FrSky problems :(

[AdrianH78]

Hi Everyone,

I am seeking advice on a KO Esprit 2 I converted to FrSky.

I have a KO Esprit 2 I converted to FrSky. Its been rock solid for three race meetings, but on its fourth suffered what must of been loss of signal causing full throttle to be left on momentarily (before safety cuts in) right at the wrong place much to my embarrassment and horror (totaled a wish bone and top deck on my SV2, that's before i've checked it over thoroughly..).

I am really not sure what to do now; I have invested a bit of time and money in it, but I cannot afford for my car to be going out of control..

Observations include:-
- My transmitter reading 10.2 volts which is down on full charge but well within the tolerance for the FrSky module I believe..
- LED on the receiver oscillating when I move the transmitter around a bit.

I have another receiver to try, but this is all new kit so shouldn't have any issue :-s

Any advice would be gratefully received,

Thanks

Adrian

[discostu]

It maybe time to invest in a proper 2.4 system not a conversion the handset is very old and the pots are probably worn out, unless you are 100% sure it's the frsky not the handset and if it's only three weeks old send it back faulty

[mr4bc]

I ran frsky for two years, converted futaba 3vc. In electric and nitro.

I had a coupe of issues, all coming from broken ariel wires on the receiver, this was on the basic ones that are just a circuit board in a plastic or cardboard sleeve. I found that a blob of hot glue in the end around the base of the ariel wire and careful handling when mounting sorted it.

I'd look at this before you give up on it, in every other way I found the system as good as the latest futaba I have now, except the frsky was a lot cheaper :)

Plus it gave my old faithful 3vc another couple of years of service :thumbsup:

[AdrianH78]

Some great advice there, thank you very much:thumbsup:

[AdrianH78]

It maybe time to invest in a proper 2.4 system not a conversion the handset is very old and the pots are probably worn out, unless you are 100% sure it's the frsky not the handset and if it's only three weeks old send it back faulty

It is possible that the issue was down to throttle pot, but I would expect to be able to repeat it more easily if this was the case maybe :-s

I guess I wanted to use the Esprit 2 again for sentimental reasons mainly, but in terms of upgrading, the cost of a new Esprit 4 is mega and there doesn't seem a lot in between :cry:

[AdrianH78]

I ran frsky for two years, converted futaba 3vc. In electric and nitro.

I had a coupe of issues, all coming from broken ariel wires on the receiver, this was on the basic ones that are just a circuit board in a plastic or cardboard sleeve. I found that a blob of hot glue in the end around the base of the ariel wire and careful handling when mounting sorted it.

I'd look at this before you give up on it, in every other way I found the system as good as the latest futaba I have now, except the frsky was a lot cheaper :)

Plus it gave my old faithful 3vc another couple of years of service :thumbsup:

Great advice there :thumbsup: As it happens I too brought the basic printed circuit in a cardboard carton item, and did put a hot glue blob on the aeriel and did also shrink wrap it with an additional layer of heat shrink to make it more robust. :-s

[adon30]

Have you set up the safety setting (can't remember the proper name) so that if anything does go awry it maintains a neutral steering and throttle position.

If it happens on the far edge of the track then I suspect an aerial may have snapped as mentioned above. If not then can't offer much more help I'm afraid.

[AdrianH78]

Have you set up the safety setting (can't remember the proper name) so that if anything does go awry it maintains a neutral steering and throttle position.

If it happens on the far edge of the track then I suspect an aerial may have snapped as mentioned above. If not then can't offer much more help I'm afraid.

It went on its merry trip on the main straight, just past the rostrum :(

Safety setting have been configured but they kick in after around a second of no signal which was a second too late for my car :thumbdown:

Thanks for the advice - I am struggling with this one and don't want to buy a new radio set as I am 50/50 on giving up (for a few reasons) :-s So things to check are great as far as I am concerned :thumbsup:

[pugboy]

Which receiver is it? Some have two aerials and some have one. I understand this is just to give just an extra factor of safety re interference. After numerous problems with K.O. and other sets, touch wood, this has been the only one that has been 100% reliable. Mine is 'hack module' in old Sanwa Gemini 2 and one of the v8 receivers with 2 aerials. As all have said they do leave something to be desired in the durability department, not sure why they haven't done a proper hard cased one, but like you said, a bit of glue and some heatshrink and job's a goodun.

