davezagwyn

I lost three planes with spectrum equipment, I will never buy or recommend spectrum to anyone ever. I could go on and on about what I went through I have been flying since the 90s and never had a problem until I made the HUGE mistake of buying spectrum equipment. I just told a fellow last night to use his 72 MHz in his new cub over using his spectrum radio. I fly Futaba and JR and have not had even as much as a glitch never mind losing total radio contact! I didn't use cheap receivers and I wasn't losing cheap planes.

TOPGUN WINNER

My Feedback: (27)

loan your friend on of your JR receivers...He should have no problem with his radio.

if you read all the stuff in here you will find that the testing we did shows no problem with the Tx All the problems are with the Rx. Use JR or ORANGE and your problem goes away.

We purchased the Spectrum ar-9100 safe receiver with two Satellites ( It can handle 3) Just under $200.00 and guess what. My friends $3,000 IMAC plane the he put it in is gone.....Went crazy at the start of his first maneuver i the Competition.They told him to buy a FUTABA.

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kurtataltos

So the bottom line, after all your posts, is that you don't really have an answer. You don't have the "ah hah!". You have a forum, a theory... a guess... you have trumpeted the effect you observed but are mysteriously guarding the root cause you found. Why? Because you don't KNOW the root cause. Lot's of pontificating. Lot's of hot air.

Once again I ask: what is "the answer"? You said you have it. Actually, you claimed you have it. You said you pitched it to Spektrum. Supposedly. That didn't work (if it happened) and threatened Spektrum with theatrics, YouTube and a class action suit. Sadly, you're fishing in a sterile pond but you have internet access so your need for attention goes on.

Please consider proving me wrong. I would thank you. Really. The RC world would thank you too (and stroke that ego of yours !). All you have to do is bring something to the party, something of substance, something r-e-a-l. And if....IF you ever do, I will thank you. As will others. Until then, all I see is your hot air.

F-16 viperman

I've been flying since the reed era. My Dad worked with Ed Thompson developing the Royal classic, and the RC Manufacturing Eight hundred. They both knew Phil Kraft (Kraft Radios) and Bob Dunnam (Orbit Radios) quite well, and others in the R/C equipment industry. Thats just let you know how long My R/C history is. I've been using spektrum for around 8 yrs now and yes I've encountered a couple probs too. The first was using too low amp battery and only four cells. Most of spektrums rx are rated for up to 7-8 volts max. makes me assume they'll stop working at a lower minimum when all the servos are drawing power. Make sure even if you can't increase the voltage because your servos can't take it, to increase the current capacity so you wont get a voltage drop from servo load. Second, I always make sure all lights are solid every time i power up and when i power down. I think it's best to get servos that are rated at least to 6 volts and use 6 volts with ample M/A current. and always be vigilant of the lights on the main rx and sattelites. Hope that helps. One more thought, for those who fly high power electrics,I would advise against using speed control BEC power for anything more than 4 or 5s lipo as I've experienced reliability problems there too. For that I use a separate power supply. Just tryin to help.

I-fly-any-and-all

My Feedback: (1)

Thank God I still fly FM! heck when ever I find a good mid eighties early 90's am radio I still fly those too!

AndyKunz

I'm still wanting to see the videos, even after reading all the posts in both of your threads. Let's see them!

And I'll keep on flying with only Spektrum receivers, because they're the ones I know and trust. I chose Spektrum a year before coming to Horizon, and after working here over 7 years I have even more confidence in the products than I did before. I know and trust the engineers implicitly.

Andy

TOPGUN WINNER

My Feedback: (27)

i-fly any and -all:I thank God for everything. I just gave away four brand new in the box $350.00 radios to some less fortunate than I am. (very hard to find ) I still have boxes of excellent receivers that I will never use. If you pay the shipping I will go through them and give the good ones to you.this is new "old stuff". I have futaba radios that i never had a problem with. Just took a lot of Ribbing about my long antenna. I fly with the greatest bunch of guys you could imagine. We have 21 in our retired fly every day group...Several are master builders like me. Well kinda like me...lol
send me a PM with your info. This is your lucky day. God Bless

kdunlap

My Feedback: (12)

