Futaba satellites

[langsmon]

Here comes another newbie question.

I have a dx8 with the ar8000 and a sat. As far as I understand, I would just use the satellite (or two sats?) and plug it into the gyro..?

I looked around the web for a futaba equivalent system. I cant find any futaba satellites it seems. How do futaba users setup their systems with for instance a fbl gyro like a spartan vortex?

[Wargamer]

Only Spektrum uses satellites. You just plug non-satellite receivers like Futaba S.Bus into a different port on the FBL. The FBL set-up instructions will tell you where.

Whether you use 1 or 2 sats depends on your heli size. For a 450 or smaller, you can get away with 1 sat. Anything larger needs 2.

[langsmon]

Ok, so spektrum satellites x 2 on bigger than 450 and futaba its sufficient with only 1 regular reciever on all (most) sizes?

[Wargamer]

AFAIK that's correct, but you will get more reliable info in the Futaba forum. Are you considering changing Tx for any particular reason? Your DX8 will be fine for a long time.

[langsmon]

It's been twitchy on the sim lately. It's like there's some glitch. In phoenix the gear light on the tx on the sim is randomly going on and off.

And sometimes the pitch/elevator/throttle goes randomly up and down. Just a little bit, but enough to be annoying.

When I'm checking the dx8 in the "mixing" menu - sometimes the elevator is twitching there...

I hope the tx is ok, I have a new usb sim connection on order. So hopefully its that. But if it's not I'm considering swapping the spektrum for a futaba system.

EDIT:
Also I had alot of latency the last couple of days, but today was ok... But all in all it's really weird..

[Dogdipstick]

Yes Futaba offers many full range two antenna receivers using the Fasst protocol, which has never let me down. Spektrum has many times leading up to a bricked Dx7, when I gave up.

Futabas S-Bus system transfers all info throuhg one three wire "bus" that carries all the info from the Tx to th FBL control system with one connection. Because of this they also make small full range receivers with only two or three real pinned connections and the S-Bus port, w3hich is capable of transferring info from a 12-14 channel tx or more. They make Rxs with pins too, for traditional rx wiring, or the s-Bus.

[Number]

Satellite is a JR thing. Spektrum and JR were once one company and split up years ago.

Basically they have the main receivers i.e. AR8000, and "satellites" which are meant to "orbit" (like a satellite) and be an assistant to the main receiver. Additional signal redundancy if the main receiver signal gets too weak to be useful. They weren't really designed to be a separate receiver in the first place, but they work as them, albeit not as well as a full receiver (why you need two on big helis due to the possibility of shielding from the CF frame)

Futaba (and literally every other RC radio brand ever) just uses good receivers with built in diversity, and multiple antennas. They don't need extra receivers. For helis usually you use S.Bus which is a serial receiver protocol (not specific to Futaba but they were first to popularize it) that sends all 6 or 8 channels (or however many there are) to the FBL on one wire. It's digital, resistant to interference, and it's extremely fast.

Satellites are actually CPPM which is similar in that it uses one wire, but analog and slower. Satellites are also only rated to 3.3V compared to 5V or more that regular receivers use, which is why they have a special connector on the FBL unit instead of just plugging in to the regular pin header ports.


With Spektrum, you can (with FBL units)
1. Use full receiver with 1 or more satellites (usually involves stringing 6 or more leads from the receiver to FBL (18+ wires!)
2. Use two satellites alone (FBL must have proper connectors and be electronically cable, most are)
3. Use one satellite alone (generally, only suggested on 450 size or smaller helis)
4. More recently Spektrum finally made a serial receiver, which uses SRXL (yet another single line transmission protocol) which can be used in the same way as Futaba S.Bus receivers, assuming the FBL unit supports it. It's relatively new, so not many do support it - yet.

With Futaba and basically every other radio system manufacturer, you pretty much only have one option, which sounds bad, but it's really not. Mainly it's because there's no need for another option.

1. Full receiver (they range from tiny, like, something the size of your thumbnail, albeit with slightly reduced range due to the overall tiny size of the receiver) to full size and huge (say 2" long by 1.5" wide and 0.5" thick. But they all operate the same.
2. And they can obviously do the same as option #1 for Spektrum .... but no one does this as it's very impractical and single line receivers have taken over entirely, some FBL don't even support having all channels on separate wires)

For Futaba, you can get their R2001SB for S-FHSS and it's really tiny (about 40mm x 20mm x 5mm and quite expensive), R6303SB for FASST, or the larger R7008SB for FASSTest with Telemetry. And of course there's a huge variety of others that serve the same purpose with various Futaba protocols. Only two of them support FASSTest Telemetry - R7008SB and R7003SB.

[langsmon]

Thank you number and dipstick for that explanation.