he grabbed a handgun round in his teeth, pulled out the bullet, poured the black powder into the cut, and touched it off with his cigar. That made the jewels pucker I bet.

Frankly, I'd take my chances with the body's natural defences.. but I'm not beeg tough cowboy like him.

MJD

dbacque

My Feedback: (3)

This morning at the flying field we were discussing receivers (big surprise) and a buddy mentioned Corona receivers. This looks pretty promising. http://www.bphobbies.com/view.asp?id...2&pid=A3067647

Has anybody used one of these? I think I'll order one up and give it a shot.

Dave

Electric Delta

My Feedback: (13)

I had a pair of Bergs a while back, one in my 1/2A Shrike, one in my Graupner Mini-Viper. They worked "99% of the time", but I had some glitches pretty much every flight, even at close (< 100 ft) range. This was after having similar problems with JR 610M receivers in both airplanes. Batteries, switches and servos checked out 100% ok, and worked fine in other planes. There was no carbon or even metal pushrods in either plane, nothing that could likely cause these problems. Installing brand new batteries, switches and servos didn't help, but installing a Hitec 555 cured the problems 100%. Since then, I've replaced all of my 72 MHz FM and PCM/SPCM Rx's with 2.4 GHz Spektrum and never looked back. The AR6100 Rx's are very small and light, maybe not as small as the Berg Microstamps, but small enough that the weight penalty is negligible. Even though these are intended for park flyers, the range has been more than adequate for my 1/2A's, absolutely rock-solid, as far away as I can still see the planes. The biggest bonus vs. 72 MHz for my 1/2A's has to be the 30 mm short antennas though, no more accidentally stepping on them when picking the plane up off the ground, nor having them flapping in the breeze trailing behind the plane. Never tried the base-loaded / coiled antennas on my 1/2A's; if a full-length antenna wasn't working well, I wouldn't expect a base-loaded antenna to work any better...

mylamo

My Feedback: (1)

I had some range issues with Bergs and finally traced the
problem to a less than perfect Y extension. It was one
that I had made but you are the only one I have told.
Ralph

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

With a decent 72Mhz RX you can coil up the antenna on a 7-11 Slurpee Straw and keep the whole works inside the plane. Use clear packing tape to make the coils stay put.

ED [bad initials to have, man ], thanks for reminding me about the Spektrum PFer system...even though they warn you against it, there is enough range for 1/2A. I seem to recall a higher current drain though.

Back in the day, RXs were suspended by rubberbands, like you would rig a hammock, no?

unattainium

When we set up electronic equipment to be reliable we put a contact conditioner on connector pins. Traditionally we woud use Cramolin but there are others. Basically they are a polymer which becomes conductive in an electrical field. It can turn an unreliable unit into a trouble free one.

Another traditional practice on commissioning an electronic device is the drop test. As part of the final test drop the unit to shock it and see if it still works. A hammer can be used to deliver the shocks. This seems a bit drastic but it does locate intermittent problems such as dry solder joints and loose connectors.

One area where the Cramolin treatment is invaluable is ship borne equipment because salt spray and moisture gets between connector parts and triggers micro corrosion. The less current the connector carries the worse the problem. I would imagine that life in a model can be even tougher than life on a ship.

I have not experimented to establish bad effects this but know that frequency locking crystals are a mechanical device made up from a fragile and brittle wafer of quartz which uses mechanical vibration to operate. Transmitting shock and vibration into the crystal is not helpful. The receiver itself should be able to handle very large G forces, but that does not include the crystal. Careful Rx installation with shock absorbing mountings has to be a good idea.

Just a thought as to why the small Berg receivers exhibit glitches is that their small size makes it difficult to have large filter capacitors to clean the input power and to filter out transients from switching servo and motor currents. Adding extra filtering and seeing if the LED goes out would be an interesting experiment.

fizzwater2

My Feedback: (61)

where would one get this Cramolin stuff?

dbacque

My Feedback: (3)

It would be interesting to see if that makes the flashing light go out. It would also be interesting to see if my receiver would sync up better with a different transmitter, but I'd have to buy a crystal on a different frequency to find out.

Since the postman delivered my new Corona receiver today and it seems to be working, I think the suggestion that I like the best is testing the Berg with a hammer. Testing it really hard with a hammer! ;^)

Dave

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

Maybe Berg should have a warning sticker.....DO NOT EXCEED 20,000 RPM!!

tipstall 131

I have never used these Berg receivers because they are not really available in the RSA. In my 1/2A stuff I use 6 Channel Chopper receivers from E-Sky. They are single conversion full range receivers and they are pretty light. Don't know how much the Berg receivers weigh but I don't think there is that much of a difference. The E-Sky receiver is about the same size as the electron receiver.

Schu

My Feedback: (5)

Never had a problem w/ my bergs - have abot 10 - also use the hitechs w/o a problem as well. Mostly use in my 1/2 A racers, so maybe I have been lucky?

dbacque

My Feedback: (3)

I just got off the phone with Berg. Turns out they did not replace my receiver. They "repaired" it and sent it back to me.

When I got it back and it still didn't work right, instead of replacing it they had me send my transmitter out for servicing at my cost.

Now that I've spent an additional $200 on the transmitter and the system still doesn't work they finally admit that it was the same receiver and have decided to send me a new one.

When I lost my plane I was disappointed. When the "new" receiver didn't work I was miffed. When I spent $200 to fix nothing I was upset. But now that I know they sent me the same bad receiver I'm absolutely irate!

I told them they could keep their new receiver because I sure won't be using it. They said I'll be receiving a call tomorrow to figure out what went wrong.

Dave