Rod Bender

Thanks for the input guys,

Your corrrect, information is only as good as its source..... Greg

vintageflyer

My Feedback: (1)

While atlanta hobbies has nothing to gain, Spektrum would.
Just as some people here, who are affiliated w/ Spektrum also would.
I think that is why its hard to get clear answers.

Remember the picture?



DM

Bob Pastorello

My Feedback: (198)

What is your question that you cannot get a clear answer to?

JustinG

Not trying to single anyone out here, but this line of thinking flawed. Anyone why buys a DX7 thinking they've crashed their last plane is probably kidding themselves.

These model airplanes that we fly have multiple points of failure. The radio link is but one of them. Just because you're flying with a DX7, that is no insurance against your plane falling out of the sky for any one of the other thousand things that can go wrong in flight. That hidden glue joint that's slowly coming loose over time, or the servo gear that's on the brink of failure just waiting for your next hard snap maneuver to give way, those CA hinges that are getting brittle, etc. It's just a fact of life, unfortunately. Good maintenance can minimize these failures but it's still not 100%. All the DX7 or any radio can try to do is reduce the probability of rf link failure to as close to zero as possible. Expecting more than that is setting yourself up for disappointment.

Then you're down to the next weakest link in the chain. If anything, using these more reliable spread spectrum radios in our planes brings other weaknesses to the forefront. I lost my UltraStick last week to a stripped elevator servo that gave out while flying. These kind of things are going to happen, using a Spektrum or XPS or Futaba SS doesn't make a plane immune.

Ok, so if this reads like I've gone on a rant, I really haven't! I've not had any problems with any of my Spektrum equipment (knock on wood), but I hope those that are having problems keep digging and find an explanation/solution. On that front, I can't offer much more than what has already been suggested.

Rod Bender

Wow,
Where to start. Um, I agree with you on the radio being what it is, and will not keep you from loosing a plane due to structural failure, or servo gears stripping. With that said, I would never put used servos into a new plane, all components are new. With plane, servos, rx, eng, and batt going near $1K, I would not risk putting in used servos. I am just trying to minimize flight failure possibilities at our site specifically. Using a DX7 would certainly minimize those anomalies we seem to have at our location.

Thanks for the input though................... Greg

skorman

My Feedback: (3)

My experience with the 6100 was in a Mini Ultra Stick that spun in uncontrollably after 6 minutes of flight. I set up for a landing and in it went. When I got to the plane, everything was working fine. Since it was an Ultra Stick with nylon bolts on gear and wing, it was fairly easy to fix. I have been flying the same setup now for 3 months and not one glitch. If the Mini Ultra Stick wasn't so easy to repair, I wouldn't trust the 6100 again. But so far so good.

jnmohn

I think we found part of the problem. I took three new Spektrum receivers (2-DX6 and one AR6000). It took two tries on one DX6 receiver to get the thing to bind using a Spektrum receiver pack fully charged. The second DX6 was able to bind normally. The AR6000 would not bind using two transmitters, one right out of the box. Here is the bad part, we tried to simulate a temporary power loss while in flight like a short. One of the DX6 receivers took almost 15 seconds to re-establish transmitter control. It was locked the entire 15 seconds after power was shorted. The other DX6 took only 3 seconds to re-establish control. I later tested my DX7 receiver and it took 16 seconds to re-establish control to my transmitter. This was the receiver that was in my P39 when it crashed. A lock for anything over a couple seconds is a distaster for the plane, but 15 seconds, that's forever! I hope there is a reasonable explanation to this problem because I love flying without the worry of someone on my frequency.

Bob Pastorello

My Feedback: (198)

Assuming you "shorted" battery + voltage to the - Negative lead?
There is NO receiver on ANY frequency of ANY brand that will survive that.

The DX system clearly takes "recognition" time after a power interrupt to the RX. That is the nature of the beast. I sure hope it never happens, but when it does, the airplane will be toast, trashed, crashed.

The amount of time my AR 7000 receivers take to "wake up" after a power interrupt is between about 6 seconds and 15, consistent with your finding. That is a literal LIFETIME in an airframe.

Unfortunately, I don't have any AR6100's, but would guess that in use with the DX 7 and not the 6, they would take a similar amount of time to "lock on" to the TX signal. But that's a guess.

jnmohn

I know that it takes some amount of time to "recognize" the transmitter again for any brand/type of system, but it's the inconsistency that troubles me. A couple seconds is a long time, but with enough altitude, the plance can recover. All my problems have been with electric conversion planes not gas. The only problem that we have identified at this time is with the recovery time for the Spektrum receivers. My other 72 mhz systems take only a fraction of a second to recover when power drops.

Bob Pastorello

My Feedback: (198)

I agree. It would be good to have a clearer understanding of the cause of variations between systems.

jnmohn

I am should get me stuff back today from Spekrum and hopefully some answers. It could be that the larger planes with 4+ servos are causing some problem with the receivers too, but we tested them with one servo and an external battery pack. The "short" was simulated using a switch and also by just moving the lead until power dropped. It's possible on an BEC circuit that with 4+ servos you could get an overheat and cause a shut down, but it's hard to imagine that's what happened on my plane as I was using an external pack and the esc was an 80 amp with a motor only pulling 55 amps max.

jnmohn

Spektum returned my gear today and here's the findings. A 2 second recovery time is too long. So check all your receivers and make sure they aren't any longer than 2 seconds. They replaced mine. The AR6000 that wouldn't bind was also replaced. It turns out they were only checking to make sure the LED came on at assembly and not if it would bind. Some were produced that had problems binding. They also replaced that one too. Spektrum has been very good with my problems and always had a solution or replaced any bad parts.

