I think Randy hit the nail on the head. I had an issue once with the small switch. It was the way I had it mounted. I do like Gary does, and mount it to the servo tray, with the wire running out the side of the fuse. I got in a hurry once and made the cutout a little too small, and drilled the holes for the mounting screws too big. It allowed the switch to move in its mount. On the 10th flight of the aircraft, I could not turn the switch on. I was ready to blame the switch, until I took the wing of and found the problem. I have only used Futaba gear, and still do. I still use the small switch with the charge receptacle. The servo tray is mounted to the fuse with clear silicone. It is floated in and allowed to dry. Very solid, yet vibration proof. The mount itself does not touch the sides of the fuse. The wire exits the side of the fuse where the silicone fillet is, so it is only passing through the silicone. We all understand parts will fail. Especially in our racing environment. But, if we look real close, some of the failures are human caused. At least mine was.

T. Strom Sr.

Ladies,
Jim Katz, John G, and BobHH are not rook builders and pilots. These are guys who have been building and flying model airplanes for 30-40 years. Nor are thay new to racing, look back in the anals of the nats and you will find them.

This is not a slam on Futaba just a legitimate question about a quietly known problem that has been talked about here in RCU for many years that I can remember.

When guys at this level of building and flying have a problem it is in our best intrest to listen and take the free lesson.

I know Jim, and raced against him at the Nat's a few times. I don't think anybody said anything about their building skills. Somebody asked how we mounted our switches, ect, to what myself, Marcus, and Tom all replied. I will say that I've never heard of this problem, and am very interested in finding out what's actually happening, and the root cause.

Randy,
Jimmy's switch is mounted the way you described and operated with a .032 wire through the fuse. side. Mine, is "aero nasty",
mounted through the side of the fuse. with the switch plate, screws and switch act. tab on the outside.

Look! I'm not putting down Futaba equip. at all. It's all I have used since the late 70's. In the last 22 months I have bought (6) SIX!!! new Fut. radios including another 7c that came yesterday. I sent that to Bobby for building all these planes for me .
2 9cap's 1 6ex and 3 7c's............I love the stuff but sometimes things just don,t hold up. I'm just trying to find out if others
have had a prob. and head it off before I end up turning a good airplane into "hammered dog doodle ,on a white rag".Not a nice picture.
This gold switch deal sounds just fine ......I will order in bulk..........Now, anybody wanna buy (9) new in the bag little Futaba switches?

john g.

I agree with what Gary said, but as usual someone always takes things the wrong way. Vicman, I'm not sure who you are, but the last thing I was saying is that those guys don't know what there doing, I do know Jim Katz, raced against him about 100 years ago, I don't know who John G or BobHH are, maybe I do and just don't know it, and yes Jimmy has been racing for a long time, but also has been away from it for about the last 10 years and things have changed, equipment has changed, airframes and building techniques have changed since then, so we were just trying to put our input with what we have seen over the recent years, we weren't trying to defend Futaba since we are Futaba sponsered pilots, we are interested because if there is a problem we have the responsibility as futaba sponsered pilots to bring these issues to the right people in Futaba if there are problems so none of us have these issues later and they can be fixed.

Since this is kinda a switch thread, I am returning to racing after a few decades off and am wondering if switch location is critical. I use to mount my F1 switches through the fuselage with the on being forward towards the motor. I read mostly that guys are mounting their switches on the servo tray and using a variety of wires and thread through the fuselage for switch operation. Is it an issue?

I certainly wasn't questioning anyones building skills, by no means. I was just saying be sure the on/off part of the switch clears the servo tray cutout. I personally have had a switch interfere with the servo tray before, and I could turn it on or off. So I was thinking outload, that maybe that should be checked.

Switch location is not that critical Barry. stick it through the side of the fuse, or cut out the slots in your servo tray and anchor it there... either way is good.

I'm obviously a JR guy, have been for over 10 years. And I've still had my failures, and I wouldn't expect that to end. It's a an inherent part of racing. However, most all the Futaba guys use that little black switch without too much of an issue. So, I'm with Gary Schmidt... please let us know what you find.

And if you guys would like...send the fused switch to me, and I'll have my failure analysis guy here at Lockheed Martin, put it under a scope. If we can't find the problem, nobody will... I do a ton of soldering, vibe testing, and manufacurting of prototype weapons here... we can easily find the issue with a fused switch.

Randy Bridge

Well before we get too tight on the switch issue maybe we should sent one of these to Randy for some analysis. I would even like to dissect one myself to take a look.

I’ve been in RC all my life with a large part of that background in RC equipment. My Dad manufactured and repaired radio equipment many years ago and I keep a small fleet of vintage radios/models flying still.

There are so many variables that could be involved here. Possibly Futaba changed suppliers on these switches. Anyway, I know of these problems first hand so lets see if we can identify it and them resolve it.

John, can you pull your switch harness out of the 428. I will shoot Jim an e-mail to see if he would do the same. What do you think Randy?

Bob Harris

Half the time I'm not sure who I am either[sm=bananahead.gif][sm=bananahead.gif]
Bob has been around me on some days where he thought I was three or four diffrent people just the same goofy body. I'm trying to be Jim's understudy
It's all good

Randy,
Unfortunately , after JK took the wing off the 424 Sunday and we yakked about it for a while, and I got the thing to turn off.
At that point he informed me he was going to leave it "locked up" and send it to Futaba. OOPS!!!!!!!!!
I will run my 428 plane on the ground and then send you my switch........how's that. I'm pretty sure it will occur again.
I think this only happens in very high freq. circumstances, as the 2 Q25's I have and my 424 have had no problems with these
switches. And believe me, I always start with completely new radio gear in each new airplane.It's always worth the few extra
bucks so that you don't have carry over problems from another old airplane..........just my way of thinking.


john gibson

 i always soft mount my switches on a piece of ply a strip off double sided tape then screwed to the servo rails or tray and use fishing line out each side of the fuzz to turn on & of cuts out a lot of vibration