Eddym

I am thinking of getting a 14SG and installing SBus system in my next aircraft. From what I have researched so far it looks like a good system. My question is: is it gaining in popularity within the hobby enough to justify switching over. I would hate to invest in it and then have it discontinued. What are some the advantages over the standard system?

Thanks.

BarracudaHockey

My Feedback: (11)

Moved to radio forum

rc34074

My Feedback: (5)

i bought one to get enough channels for my larger warbirds with gas engines. its a very flexible radio and can operate with any of the futaba receivers they list for the 14sg as long as you have the correct mode selected. i plan to use it mainly with their 14 channel receiver with so called standard servos, but i also plan to use the sbus receiver on the two eletric powered planes that i have to see how useful the telemetry system seems to me.

if you watch the tower hobbies sales you should be able to buy it for a good price.

Ed

dirtybird

My Feedback: (5)

Taranis will do the same thing,give you 32 channels, at 1/3 the cost

Alofthobbies.com

ija

If you build new plane why you would be worried if others use it? It's free feature with the current receivers and you need to buy new servos anyway. Just choose Futaba SBUS servos (but if you want to use non-Futaba servos you need SBUS decoders but be careful with those cheap Chinese ones! And Futaba SBD-1 is not high voltage compatible. So Futaba servos are the best option to new plane)

You can re-use those servos also as normal ones in other project if you want - no oblication to utilize SBUS feature.

At least I'm personally using SBUS widely. It's very handy to have only one servowire going to the wind with 4 servos. It's also safer solution: if you had 4 connectors it's 4 times more probable to have problems than having just one. So it's 4 times more safe assuming any of the connector failures would be disaster. And you can save lots of cabling and as a consequence weight: it's enough to have one wire to go to tail with 3 servos and so on. Just choose some good wiring with thicker power and thin signal. fex: https://www.lindinger.at/en/rcelectr...er-entflammbar

Ilkka

BarracudaHockey

My Feedback: (11)

SBus is cool, I did an article on it for Fly RC and was very impressed.

Zeeb

My Feedback: (41)

Well I'm tempted to try the SBus stuff on my next Pattern plane as the servos in those models do not draw much current. As for the bigger wire shown in the link to Robbe's stuff by ija, that's part of the solution to bigger models and servos but the issue of the standard size servo connectors remains. Good quality gold plated pin connectors can handle about 4 amps continuous but they'll be warm. The can burst to about 6 amps but if the pins are worn, the housing will melt at 4 amps. So the problem becomes getting the power out of the rx and into the hub through those connectors.

Robbe has a setup designed to overcome most of that issue, but I cannot remember how they get the power out, it may be that they pull the power from the batteries separately and only the signal goes through the rx.

Any way, something to think about.....

ija

That's anyway the way. No even need for Robbe boxes or similar: just create your wire harness so that you can feed current directly to Servo wires from your battery and connect just common ground and signal wires to Rx. In extreme solution you could have even separate local batteries at the rear and both wings as long as you make sure all grounds are tied together and signal comes to the Rx. Real pervert really puts a battery in the wing and then you can have "two pins only" -connector to wing (ground & signal)

Cheers, Ilkka

Robert Willis

I am using S.BUS to make the connection between my Futaba RX and the HobbyEagle Super II Gyro and it works perfect. In addition I am driving the flaps with S.BUS servos. It is pretty easy to configure once you get the first one done and master the programming. I wish that Futaba would come out with a Gyro integrated into their RX's similar to the Spektrum solution. I like that approach since it reduces the number of devices in the airplane.

dirtybird

My Feedback: (5)

Not a safer solution.
You lose one wire, you lose all servos.
With four connectors, you have natural redundancy.
Also that one cable has to carry the current for all of the servos.
I don't think its a good idea.
SBUSS is useful for connecting to a gyro that is equipped to handle it. That is the only thing I think its good for.

jim billings

I bought the 14SG because of its capacity to store lots of models. But - programming the beast turned out to be more than my patience would bear. There is a place on the radio about 1 inch diameter where you use your finger to touch a function and then run your finger in circles to do stuff. I am Not adept at smart phone use so you can imagine my frustration. I tried, but I wound up having to do more corrections than proper programming. I donated the useless (to me) gadget to my local flying club as an auction prize.

ija

You are right - natural redundancy is lost then. If there are no 2 or more critical controls then it's safer to have separate connectors as you lose only one control at the time.

However like I wrote if every single "four" servo is critical the situation is different. I mean that if any of the "four" servos fail you would lose full control anyway. By having 4 connectors it would be 4 times more probable to have critical failure than when there is only one wire and connector.

Same if there was 4 servos but 2 of those are critical. It's then 2 times more probable to have failure of critical servo than with single connector. I agree it will take down all 4 servos but if single failure is enough to cause fatal problem then this is the case.

Also if you use only one cable you can use thicker one and still save in weight. In many cases average current of the servo is rather small but there can be very high peak currents and those peaks may not happen at the same time by all servos. Thicker cable is able to serve these peak currents better with smaller voltage losses than thin basic cable. Therefore actually with SBUS you could create better current distribution simple way. Of course this applies only if better cabling is used and I totally agree with you if standard servo cables are used.

