stegl

I sold off my Dx6i this spring as I only used it indoors in the winter. Will be replacing my receivers with my rock solid Airtronics park flyer receivers. The turbine stuff gets the Jeti with the telemetry. Too bad more people don't look into it .

stegl

Hi John: have you ever looked at the Jeti DS-16 for less than half the price of the Futaba 18mz. only thing is it doesn't take pictures and no colour screen but a superior radio for programing than the Futaba 18mz.

TOPGUN WINNER

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never posted a video before but i will try....if not i will tell you where to look.

TOPGUN WINNER

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Spektrum is great for park flyers and slow fly

Aerocal

Your getting warmer

TOPGUN WINNER

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I plan on doing just that on monday if i am able...my family has been destroyed with cancer...looks like it may be my turn now.

Don't feel like flying or building most of the time. In severe pain about 18 hours a day...not much fun to be around. What to hell, i am 80 years old and am going flying with my friends at 7:00am tomorrow before it gets too hot... I can't take heat or cold anymore. Lol
i have had a life that people don't even dream about.

I want to keep others from loosing the airplanes they love.

TOPGUN WINNER

My Feedback: (27)

Do you consider 6.5 volts too low to operate a spektrum receiver? I use life a-123 batteries and regulators with my lipos.

I have never used a stock battery in any transmitter. A separate power bus for your servos is a good idea on any gas airplane.

My dx-8 and new dx-7 would brown out on command while using a 6v battery to power the receiver...do you think that's the way it should work? I do not !!

TOPGUN WINNER

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Everything you said is true...amps rule !!! Never use a four cell in anything...no safety margin at all.

TOPGUN WINNER

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Dx-8 go for $125 to $150 in our area...we like them...one club i belong to is 90% spektrum. We lost over 30 aircraft last year...it was blamed on "jamming"...what a joke.

TOPGUN WINNER

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Castle bravo,
not only do i know what is wrong with the spektrum system, but i also know whats wrong with your system. You make up crap to get attention...you don't seem to understand what you read...can you read?

If you can't contribute don't post. Life is full of problems without listening to an angry attitude that contributes nothing

if i could share the big-c with you your nasty attitude would change...model airplanes would not seem that important.

Get a life and be glad you have one.

TOPGUN WINNER

My Feedback: (27)

Ahicks,
right on brother !!! You got that right. Unless you fly park flyers stay away from old technology. I prefer life a-123 ...they maintain much better. A four cell has no business in rc period.

TOPGUN WINNER

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Bafferback,
good stuff....you can't fly 3-d with nimh...life is the best choice

at what voltage does your receiver fail? I can make mine fail at over 6v ...fate is the hunter. It is not just one thing...it is a combination.

TOPGUN WINNER

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Cobra,
i once raced one. My company made the engines for shelby. Tom payne was the distributor for shelby. He was t-boned on saturday by tom swindell in turn one...he did exactly the same thing in sundays feature race.i painted two little cobras on the side of toms vette. Could not emagine crashing two on one weekend..a new cobra readt to race in scca sold for $9,700.00. They have sold for over onemillion at meecham.auctions. I guess i am getting old.

You were ahead of us all if you have been using life for 6 years...that is all we use today in any gas plane.

HORNET FLYER

My Feedback: (6)

Just my opinion,

I have had amazing results with spektrum.

I have flown 100s of flights this year alone on my COMPARF lightening, topflite spitfire and me109.......along with my friends flying their giant scale birds as well and not a one has had a spektrum receiver related problem.

now we have had.

one spektrum life battery wire tab come loose inside the battery itself( plane survived due to twin input spm reciever)

one HD esm brand charge switch have intermittent voltage failure on a DLE 55 ignition causing it to cut in and out ....replaced switch and work fine after that.......imagine if it was on the reciever!!!!!

dle ignition cap split causing feed back through the plane and weird behavior...lucky we killed the motor and the plane flew with a hitch....started plane back up on ground and ran it up and loss of control was experienced at all throttle levels....replaced cap and all returned to normal for many more flights to date.

