Originally Posted by raydar (Post 12582864)

The turbine will shut down automatically if it did not see a rx throttle signal for a few seconds (loss of rx power), you do not need to anything there. However rx failsafe also needs set and that will depend on your radio/tx. For example I use frsky and if I left the failsafe set to hold the turbine ecu would never see a loss of throttle signal if I turned off the radio so instead I program the failsafe to receiver and carry out the process of holding the failsafe button with trim down and throttle kill on to teach the receiver to go to "shutdown" on radio switch off. So you basically treat setting failsafe the same as you do for any other powered plane with your particular brand tx.

Originally Posted by Len Todd (Post 12582996)

You want the 2 second before failsafe. You do not want the turbine to shut down on the first Rxer Hold (i.e. momentary series of frame losses). Use the Kingtech default and all will be well. With all the turbines that come through our site, I don't recall anyone ever setting the failsafe at anything other than the 2 second default! KISS

Originally Posted by wfield0455 (Post 12583071)

Setting up turbine fail safe is not done in the ECU, it's done in your transmitter. I personally have the fail-safe for my throttle channel set to OFF, which when the receiver loses contact with the transmitter causes the servo pule on the throttle channel to cease being output. IF this continues for a couple of seconds the ECU will shut down the turbine and log the shut down code as Lost RC (or something to that effect). I consider this to be very important as ANYTIME my turbine shuts down I want to know WHY. Some have suggested simply setting your throttle fail-safe to the turbine stop setting, which WILL safely shutdown the turbine but will simply be logged as a normal shutdown. I certainly don't want that as it simply throws away valuable information about the shut down cause. This of course assumes a brief loss of control and you eventually regain control. If you have a total, permanent loss of control I guess you wouldn't need to look to the ECU to know that.

Another way that the ECU uses to detect loss of RC for transmitters that don't have the ability to shut off the servo pulse is to detect and "out of bounds" throttle pule width. For example, my transmitter sends a throttle pulse of 1100us for stop, 1300us for run and 1900us for full throttle. Sending a servo pulse significantly outside that range should cause the ECU to recognize a failsafe condition, shut down the turbine and log it as lost RC. So if you simply set your transmitter failsafe to send something outside the 1100-1900us range to the throttle channel (from my example) such as 1000us, then that should do the trick as well.
That's as detailed and accurate a description of how most ECUs detect failsafe as you're going to find. I personally have used both methods with multiple JETCAT and KINGTECH turbines.

Originally Posted by wfield0455 (Post 12583071)

Setting up turbine fail safe is not done in the ECU, it's done in your transmitter. I personally have the fail-safe for my throttle channel set to OFF, which when the receiver loses contact with the transmitter causes the servo pulse on the throttle channel to cease being output. If this continues for a couple of seconds the ECU will shut down the turbine and log the shut down code as Lost RC (or something to that effect). I consider this to be very important as ANYTIME my turbine shuts down I want to know WHY.

Another way that the ECU uses to detect loss of RC for transmitters that don't have the ability to shut off the servo pulse is to detect an "out of bounds" throttle pule width. For example, my transmitter sends a throttle pulse of 1100us for stop, 1300us for run and 1900us for full throttle. Sending a servo pulse significantly outside that range should cause the ECU to recognize a fail safe condition, shut down the turbine and log it as lost RC. So if you simply set your transmitter fail safe to send a pule to the throttle channel outside the 1100-1900us, range (from my example) such as 1000us, then that should do the trick as well.

Setting your throttle fail-safe to the shutdown value will safely kill the turbine but will simply be logged as a normal shut down. If loss of control was only the minimum duration for the ECU to shut down the turbine, depending on what you were doing at the time may leave you wondering why your turbine stopped with no useful info in you ECU log to help you understand what happened.

That's about as complete a description of how most ECUs detect fail safe as you're going to find. I personally have used both methods with multiple JETCAT and KINGTECH turbines and both work equally well.