This could be singularly the most worthless thread ever posted on RCU. Lots of accusations against Spektrum, lots of name calling, and not one shred of evidence. SHOW ME THE BEEF. Back in the first couple of threads I offered to test the "theory" on one of my planes and post the results. No takers. I even offered to make a contribution to a "DX-18 fund." Still no takers. Unless we have verified and repeatable test data, I don't know how anyone can say that this problem is factual. In fact, I don't even know why I give a hoot about this thread anymore. Maybe it's because trashing Spectrum seems to be completely dishonest with this "evidence." So, TOPGUN WINNER, while we may not all be "master builders like me" we would expect that someone who pays attention to the minute details, understands what precision is, and wins awards for it, would at least share the evidence. Look you started the thread, not me.
Ken

PLANE JIM

My Feedback: (109)

when do you fly-it seems you post about Spektrum radio products all day everyday?

lawrence b

Top Gun,
On your post #187 you are in error. I did not fly a jet at Top Gun this year, it was a scratch built from my own plans 1/4 scale Fiat CR-32. I am flying it with a Spektrum DX8 TX, 5 JR servos (2 on a Y harness for ailerons) a Spektrum RX, and finally a 4 cell 3000ma Ni Cad battery. I have never used a NiMH battery for a flight pack, even though the Ni Cad packs are getting harder & harder to get.

Larry B

jrf

My Feedback: (551)

kdunlap and others:

As in a court of law, it is not necessary to "prove" that something is true. Only to show that the preponderance of the evidence indicates that it is most likely true. TOPGUN WINNER'S exuberance aside, there have been a lot of posters here and on many other sites who have related the same story, i.e. Spectrum radios crash airplanes. It has happened to me, and I have witnessed it happen to many others. I don't know what the problem is. If I did and it were fixable I would fix it. But since I don't know, I have switched all my planes to another brand.

No proof? Where there's smoke there's fire. How many more planes are going to be lost before we all admit that there is a problem?

HoundDog

My Feedback: (49)

What Spectrum should do with their receivers is junk the guts order a million Orange ones from HK and pull them apart and put the guts in their Receivers boxes and sell them at regular price. There Problem Solved.

HoundDog

My Feedback: (49)

Got real lucky Bro.

kdunlap

My Feedback: (12)

So let's just please stick to the issue at hand in the OP and not go down the "where's there's smoke there's fire route." That phrase while sounding clever, really contains no useful information to understand if there is a problem, what the scope of the problem is, and what we need to do to fix a problem.

The OP said.......

"My next two videos will show exactly why spektrum has a severe problem with "brown outs"...it is so simple that any pilot will understand what they are looking at. That's the good news

the bad news is this: Spektrum has to make some major changes to correct the problem. It is within their system. Someone has changed something from the first units sold for whatever reason. (i have been flying spektrum along with my other radios since they first came out)

you can not fix the problem. That is why i am trying to talk to someone at corporate level that understands electronics at a very technical level. . They wanted me to talk to their lawyer...oh boy! I already have a 4.0gpa in contract law...what is their lawyer got to do with fixing a design flaw?"

Here are my questions.

Where are these next two videos?
Why are they not publicly posted? (as this thread was public to start)
If Spectrum has to make some major changes.. what are they? even broadly
What was changed from the first units sold to the later ones? even broadly
"You can not fix the problem" Why not?
What is the design flaw that the lawyer needs to talk about?

Folks bottom line is that all of us Spectrum owners would be thrilled if this OP was able to provide the community with some hard data. I and others would go out and test our planes, document it, and work for a fix. What is so hard about that? 200 some odd posts later and all we have is a bunch of innuendo. I'm not saying that radios are perfect. But if you understand how they operate it will make you less inclined to install 9 digital hi-torque servos on a puny battery pack. Everything is about risk mitigation. Putting in backup systems etc. Look in the mirror and see if you did everything you could to protect your investment. Finally, if you can't afford to lose it, don't fly it.

jmiles1941

viperman the Kraft Gold Spectrum was my first radio in 1983 it was a awesome radio . flew pattern with it and all we had then was NiCad batteries now I use ED A123 really like the batteries ease of balancing and the handle a heavy discharge

kdunlap

My Feedback: (12)

