5 cells
Well Dave,
Without knowing how you do your range checks or exactly what equipment you are using, its a moot point.
For example, ole Jackjet prefers to get up about a 1000 ft and put his antenna down to see how the plane responds. This may be OK, but would appear to me that it tells you nothing about what may happen on a long low approach close to the ground where the signal has degenerated.
I can remember my first Futaba manuals , 20 years ago, explaining the range was approximately 1 mile straight up in unrestricted air space and gradually degenerated to approx 700 yards on the ground.
Others have chimed in on this subject, some have experienced what I am talking about. Some have tried to explain the reason this can happen, especially the explanations from Silver182 (Lee DeMary). I very much appreciated his input.
Needless to say it made me gunshy , the solution is to use a voltage regulator to reduce the voltage to around the 5.2 mark or stay with 4 cell packs and eliminate just one more component in the system BUT, still do the extended range checks to see just what you really have for range on the ground.
There is nothing in the manuals about overvoltage. There is nothing in the manuals about extended range checks. There is nothing can be done to convince everyone to do long range -range ckecks the way Lee does, But there have been many "unexplained" failsafe failures, that I would bet a nickel to a dog turd, was caused by unregulated voltage on some of the systems.
Rod