R6014HS what to do?

[pgkevet]

As per other threads I've been having intermittent slow to poor initialsiation on my FB 700N and been playing with it on the bench for a few weeks.
Finally bought and fitted an 8 channel s-bus rx tonight and response is back to instant. But it'll have some bench test time before flying

So what to do with the original R6014HS?

I have noticed a tiny mark through the coax sleeving at the bottom of one aerial where it was bent to go through some aerial sleeve.
This heli has never had a real crash.. a few dodgy bouncy autos and a boom strike on landing them is the worst whereas the rx's on helis I ram into the ground regularly seem to survive.

I'm not unscupulous enough to flog it on ebay and I'm guessing sending it in to repair would cost more than it's second hand value if it's more than the aerial (as in motherboard?)

Suggestions??

[Andy from Sandy]

The aerials on Futaba 2.4GHz receivers can easily be changed by you. The cases are not glued together and the aerial terminates in a small connector on the pcb. It will be very easy to take one from your new rx and use it in the dodgy one as a test.

Picture of aerial

http://www.wheelspinmodels.co.uk/i/3...FWOWtAodlkEApg

[pgkevet]

The aerials on Futaba 2.4GHz receivers can easily be changed by you. The cases are not glued together and the aerial terminates in a small connector on the pcb. It will be very easy to take one from your new rx and use it in the dodgy one as a test.

I've refitted aerials before but even with a completely broken off one on my other rx's they've still initialised fast (and even been flown on my 450 - naughty!) Hmm... unless the other aerial is dodgy too.....?

[JoeBailey]

I believe fast lad carry replacement aerials

It takes 2 mins to pop open the case and replace them. They just clip onto the board so no soldering required.

[PKNEC]

You could try this guy Model Radio Workshop | Specialising in Servicing Upgrading and Modification.
He fixed my Futaba 7c plus serviced it.
cost about £30 inc postage both ways.

[Disc]

its so easy to change the antennas its daft

Get hold of the receiver find the small black tabs on the sides and gentle open it, the 6014HS the bottom comes off you will then see inside and see the 2 antennas and they are push on clips, gentle get hold of one and lift it and it will come off its connector.

you can then just push the replacement antenna into place

put the case back together and fixed!

[pgkevet]

I know how to change the aerials, I've done it before. I'm just not convinced that's the problem and reluctant to spend out more on a possibly dodgy Rx (new aerials £6.50 each + post). At some stage I'll pull a pair out of an unused 6-channel I('ve got here and run some tests but the whole issue here is that this rx was behaving intermitently and the visible nicks on the coax are tiny (and only seen once I'd swapped it out). Secondhand value is circa £70-£90 but if it seems to be working after aerial swap do i risk selling it for someone to have an accident with?? Sending it off to ripmax I'd guess would cost almost as much as it's value??

Or to put it another way: How does one prove that an rx is OK when it has a history if intermittent oddity?

[Andy from Sandy]

How does one prove that an rx is OK when it has a history if intermittent oddity?

For intermittent fault remove the case and inspect the board under a microscope for possible broken connections. With something non metallic tap around the board and see if you can induce the fault.

[pgkevet]

For intermittent fault remove the case and inspect the board under a microscope for possible broken connections. With something non metallic tap around the board and see if you can induce the fault.[/COLOR]

The fault was variable speed of initialisation..once initialised it stayed sound. If it didnt initialise then as soon as a Tx stick was moved it snapped into life. To me that implies a linking failure but never showed any loss of linkage after that....?

My days of owning microscopes has gone - obviously had some darned good one's when i was working - now just some hand lenses but thanks for the more logical approach.

[Andy from Sandy]

The fault was variable speed of initialisation

Okay so now we are into guess mode of how these things work

It is strange what moving the stick on the tx has to do with anything so maybe a red-herring.

It does seem to point to the rf stage locking onto the transmitted signal at switch on. There is a processor in the rx that will be controlling the frequency at which it works. If anything is wrong with that I would expect nothing to work.

Once initialised I imagine there is some time allowed for loss of signal and that might be happening but not with a long enough duration that it causes the receiver to lose link indicated by the led turning red.

It could be one of those faults like you say that costs more in time to fix than it is worth. I don't suppose Ripmax can actually repair it but might have a price for service exchange. Other than that smash it

[pgkevet]

Rx either turns green immediately or after a second or two whether or not it initialises the servos - just to confuse further - and why i don't think the damages aerials are responsible. But i will swap them and retest since it's easy to do..just not my highest priority now heli works. I suppose if i became fairly convinced it's OK i could reuse it myself and sell on the new one 8 channel sbus... but one crash is more than the cost of the rx... and heli going off on its own is the scariest nightmare (school playground, 2000 rpm headspeed 690 carbon blades and apologising for decapitated children. Or smashing into the windscreen of a coachful of folk with multiple pile up to follow)..

[Andy from Sandy]

Just to be sure the led on the rx goes green at switch on but the servos don't go to where the tx sticks are?

[pgkevet]

Just to be sure the led on the rx goes green at switch on but the servos don't go to where the tx sticks are?

Correct.. they may do 20-30 times at switch ons and then not so for a 1 or more switch-ons whether the rx led went green immediately or red then green after a second or two (you can guess how many switch on tries I;ve gone through..)
BUT if it fails to more the servos then it'll respond instantly to a stick even if i wait many seconds before moving one (and move all the others servos to where they should be ) - not irrelevent

[Andy from Sandy]

A very bizarre fault that is for sure. Something internal is obviously not correct. As it was working and now it isn't have you inadvertently changed the mode in your tx? My tx has a couple of FASST modes that might not work with all receivers.

I think your instincts are correct in not risking using it.

[pgkevet]

When I plugged the 6208SB in I just swapped the leads from previous into the same socket numbers and the Batt wire into port 8/B and made no changes to Tx.. works fine... was on Multi and still is.

Comes under heading of 'weird shite'
Will be interesting to try new aerials but unless amazingly suddenly is solved then I'm guessing the best thing it's for is a spare case :-(