John Cole

Could buy from USA. In stock there.

Another thing to try: press down the Alt key and then hit the Space Bar. A system menu should pop up. If it does and Restore is an option, click that and you may see which Windowed program has grabbed Focus. If not then it's a program without a window: look to se what's in the System Tray as Robin suggests. Some people reporting a similar problem are running WiFi that leaves a running application window on their desktop, They have found that leaving it there OR minimising it to the System Tray creates this problem and that CLOSING it fixes the problem.

Then I suggest you follow my advice (3 postings above this one) to find out what is "capturing" the "focus".

If you don't have one I suggest a simulator is worth more than books.

I am sure that my Focus-shift explanation is correct because of the missing yellow box. But I assimed that the focus was moving elsewhere in Chrome. Maybe your problem is that the focus is moving outside Chrome and if so because your WiFi program is grabbing it when there's a fault. If you want to check this then this is what you do: 1. Deliberately shift the focus: with Chrome running, look at the top bar to the right of the active tabs. Bright blue. Right-click at the very bottom of the screen on some more bright blue, and a little pop-up menu appears (Toolbars, Cascade Windows etc.). That menu now has the focus and if you look at the TOP of the Chrome screen you will see that the bright blue has changed to light blue. This indicates it has lost focus. Now you know what to look for. 2. Go back to usig WiFi and type something in using Chrome (such as here) until you experience the problem: Insertion cursor disappears and so does the yellow box. Look at the top bar. If it's light blue then Chrome has lost the focus. If it's still bright blue then Chrome stll has the focus but it's moved WITHIN Chrome. To find out where, hit Enter and you can guess from what happens where it was. There is an unrelated problem where typing halts and the insertion cursor remains in place but stops flashing. After a time you get a message saying Chrome has become unresponsive. Wait and all will return to normal.

Dylan: you quote the extra cost in $. Why not select £ (GBP): bottom item on the left.

Delta Whiskey: only for a CREDIT CARD.  No charge for a Debit Card. Edited By John Cole on 12/12/2012 10:04:00

I know nothing about this subject but a quick web search found this DragonLabs prioduct, though it's currently out of stock.

Dylan: I've looked at the HK website. I think that when you buy from them, the transaction (money) goes through HobbyKing.com, regardless of which warehouse you take delivery from. So it's an overseas transaction. That's why I'm not surprised there's a percentage charge on your Debit card. I wonder if this also means that such purchases are outside the scope of the Sales of Goods Act / Supply of Goods and Services Act and the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations.

Dylan: it is very common for purchases with ANY card to attract a premium charge if you use them overseas. And I guess it was an oversas transaction.

It could be simply that the potentiometer on the servo has got a bit worn / dirty. It's also possible that the jitter comes from the Tx. Try this: Disconnect the linkage and then move the servo lead onto a switched channel (5 or 6?). Then move the switch from one position to the other a large number of times, letting the servo make a full travel before revering the switch. That might clean up the pot. Reconnect the linkage. Move the servo lead onto e.g. the elevator channel and see if the buzz is still there. If not, try it on the throttle channel. still buzzing? Try a different servo to control the throttle.

It doesn't buzz if you remove the servo arm, but does it buzz if you replace that but disconnect the linkage at the throttle arm?

Yes there is reference to LiPos under Lithium Ion (which is what LiPos are): he calls them Pouch cells. The full name of our LiPOs is Lithium Ion Polymer Gell Soft Packeged cells.

Here's a free one. I haven't downloaded to check if it's any good.

5 mm rod is pretty heavy-duty. The ads I found are for devices fitting much smaller-diameter rod or for somewhat smaller-diamenter tube. The cf rod would glue into a metal tube, and the cf tube would have a metal threaded section screw/glue into it.

The power is not the key factor in a short surge: it's the energy. When you make the connection the total initial energy passing through is just that required to charge the input-capacitors. The reason why CC say "the spark is your friend" (referred to above is simple: it shows the input capacitors are healthy! I'm not into high volts stuff myself, but I've seen somewhere that a CC ESC has one or more 330 micro-F capacitors. Assume 3 and thats about a milli-F. A milli-F will take 1milli Couloumb (= 1 mA-second) to charge @ 1 volt. So at 50 volts it will just take 50 mA-seconds. That's a tiny amount of energy. But because it charges up quickly (milli second) you get a big but brief current. Hence the arc when you break it.