Hope you get to the bottom of it, these sort of issues are a real pain, and and expensive pain at that.

[nige0568]

I don't know if my issue is the same as yours but I've got an frsky hack module in my ko esprit ii, occasionally the whole thing would just shut down momentarily mid race, no steering, throttle etc, after some googling i put it down to a spike in the BEC system due to the high powered ko servo i was running, I've since plugged a capacitor into a spare receiver channel and touch wood it seems to have resolved my problem, it may be something similar to your issue.

[adon30]

I don't know if my issue is the same as yours but I've got an frsky hack module in my ko esprit ii, occasionally the whole thing would just shut down momentarily mid race, no steering, throttle etc, after some googling i put it down to a spike in the BEC system due to the high powered ko servo i was running, I've since plugged a capacitor into a spare receiver channel and touch wood it seems to have resolved my problem, it may be something similar to your issue.

I was thinking about this morning and was going to suggest trying a capacitor plugged into the receiver in case of brown outs on the power.

[AdrianH78]

Which receiver is it? Some have two aerials and some have one. I understand this is just to give just an extra factor of safety re interference. After numerous problems with K.O. and other sets, touch wood, this has been the only one that has been 100% reliable. Mine is 'hack module' in old Sanwa Gemini 2 and one of the v8 receivers with 2 aerials. As all have said they do leave something to be desired in the durability department, not sure why they haven't done a proper hard cased one, but like you said, a bit of glue and some heatshrink and job's a goodun.

Hope you get to the bottom of it, these sort of issues are a real pain, and and expensive pain at that.

Thanks for the reply - my receiver is a V8R4-II. Funny enough, the merchant I brought it off did mention the two aerial receiver as a better option for a car due to the aerial wire being longer.. I just didn't like the idea of two aerials, that and it has the possibility of telemetry which some clubs might get sniffy about, even though I'm just a club racer..

[AdrianH78]

I don't know if my issue is the same as yours but I've got an frsky hack module in my ko esprit ii, occasionally the whole thing would just shut down momentarily mid race, no steering, throttle etc, after some googling i put it down to a spike in the BEC system due to the high powered ko servo i was running, I've since plugged a capacitor into a spare receiver channel and touch wood it seems to have resolved my problem, it may be something similar to your issue.

That sounds really promising :thumbsup: have you got any details like what capacitor, and how to wire it etc.

The irony is previous meeting to the one I had interference, I was running a old KO with 'hot wire' plus to the receiver. Basically I had speedo, steering, transponder and servo hot wire on all four sockets on receiver.

The KO died so I then purchased a Xpert RC SI-4431 (which experienced the interference) which I wonder is this drawing more power...

[AdrianH78]

I was thinking about this morning and was going to suggest trying a capacitor plugged into the receiver in case of brown outs on the power.

Thanks - any tips on how to do this would be gratefully received :thumbsup:

[AdrianH78]

Receiver prepped for model car racing:-
http://i309.photobucket.com/albums/kk391/ad-rs1600i/ModelCarRacing/14042016471_zpsjadvjhr4.jpg

Aftermath of my run away :(
http://i309.photobucket.com/albums/kk391/ad-rs1600i/ModelCarRacing/14042016475_zpsjyemoejr.jpg (http://s309.photobucket.com/user/ad-rs1600i/media/ModelCarRacing/14042016475_zpsjyemoejr.jpg.html)

[nige0568]

That sounds really promising :thumbsup: have you got any details like what capacitor, and how to wire it etc.

The irony is previous meeting to the one I had interference, I was running a old KO with 'hot wire' plus to the receiver. Basically I had speedo, steering, transponder and servo hot wire on all four sockets on receiver.

