Brownouts, Static, Issues,, what RX are you using...?

[rdlohr]

I hadn't seen this poll before I started mine.

Interesting data so far with 60 votes in:

55% have had Brownouts/issues
Of those, 88% had Spectrums

Either its overwelmingly Spectrum, or the "Brownout" wording or something else is swaying the poll.

Rick

[Rototerrier]

Mine dropped yesterday from about 10 feet. I was testing out different motors and pinions and was only hovering and testing cyclic response. DX7, AR6100, GF frame. Was hovering level and everything just shut down and she dropped to the ground. I had the hover pitch set really high at the time so the blades slowed down really fast before it hit. All it did was bend the skid, I rubber hammered it back into shape. I immediately straightened the blades and spooled it back up just to see how much damage it did to the shafts and stuff...it was all fine. Amazingly lucky! It was like nothing happened, RX was working, everything was working. Scary stuff.

I had sprayed the belt with silicon before the first flight. this was about my 12th flight. I am guessing the spray wore off. I had a false sense of security. Because I had sprayed and nothing had already happened, I assumed I was safe.

I have the thing completely torn down right now and will be making the grounding mods this afternoon. I sure hope it works.

[torkboy]

Added my vote, another 6200 affected by static..

TTT, Think this should be a sticky.

[jhat]

I do not have a 500 yet but, is there a consensus that the torque tube fixes the problem? Has anybody still had the static problem with the tt mod?

[silverbullet]

Me, and 3 af my frends flying a 500

Im the only one with a Kontronik ESC Jive 80.
its a silly expencive but nice ESC with 2 cables wired in to my AR 7000 ,it deliver min. 5A of bec current.

all of my Mates have the same setup as me but stock ALIGN ESC.
Spectrum DX7 with AR 7000
No Statik mods done so far on all 4 helis.

Why i am the only one, out of my Mates who never have a lockout or a motor cut off?
note all 3 of them had lock outs!!!

Read the specrum Manual carefully, the mention over and over about LOW VOLTAGE drop and Reciver shut down!!

Statik is real but think can this single Servo-cable from the ESC to the reciver, deliver 2,5A to 3A without a Voltage drop?
2,5A to 3A max is what you need (about) in flying a 500 for power 3 digital swashservos a gyro and a fast tailservo.

i mean, the bec-cable to our reciver gets warm it means more resistance, causing your voltage will drop,
and here my big question, how sensitive are the 2,4ghz reciver in a voltage drop?
i learnd they are very sensitive.

i dont know for 100% but i speak to a few electronik engineers in my company and the also agreed, that could be a big reason for this Lock outs.

just my small opinion on a (big problem)..
wath you guys think about this?

cheers.

[Ultraviolet]

Me, and 3 af my frends flying a 500

Im the only one with a Kontronik ESC Jive 80.
its a silly expencive but nice ESC with 2 cables wired in to my AR 7000 ,it deliver min. 5A of bec current.

all of my Mates have the same setup as me but stock ALIGN ESC.
Spectrum DX7 with AR 7000
No Statik mods done so far on all 4 helis.

Why i am the only one, out of my Mates who never have a lockout or a motor cut off?
note all 3 of them had lock outs!!!

Read the specrum Manual carefully, the mention over and over about LOW VOLTAGE drop and Reciver shut down!!

Statik is real but think can this single Servo-cable from the ESC to the reciver, deliver 2,5A to 3A without a Voltage drop?
2,5A to 3A max is what you need (about) in flying a 500 for power 3 digital swashservos a gyro and a fast tailservo.

i mean, the bec-cable to our reciver gets warm it means more resistance, causing your voltage will drop,
and here my big question, how sensitive are the 2,4ghz reciver in a voltage drop?
i learnd they are very sensitive.

i dont know for 100% but i speak to a few electronik engineers in my company and the also agreed, that could be a big reason for this Lock outs.

just my small opinion on a (big problem)..
wath you guys think about this?

cheers.

EXACTLY

No one has even shown that the root cause for lockouts was static related !! Several guys have shown the " apparent" presence of static. A large percentage of the lockouts could in fact be low voltage conditions caused by a marginal BEC design.

I have a Medusa BEC installed ( from the beginning ), and have not had any issues.