O yeah.. One last promise to the RCU community.. If I ever lose an airplane due to radio failure, I will investigate it, develop a good data-set, post it, and see if others can duplicate it... My promise to you. All done in public and no secret Youtube channels.
Ken

jmiles1941

I fly IMAC and all the guys I fly with use Futaba, Spektrum, Jr, Jeti, a few airtronics only seen one crash as I stated earlier and after research , we belive it was the DX18 tx which was 2nd generation and had a few problems only thing we can figure , Horizion checked the radio and gave it a clean bill of health , but my friend did not trust it after he started researching he dx18 and he ordered a Futaba 14SG just all I know, we all know if servo draw draws more current than the battery can provide then voltage is going to drop to a point we lose our rx for a second so be sure your power is adequate for your loads on your planes just saying not bashing !!!! and no matter which system you are using you will have the same result!!!

pkoury

My Feedback: (7)

How did you get a 41 foot (500 inch) Yak-55 to fly on an OS 55AX? The full scale Yak has a span of only 26' 7" (319 inches).

John_M_

Not so much the batteries can't supply the current demand of the servos, its the buss they are connected to... have you ever opened up a receiver and looked at the traces that carry the current / voltage to the servo buss... its fine for the std servos / sport flying... you start adding 8-10, or more high current draw digital servos and the receiver buss won't pass the current, hence why I always use a separate servo power buss, with heavy 10 gauge wire feeding the power buss from the battery pack, and then keep the servo extensions as short as possible... that way the current capabilities of the buss will be more than adequate to supply all the servos drawing all at the same time in these giant 3D aircraft.




John M,

sensei

I have been flying F/F, Ukies, and R/C since 1964, so as you can imagine I have flown allot of different radio systems along the way. In all those years I have lost some to the use of AM radios from what I believe was a CB good buddy keying up near by, and I have lost some on FM with a particular transmitter that cost me a Comp Arf 3.3 Yak, a third scale Laser 200 and a couple of small electrics before the problem was identified and rectified. Since I have moved to 2.4/Spektrum in 2007 I have not lost a single airplane due to the stuff I am reading in here.

Bob

jmiles1941

yes John that is why I use a smart fly EQ10 it handles the loads very well, I know I have 10 hitec 7955 servos on my 42% Extra 300 never a problem, anyway thanks I really like my Futaba 14 SG I am building a 42% extra going all SBUS with it with separate battery packs for ailerons and elevator , rudder battery pack

Turner2

This is what is so puzzling about all this. You guys with Futaba and others use all this extra stuff, SBUS, and separate packs for different control surfaces all to ensure adequate power to all servos without draining power away from the Rx but somehow you expect Spektrum receivers to work on their own without these extra systems and without adequate testing. Dumbfounding really.

John_M_

The smartfly stuff is golden for those big birds... in my 1/4 super cub I like to keep it as simple as possible, so just a couple basic power busses from servo city and two of those fromeco badger switches, one for the receivers and one for the servo busses... for the ignition, I use an opti kill switch and a plain high quality switch and its own battery power supply... I avoid daisy chaining a bunch of electronics together if I can.

I never got interested in the SBUS, I'm sure it has its uses, but I just didn't like all those connections between the SBUS hubs and all, so I just link to two of the R7008SB receivers... I use 10 channels with nav, strobe / landing lights and ignition kill.

John M,

lawrence b

Hound Dog,
How do you figure that I "got real lucky"? I have been flying this setup since late 2009, at the NAT's, Top Gun, twice at the U.S. Scale Masters Championships, Warbirds Over Delaware, The Corvin Miller Classic, The Ohio Scale Classic, every local fly-in and at my local field every weekend the weather allows.
I fail to see how I "got real lucky" with over 1000 flights among 5 large scale models and one Spektrum TX.
Flying a large IMAC type model is a completely different situation for your radio flight pack stuff than a scale model cruising around in a scale like manner.
Larry B

John_M_

I'd do the same with Spektrum if I own one of their systems... the same with JR, orange, freesky... I sure all these receivers have voltage regulators built into them, but I always prefer a clean power source to the receiver without any voltage fluctuations from other devices upstream.

John M,