Just a few minutes ago I smoked my brand new Spectrum AR9100 Rx that was going in my Elan Jet.

It wasn't anything I did wrong. I plugged in one battery pack with only the antennas and soft switch mounted and smoke came rolling out of the bottom of the case! First thing I did was was pull the pack off and check the polarity on EVERYTHING. Everything was plugged in correctly including the battery.

Since it was already damaged and going back anyway, I decided to see what the problem was. After tinkering around I discovered that the soft switch is the culperate. I can plug the battery in without the switch and the reciever binds and works properly, but once you plug the switch into the Rx the bottom lights up like a Christmas tree and it starts smoking. It doesn't matter if it is in the on of off position.

The whole premise behind a soft switch is that if it fails, the system will continue to operate safely in the "on" position. I can tell you that if this happened in the air, it would take less than a minute to drain the power source or worse yet, catch the aircraft on fire.

I will be sending the Rx back to Horizon tomorrow, but it doesn't matter what they say or how it happened. The fact remains that this switch can take down the whole system.

I believe when I get a new one back, I will no use the soft switch and continue to use the old system of two hard switches between the batteries and the Rx

Joe,

Your not alone - I did the same thing Monday night. I talked with Horizon on Tuesday morning and they wanted it back - needless to say they will make it right.

Jeff

That sucks to hear. I have been using two Smart-Fly switches on mine.

yeah, I know. Horizon will always send you a new one. I hope they have them in stock. The weather just got good around here and I'm not waiting 2 weeks to fly.

Actually my bigger concern is that the switch essentially failed but the system was NOT ok. I really don't know how a "soft switch" works but after this experience I don't think I will ever use them.

Good thing it happened on the ground. There will always be some fall out of any electronic/mechanical devise in mass production. I just hope we see less of these problems as more units are produced!

Yep,
Im using two Kodiak switches on mine, not using soft switch. this is has happend to a few folks now

Not heard of a problem in the UK and I have had Horizon UK check some stock from the shelf today and all are fine.
I'll check my stock today.

regards

Dave Wilshere

By soft switch I assume you mean any switch unit that fails, it stays in the ON position.
Such as a Power box Digi Switch?

True.

The soft switch horizon sells actually engages or disengages an electronic relay on the circuit board that is called "Normally closed". This is why the softswitch actually consumes electrical current in the off position, it takes energy to keep the electronic relay "open", meaning "Turned off".

I am interested when more information becomes available, because I would not have guessed that the switch could be the cause. I would assume because of the melt down and because of the switch "causing" it in On or OFF, that it would be a mis soldered relay on the board.

Time will tell.

well i tested 5 modules of the shelf here..

hooked them on a scope
did a shortcut test (reverse poles)
sorry no smoke
BUT if you reverse the cables with lots of amps like a battery you will kill the diodes.
i used a power source where i can set the cut of on 0.2 amps.

so sorry to say

all the AR9100 we tested are ok....

here are some pics :

sorry no smoke
on the last pic you can see the actual power consumption of the receiver and 3 sattelites
not to accurate but close enough for me

I can tell 100% that the one I have did not have the battery reversed and this problem did occur. As a matter of fact, I can redo the process (with the battery plugged in correctly) and recreate the problem. The first thing I did when it happen is blame myself. After a my investigation, I found that I had everything right and the problem came from the factory. Maybe a few of us got a bad batch or the QC officer was sick that day.

Joe send that RX back as the weather will be crappy this weekend. You'll have a new one in time for next weekends good flying weather.
Bob

I just noticed something else.

When I plug the battery into side 1, I get two blue lights. When I plug it into side 2, I get one blue light. I think you should only get one blue light on either side if you have one pack plugged in. This may be a sign.

It's already in a box. I am going to the PO at lunch.

you have a defect unit i am sure
looks like a coupler or diode blew out
and is shortcutting the unit to ground somewhere
mine does 1 led for each side.
so i dont think all modules are bad , just a few that had a bad QC or undentified FUBAR.

The good and the bad.

The good part is Horizon will give me a new Rx in about a week.


The bad part is that I never hear what actually happened. Most of the time it doesn't matter as long as you get a new product, but in this case I want to know so I can make a judgement call on using the soft switch in the future. I think SEANREIT understands my concern with his comments. Maybe the switch just opened a circuit inside the unit where the actual problem is. If the switch is not the problem, then I would like to use it.

"Will it smoke ? That is the question".

the switch just makes a sort of shortcut where it forces the electronics to shutdown
like sean said Normally open
i just really believe you had a faulty unit to begin with.
even if you would have plugged the batt from the other side the same thing could have happened.
it is just a lot of people make warnings here and others then create a hype not to use them anymore.
not blaming you , but normally first call the distributor they will test it right away i am sure.
horizon will be the last to sell a defective unit and cuase many people to crash.
i am selling and using this spektrum stuff from the beginning they came on the market.
and never had such a great system to begin with.
if you could here all the noncence overhere , customers where even told if you fly behind each other the other model would not receive signals.
the customer agreed and they sold him one of the many obsulete 6 channel 35mhz trannie... marketing.
after one year they now claim 2,4 is the best , go figure
and i am not even a direct seller for spektrum in the netherlands.
they leave that to a belgium company who doesnt know to much exept how to calculate a profit first...
i always had to risk my stuff to proof it is a good system.

leave the smoke tu us..
we master it..[8D]

ote]


it is just a lot of people make warnings here and others then create a hype not to use them anymore.
not blaming you , but normally first call the distributor they will test it right away i am sure.
horizon will be the last to sell a defective unit and cuase many people to crash.



[/quote]

I'm not going for the hype. I am looking for fellow modelers that may have had similar experiences that knows something or someone that is a professional in electronics that could give possible answers. I'm not saying not to buy the AR9100. I just want to know what people think about using the soft switch.

Horizon is a 100% great company but to think they can't make mistakes on a brand new product would be a bit naive. New products sometimes have bugs, but I don't want to be on the front end of that. I recently sent my AR9000 in for some programming issues and Horizon sent me a new one back. I love that they do this, but they didn't tell me what the problem was. In that situation, I didn't care, but now I want to know so that I can make a judgment call on useing the switch.

"Hehe turbine smoke, don't breathe this"

Joe,
Am I right in thinking this happened the FIRST time you powered up the AR9100?
Al Watson

Yes, I plugged it in for the first time outside the airframe to make sure everything was good.

Having complete success with 9000 Spektrum.

Received a new 9100 set up yesterday, rigged up today. Works fine , no smoke but one peculiarity. After binding caried out :

Switch on Tx, switch on Rx works fine , lights solid and connects.

Switch OFF rx with Tx remaining ON, switch Rx back on all amber lights flash but system seems to work.

If the Tx is switched off and the Rx is switched off switching the TX back ON and then switching the RX ON all connect and solid lights.

It does not matter which switch on sequence is used on the 9000, it still connects with solid lights. Is the 9100 different by design ?

Regards,

David Gladwin.

I believe with the remote antennas flashing like that, it is indicating loss of signal per antenna. Now how it is connected to the sequence you are talking about...I don't know. The fact that the soft switch is still using a little power in the off position could have something to do with the on/off cycle.

I am glad you chimed in. This is exactly why I opened this thread. I'm not new to Spectrum. My whole fleet is on it, but the AR9100 is another beast in itself. I am new to soft switches which of coarse lies most of my suspicion.

Hopfully someone will have some answers for us.