Newbie here, fresh off my first flights and my 15-yr-old son's first flights. Have what should be a simple/easy question...

My son and I each have a Hobbyzone SuperCub RTF DSM and each of them came with the transmitter (Spektrum DX4e I think). They both have a trainer port that I believe is what you use to hookup with another controller in a master-slave type of arrangement where the teacher can take control when desired but the student can have control also.

My questions are...

Any reason our two Spektrum DX4e's won't link up this way?

Is it just a simple walkman/computer style audio cable that you use to connect them? Or is it a specialized cable that I need to get at the RC hobby shop?


I've done a wee bit of google searching and had a wee bit of success finding some posts on other forums. What Iread leads me to believe it really is just a simple "audio" style cable, the kind I might have to connect my ipod to the AUX-input on a car-radio or stereo.


GuessI'll just give it a try when I get home, but would appreciate a heads up from anyone that knows for sure....

Asimple mono audio cable will work. Leave the power off on the slave and the power on with the instructor. The instructor holds trainer switch up to give control to student, let go of switch to take control back. Make sure both transmitters have the trim the same and when you give student control be flying straight and level at 50% throttle and make sure student has nutral controls and 50% throttle so the hand off to student is smooth. Also as mentioned in earlier thread I highly reccomend that you disable the ACT as described if you haven't already.

Thanks.

Am I correct in assuming that theinstructors transmitter is the one that should be bound to the plane and the students doesn't need to be be bound?

I.e. If we were to use our two controllers and our planes and we didn't want to bother re-linking/binding the controllers to the planes all the time we'd just use the one already bound to a plane as the instructor control and the other one as the student controller?

3.5mm stereo cable will work OK too.

If the DX4 works like my Dx7 if you set it up right the master will ignore trim settings from the slave. Most of the Spectrum/JR stuff seems to be the same, including my old 2610 .

Terry

With both of you being newbies, who is going to be the instructor?

Correct, just make sure the "student transmitter" is not turned on with its power switch. It will get power through trainer cord.

It doesn't matter if the student's box is bound to the plane or not. Since it will be left turned off, it won't be transmitting a signal anyway. It was customary in the 72mhz days to remove the battery and crystal from dedicated trainer boxes to be sure they don't get turned on and cause a frequency conflict with someone else.

Thanks for the info and clarifications folks! Much appreciated.





We currently have no plans to actually use this functionality. My question, at this time, is more a case of curiousity and wondering if we have all the gear to make it work when we do want to use it. With that said, I can envision hooking up the buddy-box setup when we get to the lake in Oklahoma this summer and join my older son (away at University right now) and perhaps let him take the controls a bit with the plane high enough in the air and away from obstacles that even we could recovery. But thats only a notional thought and is several months away. Really, I am just the type (as I'm sure most in this hobby are) that likes to know how stuff works....

If I remember correctly, though you do not turn the slave Tx on, with JR/Spectrum the slave does need to have a battery in it.

Terry

Correct, the box/slave is never turned on. A lot of people remove the battery from the box just to make sure. All signals come from the master so no extra binding is required. Just trimming of the slave so it and the master are in the same trim. That is done for the most part on the ground, sometimes in flight the slave may require a slight bit of trim in flight. When I set up one of my planes on a box, not always a trainer but even a stunt plane I have an experienced pilot fly the box to make sure it is in trim, you get very close on the ground though. I get a kick out of letting people fly my Hots on the box but I have never allowed anyone to fly my planes by themselves. The Hots is something special though and I like to see others try to fly it. It can get away from you very fast.

Just a heads up. Some audio cables are what they call "attenuation" cables. These cables look exactly like a standard 1/8" mono cable. The difference is that the "attenuation" cable has a resistor built into it. Has something to do with special audio equipment.

If your 1/8" mono audio cable does not work it may be an "attenuation" cable. You can easily check it with a muli meter. Check the Resistance from one end of the cable to the other for the positive and the negative pins. If the meter shows resistance then it won't work for you.