DX7 and Lockouts

[petesmith]

Last weekend my friend was flying his Bergen with his two week old DX7. After 10 minutes into flight, when he had it doing a roll, the heli went into the ground. We ran the 50 yards to get to it and found it was totally locked out - no response from cyclic, yaw, or throttle. The engine was at idle and the light on the receivers were on. Absolutely no response to the sticks at all. After cycling power it was fine.....

Horizon will not cover "collateral damage" to the heli ( ~ $400 in parts plus a custom painted canopy ), let alone the shipping to the service shop :<

Anyone else experiencing lockouts? That was why he bought the radio - to not get them!!!!!!! :? :? :?

[Jermo]

Was he using the AR6100 reciever? there is a software bug with the AR6100 that requires it to be sent back for an update.

[Ticidytoc]

What was the source power for the rx ?

[petesmith]

Receiver is a AR7000.

He has a 5-cell pack with a regulator

[Jermo]

rx running off his main lipo or a flight pack? I've been flying since Feb07 with the AR7000. I'm up to FFF/Flips/Rolls/Circuits, working inverted on the sim and of course I reveiew pratice hover in all orientations just about every session. To date I've never had a radio issue even at what I consider to be extreme range for a heli as small as the T-Rex 450 (could hardly see the little bird).

sorry I can't be more help.. might help to have more info on setup, heli type, electronics..etc..

[Danal Estes]

Hard to say. Any radio can have defects... and etc.

I've been flying T450 with AR6000 and DX6 (later 6102DX6) for over a year no issue.

I've been flying T600 and some other stuff on AR7000 and DX7 since they came out. No issues.

There were a BUNCH of people at Tyler with DX7 in various nitro and electric birds. No issues.


Proves nothing about your friends radio, of course. Just some indication that there are not widespread problems (other than the known AR6100 issue).

I have no idea how many of these things have shipped in total, but I've watched 70 (yes that's seventy) AR7000s get sold at the local heli shop over the last 90 days. Haven't seen or heard of any local problems that coule (even as a stretch) be related to the radio itself.

[Ticidytoc]

I have had regulators fail but I'm sure that wasnt the case because its working after the crash ?

I was told by horizon that the RX shuts off if your 4 cell pack voltage drops too low. Cant remember the exact voltage at the moment.

[kgfly]

Two most common diagnoses I have seen for Spektrum-related flight failures:

a) Rx power supply failure
- batts run down/failed
- BEC/regulator overheated and went into thermal shutdown
- loose/damaged lead

b) Pilot accidentally pushed the bind button during flight
- Tx has a stand mounted and pilot's hold on the Tx squeezed the stand which in turn depressed the bind button

Failsafe events are usually diagnosed based on whether the aircraft was observed going into failsafe. Assuming the throttle failsafe has been properly set the motor should have gone to idle to cut out. Did this happen ? If it didn't happen then it is something other than a failsafe.

[petesmith]

Thanks to all for the input! I am pretty much convinced it is a battery pack failure. (shy of something being wrong with the unit - won't know until goes in to Horizon). Personally I do not like regulators - one more thing to go wrong. Have a great flying season!!!!!!!!!!