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MattyB

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Everything posted by MattyB

  1. Mods, could the first post be edited to include a clickable link to information on the BMFA Basic Proficiency Certificate - might help people stay on topic... Thanks!
  2. Posted by Jon Laughton on 07/03/2017 09:57:06: Matty it is possible to convert files to the new format used on the 18SZ...see link below **LINK** That is good news for new buyers, but releasing a conversion tool nearly a year after the launch of the TX must have been galling for those who had already manually converted all of their models from one TX to the other. Futaba should be using a common model file type like most of their competitors, otherwise this will happen each time they launch a mid or high end TX. Edited By MattyB on 07/03/2017 13:27:08
  3. Posted by Rich2 on 06/03/2017 17:35:37: Futaba is not exactly from scratch? You can copy a previous model to set up a new one. I've had the same trans for 10 years, and don't need to change, it does what I want. The question asked was not about creating new models on an existing TX, but about transferring them from an old TX to a newer one. Spek can do this, OpenTX can and Jeti can, but when Futaba brought out the 18SZ about 18 months ago it used a new model file format and there was no way to transfer setups from the 18MZ. That meant power users with complex setups were faced with hours and in some cases days of work recreating their setups on their new TX. Not what you really want after spending ~£850 on your new toy.
  4. Posted by Frank Skilbeck on 06/03/2017 17:28:12: You are assuming everybody is computer literate, I have fellow fliers that only use an Ipad and have no interest in plugging their Tx into a computer. True, but those people are not driving sales for the manufacturers so they are not going to be their focus in product development. Cycles in consumer electronics are shorter now and most consumers expect to receive updates that improve the functionality of the product across it's lifecycle. Of course not everyone wants that experience which is trait enough, but the reality is the number of those who aren't computer savvy enough to apply updates will diminish over time whilst those that expect and want and expect them will inexorably grow. Manufacturers therefore can't afford to be left behind in areas such as this (JR, we are looking at you...)
  5. Posted by Frank Skilbeck on 06/03/2017 15:16:14: Posted by MattyB on 06/03/2017 14:26:53: This is the main reason I would not spend any more than Horus type money (~£500) for any TX at this point; something better is always coming along, and it's getting more affordable all the time. It is, but for some of us, we don't want to be reprogramming in all our models into a new Tx every 18 months or so, so one which comes with long term support and updates has some merit. One surprise in the survey is the low number of graupner users, considering the price/ features and extensive marketing it had. True, but with OpenTX radios you don't have too - I could transfer my setups to any OpenTX transmitter (9X, 9XR, Taranis X7, X9D, X9E or X9d+ or Horus) via the PC at any time. All that would be required is a quick check to validate all the switch assignments are correct and a rebind. To do all 15 odd models in my transmitter would probably take 60 to 90 mins maximum. Spek are getting better at this with the cross compatability between all their Airware based TXs and I'm sure Jeti offer this too, but Futaba for sure and I think JR are way behind - they still seem to want you to programme all your models from scratch using the TX interface. Slow, cumbersome and not a compelling prospect! Edited By MattyB on 06/03/2017 16:32:24
  6. Posted by Martin Harris on 06/03/2017 11:11:43: I agree with most of what you've said but I'm afraid there's no comparison between Horus and Jeti build quality. I have (and will continue to) freely admit that the functionality of the FRSky transmitters is certainly on a par with anything on the market but I was rather disappointed to see the interior details of the Horus in the video below. There is undeniably some bling factor in paying mid (or is it soon to be top?) range prices for something that performs a similar job to cheaper kit - but I'm hoping that the apparent build quality and demonstrated commitment from Jeti to adding features translates to a long service life which will go some way towards justifying the initial cost. Yep, I don't think anyone would disagree that the Jeti DS/DC series do have better interior design and manufacturing quality than the FrSky Horus. That's not surprising though - they do cost a fair bit more (~£100 in the case of the 14 which has far less functionality, up to ~£900 more for the DC24). Whilst the Horus may ape some of the Jeti styling it isn't primarily targeted at them; Jeti have a very small % of the market anyway, and most of their buyers are not value centric in the way that those who purchase the mainstream brands are. FrSky are really after users of mid range Spektrum, JR and Futaba users with the Horus, but from what I have seen they have failed, at least for now - the Horus ended up being too big, heavy and expensive to take on the 14SG and DX9 it was originally targeted at. I suspect we will see FrSky focus on a new "Super Taranis" in the next 12-18 months with Hall effect gimbals, OpenTX, a new plastic case along the lines of the X7 and possibly a colour screen. That really could be a disruptive product if they get the marketing right. PS - I understand what you are saying abut the high initial price being offset by a long life, but in reality the speed technology is moving means it is doubtful anyone will be keeping their TX 10 years like in the days of 35MHz. Look at the new 900MHz link in the DC-24 - I'm sure lots of jet and big scale guys are going to want that, so will be trading in their DC/DS-16s only a few years after they bought them. This is the main reason I would not spend any more than Horus type money (~£500) for any TX at this point; something better is always coming along, and it's getting more affordable all the time. Edited By MattyB on 06/03/2017 14:36:42