Originally Posted by Afterburners (Post 12583075)

Thanks for your input Wayne. I've discussed that in the thread I started in the KT support forum. I've setup Jetcats and JetCentrals. Like Bob mentioned in this thread above, Jetcat has been doing the "out of the learned range" failsafe for a long time and it is explained in detail in their manuals. The Xicoy Ecu's that were used in Jetcentrals up until the last few years were a bit less detailed in how the ECU displays if it was an actual failsafe when the engine shutdown for an unknown reason. The new JetCentrals with their own ECU's will show a failsafe on the display when you turn your radio off even if the engine is not running and was just in the "ready" state. I'm sure when it warms up here enough for me to drag the plane into the backyard and run the engine, it will shutdown when I turn the radio off. I don't know what will be displayed. The KT manual tells you nothing about programming a failsafe in your radio as well as programming the pulse width to be out of the range of the "learned ECU" pulse width range. From the lack of responses in this and the other thread, I don't know what to assume when it comes to the actual functionality of the KT ECU failsafe feature or that most people care as long as the engine shutsdown but will it shutdown if you never set it up in your radio? I don't think so.

Originally Posted by wfield0455 (Post 12583097)

Not sure why you're still unsure what to assume. From your post it seems you understand the out of range mechanism that the ECUs use so there is nothing more to understand.The only way the ECU has to tell if the receiver has gone into fail safe is the pulse width of the throttle channel and if it goes out of range used for teach RC or goes away completely, then the ECU sees that as loss of signal and starts its shut down counter. There is nothing in the ECU to setup for fail safe, it's a built in function but for it to work you MUST configure fail safe on your RC system.

Spektrum automatically sets fail safe on your throttle channel when you bind but in order for it to work properly you must do a bit of a dance to create and "out of range" pulse width on the throttle channel. On my Jeti I can tell it to output anything I want but by default it does nothing (hold). It sounds like you already know what the ECU wants so all you need to do is figure out how to make your transmitter and receiver give the ECU what it wants. If I knew what system you're flying I may be able to help with that.
It's easy to tell if fail safe is set correctly simply by plugging a servo into your throttle channel, Set throttle to stop and observe the servo position, set throttle to idle and observe the servo position. Turn off the transmitter and see if the throttle servo moves to stop position or an even lower throttle position.If it goes to the stop position the ECU will see this as a normal shut down, if it goes lower it sees this as a signal loss and the shut down cause will be lost RC, if the servo does nothing (stays at idle or above) your turbine won't shut down at all..

Originally Posted by rhklenke (Post 12583119)

OK, Marty does know all of that. The issue is that the KT manual does not include instructions as to how to setup the "out of range" failsafe option, nor does the Kingtech GSU have a display that shows that the ECU has detected a failsafe. Either one of those options would tell Marty that the KT ECU actually has the failsafe 2 second delay functionality, and that he's accessing it correctly (Jetcat GSU's have had a "failsafe" display since forever, and newer JC GSU's have one now).

What he's saying is that the only way he has to verify that the ECU has entered the failsafe condition vs. just a normal shutdown is to actually run the engine and turn off the transmitter. If the engine shuts down immediately, either the ECU doesn't have a failsafe mode, or he's not setup his throttle failsafe correctly to access it, but if it delays (at idle, ideally) for 2 seconds and THEN shuts down, he's good to go...

Bob

ps. Just to further elucidate, earlier "Xicoy" ECUs (like those used by older JC engines) did not have the "out of range mechanism" you describe or actually, any failsafe mode, so all you could do is failsafe the throttle channel to go to shutdown mode - with no delay. Jetcats have always had the "out of range mechanism" , Jet Central has it now, so the question is, does KingTech have it?

Originally Posted by wfield0455 (Post 12583139)

Yes I'm aware that the older Jet Central ECUs didn't have this and I think I mentioned that unless I edited it out of my first post. However I have said several times that Kingtech DOES have the out of range mechanism, I have said multiple times that I use it and I've said multiple times that I've tested it and I've said multiple times it shuts the turbine down properly and logs that it was shutdown by lost RC. I own 3 Kingtechs that use the G1 ECU and 2 that use the G2 ECU and they all work as described.I guess you guys must think I'm either stupid or a lair, either way, best of luck in the future.

Originally Posted by Afterburners (Post 12583662)

I believe the "Diagnostic Messages" screen would have given me the failsafe notice but like I said I didn't see that in the manual until after I had cycled the ECU one or two more times and I think the info of last shutdown is wiped if you don't get it on the first re-power up after the failsafe shutdown. The "Summary" screen only will give you running info of the last four runs and an abnormal code line if something happened. I think at this point, I would need the ability to download the ECU data to my PC to see the failsafe although I will check the summary again and see if it kicked a code of the failsafe run. I don't think there's a list of codes in the manual though.