Spektrum Flashing Issue

[brin]

scallybert i think i understand what you are saying but every time i have changed settings i have re bound the rx even so when i plug in the bat and get the lights solid on the rx it could take several attempts to get the gyro to init and sometimes when i get hh the rx flashes but what wayne has suggested might solve this prob

[brin]

p.s. goodnight all

[cambs flyer]

p.s. goodnight all

Good idea.

[unwind-protect]

As soon as the Rx gets power, the servos, etc get power too. AIUI, the Rx has to start sending control pulses very soon after this. (I'd guess that otherwise there's a risk that analogue servos can damage themselves, or the model, by behaving randomly.)

I thought Spektrum had changed the way they do this, only sending the throttle failsafe position, or something.

Certainly there's not requirement to send data to the servos if you don't want to; that's exactly what the old PPM receivers would do if there was no decodable signal.

[Made2Fade]

lee with so many people flying with specktrum i haven't read anywhere on here where there has been an in flight warning . doe's it not mean that it has lost one of the signals and reset its self isn't that what it is supose to do

Could mean you have had a momentarily had a lapse of power, a static hit... many things. My point being if there flashing when you go fly then you will never be aware that anything like that has happened in flight. Therefore you will never to to look for something or fix it. Which could later on lead to a crash.
Cheers
Lee

[Made2Fade]

Dunno about the AR9000, but I got to learn quite a bit about the AR6200, AR6100 & AR6100E LEDs.

On firmware after V1.6, the lights will blink if the RX has performed a Quick Connect. ie it powers up, and finds the Tx it was bound to still on the channels that the Rx was using before it was powered down. (The Rx remembers this for a number of seconds - which seems to be indeterminate.)

QC is intended to save you if the Rx re-inits in flight, eg due to a brwon-out. It means the Rx can re-connect almost instantaneoulsy, rather than the several seconds (if at all), it can take otherwise.

You can also prompt a QC if you cycle the Rx power, without cycling the Tx power. (As referred to here, eg while changing LiPos.)

You can also see LED patterns similar to the QC ones if static has zapped your Rx. Static can also prompt an Rx init, leading to a QC.

If you have flashing Rx LEDs after or during a flight, you have a problem you need to investigate.

You won't know this if you don't start the flight with a solid LED.

Brin, seems to be referring to a gyro init problem, that seems to interact with QC.

I would guess this is down to issues about how youve bound the Rx.

How come ?

It takes some time for the Rx to perform a normal connect when it powers up. 'Some time' varies. I don't know the minimum, but it can easilly be 2 or more seconds, and connection may not occur at all.

Obviously during this time, the Rx doesn't know what values the Tx controls are set to.

So what ?

As soon as the Rx gets power, the servos, etc get power too. AIUI, the Rx has to start sending control pulses very soon after this. (I'd guess that otherwise there's a risk that analogue servos can damage themselves, or the model, by behaving randomly.)

Since the Rx doesn't have data from the Tx (until it connects), it uses the values you set at bind time.

This can impact gyros, as they may need particular gain and rudder values to init correctly.

[ http://www.rcheliaddict.co.uk/f34/sp...pektrum-16000/ has some stuff about a DS760 (esp what Lee has to say), that illustrates this. You may well have a different gyro, but it's the idea that's important.]

If you're not careful about setting up these bind-time values, the values the gyro sees when it inits will depend on how long it takes the Tx & Rx to conect that time. eg a QC may well cause the gyro init differently to if it takes several seconds to do a normal connect.

What Spartan recommend is that you set the bind-time values such that the gyro won't init. Hence, it won't init until after connect has ocurred, and the Tx is sending values that allow the gyro to init. [You want this so the DS760 can take the actual rudder stick centre as zero.]

I don't know how this applies to other gyros, but if your gyro needs (eg) an HH gain value to init correctly, and will get upset otherwise, you probably want to bind with this value set that way.

Well put mate... agree fully

Cheers
Lee

[cambs flyer]

This has me concerned as up to four weeks back my RX lights always flashed, but it never caused any problems.

However with the simple start up procedure I posted above links RX to TX perfectly by the book.

Give me the safer side of caution any day.

[scallybert]

I thought Spektrum had changed the way they do this, only sending the throttle failsafe position, or something.

There's no date on this, so it *might* have been superseded, but it's on their site: http://www.horizonhobby.com/ProdInfo...structions.pdf

[[[
SmartSafe
Your AR6100 features SmartSafe fail-safe programming. SmartSafe prevents accidental motor operation before the system connects and, in the unlikely event of signal loss, SmartSafe drives the throttle to a preset (off) position. With SmartSafe, if the receiver is turned on before the transmitter, all channels but throttle will go to their fail-safe position stored during binding, while the throttle channel will not generate a pulse so as to not arm the electronic speed control. After the system is connected, if loss of signal occurs, the throttle will be driven to a preset fail-safe position, normally low throttle (set during binding) while all other channels will hold their last known position.
]]]

So all except the throttle go to their bind position between power-up and connect.