I am back on with my DX-7 now and confident it will not have any issues again. Just make sure you fully test your systems before using them to make sure they don't take too long to re-establish a link if you have any power disruption.

speedpro 1

i read on another forum that specktrum found a firmware problem with the 6100 and will have a update

YarSmytheJr

!! Spektrum firmware upgrade on AR6100 receiver !!

Hey fellas. Please click on this link to read a thread on RCGROUPS about a possible solution to this problem:

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showt...pp=50&post=186

Post #186

I too had the same problems as many of you and sent my gear directly to Spektrum. They were able to duplicate the problem and create a firmware patch for the AR6100 receiver. Horizon Hobby should release a statement next week with instructions on how to get your AR6100 serviced.

Cheers,

-Lee

Bob Pastorello

My Feedback: (198)

GREAT info, and work on your part (detailed on that other thread!). Great job.

Now - can you outline your "procedure" here for everyone to test, and also detail what you know about their "firmware" "Fix"??? Is THEIR fix to the 6100 the plug in capacitor?

And any comments at all on similar issues with AR7000 ???

Again - thanks for your work!

rmh

I went thru a couple of "what was that?" issues with one of my 6100's (none of the 7000s) and did some swapping of 6100 rx to other models .
Apparantly, the problem is - enviroment - more specifically electrical /power supply enviroment.that is-- in some cases the ESC/BEC setup is not friendly. and the problem pops up in these cases
when swapping the rx to other model (different enviroment) - the problems vanished .
Let's see what the "fix" is . I won't venture a guess.

Bob Pastorello

My Feedback: (198)

Interesting - very interesting.

rmh

Just to clarify my previous comments a bit-
our old rx setups for our small electrics did occasionally suffer from the little sporadic glitch- -"what was that?" occasions and we kept right on flying - but the 6100 being a different breed of cat responds differently to voltage fluctuations etc..
when all is as it should be - it beats all the other mini rx I have used -and I had a bunch of teensy wensy types as well as the 610 JR rx etc..
that is -- no glitches .
In that the number and types of electric motors and ESCs and BECs , is pretty high- It is no wonder that there may be some combos which can produce trouble for a small solid state rx.
Those who work with stuff which comes in a "potted" box , know what I mean.

YarSmytheJr

Read more on the RCGROUPS.COM thread. I posted my steps recently.

There is NO problem with the AR7000. The firmware upgrade is only for the AR6100. Keep your eyes open on Horizon Hobby's website for more information.

Cheers, -Lee

wingman371

Hey Y'all.. I have been reading the Spektrum posts diligently. I recently purchased a DX-7 but will have another 6 months before i can get it in the air. Are most if not 99.9 percent of the problems dealing with electrics? I am not an electric flyer and am wondering if these same lokout problems are occuring with gas and glo engines? Any of y'alls help would be great....Al

p51usaf

I was asissting one guy who had a chritain eagle with a gas engine and a DX7.We was going over the controls with the radio on.After about 20 minutes someone down on the other end of the field asked what channle we was on.Well what else could we say.We went down to where they were and left the radio on.We got to other guy and he said his controls was going crazy.His radio was on and sitting nexto his plane.as soon as we truned off the dx7 radio the other guys plane stopped going crazy.I would like to know if maybe this was a real problem with the dx7 or something else was going on.there was no other radio at the field,so we know noone had a radio on. If someone could email me with a ideal at [email protected]

radiocontrol

My Feedback: (2)

Tomorrow, I am sending my 4 AR6100 receivers back to Horizon Hobby for a refund or to exchange to the AR6000's. I have had zero problems with AR6000 in a GP mini super sportster. I also have an AR7000 in a Tower Hobbies Kaos converted to electric. Absolutely no problems with that receiver either. Of the 3 AR6100 receivers currently in my park flyers, I have had motors cut off after only 30 seconds to 3 minutes in the air. Servos still work, so I have been able to land safely. When I move the throttle stick to zero, then throttle up, nothing happens. The motor won't run. Even if I switch the ESC off, then on, motor still won't run. The only way to fix this is to unplug the battery from the ESC, then plug it in again. This seems to reset the receiver. This hasn't happened every time I fly, but enough that it seems to happen over 40% of the time. Also, I almost lost my Alfa Mustang yesterday when the plane did a wild snap roll and then the motor cut off. I did not initiate the snap roll. I landed safely, but motor would not start again until I unplugged and replugged the battery to the ESC. I think there may be an inherent defect in these receivers. By the way, I was flying all my parkflyers with the Hitec Eclipse TX and Hitec receivers before I switched to the DX7. I never had this problem until I installed the AR6100 receivers. I saw a bulletin on the Horizon Hobby website that said the 6100 may need a software upgrade. I wonder if even that would fix the problem.

skorman

My Feedback: (3)

I also had a problem with my 6100 that resulted in a crash on the very first flight. I sent it back to be check out and for the firmware upgrade. It took around 2 weeks to get it back. I've been flying it for about a week and so far so good.

rmh

I finally came up with a way to easily mount and remove my 6100rx's

JuanPu

Hi, I have just received a 6100 from MyRcSupply after a long backordered period.

It has a V1.2 sticker. May I suppose it has the fixed firmware?

Thanks.