[smokin3000gt]

all this talk about brown outs has got me paranoid! I'm flying a trex450se v2, stock motor, esc. and a ar6100e rx.with a dx6i, no problems yet but now I'm paranoid! I'm switching out my dx6i for a dx7 as soon as it shows up on my doorstep..

so do these brown outs happen far and near? or just when you get far away with the big birds?

[jgunpilot]

I'm using XPS with great results. Solid little piece of gear. I still haven't put my metal tail box on.

[silverbullet]

it happent also very near ,it is not a range problem, my mates 500 went down, just 4meters away of him.
no controll (lock out)
no worrys for your dx6 in your 450.

still i think the whole spectrum product are one of the best revolution,the RC industry have ever get.
its simply changed the life.

keep on flying i am shure your 450 is doing fine.

[rdlohr]

EXACTLY

No one has even shown that the root cause for lockouts was static related !! Several guys have shown the " apparent" presence of static. A large percentage of the lockouts could in fact be low voltage conditions caused by a marginal BEC design.

I have a Medusa BEC installed ( from the beginning ), and have not had any issues.
Many people have had lockouts, did the mods or siliconed the belt and the lockouts cleared without changing out the BEC. Could the BEC somehow make static more or less of an issue...possibly.

Rick

[merlin703]

Many people have had lockouts, did the mods or siliconed the belt and the lockouts cleared without changing out the BEC. Could the BEC somehow make static more or less of an issue...possibly.

Rick
So what is the "final" consensus about this issue?
Problem is 1) receiver (how well it can handle interference (static/noise)), 2) BEC how well it can still perform at the presense of extreme heat of other outside interference, and 3) static (how much static the heli creates (some create more static than others that might be affecting the receiver and/or bec)?

I had issues and I think it was with the receiver. The controls didn't repond. I'm not an experienced pilot so I didn't want to announce it but it seems like other pilots had the same problem. I also have an Spektrum receiver that works when it wants to. It was sent back to the factory and they couldn't find anything wrong with it. I haven't connected this to my heli since I decided to buy a new receiver but.. if it's clearly that the receiver doesn't work all the time when it's on the bench, how come the factory couldn't find anything wrong with it???

[rupps5]

Oh shoot can a mod change my vote please. I voted for the 6100, which I am running but I have never had a problem. So can you change my vote to "did the mods for insurance but did not have a problem"?

[lepton ex123]

I'm a bit paranoid as well,I'm on a JR9x2 with spektrum with ar7100 in my 450 v2 and my lepton and have not had any problems but have noticed something.
When I first switch on,on both of them sometimes the giro doesn't arm in time,so I switch the reciever off and on then the giro armes normal.At this point the reciever light is flashing.
However if I switch the transmitter and reciever off and on then the light is then solid.
It seems that if the transmitter is switched on only once and the reciever is switched on twice then the flashing light happens.
So if anyone else sees the light flashing after the reciever is switched on a second time then switch off both and switch on again.
Maybe worth checking on each flight to make sure the light isn't flashing.

[EricW]

Hi all,

I have a AR6200.
Friday i had the problem with my Gyro not arming (Spartan).
I noticed too late and the heli took out my Tailfin and blades...
Repaired and replaced everything...
Yesterday I had a great flight and while hovering my Protos500 in, I all of a sudden lost all control on my DX7, the heli tilted forward and flew itselve into the ground.....
Have a nice weekend..:mad:

I had numorous flights without a single problem.
Seems the ESD has me by the tail, or there is a bigger problem we do not know off...
I allready did the groundmod on the tail before, I'm now refusing to fly one second with this setup until i'm 100% sure that static is reduced to 0, or there will be offered a GOOD fix by all manufacturers involved.
Why do we have to keep investing a lot of cash and find out what's wrong...

I fly heli for 1 1/2 years now and crashed just Once by my own mistake, and i learned something there...
Seeing your precious helicopter digging itselve in as a helpless bystander is not funny at all I can tell you, and i learned nothing...

