fail safe??
 

How many of you Jet Cat powered fliers check for the number of times, if any, your plane went into fail safe and for how long? The obvious reason I'm asking is I checked mine today after the third flight and found 1 instance of fail safe with a duration of 0.4. Is there an average or is this something I should resolve immediately prior to flying again? I didn't notice a thing by the way; everything seemed to be functioning as normal during the flight.
thanx.
Gary

RE: fail safe??
 

By the way, I'm flying a roo-2 powered by a P-120, with JR receiver, Jr transmitter (10x) digital servos by Hitec, dual batteries and switches; range checks are within specs.
thanx,
Gary

RE: fail safe??
 

Hi Gary,
It doesn't sound like you have an RF link problem. You won't normally notice any failsafe condition in-flight that lasts under 1 second duration. You probably don't have any flight surfaces set for a preset failsafe position, except the throttle. If that is the case at best you may notice a hold, and see it as a non response or seemingly slow response to a hard aileron movement or some other known input. If you set your elevator for a 1/2 inch up failsafe position, you may then notice fail-safes if you had several of them of longer duration. Another way to send you a signal while flying that you may notice, is to set the landing gear for a down position failsafe. As I said before the duration is going to have to be at least 1 second for you to notice anything.

With the JR 10X antenna removed, aircraft on a wood or plastic stand 2 1/2 - 3 feet off the ground you should be able to walk out 225 feet with the turbine running full power, and be glitch free turning the transmitter in all directions. Do this range check if you see some glitching try moving the Rec. antenna's relative position to the ECU and or fuel pump motor, until you get the 225 feet clean and clear. I am assuming your ECU is at least a 4.0 or later vintage. If it is an older version you should upgrade to a newer version like the new version 5.0.

Bottom line is from what you've stated I don't think you have a problem big enough to loose any sleep over.
Lee H. DeMary
AMA 36099

RE: fail safe??
 

Thanx for the reply, Lee; maybe I'm just being paranoid, the ecu is 4.0 and the range checks are ok; on an asphalt runway I get about 300'. The receiver antenna is a whip in the forward part of the fuselage in front of the canopy. By the way I got into an inverted flat spin after a vertical climb and tumble (chicken flop) and the recovery was almost instanteous fortunately! Having the time of my life with this!!
Thanx,
Gary

RE: fail safe??
 

How did you check to see that the RX went into failsafe 1 time? Did you see a glitch etc. while flying the plane?

RE: fail safe??
 

The JetCat ECU tells you how many failsafes you had during the flight (you can read it on the Ground Support Unit after flight). You can also set the delay time after you have a failsafe for turbine shutdown, that way you do not have any instant shutdowns, and maybe people will actually set their failsafe to sutdown (you would not believe how many people are not setting their turbines to shutdown on a failsafe!)


If you had one, and you had not been having any, I would check things over very well and do a very good range check like Lee outlines. If everything checks out, I would fly, but that is just me.

RE: fail safe??
 

Thanks, Matt; I'm going to do extensive range checks prior to the next flight just to be sure, unfortunately, I've been remiss in checking the readouts in the gsu so I've nothing to compare at this time but you can bet that will change!!
Thanx,
Gary

RE: fail safe??
 

Yes check the failsafes after every flight. I fly in a very dirty RF environment, and a good setup here should get 0 failsafes.

Also check the max pump voltage after every flight. That one helps spot impending clogged fuel filters. The max voltage will stay pretty stable from flight to flight then start going up maybe .05v after each flight. Then it is time to clean the filter.

RE: fail safe??
 

One thing that strikes me as being a useful addition to the fail safe readout would be the time, in minutes and seconds after startup when the fail safes happened. That way one could determine whether it happened on the ground or in the air and perhaps even at what point geographically on the field since some fields have areas of interference which differ. Just a thought.
Gary

RE: fail safe??
 

I check my failsafe count after every flight. I have just over 50 flights so far on the P120 and have never had a hit. Flying a JR 10x with a dual conversion 10 channel receiver.

I would be concerned about the hit. What radio? How old is the module and the crystal?