Hi Bill,
I should explain my history and experience with this Tx. I have updated this 18MZ since it was new the first year they were brought onto the market. The update I am trying to do now is the 11th that I have done on this Tx alone, not to mention the 18MZ that I own (4 years old) in the USA, and the 18SZ I have here in Canada as well. I have done this for a few friends too. All have gone without incident until now.

The switch was flipped of course, and I did the procedure from the start twice, just to be certain. I extracted the zipped files as usual on my Windows 7 PC (the same one I have used all these years, on the USA 18MZ I use a different PC, a laptop by the way) by opening the zip file and copying the “update” folder (via drag and drop) to another folder in which the zip file was not located, again the same as I have done it 10 times before. I am at a loss to know what is happening except maybe I have too many models in the 18MZ (20 at this point) and there is no memory available. I may try exporting it all to another SD card and then see what happens. It seems a bit drastic but its all I can imagine...hence my plea to you for help...

I was actually hoping it was something silly that I was doing but just could not see it...so have you any other ideas? Also has anyone else ever had this error show up?
Thanks,
Len

Hey Bill,
No offense was taken at all, I just wanted to get passed the usual things we both go through with most users. I actually did re-download the file today after the first erroneous attempt, so I had the latest file for the second extraction and update attempt. I am at a loss too...If you’re talking to a Futaba tech please ask what generates this error, after I try it again and get the exact wording for you in a day or so, or maybe even tonight. My sense of the thing assuming the error statement was accurate for cause, was that possibly the internal processor needed more space than available, due to the memory used by the stored models, to extract its code and do its scratchpad work...it was a guess, simply based on the number of times this has worked fine and the slowly accumulating models in the 18MZ.
Thanks for your help, maybe we can get some ideas soon...
Len

Hi Bill,
I just finished the update successfully! It was indeed that the internal 92MB was too full. Let me take this one step at a time:
Firstly the actual error is “The available space in the transmitter is not enough.” and it appears inside the update screen as soon as the edit or any key is pressed to initiate the update.

Secondly I assumed it was a factually accurate error notice so I looked into the amount of space I was using of the 92MB. It was 74MB used in the information screen!!! Okay that seemed odd with only 21 models even though 75% are turbines. I looked at what was using the ram and it turns out I had 6 songs that I never ever play on the Tx. They accounted for 17.3 MB on my PC and likely more in the Tx due to the allocation units of Windows CE. I went into the Tx to delete the music in the player and I noted that each song was repeated 3 times in the player’s database! I can only imagine that this had something to do with my importing an F-35A model from my Hawaiian 18MZ this morning, or maybe some other weird happenstance. In any event, once the player’s database was deleted, the update went perfectly as usual...

Lastly I went into the information screen again to check the update version post updating as usual, and it was fine at version 2.7.2. However; the statistics on the memory are a bit odd too! The internal ram shows 92MB with 44MB used now with the 21 models and no music. That’s acceptable to the Tx, so its good to go. The weird thing is that the next line down shows model data counts and under Internal it reads 233 models! To make this even more weird, the SD Card column shows 17392 models and it has the same 21 models on it as are in the Tx’s internal ram! To test this I went into the model data page and deleted two models from the SD Card, and then shut off the Tx (hard method - both buttons). I rebooted a minute or so later and the Model Data count is the same for the Tx at 233 and the SD Card read 17390, the two less that I had deleted!!!

Okay I get that my original query is solved, but what gives with this data? Not an urgent question as I could care less what it says as long as it functions correctly, but curious none the less! Anyway we have the answer if anyone else gets this space error...

Thanks again,
Len

Thanks for sounding it out with me Bill !!!
Len