Yes, that harmonic drive was the subject of disspute for Bonner. It was in the later 4RS systems that had either the grey or orange 4 wire plastic cased servos.

I beleive the F&M had six channels, at least the receiver has six servo pigtails on several unit I have seen. The panel on the F&M is labeled "AUX" which indicates those are two additional auxillary levers. Nice job on the silksceen artwork.

The reason that you have trouble using the Futaba R-114 is two fold: The sync pause/reset time for the earlier systems was different, as was the frame rate. Changing the sync cap in the decoder will solve that. Additionally, the Futaba receiver outputs a positive pulse to the servo. Some of the early systems used a negative pulse to the servo, so a pulse inverster would be needed...Ace R/C used to sell them. The other option would be to get a Receiver crystal that was cut 455 Khz higher that the channel frequecy for the Futaba(high side as opposed to low side crystal) to invert the pulse train going to the decoder.


I have freed up those old Bonner sticks, usually it is castor oil in the ball socket that causes problems. Alot of guys don't remember, but you push on the Bonner trim levers to move them, otherwize it strips the ratcheting notches off the trim levers and then they will move with the stick! Be careful with them, they are fragile. I have made new "C" springs for the Bonner stick using lighter gauge music wire than the original spring, it helps alot. Use silicon grease on the ball socket, as any petroleum lubes harm the plastic. The grease really helps the feel and removes some slop.

Failsafe really eats up batteries, I remember the ad for the Galaxy 5 by Galatron had it as an option. The Digicons had failsafe too.