now I have seen many times,

people led reuse hard crashed receivers.

use cheapest possible switches or swap meet batteries.

trust hobby king regulators lol!!!!!!!

spectrum radios bought from people that know they have damaged/dropped radios

use spectrum radios with orange rx on 30cc and above planes stating that it's the same....and are stunned when they lose control.

and just plain can't build/assemble

ahicks

My Feedback: (2)

One of the bigger problems that makes this difficult to understand for many, is that the voltage readings they get will indicate they are plenty safe to fly. The problems start when you start loading the system down with much higher amperage demands of high torque or worse, digital high torque servos. Measure the battery voltage after a flight or 2 while everything is turned on and you mix the transmitter sticks around a little if you want to see this failure first hand. Or maybe with a fully stalled servo..... due to mis adjusted end points or something jammed.

If you'll notice, the planes going in under brown out conditions are generally not going in when flying along straight and level. It's much more likely you'll see them go in on knife edge, after a snap roll, or some other activity that places high demands on 2 or more servos at the same time. I saw one go in when the landing gear was lowered because he had them wired to the receiver pack!

NiMh can't handle this type use. Plain and simple. Further, good info on this issue is hard to find, and little of it is "official". Tower hobby (as well as many others) will still be happy to sell anyone that asks a brand new NiMh battery without a word mentioning the fact they are at the absolute bottom of existing battery technology when it comes to amperage delivery capabilities or even reliability.

Switch to A123 or Lipo and you can set up a portable arc welder on board if you like. The more you know/learn about them, the better you'll like them.

Topgun Winner, wishing you all the best.

DOC

My Feedback: (57)

I had a new Spektrum DX-18 Gen 2. After loosing my first Airplane with the radio I sent it in and they changed the RF section. They then gave it a clean Bill of Health. But I still had problems so i sent it back, again a clean bill of Health. I installed it in my new H-9 60cc Corsair (with 12 ch receiver & 3 sats. every option). The second flight lasted about one minute, Totaled ! $3K worth of trash...
I sent the radio TX and 12 channel RX in and got it back with a perfect bill of Health. I sold it for $500, and I included the clean bill of Health.
A week later I received a letter from Horizon stating that there is a Range problem with the DX-18 Gen2.
Well I no longer own it and I will never own another Spektrum.

blainer48

My Feedback: (30)

That has been my experience with Horizon lately. They seem to always want to blame the customer/user first. They have tried to play dumb when I talk to them and act like the issue I am asking about is coming out of left field. They love saying "that's the first we have heard of that", or "we haven't heard of that issue". I find that hard to believe that I am the first calling them on issues when you simply have to look on sites like this and see what is going on. It is totally irresponsible on their part. Sure, you can get some big name pilots to wear your shirts at events and so forth, but that doesn't address the problems. I have an older Spektrum DX7 that luckily I have had no problems with. Now, with that said I only use it for BNF foamies and nothing else. For my turbines, 50cc warbirds and things of that nature I have always used my Futaba. I don't care what anyone uses because I am not getting paid by Horizon or Futaba to swear Spektrum is the greatest or worst thing on the planet. It's like the old Ford vs. Chevy thing. I started with Futaba years ago, it has never failed so I'm not about to change considering the money you can wrap up in a jet. You have to use what you feel safe and confident using. If you don't trust it, you aren't going to be having fun. In my club, the only guys I have seen loose total control of a plane since the switch to 2.4 have been the guys using Spektrum/JR. Coincidence? Doesn't seem like it since it hasn't happened to anyone else using other radio brands. Even some of the guys using older FM radios have no problems. I sort of joke with guys and tell them "if I like the plane and want to keep it, I fly it on my Futaba. If I want to crash it and don't care if it goes in, Spektrum". I just wish they would admit there is an issue, figure it out and make it right before someone gets hurt or god forbid killed. No one is saying Spektrum as a whole is terrible or a bad product, just there are some obvious issues that can't be ignored any longer.

crash1ace

I think I'll just stick to my good ol 72Mhz stuff.

blainer48

My Feedback: (30)

Well, look at all the open channels you have now without fear of interference. I sometimes wish I still have my old 9CAP on 72Mhz channel 39. Worked flawlessly for years and countless flights.