The KO died so I then purchased a Xpert RC SI-4431 (which experienced the interference) which I wonder is this drawing more power...

I just bought 2 x 4700uf 16v electrolytic capacitors off ebay, £2.76 for 2 inc free postage, you only need 1 but I've now got a spare, then i soldered a receiver plug to the capacitor legs ensuring you get the correct polarity then plugged it into a spare receiver channel, so far so good.

[KRob]

You can get the power caps 'pre-made' if you prefer.

http://www.cmldistribution.co.uk/product/ET0077/etronix-receiver-power-cap

I used these to fix the odd brown out when I used to use a Spektrum module in a KO radio.

[AdrianH78]

You can get the power caps 'pre-made' if you prefer.

http://www.cmldistribution.co.uk/product/ET0077/etronix-receiver-power-cap

I used these to fix the odd brown out when I used to use a Spektrum module in a KO radio.

Thanks for that, great :thumbsup:

[AdrianH78]

Thanks for the advice nige0568 (http://www.oople.com/forums/member.php?u=20843) :thumbsup:

[nige0568]

You're welcome, I hope you resolve your problem.

[Hog]

It maybe time to invest in a proper 2.4 system not a conversion the handset is very old and the pots are probably worn out, unless you are 100% sure it's the frsky not the handset and if it's only three weeks old send it back faulty

True what Stu says - we've had this at FORCC recently where a member's KO Esprit II throttle stick went dodgy (lots of side play) and the resulting issue with the potentiometer caused the ESC to jam on full throttle. Luckily this only happened when plugged in before a race, but proves one moment it was fine, the next it was FUBAR.

[AdrianH78]

Thought I better write a closing paragraph on this issue after all the great help & advice in case it helps someone else in the future :thumbsup:

A friend from my local club lent me his FrSky receiver which is the same model as mine, and on comparing them statically when bound by wafting my transmitter about near and away from the car I noticed that the LED on my receiver flickered quite a bit compared with my friends which stayed a lot more solid. My guess is this LED represents signal/communication strength. So my current theory is that my efforts on my receiver to protect it with hot glue and heat shrink might have disturb the solder bond between aerial and PCB.. Suffice to say, for my next attempt at protecting my friend's receiver I used UHU gel glue (cold product rather than hot glue) to bond the aerial at the back of the receiver and only a hair dyer on the heat shrink. So far so good after a day's testing - that's all I am saying not want to tempt fate :)

In relation to the Etronix Power Cap - these really work :thumbsup: Prior to adding it, I could see my transponder LED dimming on heavy steering use. Once fitted the transponder LED stays rock sold. I don't think a brown out caused the run away, I think effectively a broken receiver aerial cause that, but this certainly helps eliminate that possibility.

In relation to testing the throttle pot on this handset, I simply turned down the motor power (handset throttle throw knob top left) to a crawl and closely observed the acceleration curve with it resting in my hand. I think in Hog's (thanks) example horizontal play in the throttle stick was likely a indication all was not well and the handset should not be used for racing in that state. Incidentally I have had a pot fail on, what was, a two year old FF3 back in the day so it can happen at any time although I appreciate, the older they get they more likely it is to happen. For what its worth, the FF3's throttle pot just turned into an 'on/off' switch so didn't cause any dramas, although wrecked my meeting obviously...:thumbdown:

I do like the FrSky conversion; it is very competitively priced and worth a punt overall. For me personally though, I have decided that any other glitches and it gets retired and I buy a new setup. I don't know about you guys & gals, but I don't get much spare time, so the time I do get is very precious, so I just need everything to work so I can make the most of the time I do have for my hobby.. Oh to be 18 again, no responsibilities, with all the time in the world.....................:thumbsup:

I spent time on the above as I wanted to give back for the time given to me. Hopefully the above might help someone else with a FrSky setup issue :thumbsup:

Thanks everyone :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup: :thumbsup: