ForkliftJeff

I'm working on an old swamp buggy that I got from my dad. I just got the radio equip from him. It's a Kraft Sports Series radio, receiver, 2 servos, battery and charger. The radio is charged and the meter says its full. The receiver is somewhat charged. I dont know where to plug the servos and batt into the reciever. None of the plugs are marked. The most I got so far is when I was plugging the servos in, sometimes it would make the servo go all the way one way, but I get no response with the radio. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Newc

Your best bet is Pete Waters at Kraft Midwest. See http://kraftmidwest.com/ Pete has been around radios since they were invented, I think, and as you can see from the name of his company he has had his company since Kraft was in business. One caveat is that Pete has taken to going to Florida for a number of months in the winter. If you call his number you may get a recording telling you when he's back or even a number to contact him in Florida since I believe he may still do some work while on 'vacation'.

In the meantime, what I would do is - first of all - get the receiver battery competely charged and if it is as old as it would seem from yourt note, strongly consider getting a new battery, since the maximum useful life of a battery is about 5 years. Same goes for the transmitter, as with either of them you can get a faulty 'good' signal that is actually just showing a surface charge that goes away as soon as there is any load on the battery. Then, when you are certain the batteries are in good shape and fully charged, take what is a known good servo - perhaps you will need to borrow one from a friend if you only have the ones that came with the buggy (right now you don't know for certain that any of your servos are good since you can't get them to operarte correctly) - to check out the other components. When you have a known good servo, plug it into any channel in the receiver (Rx) - with the antenna extended but no linkages attached to the servo - and (again, with the transmitter (Tx) antenna extended) go through all of the control movements available on the transmitter and see what happens, marking which control input controlled that receiver port. If things are now working as mentioned, do the same thing for all the other Rx ports.

By the way, I'm assuming that you have the right frequencies for both Rx and Tx and that the crystals are in good ahape and plugged in securly. Shake the crystals and if you hear a rattle you have a bad crystal.

Good luck.

bpannier

It could be on frequencies that are no longer legal. The best bet would be to junk it and buy new radio not much more than the battaries will cost you. The garbage can got my old Kraft radios.

silent flight

Hi,

I own 2 of the Kraft Sport Series. I recall very well that when the Rx pack is low the servos will drive to the end. You will need a new pack. Also if yours is like the aircraft versions that I own the Rx pack is wired directly to the switch harness with no connector in between so you will need to cut the wires and solder in the new pack. Just don't mess up on the polarity. I had mine upgraded several years ago by Pete Waters, because they are good simple glider radios. IMHO never trash can a Kraft radio!

Hircflyer

I have an old Sport Radio Charger cord....if someone wants it I will be glad to give it tp them.

PM me

Aloha

sfsjkid

I agree, a Kraft is never something to be trashed Help me out here since I was a real youngin' when I had my Sport Series Radio, but some batteries had 4 wires while others had 3. Mine had 3 with the third one splitting the pack, the polarity change allowing the movement back and forth?

Ed_Moorman

My Feedback: (1)

That does go back. In the old, old days, servos had 4 wires and batteries had 3. You had a ground, 2.4v & 4.8v wire.

silent flight

As I recall the Sport Series in 73/74 had a gold case TX. Mine came with the RX battery pack wired to the switch harness with no connector so if you crashed and opened up the fuse you were almost guaranteed to tear the wires out of the pack or switch. They had no bells or whistles but were good radios. The RX was also a different (larger) version. Later they came out with a model of Sport Series with Ivory cases on all components. The two were not interchangable because a different pulse width in the signal. (I think)
Can someone out there recall? Then even later, and only for a short time, in an effort to be competative with the ever growing imports they had a KB series. They probably were also imported. Not long thereafter they were out of business. I also own one of the later Gold Spectrums. Open up the TX case on one of those and see some very nice workmanship mostly wired by human hands in the USA. But that is another story. In my collection is a dual conversion RX in a metal case. I also recall they made some attempt at FM. Still not in the trash! I have most of the old catalogs and price lists, guess I'll go look.