In electrical terms, 50 volts is not high voltage. I would not expect a spark as contact is made: a spark across an air gap requires pretty high potential gradient. What I suspect you are seeing is an arc. This would be caused by touching the contacts and momentarily separating them again before full contact is made. The 50 volts might well generate an instantaneous current charging the input capacitors of 1000 A. Plenty for an arc. But if you put the connectors together quickly and hard then I would not expect one. The warnings about incorrect voltage-sensing make sense but I would suggest that the values of anti-spark resistor talked about are in most cases too high: I would be looking at 1 ohm maximum (charge current initially 50 A @ 50 V) and probably less.

1. The OP was about putting a different battery in a Tx. They draw mA not A. So no advantage for Li cells in that respect. Futaba Txs are DESIGNED to run on Ni AA cells. 2. My Vapex cells retain their charge very well. If I go to my Tx after a couple of weeks, they are still nearly fully-charged. The technical advantage of Li cells of even lower self-discharge means that you can store them over winter and they don't need charging in the spring. But so what? 3. Simple charging regime? I just plug in my wall charger and leave the Tx on charge for about as long as I've been flying or a bit more. Or I can leave it on much longer (overnight) with no fire risk. What could be simpler than that? Using batteries with characteristics much different from those for which the Tx was designed introduces problems I can manage without.

Why do LiPo & LiFe chaps think these are better than low self-discharge NiMH?

I use a low-discharge NiMH from VapexTech . Look about halfway down the page for a flat 8-cell 2500 mAH pack with Futaba plug. £12.50 delivered. I charge AFTER flying and rarely need to top-up before flying. Charge with your normal wall-charger. Takes a long time the first time but thereafter you only put back what you take out (plus a bit). Easy to live with.

Yes, in Chrome the Focus text-entry area has a yellow line round it, and that disappears if the Focus moves to another application - or indeed if you click anywhere outside the box. If you hit Tab then the focus moves to the next clickable field. In this case, it moves first to the Send button and then to the T&C link. It may be that you, or a toolbar, have set up a hot-key ccombination other than the ones I've mentioned and that by hitting this combo you are switching focus. The suggestion that you run an anti malware program is a good one.   MalwareBytes is reckoned good; I use IOBytes Malware Fighter.  Both have free versions.  I would also de-install any toolbars.  Click the symbol at top-right Customise / Control - looks like 3 bars one atop the other.  Then Tools / Extensions and clear any checked boxes.  Tools / Task Manager shows what's running as part of Chrome. Edited By John Cole on 05/12/2012 09:23:38

I'm not sure which browser you are using, but my explanation fits both Internet Explorer and Google Chrome. But it's easier to see exactly what's happening if you open Internet Explorer and then make sure the Menu bar is visible at the top. This is the one saying "File Edit View Favorites Tools Help". If that is NOT visible then right-click in the empty grey space to the right of the "title" tab, and select Menu bar. If you then try typing something (in a place that expects you to type, such as a search box) then the Insertion cursor will be immediately to the right of the last character you typed. But if you now hit the Alt key, you will see that the Insertion cursor disappears, the word File in the Menu bar becomes highlighted, and the F is underlined. This reflects a basic characteristic of Windows: hitting the Alt key invites a hot-key Command - in this case F for File. Hitting Alt again, or Esc, or left-clicking where you are typing all cancel the effect. You will see a similar effect in other programs. In Word you get a similar effect except that the Insertion cursor does not disapper - it just stops blinking. Edited By John Cole on 04/12/2012 16:58:32

Olly means the thin red wire connected to the centre pin of the plug going into your Rx. Throttle channel Not the big fat one going to the LiPo, though that would also force the Rx to use the battery!

I think I may have the answer. If you are typing in this box and accidentally hit the Alt key (between the Windows key and the spacebar on a full-sized keyboard) then the "insertion" cursor disappears. Click in the box to restore it. Or just hit Alt again. Does not happen with the Alt-Gr to the right of the keyboard.

The individual + and - pins on a Rx are connected to 2 common lines inside the case. So there's nothing wrong in principle with using common lines. But because all the power for all the servos goes through them you are more at risk from a poor joint / connection in them than you are if you use individual feeds. My guess is that this is what happened with your plane: marginal connections were OK to start with but then got worse (through use / bending / wear) and caused this problem.