Spektrum receivers: check this!

[moyesboy]

On your two part spektrum rx, unplug the satallite rx and see if it still works.
Mine works fine with the sat rx unplugged.

At our field today a heli crashed. Afterward the sat rx was unplugged (could have been in the air or in the crash). The rx did not work unless the sat rx was plugged in - meaning the main ar7000 unit was faulty in some way.
After plugging in the sat rx the system worked but the sat rx had solid red light and the AR7000 main unit had flashing red light.

It would be easy not to notice this problem
Applies to all the spektrum receivers with the extra plug in bit.


The actual crash may have been from this rx issue, or it may have been from the tail pushrod coming off in flight.

[J3DI]

I thought should the sat become disconnected whilst the receiver is powered up/bound the main rxer will continue to work. However, it shouldn't bind initially unless the sat rxer is connected...

[jiberjaber]

off to the shed to test it now...

I know that it wont work when I power up with it disconnected (it happened on Friday night) but not sure what happens when I disconnect after power up.

[SRH990]

If you disconnect it while powered up, the main receiver will continue to work but won't re-connect after switching off until the satellite receiver is re-connected. Noticed this a while ago with a faulty lead between main and satellite receiver.

[jiberjaber]

Yep I can confirm the above, it took me 2 hours to test it though. 5 mins to power up and try the connect and disconnect, then the rest of the time plumbing in the fuel pump on the flight box and asociated tinkering around in the shed LOL.

[mickeybling]

hi ihad the same problem on my 500 trex .the sat was a solid orange i replaced the sat it cured the problem.

[moyesboy]

Maybe I didn't make myself clear.
The receiver works fine when the sat receiver(s) are plugged in.
if you unplug the sat receiver while its all working then it should carry on working. If it stops then the main receiver is faulty in some way.
This is a test I suggest we should all do from time to time

Plug the sat receiver back in while the main receiver is working and it will all carry on working.

In this case with the faulty main reciever, the system started working again when the sat receiver was plugged back in.

It is quite likely that this model was flying for some time with a faulty main receiver and totally relying on the sat receiver. how would the owner know there was anything wrong? (with hindsight, by doing the above test)
The redundancy of the extra receiver is a good safety feature but not if it is covering up the fact that part of it is faulty becuase then there is no redundancy - and you rely 100% on the little linking wire with little white plug at each end.

[barney]

Good Post..might be worthwhile asking Stu to make that a Sticky for folk having problems with there Speccie as a test

[agh321]

Thanks gordon i was going to post it later but you ve saved me the job
done some tests and it works with some sat rxs but not all sending it off tomorrow
and odering some spares?????

[moyesboy]

hmm, andy
That sounds like some of your sat rx's might have dodgy connecting wires?
After you have the rx set working, cycle the power on the reciver (tx still on). Then the lights on both rx parts should be flashing.
If they don't flash you should send the rx (both parts) for the quickconnect upgrade anyway.
If the sat rx doesn't flash but the main does then try swapping the joining cable with another.

If you have some rxs a year or more old that don't have quick connect and some newer that do, try not to mix the sat receivers as the software upgrade applies to both parts.

It could be that if the software in the small and large recievers is out of step, then theyn wont work together (unlikely as they sell the sat receivers separately).

Note that the binding applies to both parts of the receiver, so you can't swap the receiver bits from one model to another without rebinding with both parts connected each time (that could be confusing the testing?).

confused yet? you soon will be if you keep reading my posts!