Don Presten

Funny thing happened to me last night. I am fairly new to this sport and was rigging my new H9 Ultra Stick and programming my Hitec Eclipse 7 transmitter. Fun stuff, actually - had a lot of fun doing all the trims, sub-trims, exp, slave and such. After about 2 hours of this, I had the plane pretty well dialed in.

I then hung my plane on the rack I made attached to the rafters in my garage and proceeded to end the evening - as I flipped off the garage lights, the plane in the rafters went nuts for about 3 seconds. Scared the hell out of me! I flipped the lights back on and again, the plane danced from the ceiling!

I knew right away that I had neglected to shut off the receiver switch on the plane. I had no idea that the florescent lights in my garage put out that much radio wave interference.

Now my question - should I do my rigging and programming away from these lights? It seemed that the interference only occurred on power on or off of the lights (I assume the ballasts in those lights caused it). Anyone else experience this?

badger5964

My Feedback: (6)

Yes it is common in my shop with the flourescent lights to cause jitters. The servos dance until TX is turned on and antenna extended. Turning the lights on/off puts them into a frenzy for a moment.

Broken

I will ((guess)) that it is not the ballast causing the issue as it is designed to choke the flow of energy and your interference goes away after a few seconds.

My guess is that the light when started "ionize"the gas in the bulb, just like the ion trail that forms the path for a lightning bolt and this process reverses stops when the lamp is turned off, and that is sending out energy that is causing your interference. Or you are using non-rapid start bulbs with a rapid start magnetic ballasts, or Electronic hybrid ballast. How long do the bulbs last? short lifespan? Do they turn black on the ends?

Just a guess...