I have installed a futaba 6EXA in my first arf plane. I can get the ailerons to move up and down correctly, and the rudder, but i cant mix the elevators. Does anyone know how to programme these radios?
Im thinking about putting a bracket onto one elevator and attatching it to the other so one servo controls both elevators, would this be ok?
Any advice would be apreciated
Thanks.

you are using a dual elevator servos? oooo... good luck! i would say just get a y servo extension.

In my experience you cant mix channels on the 6EXA so do as forestroke said and buy a y lead....
Oh and I would keep an eye on the battery leads, As the batteries supplied are cheap and rubbish and prone to leaking,
Check for the copper in the leads turning black. I was lucky, Only spotting it when investigating a battery that only lasted 1/2 a day.
Stick to Sanyo cells. IMO

Ruddybloak is correct you cannot mix duel elevator servos on the 6EXA. The easiest way to link the 2 is to get a Y harness but make sure you get a reversing Y harness. I am guessing you didnt anticipate the mixing not working so when you look at your levator servos they are probably both facing the same direction. Normally when you mix these you reverse one's throw. You will see if you dont get a reverser that they will throw oposite. You can turn the oposing servo around however that would also require you to make a new control rod to length again. Sometimes its eaiser to get a reversing Y. I had the 6EXA and thats one of the reasons why I got rid of it.

what battery leads are you talking about I have sanyo batteries in transmitter or is it reciever battery you're talking about

Both of my 6EXAs came with Sanyo batteries for RX & Tx.

I am curious as to why you want to do any mixing at all on your very first plane? If you have two aileron servos, plug the right aileron into channel 1 and the left into ch 6. I f you only have one servo that runs both ailerons , plug it into channel 1. Elevator into ch2, Throttle into cha 3 and rudder into ch 4 and thats the end of it all. Whats the mixing all about ?

Snoop-
Don't think this has anything to do with ailerons. Dual elevator servo problem.

joeb102072- Turning servo around will not reverse the rotation of shaft, only relocate it. If he needs to reverse the direction he can either move it to the other arm (probably no room) or go with a reverser in the Y-harness assembly.

philg2005- What the heck are you building anyway for a first plane that needs all this crap??? [sm=confused.gif]

I think you are misunderstanding me I am not saying to take the actual servo apart and turn it around I mean physically remove the servo from the bay turn it 180 degrees and yes it will throw the same as the other. Although now you have placed the servo arm further away or closer depending on... to the control arm so some adjusting may have to happen. And there are alot of planes that people can move to for their second that can have duel elevator servos that IMO are way better than one servo controling both. The best way is to get 2 separate channels for each but if you dont have a radio capable then a reversing Y is the way to go.

I am building a seagull decathlon, i no its not a trainer but i have experience flying rc, and it is also a high wing model. Do you think the bracket idea would work ok? It basically means both elevators would be connected.

Dont get me wrong its not bad. Heres my thoughts for a plane that has a connected elevator. I have found that a small control surface on the elevator is not a problem now there are a variety of planes that have small elevator control surfaces. so to connect them as one isnt a big deal. Where I find the biggest issues are with the bigger aerobats and 3D birds. basically any plane with an oversized control surface. The main reason if not for ease of making sure that their throws are equal which independant elvators with 2 separate channels and a mix on board is very very nice. But flex to me is more of an issue especially when a planes stability requires its control surfaces to deflect evenly and at the same speed on each half with equal holding power at full deflection. Now you say well using 1 servo would make that happen but the conection point of that servo is so far away from the oposite end of the other elevator half that if you had a big control surface you could actually see that the half that was connected closer to the servo would deflect fully. The otherside not being supported could flex very eaisily. When the plane at anyspeed deflects the side furthest away from the control horn will suffer flex and not throw as much. Now the plane has difficulty in performing loops and other aerobatics because its tendency to want to snap out in its manuvers is increased one elevator half throws more than the other in a sense. So in short see how big your elevators are 1/4 the size of the overall horz stab i wouldnt worry about it. Any bigger I would definatly try to consider duel elvator servos. My brothers Funtna 40 suffers from that because they are connected and his servo is on one side. control surfaces are slightly bigger than 1/2 the horz stab. My Funtana 90 however is split and its sweet.

