Switch failure Issues with Flight Pack
 

I spoke with John Gibson today about some practicing he and Jim Katz were doing over the weekend. During some previous testing with the 428 model we noticed the flight pack switch becoming more difficult to turn on and off. John said Jim’s switch would not turn off only about 6 flights on his 424. I assume his switch is mounted like I do perpendicular to the crankshaft plane across the fuselage with a small wire protruding out the fuselage size.

These were stock Futaba switches mounted firmly on light plywood platforms. Any of you guys experienced this issue? May be a cause of loss of control on some of our racers. Has anyone addressed this problem before?

Bob Harris

RE: Switch failure Issues with Flight Pack
 

JR gold switch, end of story. Futaba switch for 428, asking for trouble

RE: Switch failure Issues with Flight Pack
 

I have raced with Travis Flynn for about 10 years now. He used to be with Futaba, and he used the little black switch all the time. he mounted it no different than what it sounds like you are doing. He never had any switch issues that I ever saw.

So you are saying that the switch just locks up. Fuses itself together? if so, that would be odd...

Randy Bridge

RE: Switch failure Issues with Flight Pack
 

I'm primarily a Futaba guy, but use the JR Gold Deluxe switch.

About 7 years ago on the 2nd flight of my first Vortex Q500 and the plane locked up doing large loops over the center of the field and continued to do loops completely uncontrolled at full throttle for about a minute till it ran out of fuel. After the motor quit, control was back, and the plane was safely landed.

On the ground, we could shake the plane and get intermittent control, which wasn't an issue on the running range test we did before the first flight. The problem went away after putting in another switch. The switch was a brand new futaba switch like I had been using. I know many people that use that switch for racing models, but that incident was enough to scare me away.

Since then I have also gone away from the wire out the side, and now use fly fishing string to further reduce the vibration back to the switch. Pull out the left side for on, the right side for off.

Everyone has a story about some component failing, and now they refuse to use it. I believe all products can go bad, and sometimes do, so take this as you will. Just the physical beefy-ness, and the solid click of the swtich turning on and off of the JR switch makes me feel safer :) I know some other guys using the heavy duty futaba switch also, so good luck.

RE: Switch failure Issues with Flight Pack
 

Randy, I'm not sure if it fuses but it gets very hard to move. John said Jim had to remove the wing and unplug the battery. Afterwards John was able to get a finger on it and move it to the off position.

I’ve rocked the switch back and forth and it loosens up but again I am concerned about contact or the lack of! I know that a Nelson could/would produce some high frequency vibrations that could resilience down the fuselage but have not seen this in switches before.

I remember seeing the burn marks on the old Scat Cats wing dowels and such with the Rossi’s but never a switch problem. If it was happening to just one model I would suspect a bad switch or such but this was a new racer with new switches.

Maybe John or Jim can chime in to what they saw.

Bob Harris

RE: Switch failure Issues with Flight Pack
 

Bob, for a while I was "soft" mounting my switches using nylon landing gear straps. Those little pieces of plastic with a hole in each end. The hole is the perfect size for the switch and then just servo screw the straps to the servo tray and it takes a ways some of the vibration.

We are really pushing this equipment for performance, and things do occasionally fail.

RE: Switch failure Issues with Flight Pack
 

I'm a futaba sponsered pilot and I use the Futaba swh-13 switch and can't tell you a time that I can remember where I had a problem with the switch.

RE: Switch failure Issues with Flight Pack
 

I had a failure of a small Futaba switch in a 424 Viper in Jedburg South Carolina while test flying. Lost control of the plane. Luckily it went into a spin and crashed in some tall thick grass. Runied my day even though I had a backup. I kept thinking I had been shot down or that it was interference from a nearby tower or power lines.

The switch was not fused. It just worked intermitently. I have not used those switches since.

Even though it is more drag, I use the MPI MAXX Charge switches now. They are quality switches and I can check my battery without taking the wing off and dorking the trim. I know it costs me a little drag. But being able to check my battery gives me a lot of piece of mind. And the switches are high quality. One nice thing about the 3470 JR switch is that you can bind a 2.4 receiver without messing with the receiver cabling.

RE: Switch failure Issues with Flight Pack
 

Marcus, that's the switch we've been using. How do you mount yours?

Bob Harris

RE: Switch failure Issues with Flight Pack
 

After my Futaba switch incident I switched to the JR Gold Deluxe for internal installations even though I was using Futaba gear. All my battery packs used universal connectors anyway. It is a good switch and worth the money. Just a little big for Quickie installations.

RE: Switch failure Issues with Flight Pack
 

Don, if you are using a servo hatch, you can glue a piece of string to the hatch and tie the other of the string to the battery charge lead. To check your battery or charge the plane, you can remove the servo hatch which has the correct lead attached.

Also, if your wing is properly potted to the fuse, you should not be getting trim changes after removing the wing.

RE: Switch failure Issues with Flight Pack
 

I have 15 flights on my 428 airplane. The first 6or7 flights ,everything was fine. On the next 8or9, the switch became harder and harder to turn off. The switch is NEVER hard to turn on, neither is it hard to turn off unless it has been run. Yesterday, Short....er,I mean Jimmy
and I went to practice for James Barrs race. He had a brand new 424 plane and with each flight the switch got harder to turn off ONLY!
On the fourth flight he landed, we walked out to the plane ,he made a few more trans. changes, I went to turn the switch off and it was
locked up. We both tried 2or 3 times to turn it off with no luck. He had to take the wing off and unplug the batt.
To tell you the truth, I think he and I are lucky to still have airplanes.................


john g.