Power distribution method is not always straght forward to design; everybody needs to consider carefully what it means in their specific usecase and how to implement it. And like pointed risk might also increase in some cases.

dirtybird

My Feedback: (5)

Just where are you using it that has 4 critical servos?

ija

Fast moving jet has two critical ones and it's enough... I could imagine big glider having all wing servos critical: easily 4. ...anyway I agree with your input too - it's just about use case.

Ilkka

John_M_

It's a great radio... I run two R7008SB receivers to get the full 14 channel capability... haven't tried the S-Bus yet, but as you get involved in it, you'll see how everything connects through the various hubs and extension wires... the key to a good S-Bus setup is a good clean installation, wire tie your cables down so they don't flop around, use double back sticky tape or wire ties to hold your hubs in place, as with any airborne radio installation, vibration and wires dangling about can be a source of a potential point of failure.



John M,

ija

Very very true John_M! ...And actually if one have soldering capabilities I would strongly recommend to avoid all those Futaba Hubs and extension cables as those just introduce additional connectors: ie potential point of failures. I prefer to implement whole wire harness custom to every plane and then you can choose the best cables and connectors too. Anyway fixing everything well is key regardless of the method used. And especially if you go my method then it's critical to support and fix the wires well to avoid fractures next to solder joints. And with SBUS you can allocate the another R7008SB to your other plane - with SBUS you can use all channels with one receiver.

Ilkka

John_M_

That's and excellent point Ilkka.... that's basically what I did with my servo busses; I use just a basic servo buss from Servo-City and did away with the pin connector header where the servos and receiver channel wires connect too, and soldered the channel wires that come from the receiver directly into the servo buss board... it works out better in the long run with tailored wires cut to length, much cleaner / tidier... the fewer the plug connections the better; that's one of the reasons I choose the two receiver route rather than the S-BUS, not that the S-BUS shouldn't be used, I just don't have the need for it with my particular setup, which is just giant scale sport flying.


John M,

rc34074

My Feedback: (5)

why use sbus if you dont like all the connections? you can use the R6014HS 14-Channel FASST Receiver with the 14sg and get all the channels you need for nearly every plane and use non sbus servos. plus it is cheaper to use the R6014 receiver since you dont need to use any sbus components such as hubs etc you just plug the servos into the receiver select the correct mode on the 14sg, and program the servos using the 14sg.

Ed

ija

Telemetry functionality would not be available with the mentioned receiver.

If you you want to play cheap then use R7003SB receiver, full Sbus and custom made wires: very efficient way to save weight and have a very simple and neat installation. This is enough reasons for me personally but there are surely several viewpoints: no just right and wrong ways

ilkka

John_M_

As ija pointed out, no telemetry with the R6014HS receiver, but you could use futaba's new R7018SB receiver with the 14SG and get telemetry, S-BUS, etc.

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXFFFR&P=0

Its not that I don't like the S-BUS connectivity, I just don't really have a need for it yet... binding two R7008SB works out just fine for my needs, and maybe I'll get the R7018SB after I see more reviews on it.


John M,

ija

btw. Better not to hurry with the 7018! It's excellent product idea but the first implementation was not so succesful... Redundant power design seems to be almost disaster! It's not able to run even one high power servo reliably! You could think that it's good because it has double powering etc but it's not. There is lengthy thread about the topic at RCGroups. Futaba needs to fix the design and then it could be nice solution.

ilkka

jmiles1941

the 14SG is a wonderful radio wheither you go sbus or not , the sbus is here to stay the technology is great , you can only do it 2 ways , you either buy sbus servos which you program thru your transmitter or you use standard servos which you get a hub and program the hub output to each servo , it is a very clean installiation any way Futaba is the way to go !!!

John_M_

ilkka I already watched the youtube video demonstrating this issue, but he was only using one battery pack... as you say with redundant batteries, you would think there would be enough reserve to supply plenty of power to the servos as well as the receiver... the issue is most likely in the load balancing circuit, but you would think that the design would have been thoroughly tested, its very strange indeed...that's why I want to see more reviews and see what Futaba is doing about it.


BTW, futaba does state in the R7018SB user manual not to use more than 6 Hi torque / current servos connected to the R7018SB receiver at one time, so there is a known inherent limitation in the design... but one could still use a separate servo buss and servo power supply and use the R7018SB dual battery redundancy just for the receiver power only... its a work around I know, but I don't think we're going to see any re-design on this particular R7018SB receiver, as futaba has stated its limitations.... we may see some other receiver designs in the future with a more robust servo power buss, but its not hopefull to see something that will meet the needs of these large giant scale models with 10-12 or more hi torque / current servos without the use of a separate servo power board, or buss... unless, futaba teams up with smart-fly or another power board manufacture and they produce a combined receiver / power board product.

Just my 2 cents on the matter.



John M,

jefflangton

My Feedback: (23)

Research sbus and see if its what YOU want. Dont do it because its popular. And DONT buy these cheap 1/3 price pieces of ****. You ALWAYS get what you pay for

jmiles1941

John you can get power hubs and separate your loads like separate battery for ailerons , separate battery for elevator and separate battery for receiver , that is real cool you would never run out of voltage due to brown out on reciever