which 2.4 to buy??

Well said Dean, stick to what you know, and what suits YOU !!

Garry

As well as the Orange DSM2 receivers the Orange FASST receivers are good too, and much cheaper than genuine Futabas. They have failsafe on every channel rather than Futabas throttle failsafe only, so you could say in some ways they're better!

kamco kid wrote: The spektrum has never failed me, although I am aware of peeps having brown out problems, I've never suffered from them. (I do add the plug in satellite to the receiver on bigger models just to be on the safe side)

Rich, this is a common misconception, adding satellites will not prevent brown-out, in fact you could say it makes it very slightly more likely by drawing more current from the battery. Brown-out isnt a 'Spektrum' word, its a long-established term for the unpredictable reaction of digital circuitry as its supply voltage slowly falls towards and below the minimum spec. The problem with Spektrum receivers was the relatively high drop-out (ie headroom) of their 3v3 linear regulators and the long reboot times as Polly said.

The Beard wrote: Comletely off topic love the Avatar Phil G

Me at Donington earlier this year, the VTR thou has to go though, its already replaced with a GSXR600, endurance racing next season...

Cheers
Phil

Phil_G wrote: The problem with Spektrum receivers was the relatively high drop-out (ie headroom) of their 3v3 linear regulators and the long reboot times as Polly said.
Cheers
Phil

Are you saying that Spekky Rx's have a built in 3V3 regulator?
I've not dug into the circuitry, but if this is the case.... what's the minimum input voltage to this regulator?
At the end of the day, no modeller should suffer even one millisecond of a drop in voltage to the Rx ... that's dangerous.
There may be a breakdown in communication between the radio gear manufacturers & the modellers here .... look at our "Revolver" thread & the problems BB has had!
If Klippy is correct & a single servo can demand 2.4 Amps ..... what happens when 5 or 6 servo's run at the same time?
You could be talking about asking 15 Amps from a receiver battery pack ... I don't care if they're Eneloops or totally looped.... I've yet to see a set of AA batteries that will handle this current without a significant voltage drop.

Watch what happens here ... You get in a bit of trouble & twiddle the sticks .... all the servo's demand current at the same time & this causes a sudden voltage drop spike for one thousandth of a second ..... the receiver will lose bind in that millisecond & will go into failsafe...... All the servo's will assume failsafe position.... but what happens next?
The Rx will resume bind & all servo's will be asked to move again ... all servo's demand current, voltage drops, Rx loses bind .... let's start again until terra firma greats us & we all blame it on a radio fault!
I haven't checked into Klippie's research, because I don't have time to do everything, but if he says one of these servo's can pull 2.4 Amps, then I'm prepared to believe him until someone proves otherwise.
If you're using a 5 or 10 Amp BEC on your ESC...... be damn bloody careful. ... five servo's could easily overload this & you'll have an appointment with the model shop.
If you're using AA batteries .... test them under a 15 Amp load,.... post the results here & we'll all have a laugh.

Pol

Polyphilla wrote: Are you saying that Spekky Rx's have a built in 3V3 regulator?

Yes of course, the CYRF6936 absolute max vcc is 3.6v, its designed to run on 3.3v, as is the CC2500 used by most other manufacturers. They couldnt be run directly from an unstable source like a battery!
Cheers
Phil

Do you mean Spectrum recievers are no good as i have about 10 of them and the new Powerbox Competitor i have for the SU27 is Spektrum based, shit !!!

THE BLACKBIRD wrote: Do you mean Spectrum recievers are no good as i have about 10 of them and the new Powerbox Competitor i have for the SU27 is Spektrum based, shit !!!

I dont profess to be clever like you lads. I am a firm believer in the saying that the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Let me put it this way. I have been back in the hobby for 6 yrs now. I invested heavely in the hobby and bought a fair amount of models, lipos etc with the intention of doing a lot of flying. I started with Spektrum and am still using it

I fly an average of 10 flights a session twice a week 52 weeks out of the year, so lets say 50 times for ease.
So that is a thousand flights per year, over 6 yrs a total of 6000 flights
So whats his point I hear you ask. The point is this. I am still using the same equipment I bought 6 yrs ago, plane wise, including some lipos . I uprated to a DX7 from DX6i some 2 yrs ago but the gear in the models is the same.