RE: Switch failure Issues with Flight Pack
 

Like Marcus, I'm a member of Team Futaba and I've been using the standard Futaba SWH-13 switches exclusively since 1994 without issue. I've never heard of a switch getting more difficult over time like you're saying, so I have no clue as to what may be happening. It also doesn't really make sense to me as to why disconnecting the battery would make a difference.

I mount the switch as you described. I mount them to the servo tray with a piece of music wire running out the side of the fuse.

RE: Switch failure Issues with Flight Pack
 

Gary, we unplugged the battery to turn off the radio.

RE: Switch failure Issues with Flight Pack
 

I wish gold meant gold plated, it's not. It's just a little bigger, tougher switch. Take apart one of those little switchs and judge for yourself what you want spinning around your head.

RE: Switch failure Issues with Flight Pack
 

Bob, do you think that might be a possibility of what was going on with my Buckshot at Charlotte that first time? I pulled the Rx and tested it out every way I know and have used it in some smaller/slower planes without issue.
I was using the Futaba switch in that plane but don't know if it's the same one. It just came with the flight pac.
I've gone to using the MPI switches Don mentioned in some of them.

RE: Switch failure Issues with Flight Pack
 

Mr. Splatter,
These "gold switches" you speak of, whom do you get them from and how much would one expect to pay.

john g.

RE: Switch failure Issues with Flight Pack
 

John,

All the local store should have them or online at Horizon.

Trey

RE: Switch failure Issues with Flight Pack
 

ask and ye' shall find with g-o-o-g-l-e by typing 'JR gold switch'...

http://www.horizonhobby.com/Products...ProdID=JRPA001

RE: Switch failure Issues with Flight Pack
 

John,

Here is a link and a picture for the switch, this is just the first site I went to, but at $12.75 thats a little cheaper than what I pay locally (closer to $15).

http://www.amainhobbies.com/product_...oducts_id/9450

RE: Switch failure Issues with Flight Pack
 

As Gary Schmidt has said, we are both Futaba sponsored pilots, we have been using the SWH-13 switch for ever since I can remember, have I crashed before, more than you guys want to know, my son Bryan is also a Futaba sponsored pilot and uses all the same equipment and he has had his share of crashes also. My point is that I don't care what you all say, once that equipment hits the ground at the speeds we are traveling you can not pin point were the failure is, the equipment is too destroyed from the impact. When you can say that you crashed and the switch was not fused after impact, you can't prove that it wasn't fused before impact. Gary, myself and my son all fly very fast, very high vibration airplanes and I have never had a switch get harder to turn on and off or whatever. We fly Q500, Q40 and Gary also fly's FAI with the same equipment. My switches are mounted inside the airplane, mounted to the servo tray which would be 1/8 5-ply plywood, I drill a small hole in the switch and either run a piece of music wire out the side or a fish line or string out both sides of the airplane where you pull it one direction to turn it on and the other to turn it off.

Now when Don says he has trim issue's again I'm totally confused on how that could happen. I can put an airplane away for two years, and as long as I haven't changed the settings in the transmitter I can go out and fly it and nothing changes. Trim memory is in the transmitter, it has nothing to do with the switch, battery or reciever, if your having trim issue's in between flights, or when you unplug and plug things back in then your servo's suck, they are not centering correctly and with these aircraft and the abuse we put them through why you would want to put cheap servo's in there to take those chances is beyond me, or if your servo's are OK, then you have a trim memory problem in your transmitter and you should have it looked at.

I also fly as Gary does with several JR pilots that are very good friends of ours and they use that gold switch that others have described and I know that is a quality switch also, so if that give you more piece of mind then I suggest you get them and try them, but in the end of the day, they are all quality equipment piece's.

RE: Switch failure Issues with Flight Pack
 

John,

I have them

RE: Switch failure Issues with Flight Pack
 

Dave,

Because I have the field behind my house, I often leave planes together for weeks at a time. So I like to be able to charge them easily. The MPI MAXX switches are convenient for that. For Club 40 where there is no hatch and they aren't that fast, the drag is a non-issue. And on the Quickie 25 planes, it isn't as much of an issue either. I would never use the external switches on a 428 plane.

Where I have had trim change issues is on the Viper. The sides are thin. When you mount the wing, it is easy to change the incidence slightly. Look at the bottom of any Viper wing and you will see indentations from the sides and the wing hold downs. Admittedly, if I took the time to pot the wing, I would not have the trim issues. But now I'm going to be flying other planes, primarily the Smasher and it is a fully molded wing saddle, so trim changes should be a non-issue.

RE: Switch failure Issues with Flight Pack
 

Marcus,

See my answer to Dave. It is primarily with the Viper where I have had the trim change issue. And it's not a real big change, usually just one click one way in the pitch axis. But I have had to use one click of aileron at times.

It could be the servos. I have used the Hitec HS-85MG on V-tail and HS-225 on aileron in the Vipers. Since I switched to using the JR Sport MN48 servos I do feel the centering is better. I know they are still not premium servos, but they seem to work well.

I am going to put at least one 428 plane together for the fall race at www.OldJulianAirport.com and I will get premium servos for it.

Thanks for your comments.

RE: Switch failure Issues with Flight Pack
 

JohnG.

I'm guessing you cut a slot in the servo tray for the switch to move back and forth within?? Is it possible the switch itself is moving closer to the off side of that cut out, thusly stopping the switch from pulling off all the way because it's hitting the plywood, making it seem locked up? Also, mounting a switch on thin foam to isolate from vibe is perfectly fine.

Marcus is right about our environment. It can be tough on equipment. And certainly never use a crashed switch, or battery pack. Unless you have the knowledge to take it all apart and put all the solder joints under the scope. I throw the switch and battery in the trash after a crash..

JPA001 ... that's all I use.

RB