  7. MattyB

    Taranis update

    Special functions is the only place you can setup sounds, so yes on that score. I personally do not use the throttle kill option available on special functions though, as it's possible to setup a far superior "sticky" throttle cut using a couple of logical switches that means throttle is only activated if the throttle kill switch is disabled AND the throttle stick itself is at zero. Mike Shellim describes how to do a variant of this on his site. His article on the basics of OpenTX is also well worth a read Edited By MattyB on 05/03/2017 19:10:51
  8. MattyB

    Taranis Upgrade

    Yep, mine arrived this week too, and I fitted them on Friday night - nicely made and super smooth. Haven't flown with them yet though, and even at their shortest the sticks are a little longer for me, so I may need to get some shorter 4mm threaded stick ends from Banggood or eBay. Edited By MattyB on 05/03/2017 19:01:04
  9. Great conversion, but I wouldn't get too excited about it's light lift performance just yet - in my experience models this small never quite seem to perform as well as you initially expect, especially in low wind conditions. Hopefully I will be probs wrong though!
  10. There are aftermarket Hitec compatible RXs that do PPM out... FrSky Delta 8 available from T9Hobbysport Hobbyking Hitec compatible In some ways I agree though that a new TX from a different manufacturer may be the way to go - Hitec seem to be very slow to develop new products and are rapidly being left behind in terms of their TXs. A new set from Spektrum or FrSky would give you more new features (especially in terms of telemetry) for less (much less if you are talking FrSky). The new FrSky X7 is designed for multirotor piltos and is very affordable, plus the telemetry sensors are very cheap. A DX6 or DX6e would be fine too though if you don't mind the higher cost. Edited By MattyB on 03/03/2017 17:08:14
  11. Dynam are ok, but personally I think they have been left behind by some more recent releases, especially the Durafly Mk1a and MkV Spitfire. They are way more scale, fly just as good if not better and only cost £15-20 more. You pays your money... Edited By MattyB on 02/03/2017 18:34:43
  12. Posted by Frank Skilbeck on 01/03/2017 19:20:24: Don't forget the Skoda Superb and the 5 series isn't too bad nor my friends V70, but my next car might be a van.............. Fair point, I did forget both the Octavia and Superb - strange as I nearly bought an Octavia last time around! That 5 does look pretty big, but when I looked at it I found the roofline a bit swoopy and the load area too shallow, so I went for the bigger, character free option! Posted by Mike Etheridge 1 on 01/03/2017 17:18:06: MattyB did not mention the X-type Jaguar Estate. I know it's a Mondeo in disguise but my 2.00 litre diesel SE has been very good with over 40 to the gallon fuel consumption, leather interior with heated front seats, electric wing mirrors that are also heated, an electrically adjusted driver's seat, integral Sat nav, cruise control and plenty of room for planes. Sorry, the Jag is a little too "lifestyle sport tourer" to qualify as a proper estate for me... ;o) Edited By MattyB on 02/03/2017 14:42:58
  13. I am secretly hoping that diesel persecution depresses SUV sales and brings back a renaissance in the traditional "proper" boxy estate car which is always going to be more fuel efficient. I currently have a Passat diesel. It is completely character free, dull as dishwater but is one of only a handful of what I would call true estate cars available. The Mondeo, Civic and Merc E class estates (and maybe the Hyundai i40) are some others, but bar those there is precious little choice - the rest are swoopy roofed pseudo wagons with little practical advantage over the saloon versions. As an aeromodeller and father of a young family I have looked at plenty of SUVs as alternatives, but bar the Range Rover (a very expensive option) none of them offer the space and practicality of a real estate, and all will be more expensive to run. I am sure my next car won't be diesel, but hopefully there will be a range of hybrid or ultra efficient petrol wagons available to choose from by then. Edited By MattyB on 01/03/2017 15:04:18
  14. Posted by Geoff Sleath on 01/03/2017 11:43:09: The F104 Starfighter is tricky apparently. I think most models increase the scale wing area and, even then, the wings look inadequate. Yep, but then that's not really surprising given the reputation full size one had as a flying coffin! Joke from the 80s... Q. How do you get your very own F104 Starfighter? A. Buy a field in Germany and wait...!
