<span style="border: 0pt none ; margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; font-family: serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; font-size: 100%; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none; position: static; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; text-align: left; text-indent: 0pt; text-transform: none; color: red; text-decoration: underline; cursor: pointer;" id="gtbmi0">Xantos</span>,

Very sorry to hear of your loss.

Major Woody,

I am a sincere admirer of your work and again, I'm still sad when I remember what <span style="border: 0pt none ; margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; font-family: serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; font-size: 100%; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none; position: static; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; text-align: left; text-indent: 0pt; text-transform: none; color: red; text-decoration: underline; cursor: pointer;" id="gtbmi1">hapened</span> to you. Glad to hear you're sticking with it!




In our club, three weeks ago, a member lost a brand-new CARF<span style="border: 0pt none ; margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; font-family: serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; font-size: 100%; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none; position: static; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; text-align: left; text-indent: 0pt; text-transform: none; color: red; text-decoration: underline; cursor: pointer;" id="gtbmi2">Tucano</span> on its maiden flight. The loss of the aircraft was very similar do the description of the creator of this thread - XANTOS.

In the case of the <span style="border: 0pt none ; margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; font-family: serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; font-size: 100%; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none; position: static; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; text-align: left; text-indent: 0pt; text-transform: none; color: red; text-decoration: underline; cursor: pointer;" id="gtbmi3">Tucano</span>, the loss was traced to the voltage regulator! It was fed by dual <span style="border: 0pt none ; margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; font-family: serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; font-size: 100%; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none; position: static; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; text-align: left; text-indent: 0pt; text-transform: none; color: red; text-decoration: underline; cursor: pointer;" id="gtbmi4">LiPos</span>, which survived the accident by the way, but the voltage regulator died... - we call it "Infant Mortality". Electronics tend to fail in a BATHTUB curve, that is, they either fail early in life, in the first 10-20 hours, or very late in life - after 10,000 cycles, or after a very large number of power cycles.

When you say you have redundant batteries, indeed you <span style="border: 0pt none ; margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; font-family: serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; font-size: 100%; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none; position: static; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; text-align: left; text-indent: 0pt; text-transform: none; color: green; text-decoration: underline; cursor: pointer;" id="gtbmi5" gtbtooltiptext="Click for suggestions">strengthened</span> one link of the chain. But you still have a weak link in the form of a single regulator. It doesn't matter if it cost 700 Euros, it's still a single component.

IMHO, you have two options as far as powering the electronics go:

- Either you stick to the true and tried 2 <span style="border: 0pt none ; margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; font-family: serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; font-size: 100%; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none; position: static; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; text-align: left; text-indent: 0pt; text-transform: none; color: red; text-decoration: underline; cursor: pointer;" id="gtbmi6">NiCd's</span>, which don't fail, and don't have a "fail open" failure mode (unlike <span style="border: 0pt none ; margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; font-family: serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; font-size: 100%; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none; position: static; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; text-align: left; text-indent: 0pt; text-transform: none; color: red; text-decoration: underline; cursor: pointer;" id="gtbmi7">NiMH's</span> which fail open circuit - 0V!...)

OR

- You use two regulators (like the Hercules, Align) - $30-$90 5V or 6Vregulators - each one with its own battery and connected to a separate battery port on the receiver

As for the receiver, you should do a stress test like recommended on another thread (forgot which) - you LOADthe flying surfaces and exercise the servos and do it for what's the typical duration of a flight - 6-10 minutes. Any stillborns will reveal themselves, either the receiver, regulator and servos.
Obviously you're not testing to failure, that is, trying to destroy your plane or your electronics. But still you need a realistic load on each flying surface that represents what you expect to see in flight.

My conclusion is the same as Major Woody and others - the problem is not the 2.4GHz. That's a part of our hobby's infrastructure that has improved, gotten way better!
But a chain is only as strong as its weakest link - and a single regulator is a weak link, regardless of its cost.

My 2 cents,

Hermann