gofast53

Have just bought a new Recxl optokill switch v1.3 and am using a 5 channel Spectrum transmitter and a 6200 6 channel reciever. Have plugged optokill into spare AUX channel not being used on reciever but optokill LED will not light up and no power to ignition. Temporarily plugged Optokill into Gear channel and activated switch on transmitter, Optokill works fine with LED on. Does this mean I can not use AUX channel as I need the Gear channel for my retracts, any ideas as do not want to have to buy a 6 channel transmitter!!

jedijody

My Feedback: (1)

The auxiliary channel on your Rx is channel #6, you only have a five channel Tx. You only have a 4 channel plane so what do you have plugged into channel #5?

w8ye

My Feedback: (16)

He's got the retracts on #5

jedijody

My Feedback: (1)

Then I would just use a throttle kill, should not be flying a plane without a working throttle kill anyway. Never had an ignition kill on a glow engine.

BarracudaHockey

My Feedback: (11)

A DLE20 is a glow engine?

w8ye

My Feedback: (16)

You are reading Jody's statement out of context.

BarracudaHockey

My Feedback: (11)

Oh......hehe.... i get it now. "been flying glow for years and never needed a kill switch other than throttle kill"

Sorry, in deference to his long standing expertise I would respectfully disagree. I've had a problem in flight with a screw working out of the carb arm and flying around at just over 1/4 throttle, fast enough not to be able to land, but low enough that the tank lasted forever. I had to fly circuits, at an event with a very busy flight line (isn't that always when something comes up!) until the damn thing dead sticked so I could land.

All my gassers are equipped with optical kills now.

w8ye

My Feedback: (16)

Been there and done that too. The plane flew for 54 min

jedijody

My Feedback: (1)

That happens with glow engines as well, were it not for their high rate of fuel consumptionthey would be stuck in the air for a similar length of time. The fact that you were stuck flying so long when thethrottle linkage disconnectedwasn't because you didn't have an optical ignition switch, set up and assembly practiceswere the root of the linkage failure and then the subsequent loiter time until the fuel ran out. The same thing has happened to me and it was my fault then as well, I learned from it and it will never happen again.

Proper application of Loctite and or leaving the throttlereturn spring connected as it came from the factory along with an engine that dies when the throttle is closed would have prevented it.

BarracudaHockey

My Feedback: (11)

You're exactly right, and as a chopper pilot I know better! Heck, we use locktite as salad dressing.

It's a nice fail safe to have that costs little and works well though.

Besides, with a JR 11X with the slider instead of the digi trims, its nice to flick a switch and not tinker with the trim position.

I agree it's not a necessity though.

gofast53

Problem with my DLE20 is that with throttle butterfly fully closed engine stills runs on for some time at a very low idle with a lot of coffing and splattering. Have checked for air leaks and that butterfly is sealing. On reading some forums this problem is common on alot of walbro carbs, due to the butterfly having a small venting hole in it, which means quote "that if the motor is well tuned it can run on with butterfly fully closed". Now not sure if this is true or not but does makes sense, as in my case motor runs real sweet from low to hign and back down. So I figured next best thing for shutting engine down (and also as a safety) was to use an optokill, but did not realise (nor did my LOCAL HOBBY SHOP) that even though I have a spare channel on reciever because I only have a 5 channel transmitter it will not work. Is there any way I can connect in with a y connector to another channel???

Indiomike

My Feedback: (5)

This is not an answer to your situation but I just installed an RCEXL kill switch to my DLE20. Airplane is an Aeroworks 60/90 Extra 300. I had a tremendous hard time trying to start the engine. When it finally did start, it ran awful. It was cutting out terribly at high rpm and would only run for a few seconds at around 2500 rpm or less. I set the low needle at 1.1 turn out and the high at 1.5 which is stated on the instruction sheet that comes with the engine. Over many attempts to start the darn thing I had made adjustments on both needles from less than one turn out to as much as 2 and 3/4 turns out. Still the engine would not either start or if it did, it would run only briefly or cut out terribly.

After trying various things to get the engine to run, I removed the RCEXL kill switch and the engine fired right up with no cutting out. I've still got to get the needles set but my main point is that the opto kill switch seemed to cause the problem.

Has anyone else had a similar experience? I want a kill switch but I'm not too happy with the RCEXL. I think it may be better to spend the extra money and get a 42% switch instead.

gofast53

Here in NZ it is a popular brand and I have not heard any bad feedback. 42% is almost twice the price here so thats the other reason I went for RCEXL.

mrbigg

My Feedback: (21)

I don't understand how you and your LHS would think it would work with a 5 channel transmitter, being as you are using all five channels already. Some switch has to be thrown to activate the kill (Same thing with the 42 Percent kill). If you don't want to buy a 6 channel transmitter, you'll have to either forgo the throttle, ailerons, rudder, elevator, or retracts. You can't have 6 functions with a 5 function tranny.

gofast53

We were both assuming that the 6th unused channel on the reciever would have a signal even though there is no 6th channel control from the transmitter. As the idea was that I did not want to be able to turn the optokilll off from the transmitter but rather that if the reciever lost power or signal it would in turn switch the optokilll off and hence the ignition (almost like a failsafe). But it looks like the 6th channel is dead (ie no signal) due to transmitter being 5 channel.

w8ye

My Feedback: (16)

The center of the channel frquency you are thinking of actually comes from the transmitter