Certainly there's not requirement to send data to the servos if you don't want to; that's exactly what the old PPM receivers would do if there was no decodable signal.

I was guessing the reason they do it. Certainly watching some budget analogue servos during power up, they tend to thrash about. I assumed this ended when the first pulse appeared.

My limited experience with 35MHz was that without the Tx powered up, their behaviour is effectively random. You certainly didn't seem to get no pulses sent, nor any kind of fail-safe.

Dunno. Bottom line is that Spektrum Rxs send out pulses (except on throttle) between power up & connect, and those pulses will be the bind values.

You need to set those bind values to either: defer the init of gyros, etc until connect has occurred; or allow them to init correctly.

The former is probably better. Definitely so on a DS760.

[unwind-protect]

SmartSafe
Your AR6100 features SmartSafe fail-safe programming. SmartSafe prevents accidental motor operation before the system connects and, in the unlikely event of signal loss, SmartSafe drives the throttle to a preset (off) position. With SmartSafe, if the receiver is turned on before the transmitter, all channels but throttle will go to their fail-safe position stored during binding, while the throttle channel will not generate a pulse so as to not arm the electronic speed control. After the system is connected, if loss of signal occurs, the throttle will be driven to a preset fail-safe position, normally low throttle (set during binding) while all other channels will hold their last known position.

Ah, so I got it precisely the wrong way around!

My limited experience with 35MHz was that without the Tx powered up, their behaviour is effectively random. You certainly didn't seem to get no pulses sent, nor any kind of fail-safe.

It depends how noisy your RF environment is. PPM receivers are very simple devices and will happily try to decode any kind of random noise and squirt it to the servos. At home I can usually set up a PPM receiver and it won't drive any servos (which you can tell, as you can turn the servos by hand) until you switch a transmitter on.

[scallybert]

Ah, so I got it precisely the wrong way around!.

It depends how noisy your RF environment is. PPM receivers are very simple devices and will happily try to decode any kind of random noise and squirt it to the servos. At home I can usually set up a PPM receiver and it won't drive any servos (which you can tell, as you can turn the servos by hand) until you switch a transmitter on.

I guess that as soon as you get into microprocessor based kit it's all a bit different, and people's expectations are higher.

Especially if you're selling on the basis that 'it just works, and is rock-solid'.

[I notice that the newer versions of the DS760 have a quick-init feature to allow it to recover from brown-outs and bad static zaps.]

[cambs flyer]

This is a very useful thread, an presents some extremely important Gyro info if only for safety purposes.

[scallybert]

The Reason I Bang On About The LEDs

This has me concerned as up to four weeks back my RX lights always flashed, but it never caused any problems.

However with the simple start up procedure I posted above links RX to TX perfectly by the book.

Give me the safer side of caution any day.

I had a lot of static problems before Brin pointed me at the graphite paste, and had quite a few total lock-ups that resulted in the EP100 going into the ground. (Well, carpet, table, etc...)

A number of these were after I thought I'd fixed the problem, but each major lock-up was preceded by a minor incident that left the Rx LEDs flashing. In some cases, I had an apparently normal flight, but the LEDs didn't agree.

I came to the conclusion that you ignore these LEDs at your peril, and starting the flight with them flashing was chucking away any chance of escaping with a warning.

I don't think I ever broke more than an £8 set of blades, but a bigger heli has much more of an appetite for destruction...

[Made2Fade]

I came to the conclusion that you ignore these LEDs at your peril, and starting the flight with them flashing was chucking away any chance of escaping with a warning.

Totally agree and thats why i was banging on about it so much from my first post. The LEDs do that for a reason. The attitude should never be ' i just fly with them flashing because it just works'.
Cheers
Lee

[cambs flyer]

Very true, and I've no intention to bonk my 500 over something stupid.

But I've had many flights with the RX LED's flashing without incident and were talking about flights in the hundred plus.

I'd soon know if something was not right as on the 500 the RX is on a rear facing plate, so the antennas form a cross section and any change of LED settings would be easily seen

As with my 450 the slave unit is in the belly again easy to spot.

Looking back on things I've been bloody lucky!

[Made2Fade]

example... lets say you just got a new battery and soldered a deans on it. You hashed the soldering job up and it hasnt got a very good connection even though it looks like it has to the naked eye. You hook the battery up to your ESC on your heli and although the RX LEDs are flashing everything works fine so you just go ahead and fly it. Now youve been flying for a couple of minutes the batteries are getting warm slowly. For some reason you loose all control for a second but then the heli comes back to life. It is so slight that it seems like a kind of glitch. Now theres a diffrence between a glitch and a loss of power/voltage. But because your RX LED's were flashing from the start you wont have an idea what caused this problem, could be many things as it was so slight. Now if the LED's were'nt flashing when you first started up but are now then you know that you just had a lapse in voltage or some power issue. So your first port of call (well mine would be) would be to check all your connections. ie batteries/ESC/RX
Pretty much stating the obvious there but this is why you dont fly with flashing lights on ya RX.
Cheers
Lee