real dumb question
 

have flown gas for 25yrs, now trying electric. bought radio , reciever, survos. have plane. can not figure how to hook power to reciever, no documation. see no place on reciever to connect power. need help from anyone. thanks much.

RE: real dumb question
 

what brand and model??

RE: real dumb question
 

Usually, the ESC powers the reciever through the throttle channel. If the ESC has a battery eliminator circuit (BEC) and most of them do, the ESC regulates the whatever voltage that powers the motor down to 4.8 volts to power the radio and servos and powers it through the throttle servo plug.
Plug the throttle plug of the esc into the throttle channel and some servos in the other channels and as soon as you connect the main power battery to the ESC, your reciever should come alive and the servos should work with the radio.
If you don't already know this, recievers can be powered though any unused servo jack. The + and - servo wires of the servos connect to the same + and - busses that the battery connects to.

RE: real dumb question
 

Only dumb question is the one left unasked. :)

somegeek

RE: real dumb question
 

Agreed! One thing to keep in mind if you are coming from glow is keep away from the arc of the prop once the battery is connected. I personally pretend that it is always armed, or it may get mine (sorry I couldn't resist;)

Good luck!

RE: real dumb question
 

A lot of the micro radios meant for park flyers don't have a separate battery plug because they were meant to be powered by the battery eliminator in the ESC (electronic speed control). You can use a separate battery to power these rceivers by plugging a regular glow plane's reciever battery into the throttle or any other un-used channel. You can even use a Y-harness to plug both the reciever battery and some servo into the same channel.
This is also true of normal radios meant for glow planes. The servo positive and negative wires just hook up to a common rail in the reciever.

RE: real dumb question
 

thanks guys, you sure came to my rescue fast. the transmitter and reciver i have for many years is a citizenship. i have had it since late 70s. reciver has its own plug for power. everything is to heavy for todays lite planes. had to buy new equiptment, all is strange to me. again thanks for the quick reply.

RE: real dumb question
 

I made that jump about two years ago when I bought a Futaba 6EX... last radio I had was over 15 years ago and it was about 10 years old then. The difference between the two is huge. Really like my 6EX.

somegeek

RE: real dumb question
 

one caution, while you can power an electric powered planes receiver and servos thru a seperate 4/5 cell battery plugged into any channel; if you do so and are using an ESC with BEC you must cut (open the circuit) the red wire between the ESC and receiver to prevent possible damage to the ESC.