  15. For me (even as an England fan) EJ's comments in the aftermath did not show a great deal of class. I suspect they came mostly from embarrassment - he is known as being the king of preparation, so his players asking the referee what the rules are around the ruck must have been pretty cringeworthy for him. The reality is that Italy were operating within the laws, laws which every player at international level should know inside out - England should not have been surprised, and they should have been able to work out a tactic to counteract this in seconds, not wait until halftime to get it from the coaching staff. His pre-match comments are not doing him any favours either; would this tactic have been used if he had not threatened to pulverise them Italy? However, all that said I actually agree with EJ that a tweak to the rules might be of value here. Rugby is in the entertainment business, and the spectacle of Italian players, arms outstretched standing on the England side of the tackle preventing the scrum half delivering the ball did nothing for the spectacle in the first half. Yes England should have counteracted it by picking and going up the middle, but is that the game fans have paid £70 a ticket to see? It was kind of fun as a novelty for 40 mins, but do we want it to see this used as a tactic on a regular basis? Not for me. The ruck area needs to be contested by both sides, that way the guys dragged in leave space and opportunity for others.
  16. Posted by Martin Harris on 24/02/2017 12:06:13: Pricing is such a weird "science". If value for money was the be all and end all, FRSky would be the undoubted market leader and we'd all be taking our models to the club in Skodas or similar. But then so many factors come into play - range of features, useability, brand loyalty, perceived quality, personal experience, aesthetics, manufacturer/distributor support and probably many more. Buying a "quality" car is no guarantee of absolute reliability and even the lowliest rattle-trap performs the primary function of getting from A to B pretty well these days. It's interesting that a previous Jeti importer was firmly convinced that their equipment was too cheap - compared to high end offerings from the then market leaders - and therefore couldn't justify the sort of advertising campaign he would have liked to have run. I certainly can't justify my choice in terms of price but every time I hold my transmitter I get a reassuring feeling of quality and (imagined or not) feeling of security for my model and there's maybe an element of "male jewellery" at play. At the time I agree, they were probably right - Jeti did look cheap compared to the Futaba 18MZ) and the later JR 28X. Now though they just look like they got it right and the Futaba and JR sets are dinosaurs from a previous age. When those sets came out most customers did not understand that in a digital world channels cost essentially nothing and it's power supply and correct install that define RF reliability in the main, not protocol. Since then disruptive products from FrSky, Jeti and even the very low end Chinese sets like Flysky have shown that you can get the functionality (Taranis, Flysky i10) and build quality (Horus and Jeti) you want at much lower price points without sacrificing RF reliability. An then there's the fact that that the functionality available from mid range big brand sets like the DX-9 now vastly exceeds what most people need from their sets. Put simply the age of the £2k+ transmitter is over - we all know that was just marketing fluff to convince us we were buying "the best" at any price. Futaba have implicitly acknowledged this in the pricing of the 18SZ - it's a £900 TX that does almost everything the £2k+ 18MZ does. The new "top of the top" will I suspect be defined by the new Jeti 24 series that are landing at £1300-1500 I believe and ae significantly more advanced than the Futaba and JR offerings. Edited By MattyB on 24/02/2017 13:45:50
  17. Posted by Steve Colman on 22/02/2017 11:22:29: Having never owned or flown a twin I thought it was about time that I gave the idea some serious thought. Now, being very satisfied with Mpx models, the Twin Star came to mind as a simple and modest offering that could offer a great intro to flying a twin. Additionally, it could make an ideal platform for mounting a video camera and perhaps some FPV gear which is something else I'm looking to do. Thoughts of those with experience of the TS greatly appreciated. Steve. If you find an unhappy Twinstar owner, let us know Steve - I have never met one! Never owned one but have flown several for others; they have vice free handling, are very robust and can carry FPV kit with aplomb. Recommended.
  18. Yes, of course. Just plug in and leave til the green LED goes out.
  19. I am not saying you have to change your existing A9, just that I would think long and hard before investing a large amount of money in a new system from Hitec given how far behind they have slipped and the rate of change in the RC marketplace. If the new set were not a commercial success getting RXs a few years in could be very difficult (remember it is already known Hitec will need to update their RF protocol in order to get more channels). As an example look at JR right now - with DMSS RXs hard to get hold of at present and JRs future in the air 28x buyers must be getting very scared that their expensive investment could be a paperweight in a year or two.