In the past 6 yrs, I have had 2 crashes, which were down to bad installation by me, and except for the very occasional taking off of the U/C which happens to all of us, that is about the sum total of damage

You could have a car in the drive that peeps say is a load of rubbish, but until you have driven it, you have no idea of its potential.

So dont loose heart BB, and condem Spekky, as far as I am concerned it is as good as anything else on the market.

Its all very well the armchair critics debating the issue, but there is only one way in my book to prove or disprove something, thats is to use it over and over again and draw your own conclusions

Thats what I did

Garry

Phil_G wrote:

Polyphilla wrote: Are you saying that Spekky Rx's have a built in 3V3 regulator?

Yes of course, the CYRF6936 absolute max vcc is 3.6v, its designed to run on 3.3v, as is the CC2500 used by most other manufacturers. They couldnt be run directly from an unstable source like a battery!
Cheers
Phil

I thought it possible that they used a custom dedicated chip with a wide voltage tolerance ... ie. 4V - 6V ... batteries would certainly be a smooth supply & within this range ... this would also explain the 5V - 6V output of BEC's.
Is the 3V3 regulator is only powering the RF section or the servo pulses as well?
I ask this because my old JR 35MHz sets give 5V pulses to the servo's .... Does the Spekky give 3V3 pulses? .... could be a problem if you wanted to buddy one to the other?

Polyphilla wrote: I thought it possible that they used a custom dedicated chip with a wide voltage tolerance

its possible but no, they use the industry standard cypress chipsets.

Polyphilla wrote: Is the 3V3 regulator is only powering the RF section or the servo pulses as well? I ask this because my old JR 35MHz sets give 5V pulses to the servo's .... Does the Spekky give 3V3 pulses?

The RF section and the MCU are part of the same chip, it all runs from 3.3v so the channel outputs (ie pwm to the servos) are 3.3v max, often lower as the mcu cant switch right to the rail under load.

Polyphilla wrote: .... could be a problem if you wanted to buddy one to the other?

you've lost me there Pol - buddying being a function of the transmitter... Spektrum/JR buddy signals are at full battery voltage, negative-going ppm and AC coupled.
Unless you use one of those HK receiver-multiplexors in the model, but they are ok at 3.3v anyway. I'm suspicious about those as they appeared shortly after I published mine!
Cheers
Phil

I've only recently changed to 2.4 after Garry & Eric gave me a shock & bought me a new DX6i, so I haven't dismantled any 2.4 gear yet.
With my old JR sets I did do some tinkering & once had cause to check the digital pulses on a scope ... They were 5V.
The Tx RF output stage ran on the unregulated battery voltage but it had an internal 5V regulator for the digital side of things & buddy output was 5V pulses.
The Spekky DX6i runs on 4.8V - 6V (4 batteries) and this started me wondering what would happen if you wanted to use a Spekky Tx as the master, with a JR 35MHz as the slave?
When buddying two JR sets, they talk to each other via 5V pulses ..... how would this work if the Spekky required different Voltage pulses?... (This is just the Tx side of course)
My memory could be playing tricks on me here so don't take any of this info' as Gospel ... but I'm sure I read somewhere that it was possible to slave a JR35 to a Spekky 2.4 ... I could be mistaken.
On the Rx side of things .... I once checked the servo pulses from the output of a Futaba 35MHz Rx .... I think I was checking that the central position was 1.5ms .... If memory serves me correctly, the pulses were 5V (or close enough)
So now I'm curious, does a Spekky 2.4 Rx send 5V or 3.3V pulses to the servo's? ..... Unfortunately I can't check this for myself anymore because I gave my scope to Eric ... He's a Radio Ham & seemed to have more use for it than I did at the time.
I used to repair radio equipment for a living many years ago .... but SM technology and failing eyesight put a stop to it many years back.

I believe Spectrum recommend I higher voltage on board battery than Futaba.But my Spectrum read a higher battery voltage in the Tx than my Futaba does which falls below 8 volts very quickly but have never had a low voltage alarm warning.