Aurora Lockout

[craigr]

Yesterday I was test flying my Pantera and out of the blue I lost signal. I had been flying around and was coming into a hover when all control left. It was leaning to the right about to tip over then settled down onto its skids and sat there and ran its entire tank of gas out and never got signal back. Transmitter screen worked as I was setting gyro rates and I was able to back out of those screens. When it finally shut down I put it on the bench and removed the canopy and the radio was powered up servos were powered up but no signal. After I shut down transmitter and receiver and back on then system was functioning. I am running a LiFe 6.6 Receiver battery and it has a belt drive. I am curious if possibly static from belt would cause lockout or voltage is too high. Voltage was at 6.5 at time of incident. Receiver is a Optima 7 and servos are Futaba 3004 and the antennae faces forward on the radio tray.

[ccieslin]

There are several threads on this issue, solution is to use the spc port to power the reciever. Sorry to hear about your incident.

[craigr]

Are you saying that SPC will work even though i am not running an electric. The other problems seem to be from electric heli's. Thanks for the response I am kind of at a loss as to which direction to go. I seems that the tail belt issue is really only causing glitches not total lockouts. I will try the SPC though.

[craigr]

I checked out SPC and all it does is power the receiver not servos. So should I run two batteries? That seems a little silly.

[ccieslin]

Your right the spc port only powers the receiver and loosens the load on the servo bus. No need for two batteries, just use one battery and have a lead going to the spc port and use existing lead for the servo bus. It could be required to solder a new lead to your battery pack. Oh and yes I have had this issue happen to me twice on my 600nsp so it's not just a electric problem.

[ccieslin]

Also read this thread for further explanation http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1361919

[craigr]

After reading all the posts I am really confused. My LiFe battery has two leads on it so i can power both sides but I have trouble believing that the same battery will work hooked up both ways instead of just through the battery port. My set up is not a power hungry one and this should not be happening. I am about to shelf my radio and continue using my DX7. The Pantera is a plastic heli with nitro power and the posts all talk about BEC issues.

[forjer]

If you're running a straight LiFe (with no BEC) into the Rx then I don't see any benefit of using a separate battery lead into the SPC port...but it is easy to try. The separate lead is indeed wise when using a BEC whether electric or nitro.

[Mike Mayberry]

Originally Posted by craigr

After reading all the posts I am really confused. My LiFe battery has two leads on it so i can power both sides but I have trouble believing that the same battery will work hooked up both ways instead of just through the battery port. My set up is not a power hungry one and this should not be happening. I am about to shelf my radio and continue using my DX7. The Pantera is a plastic heli with nitro power and the posts all talk about BEC issues.

Just plug both connectors into the RX and not the SPC. Sometimes the problem is the fact that a single connector bottlenecks the power.

I only use the SPC for electrics where you are at the mercy of the BEC. With nitro you can pick the proper battery but sometimes you need two or at least two connectors to ensure proper power flow.

Mike.

[joe1l]

Originally Posted by craigr

Yesterday I was test flying my Pantera and out of the blue I lost signal. I had been flying around and was coming into a hover when all control left. It was leaning to the right about to tip over then settled down onto its skids and sat there and ran its entire tank of gas out and never got signal back. Transmitter screen worked as I was setting gyro rates and I was able to back out of those screens. When it finally shut down I put it on the bench and removed the canopy and the radio was powered up servos were powered up but no signal. After I shut down transmitter and receiver and back on then system was functioning. I am running a LiFe 6.6 Receiver battery and it has a belt drive. I am curious if possibly static from belt would cause lockout or voltage is too high. Voltage was at 6.5 at time of incident. Receiver is a Optima 7 and servos are Futaba 3004 and the antennae faces forward on the radio tray.