I had a funny feeling this morning when I read your post that it might be this plane. Have you read Mike's review of this plane? If not, it's here: http://www.rcuniverse.com/magazine/a...article_id=415

He mintions twice, including in the final paragraph, that he thinks 2 elevator servos is overkill. Either build a Y pushrod and use one servo, or get the appropriate Y servo harness. I've got one of these planes waiting to be assembled, and I've also got a Futaba 6EXA. I'll probably go with the Y pushrod since it's less weight and money.

BTW, I was able to mix channel 6 with the elevator on the 6EXA. However, it requires having the flap knob set exactly in the middle. If you move it either way, the channel 6 servo loses some of its movement. This is obviously not acceptable for flight. It is a pity they didn't allow a slave setting so the slaved channel would be disconnected from its normal control. Oh well, I'm still quite content with the radio. The most complicated mixing I really need is for dual aileron servos.

It should not be too difficult to build a "Y" type of pushrod assy either. What type of pushrods are you using and how much access do you have to the rear interior of the plane?

MinnFlyer, I'll bet you can see where I am going here. Got any drawings of this type of thing in your files?

Yea now that you said it thats what the issue was with me. I had a giles G 300 and that knob was not cutting it. If by chance I touched it accidentally i would throw off one half of the elevator and that would spell certain destruction for that model. It was already as snappy as they get.

Hi!
Yes! Couple (glueing) the elevator halfs together, eighter by using a wooden dowel or a aluminum /carbon fiber rod is much better than using two servos, a Y-servowire, or worse a Y-piano wire pushrod.
Best metod is of course to use a pull-pull wire system.
Regards!
Jan K
Sweden

I'm curious why you say this? The tail is already built. From the pictures in the review (I could go to the garage and unpack mine for a look, but I've already got 2 projects on the workbenches), there is no clearance on the rudder for linking the two elevator halves. This means he'd have to start hacking away at the rudder to make the clearance and then glue something onto the elevators. There is however, plenty of room to make a Y pushrod work. There is also already space for the two servos, so a Y-servo wire is an easy fix.

Exactly! Same thing I experienced. I think a good way to get around this radios obvious short comings is to use the reversing Y. Especially if the setup calls for two elevator servos in the first place. I like my radio ok, but it does fall a little short on mixing options.

Jim C

Britbrat in the UK the 6EXA comes with Ripmax's own branded crap batteries....

They lasted less than 5 months and Ripmax didn't want to know (that's why I dont deal with them anymore)

Customer relations...... my arse.

Ruddybloke I think that should have been a "used to come with ripmax's own crappy batteries". My 2 year old EXA suffered with 'black wire' after 16 months or so. Same as you, another problem stopped me from flying and its when investigating this problem I noticed a bit of leakage from the battery. When I stripped back the neg wire I saw the "rot", my 6 month old EXA has Sanyo batteries in it.

MerlinL14 I bought my 6EXA in june 2004, Gave up with it in Nov and bought a JR9

The rudder is in between the two elevators but a mounted bracket cut out from say aluminum could curve round the rudder allowing clearance for the rudder to move. It seems logical as the pushrods are mounted on the inner side of each eleator.

I'm trying to figure out how this is an improvement from the originally designed dual servos, or a single servo with a y-pushrod.

there is another option that you can consider. this is a bellcrank that i got off of my VEKO F3A after it went in after a failed rudder linkage at low knife edge (i have yet to ever attempt this again at low altitudes!) i put i into the matrix and works well. of course i had to do some extra work to get it working just right.

i think with dual elevator servos, you're going to have to way too much weight in the back i think. that is was first reason i decided to switch out the servos for a bell crank.

by the way, with dual aileron and dual elevator, i had a hard time configuring the Eclipse 7 as well. that is another reason i switched to this setup.

For reference, on the Seagull Decathlon the servos are in the main part of the plane, under the wing.

ooo... i see. you actually don't need to change anything except adding the Y-servo extension. the servos are already in the right position so that you don't need any kind of reverser. just connect and everything should be working correctly.

while the Y-pushrod is a great suggestion, i'd be a little hesitant to try it if i were a beginner since you have to tear apart what's already there and fabricate a Y-pushrod, while not difficult, as a new builder, i would stay away from that.