gmebey

I have a Futaba t6xa transmitter that is giving me a intermittent problem. For some reason the radio will command down elevator for no reason. The problem is independent of model memory and is not temperature related. To date I have had three planes crashed and almost a heli because of the problem. I sent the transmitter back to Futaba for repair, they gave me some monkey statement of what the problems, and said it was repaired. Being a Electronics Technician and Engineer with 15 years of experience I had a bad feeling about their so called problem they found.

My question is has anyone had this problem and what was it?

smokingcrater

before you cast judgement on the futaba engineers, was it actually repaired?

gmebey

The radio was sent to Futaba service center for repair. They re-soldered some solder joints and tested the radio, my problem is that they never verified my reported failure. All they did was to take a stab in the dark to what the cause of the problem was.

I contacted the service center today asking if I could return the radio for a 2nd time and that this time the problem be verified prior to attempting to repair the unit. Now my problem with service like this is the lack of respect for the customers aircrafts.

To better answer your question: NO.

mglavin

My Feedback: (31)

How about some specifics as to when and how the down elevator conundrum is realized?

slagburn

Any time. It's completely intermittent. Involving a heli on a stand, which was immediately after getting the radio back. Also a Slow Stick and Duraplane both hit the ground from the same problem.
I don't really think there's any over the web diagnosis that can be done. The radio definitely has a problem, Futaba did not fix it, and kind of gave him the runaround when he called about it.
I have the same radio but it's working fine. I no longer trust Futaba to fix it correctly if it ever has issues.

Bax

My Feedback: (11)

We're sorry to hear that a problem wasn't solved when the transmitter was here, in our shop. According to your post, though, the difficulty is intermittent. That means that it comes and goes. Intermittent problems are the MOST difficult to track down because they do not occur consistently. When an item is here, we do all that we can to duplicate a given problem. Sometimes, though, it doesn't happen. We can't repair a problem that can't be found.

There should have been absolutely no problems in getting arrangements made for us to go over the transmitter again. Any correspondence enclosed with the transmitter should be a detailed as possible so that the technician can have a chance at locating the difficulty. Are there any particular conditions, stick positions, and so on that happen when the tranmitter acts up? The more information we have the better.

Since we don't know who you are (due to aliases), we have no way to look up your workorder and let the techs know it's coming back. Just send us an email to the service address, and we'll be glad to work with you.

gmebey

Sorry to come across so negative about my radio problem, but I'm sure that any fellow flyer would understand the lost of aircraft because equipment failure is highly frustrating. In all my years in this hobby I have had one other radio failure. That failure was in the early learning stages of fixed wing aircraft and it is forever burned into memory watching the aircraft dive from the sky with little hope of saving it.

Now that I'm older and more experienced in the world of electronics, seeing a problem like this is sickening. And even more sickening to have it repaired, and then find that the problem wasn't corrected.

The first three incidents are my fault, but there is a near fourth after the repair. I'm just lucky (along with two friends) that I had the common sense to test the radio prior to putting a heli in the air. Doing the last adjustments on a heli strapped to a test bench seemed to be a good idea to also allow run time on the transmitter as a test. After several minutes of runtime (half a tank of fuel) and the head speed dialed to approximately 1800rpm the radio commanded an unwanted full forward cyclic. We were very lucky the bird was restrained, because if this happened in flight it would have been the end of the heli and possibly worse.

Adding to the situation, after seeing the written report I received back with the radio, I called to see if the problem was verified prior to repair. The customer service person couldn't answer if it was or wasn't. As I mention in an earlier post I'm in the field of electronics and the products I'm involved with are not so forgiving.

I'm a little upset about three fixed-wing aircraft that were damaged, two repairable and one totaled. But I'm now more concerned about what would have happened if this failure had occurred in flight on the heli (30 size). Adding to this concern is that I'm still new to flying rotary-wing aircraft and at the hovering stages with minimal forward flight. Combining the lack of experience with flying helicopters and a radio failure provides the perfect situation for disaster.

Again I apologize for coming across in a negative manner. The original repair request was accompanied with a detailed written letter of the equipment used, radio setup, and events at the time of failure. The original post was in search of information that I could pass along to the service center when I send the radio back in for repair.

So if anyone can provide information that could be useful, please share.

From what I have seen from the failure I thought through the mode of failure and concluded the possible scenario.

Since the failure is independent of model memory (i.e. FWD/REV) and is intermittent. I believe the failure is most likely prior to the signal processor (micro controller or DSP). Also since the failure is not reversible by stick correction or rapid movement I feel the failure is most likely not in a flexible mechanical connection or the potentiometer, but maybe related to signal conditioning circuitry on the input to the processor. Please note that this is my thought of where I would start looking for the failure if I was trouble shooting this problem.

Bill Baxter, it is only fair I give you the prior work order number since I spoke freely and at the same time come across attacking your service department. Work order #2073434, I hope this helps in locating the problem once you get the radio back.

Gtech

I to have a T6XA, but knock-on-eood have had no problems. If your Xmtr is out of warranty and Futaba is going to charg you for all this t-shooting and/or repair, try someone else. I was very satisfied with the servive I received from "Radio South". They are located in Pensacola, FL. You can find their address on a google search or in "RC REPORT" Magazine. Good Luck C W