  20. Posted by trebor on 20/02/2017 14:20:16: I was just worried I'd have to change them as most Spektrum Rx's have a low 3.5v compared to 4v on Taranis. This is slightly ironic. I have never read the official FrSky RX low voltage specs, but I can tell you that one of the main reasons they became popular is precisely because their low voltage performance was so much better than most Spektrum RXs at the time (though Spek have made steps forward in this regard with their later RXs no longer exhibit high reboot voltages and slow reboot times).  Here is the original review from Bruce at RCModelReviews that brought FrSky to the attention of many of us - two pictures tell a thousand words... Still working at 2.8V: Finally non-functioning at 2.2V, well below that where you servos will have stopped working: Edited By MattyB on 20/02/2017 15:30:31
  21. More useful links for reference from the bottom of that OpenTXU page on CCPM... Beginners Taranis programming guide for RC helis (covers all the concepts as to how and why a transmitter works in relation to an RC helicopter). HeliFreak OpenTX forum CCPM Template used in the OpenTXU tutorial (NOTE: This is a zipped file that will need to be unzipped before using) Edited By MattyB on 20/02/2017 13:19:01
  22. Hi Allan. Unfortunately CCPM helis are an acknowledged weakness in OpenTX - they really need a wizard coded for setting them up, but since no-one on the Dev team are heli guys it has never happened. I think the answer to your question about "I assume you have a model that has elevator, aileron, and collective programmed" is available on the OpenTXU page on CCPM. Take a look at the top of the page; their quick list for the impatient(!) step 1 is "Program Ail, Ele and Col independent of mixing (-100 to +100)". I take that to mean you just need to set up single lines on your mixer screen for each of these functions to start with. Try that then follow their instructions through and you will probably be ok. I also suggest you take a look at this CCPM setup on RCSettings - it may help. Edited By MattyB on 20/02/2017 13:20:01
  23. Sadly I think it's vapourware. They have been promising a more advanced higher channel count TX for years, but even if they came up with it tomorrow they have lost so much ground and so many customers I would think long and hard before investing in a system whose future was uncertain. I would recommend you look at another player with a more certain future, be that FrSky, Spektrum or Futaba (JR and other smaller manufacturers like Graupner and Multiplex may make great products, but IMO none of them are certain to exist in the RC market in 5 years time).
  24. Posted by jim longbon on 20/02/2017 11:38:26: Hi chaps l have been trying to reflash two brand new X6R receivers. l have been following a mixture of Painless 365 and sincere advice given by some very helpful forumites. It seems so simple to do mmmmmmmmmm!!!!. l would like to start again from ground zero. My taranis plus was purchased in the early part of 2015, l still use the original taranis firmware. The taranis shows i,m running open tx -9dp -v2.0.92-eu with a date of 2015-02 -27. The taranis shows D16-eu on the internal RF. My question is have l started up the wrong road ( the rx,would not bind to the taranis straight out of the box). and what am l running is it EU then why did the new rx,s not bind or am l running something else. Cheers chaps. If you bought your TX in early 2015 then it will definitely have the v1 EU firmware on it that some people found gave range issues. Do not be tempted to useyour TX in this state - we do need to make sure that RF firmware is updated! As BEB states above the EU v1 firmware will not work with currently sold EU v2 (LBT) RXs, hence why your newly purchased X6Rs are not very lively at this point. Things to do, in order: Leave the RF firmware in your new X6R  RXs alone - there is no need to change them. Read back through this thread from the start and you will find lots of links and all the steps needed to update your Taranis Open TX firmware to v2.1 and it's (separate) RF firmware to the latest EU LBT standard. Follow them to achieve this goal (you can ask questions here if needed, but the key bit is reading this thread, it will really help you). Once your Taranis is on OTX 2.1 and the latest EU LBT RF firmware, try binding your new RXs - they should now work fine. Flash your older X series RXs to the latest RF firmware following the instructions linked from this thread, then rebind them. Use the system as normal. All your current RXs should now be working, and any future X series you purchase will work straight out of the box. Should there ever be another change in EU regulations that means a change to FrSky's RF protocol you will be able to update any X-series RXs by connecting them to the transmitter and reflashing to whichever version of RF firmware you want to use.   Edited By MattyB on 20/02/2017 12:34:47
  25. Any old standard servo should be fine - 311s are as good as any. I've certainly never seen one broken, but fit an MG version if you are worried. Edited By MattyB on 16/02/2017 12:22:43
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