I purchased a new Spektrum DX7 about 2 months ago. One of the great pilots at that club said Spektrum receivers have a problem, momentary rebooting, which takes about 2-4 seconds. That's a lifetime in seconds. No control, and 2 guys hit the ground, and one survived. We are talking a 2 thousand dollar aircraft, at a 350 to 400 doller radio system.
I called my local hobby shop, and discussed this problem. His answer was turn on the TX, then the RX, then unplug the Battery or switch it to off, immediatly turn the receiver back on, If you get the orange lights with not hesitation, it's ok, if they flutter then go on, they need to be sent back to Horizon Hobbies. They will check the receiver, and do a firmware update, with a quick recovery??????????? Why , now all of a sudden is this happening.???

So, if you take the time to pack up all the receivers, and wait for 4 weeks, that's ok. My friend asked the question, "Why did they not have this checked out beforehand?" What would happen in a real aircraft????????
If you or your friends have Spektrum Radio's beware.
We need some input on this problem. Thank You

FLAPHappy,
Well, I hate to tell you this but the guy at your LHS is giving you bad info. Yes, the Spektrum/JR receivers do have a problem with them rebooting while in use, but it has nothing to do with the actual hardware or programming in the receiver. The reboots happen when the voltage drops below the lower voltage requirements of the receiver. I can't remember the exact number but it's ~4.6-4.7 volts. What usually happens is that a user will fly until their batteries are getting towards that lower voltage threshold and that at some point in the flight the movement of the servos will draw enough juice to drop below that voltage level and the receiver will reboot. The simple solutions to this problem are to A) use a big enough battery pack to run your equipment. For my JR planes I am using 5-cell 2500 MaH packs to avoid this problem. B) Monitor your batteries and don't fly when they are getting low.

If you do send in the receiver they are reprogramming them so that they have a lower voltage requirement for a reboot. But you can safely use these receivers if you follow the guidelines I stated above.

Hope this helps

Ken

Ken is correct. But, I believe the voltage is lower than that. What happens is that the receiver will cycle and will "reboot" once that voltage is reached. If your receiver battery is that low, then you should not be flying it.

I have had the Spektrum DX7 for over a year and a half now. I have never... never had a reboot situation.

One way to prevent that is to use 6 volt receiver battery packs. That will insure that you never see that low battery voltage and cause a reboot.

From what I understand, they have modified the operating system so that reboots take less time, in the order of less than a second. So if it ever did happen, you would probably never realize it. But if it did happen, then you should reconsider your style and charge more often... or switch over to 6 volt packs.

CGr.

Ken is right. Using a 6 volt battery pack eliminates this problem, as the voltage will never drop below the cutoff threshold. however, I have myself done a lot of hands on research on this problem. I have two older rx and two newer ones. My dad has SEVERALmore than 10, and my brother has a good handfull himself. I believe that what the LHS guy is telling the OP is that to test which firmware you have, you turn on the radio system, and let the radio and rx link up. Then you cut the power to the rx and turn it back on quickly, and see how long it takes for the rx to rebind. My older ones would take over a second, while the newer ones will rebind immediately. This leaves me to belive I need to send my rx's in for a firmware upgrade. The upgrade improves re-binding time, but does not (to my knowledge) drop the nominal voltage cutoff. All of this is according to Horizon's website postings (which, by the way, have been posted for more than a few months now). This is not a new problem, but it is new since Christmas (or just beforehand).

Horizon had A recall/warning?? Call it what you will. They found that there early RXs would take from 4 to 6 seconds to reboot if the signal was lost for any reason. If you test your RXs by turning off power then turn it back on and it takes several seconds to reboot then they want you to send them your RXs and they will replace them with A new one that boots up in about 1 second.
The warning may still be on there web site. My one student had A lock out and lost his plane. The RX was destroyed in the crash but I had him send it back to Horizon anyway, they sent him A new one and told him to test his other units. His other two had the same problem, he sent them in and now has the new ones.
Horizon took care of this problem in A hurry and the best way they could. Check and be safe.

Normally the RX's search for the TX frequencies on reboot. What the upgrade does is tell the RX to immediately tune to the previous frequencies which greatly reduces the lock-on time. They have had the battery (low voltage) problem since the first day but have finally come up with this aid. Bigger/better batteries is the best bet along with the upgrade. Or get a Futaba.

Futaba, eh? Now that's snappy!!

Wrong topic there, bub.