Need help Discharge won't light on futaba tx please help futaba 4tv

I'm not familiar with that model but if it's a computer model they have a diode installed that will prevent your cycler from discharging the batteries. You have three choices.

1. leave the xmitter on until it turns off then charge.

2. If you are capable yu can go into the radio and bypass the diode.

3. Remove the battery connector fronm the radio and connect it directly to the cycler.

I use option #3 about 3 times a year on my Futaba.

#1, just makes me nervous leaving a transmitter on (remember to raise the antennae part way if you do this; a Futaba thing)

#2 can void the warranty if that concerns you.

Nuker

I use method #2,but one time I crossed leads while charging ,cost me three weeks of flying and around 60.00,something to think about.
Have a goodun,John.

Option 3 no doubt the best way.

Nuker, don't raise it part way, raise it all the way. Anytime you run your transmitter with the antenna NOT fully extended, the SWR (standing wave ratio) goes way up and causes excessive heating of the output stage. Anytime you are running with collapsed antenna, you are accelerating the failure rate.
It is never a good idea to discharge the transmitter by leaving it on as you also risk damaging the weaker cells. Should one cell go flat while the others still have some charge, you reverse charge the weak cell further damaging it, perhaps catastrophically.

Thanks guys I've got it all wired out now

Hey Rodney,

I was led to believe (as have most of the Futaberers; if that's a word, at our field) as long as I raised the bottom portion of the antennae then the heat would dissipate acceptably.

Are you sure it has to go up all the way? I guess I should look into this more if that's so.

Thanks

Nuker

It is a matter of degree. Anytime you don't have a good match between the output stage and the antenna, the SWR goes up, how high depends on the mismatch. Anything short of full up (assuming the antenna was properly tuned to begin with) causes a rise in SWR. The higher the SWR, the more heat dissipated in the final stage. I do believe that most of our transmitter manufactures know that there will be much miss use of the equipment and try to design in some factor of oversight on our part. If they did not, most of us would have ruined our transmitters many times over. Just remember, failure rates approximately double for every 10 degrees Centigrade that the temperature increases for most electronic components.