Futaba,

I am really tired of ready all the conflicting information on the need to use a voltage regulator if you are using 6v batteries on your receiver. So what is the Futaba straight poop.

I going to use two 6v batteries/switches into my R138DP receiver. Do I need regulators? thank you so much.

Steve

It's not the receiver, but the servos that can be voltage-limited. The receiver has its own internal voltage regulator. Futaba Servos that have only a 4.8V rating only need to have regulation below 6V, or a 4-cell NiCd battery pack. Futaba servos that have a 6V rating can deal with a 5-cell pack.

A 5 cell nicad pack is far above 6 volts much of the time....maybe it is better to rate the servos in supply VOLTAGE instead of CELL COUNT.

So what max supply VOLTAGE the servos can take?

Thanks

Again, when Futaba refers to servos working on 6 V, they're referring to a 5-cell NiCd pack, which will be rated at 6V, which is the nominal voltage of a 5-cell pack. Servos that are rated for 6V will work properly when a 5-cell NiCd pack is fully-charged. Fully-charged a 5-cell NiCd pack can reach 7.5 V, but it will quickly drop to about 6.0-6.2 V and hold that for a considerable time before it drops off. At 5.5 V, the pack would be considered 'dead'.

Looking at Voltage Regulators for my 6V Futuba set-up using 9101 servos -- which it looks like are rated for 4.8V
..

For this set-up it looks as thought I can use one that limits voltage to around 5.1V or should I just make up one myself using a 7805 Voltage chip?

Do the commerial ones offer any beneifts beyond the 7805?


Thanks for any insight

You can use any method that works. We don't have a comment on homemade vs. commercially-built regulators.

The main use of regulators is so that you can use 6 or more cells in your receiver battery pack. That allows a lot of current to be delivered to the large number of big servos used in the vary large airplane models.