John_M_

I've seen it, the gimbles are very nice on the Jeti DS-16...

Although I'm not actually looking for another radio, I'm kinda partial to futaba, that's all I've ever flown with since getting into this hobby... my first radio was a futaba 2 channel (don't recall the model number), then I upgraded to the classic futaba FP-R6F, 72mhz narrow band AM 6channel radio... then I upgraded to the futaba FP-T6NFK 6 channel narrow band FM in the 50mhz Ham band, which really helped isolated me from jamming / jammers... then I got a Futaba 9CA PCM, in the Ham band as well... and finally this futaba 14SG.

In over the last 40 years, I have never had a radio issue with either of those radios... the only failure I had was with the FP-R6F radio system, I had a tuning coil crack in the receiver which brought the plane down, but that was my fault, I didn't isolate it from the engine vibration properly... knock on wood, to date, I've never had a servo failure, switch failure, or transmitter failure... I had one bad experience with a sudden NICad battery voltage drop from the dreaded NiCad memory issues, but I managed to catch the transmitter volt meter in the red just in time to land safely... back in the narrow AM band days, you were more likely to be shot down by someone not checking the frequency and turning on their radio, or by some spiteful idiot with a sweep generator, than you were to have a crash from a failure of sorts.

I lied, I did have one other radio, which I used for slope soaring / gliders, and that was a Bill Cannon 6 channel... it was one of his later models from back in the 90's, it was all analog narrow band FM in the 53mhz ham band.. it was his first micro receiver and micro servo offering... it was also the beginning of him manufacturing overseas... after close inspection of the servos and radio construction, it was not the best quality, and I would never install it into a powered aircraft, so I used it for slope soaring only.




John M,

blainer48

My Feedback: (30)

DOC, sorry to hear about loosing a plane like the H9 60cc Corsair. That would have sucked when you can't do anything about it. There's nothing worse than seeing a beautiful plane go in when you're hammering the sticks trying to save it and nothing is happening. I admit when I have screwed up and the crash was totally my fault. We have all crashed. I hate to see anyone crash. If I plant the plane because of a dumb thumb moment, it sucks, but you can live with it a little easier. When you loose a plane to something stupid and out of your control, literally, is the absolute worst.

impulse09

My Feedback: (3)

Can't say I agree with the NiMh bashing. I run a 2700 5 cell pack on a Futaba system driving 9 servos (8 digital) and have had zero issues in 5+ years (not all on the same battery but the same chemistry).

stegl

That and Nicads are all we had many many years ago , no Becs, no life, no lipos... and we flew 1/4 scale and never had an issue nor " brownouts". Oh , and that was when we didn't have Spektrum and digital servos......

sensei

I switched over to Specktrum and began flying my 40% Carden 260 with a DX-7 in late 2007. That said and maybe I am just lucky knock on wood I have never experienced a brownout or loss of my aircraft since then. I still fly Specktrum and a typical on board setup for me today is a soft switch, a single power safe receiver with 2 ea. 2500 ma lipos feeding upwards 9 power hungry high torque servos, this may not be for everyone but it sure works for me.

Bob

ahicks

My Feedback: (2)

On 72, when all we had were nicads, how many were flying with digital servos that have 150+ oz. of torque on .60 size planes?

I'm not here to bash NiMh, only share what I went through figuring out they are the absolute lowest rung of the ladder when it comes to output capability. You don't need to take my word for it. Look into it yourself and see what you come up with. I'm throwing up the red flag. Do what you want with it.

For Pets's sake, don't go into it without an open mindset - because they haven't screwed up for you yet. That's like driving around on bald tires. Most of us have already learned that lesson.