Eric

[rdlohr]

Hi all,

I have a AR6200.
Friday i had the problem with my Gyro not arming (Spartan).
I noticed too late and the heli took out my Tailfin and blades...
Repaired and replaced everything...
Yesterday I had a great flight and while hovering my Protos500 in, I all of a sudden lost all control on my DX7, the heli tilted forward and flew itselve into the ground.....
Have a nice weekend..:mad:

I had numorous flights without a single problem.
Seems the ESD has me by the tail, or there is a bigger problem we do not know off...
I allready did the groundmod on the tail before, I'm now refusing to fly one second with this setup until i'm 100% sure that static is reduced to 0, or there will be offered a GOOD fix by all manufacturers involved.
Why do we have to keep investing a lot of cash and find out what's wrong...

I fly heli for 1 1/2 years now and crashed just Once by my own mistake, and i learned something there...
Seeing your precious helicopter digging itselve in as a helpless bystander is not funny at all I can tell you, and i learned nothing...

Eric
Really sorry to hear that. Could you list exactly which mods you did and how you did them? Also post so closeup pictures of your heli with the canopy off showing wiring and component placement. Maybe we can help.

Rick

[EricW]

Hi Rick,

I did the groundmod on my Protos like Kevin suggested.
I removed the coating from the boom under the servoholder, routed a groundwire from that point to the aluminium motormount bolt.
Measured connectivity through-out the heli and it was all fine.

I'm also discussing this on another forum in the Protos owners thread with "Blackrat".
And there we found out that the belt guidepully's still spark, regardless whether the tailboom is grounded or not.
He now grounded those directly by adding a wire-bridge on the pulley washers to the -ve side of the ESC and it seems to eliminate the sparks.
Even the boom shows no sparks without grounding it separately...
So we are making progress i hope...

But still i think this is not something for us to solve all by ourselves as customers, To me it's pretty clear now that many people suffer from the same ESD related problems in combination with 2,4 Ghz products..
In my world it would be descent behaviour, when manufacturers start thinking "with" us and supply parts/solutions to eliminate this problem.

Edit:
MSH is doing it's very best to test/recreate the problem hope others will follow.

Eric

[rdlohr]

Hi Rick,

I did the groundmod on my Protos like Kevin suggested.
I removed the coating from the boom under the servoholder, routed a groundwire from that point to the aluminium motormount bolt.
Measured connectivity through-out the heli and it was all fine.

I'm also discussing this on another forum in the Protos owners thread with "Blackrat".
And there we found out that the belt guidepully's still spark, regardless whether the tailboom is grounded or not.
He now grounded those directly by adding a wire-bridge on the pulley washers to the -ve side of the ESC and it seems to eliminate the sparks.
Even the boom shows no sparks without grounding it separately...
So we are making progress i hope...

But still i think this is not something for us to solve all by ourselves as customers, To me it's pretty clear now that many people suffer from the same ESD related problems in combination with 2,4 Ghz products..
In my world it would be descent behaviour, when manufacturers start thinking "with" us and supply parts/solutions to eliminate this problem.

Edit:
MSH is doing it's very best to test/recreate the problem hope others will follow.

Eric

Sounds like you are making good headway. Good luck!
Rick

[speedpass]

The brownout problem come on and off to me. I flew over 15 flights last Saturday without any problem. So, yesterday, I had a great feeling that the brownout problem had gone. It was okay for the first flight, but it happened during my 2nd, 5th & 6th flight. I had a bad crash on my 6th flight which I was no way to repair it on the field.

I have no ground mod on my bird, everything box stock with AR6200 & Spartan, except, I had the Scorpion 1400kv with 15T pinion. I set my Align ESC to 6 volt output.

Could it be the static, the BCE comes with the Align ESC, the high Amp draw with my Scorpion cause low voltage drop to shut down the complete system or the AR6200…..and why it didn’t happen on my previous flights on Saturday…scratch my head 

[rdlohr]

The brownout problem come on and off to me. I flew over 15 flights last Saturday without any problem. So, yesterday, I had a great feeling that the brownout problem had gone. It was okay for the first flight, but it happened during my 2nd, 5th & 6th flight. I had a bad crash on my 6th flight which I was no way to repair it on the field.

I have no ground mod on my bird, everything box stock with AR6200 & Spartan, except, I had the Scorpion 1400kv with 15T pinion. I set my Align ESC to 6 volt output.

Could it be the static, the BCE comes with the Align ESC, the high Amp draw with my Scorpion cause low voltage drop to shut down the complete system or the AR6200…..and why it didn’t happen on my previous flights on Saturday…scratch my head 
It may be right on the verge of happening so it appears intermittent.
Rick