Tony Smith 7

I was afraid you'd say that.   I wonder how it came about that 35MHz was compatible?  Nowadays I wonder whether there might be pressure from RTF plane manufacturers, so they could sell planes ready to go but without transmitters.

Hi, I have only 35MHz myself, and none of its what you'd call top drawer.  Just basic four channel stuff and cheap servos.   A few times I've  fancied a better transmitter, but of course if I went 2.4 at the moment that means buying into one of the proprietary systems.  How far away do you think we are from some sort of standard, so that different makes of receivers and servos could be used with the same transmitter? I just sort of think that now might not be the best time to switch. TonyS Edited By Tony Smith 7 on 09/04/2010 13:45:01

I'm just assembling one of these, which will be my first electric model.   Anyone here have any experience with these? Edit - I should add that the one that has me scratching my head a little is how to stop the aileron control rods fouling the rudder and elevator servos. Edited By Tony Smith 7 on 08/04/2010 08:41:46

That's me sorted out now, thanks to a forum member I have a battery case that takes standard AA cells and fits with no mods to the transmitter.   Perfect.

Carperfect, that would be brilliant, I would really like to take up your offer.    I haven't been able to find an 8 cell holder that will fit.    Not sure how we do the deal, I could send you a cheque or what?   I haven't used the "message" function on this board, but I'll have a go at passing you my email address using it.

Thanks.  I think I'm getting the message that I shouldn't be so cheapskate. Goodness how old the TX is, 25 years?  I got it second hand around 12 years ago ( TX, RX, both with NiCads and that trickle charger). My immediate requirement is to use the set with a cheapy ARTF made-in-China model that I know you'll hate.     I think I would trust the Challenger plus my own soldering more than I would trust the TX that came with the model, but I will certainly inspect it. I had the back off last night to solder on some test leads so that I could measure the battery voltage on and off load and it looked OK.  The battery contacts are corroded, and I'll check if its affected anything else. The comments about charging steer me even more towards a battery holder and off the shelf AAA cells.  I already have fast charging for AA and AAA.

Thanks for the two supplier links.   In particular Component Shop which is the first place I've seen with reasonable pricing for tagged cells. I must admit I'm a bit surprised at  people with 2000 or 3000mAh battery pack for their transmitters.   You guys must fly a whole lot more than me!     I generally found that the 500mAh capacity was fine, and with my gliders I was more concerned with the life of the RX battery (not that I ever risked running either down in use).   Now that I'm going electric (no convenient slope where I live) then its even more the case that aircraft battery life will be the limiting factor.  I think I'd be quite happy with 1000mAh, apart from anything else that would take 20 hours to charge.   I don't want to sink too much cash into this set, as I can see that a change to 2.4GHz might be a better long term strategy.    It looks like the only ready-made pack that would fit straight in is going to be around £25, and take 54 hours to charge.  Add the price of a better charger and that's probably up to the price of a new 2.4GHz TX.

Thanks David.  That's what I started off thinking, but I can't seem to find anyone who offers a battery pack that looks remotely similar from a mechanical point of view.  Obviously something that's a different shape won't make contact. Currently I'm thinking maybe use standard AAA rechargeables in two separate holders.   I'll need to solder wiring onto the contacts two wire the two battery holders in series, and leave enough slack to be able to change the batteries if needed.    I think that might work but I need to measure.   Standard AAA NiMH cells are available in 1000mAh, and will be OK with the existing dumb charger.  If you know someone who could supply a ready-to-fit pack then that would be great and save me all this fiddling around. Thanks, TONY

Hi, If you use this link you can download it.  Just click the "Free Download" button on the grey panel (ignore the advert for "premium service).  On the next screen you have to click on "Free Download" again, then finally you should be able to save a zip file d3drm.zip http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/dll-files.shtml?d3drm Good luck ....

Hi, I'm trying to revive my old transmitter, which has been a bit neglected.   The battery's been on charge for around 20 hours.  The charger's rated at 50mA so that should be more than it needs.    After that time the battery reads over 11V open circuit, but as soon as the transmitter is switched on the voltage drops right down.   The battery meter on the set doesn't register at all.   I'm assuming the pack is dead, but I'm open to other opinions.  Assuming that's the case, what's the best way to get or make a new battery?  The old one is 500mAh which should be easily achievable with modern cells, but its going to be a fiddle making it up so that it fits properly and makes contact.   The original battery pack is a shrink-wrapped block with two contact terminals - its just a push fit into the transmitter and the terminals press against contacts inside the battery compartment. Thanks in advance,  TonyS

Right, back after some reboots.   A quick and dirty bodge is to create a .reg file with the following contents ..... Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\HARDWARE\DEVICEMAP\SERIALCOMM] "\\Device\\Serial0"="COM3" Create that in Notepad. The W of Windows as the first character in the file, and a blank line after the last line.   Name it something like "COMFIX.reg".   If you double-click on that it should import the registry setting, and FMS should run.  Its a bodge because you'll have to do that after a reboot until I work out a better way. Hope this helps, TonyS  

RIght, I'm back home and there's a problem.  My fix relied on a registry change to reference a non-existent COM port, and it looks like that change disappears after a reboot. I need to do some tests, but I'm confident it'll be fixable.  What error message do you actually get?  I got two.  First complaining about the COM port, the error was "Exception EComPort in module in FMS.exe at 0008B728. Registry error (win error code: 2)." or similar.  That's the one the registry hack fixes. The second one complains about missing "d3drm.dll", and that's easy to fix.  Download the DLL (just google to find it) and put it into "c:\Program Files\FMS"  for 32 bit, or "c:\Program Files (x86)\FMS" if you're on 64 bit.  Time for a bit more testing ....

Hi Erfolg,  I just installed FMS onto WIndows 7 yesterday.   I'm running Windows 7 Enterprise, 64 bit versions.   I'll look out the details of what I did to fix it - the step-by-step on the FMS forum didn't quite work for me.  TonyS

Those are all good suggestions, thanks.    The point regarding wind is well taken.   I have seen first hand how easy it is to lose airspeed on the downwind leg. I started figure-of-eights, sort of, last night.    Fly the model away from me, make a medium rate turn then roll out level head towards me, fly towards me and overhead, then repeat but in the other turn direction. From my slope flying, I remember I found it easier during the (brief) head-on times if I continuously controlled the model.   Letting it fly itself then suddenly needing a correction was a recipe for the wrong input.  By the way, I'm using the free "FMS" software, and I've been practicing using the included "Diamant" model and a downloaded "Easy Glider". Initially I'll be flying the real model from our own field which is around 160m square, rough grassland with fences on three sides and a hedgerow to the West.    My biggest worry is letting the model get to far away, from being afraid to turn back.  Tony S Edited By Tony Smith 7 on 29/03/2010 08:24:34

Hi, I just wondered what was the best way to actually benefit from practice with a simulator.   My main aim at this stage is to get over the perceived  roll reversal when the model's heading towards me.   When I flew a slope soarer I was always vulnerable to that, but fudged the issue by not flying straight back at me, and making sure I landed the model alongside or heading away from me.  Aside from that practice, I was thinking maybe practise recovery from "unusual attitudes" ... sort of put the (simulated) model in a bad situation and practice recovery. Any more systematic suggestions?  Thanks in advance, Tony S