What LiFe pack are you using. LiFE batteries are great but, they can be the cause of your problem. The problem with LiFE packs is that their is no good way of being able to determine remaining capacity of the packs. If you look at most LiFe batteries on the market like this one from hyperion you will notice that many of them have a low C rating. The one in the link i have used and is rated at 5c (fully charged) which ends up being 10.5 amps. You can get them with a 30C rating but they are usually more costly. Anyhow LiFe packs are great but once they discharge past 30% they do not maintain consistent voltage and their amp rating is much lower. Anyhow this doesnt mean that LiFE are no good, it just means you should be looking for good reliable ones that have at least a 10C rating or get one with a larger capacity. I know that Hyperion even makes 1000mh LiFE packs which are 5c as well and they definitely could cause issues along with the 2100, if it has been depleted. If your telemetry was reading 6.5v, then chances are you were around 50%-65% capacity...from my experience with LiFE that is. The issue you described above is almost definitely related to not enough amperage so i would not worry about your radio. A couple suggestions when using LiFE on a 30 + sized heli.

1.) Use higher capacity packs ...above 2100 >
2.) Get a decent discharge rating >10c
3.) dont push number of flights past what you know is safe.

EDIT....i just read another post where you stated this is belt driven tail....STATIC

[craigr]

The battery is a Hobbico LiFe Source 2100mah 10c rated pack. I would have trouble believing that this battery caused this problem. I haven't even flown this heli yet. Still breaking in the engine. Confidence is not high. Flights have just moved into low figure eights when problem occurred. This is the first model this transmitter has been used on. Thank you for all the input I really appreciate it.

[craigr]

I firmly believe that this receiver was put into a situation that it failed at. An extremely dry day with a new plastic heli, with plastic gears and a tail belt. Also the canopy was freshly painted on a cool dry day and had static in it when I was assembling it. It probably wouldn't happen again, but because I don't trust it i will not use this transmitter in a belt drive heli. We have things to think about already with this hobby and I will not tolerate a receiver locking out with no good explanation. It is not a set up issue. If it turns out that it is this complicated to assure a proper setup then I will go to a product that is more simple. It is supposed to be fun not an engineering lesson. There is too much speculation on this subject and the solutions are asinine to say the least. I am not going to treat my belt driven heli like an electrical service to make sure I have a proper bond. I think that this optima receiver is absolutely fine and it just didn't like the environment that I subjected it to. I will just use it differently. And use another product with this helicopter. Just my 2 cents on a very confusing subject.

[xspare]

So it's going to be a C/L conversion then?

I had my Blade 400 do an uncommanded half back-flip while landing one day. Maybe it was static, maybe it was the AR6100e, maybe it was the DX6i. If it was static then the only thing you can really do is treat the static - I don't think there are any ESD/EMP safe radios on the market.

[joe1l]

Originally Posted by craigr

The battery is a Hobbico LiFe Source 2100mah 10c rated pack. I would have trouble believing that this battery caused this problem. I haven't even flown this heli yet. Still breaking in the engine. Confidence is not high. Flights have just moved into low figure eights when problem occurred. This is the first model this transmitter has been used on. Thank you for all the input I really appreciate it.

If its a 10c 2100 then it sounds like it might be static related. Just lube your belt with some silicone and or ground the tail belt. There are many stories of tail belts causing lockouts from static. Its rare because it depends on weather, but a new heli with a dry belt in dry weather is a combo for disaster, especially if you have a CF frame! can you take a pic for us of your mounting location and the heli.

[craigr]

Here is a pic of my setup. Hitec comes out of it today and Futaba goes in. I bought a Futaba 7C just for this heli to test its static abilities. I just dont trust the Hitec in this heli. I will put that receiver in a torque tube heli that I have until I trust it again.

[joe1l]

Originally Posted by craigr

Here is a pic of my setup. Hitec comes out of it today and Futaba goes in. I bought a Futaba 7C just for this heli to test its static abilities. I just dont trust the Hitec in this heli. I will put that receiver in a torque tube heli that I have until I trust it again.

Craig you might want to also look at my latest post here!

https://www.helifreak.com/showthread.php?t=267041

That explains the power issues better, but when it comes to static, i've also written about this here http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1385525

After reading a bunch of posts with various complaints....I bought an 8FG....just to compare against....its made alot clear to me now!