scott finnie Posted December 18, 2012 Share Posted December 18, 2012 I am just back from a morning of field soaring with my Radian Pro, i was flying off my dx8 and all the servos are upgraded the elevator being a savox sc0252mg, i was around a 100ft when i noticed the elevator was unresponsive, i pushed the stick all the way forward and back and there was nothing, luckily it had stopped working at a neutral position and this allowed me to slowly descend and land safely, i walked over and picked it up and headed home, now on arrival of being home ive examined everything and turned on my tx and rx, its WORKING!!!! i cant find anything that could have caused the problem, the servo leads are connected and not loose in any way, i moved the wires around to check for a faulty line and nothing, it all works fine, so now im confused, has anyone had a similar experience ? im in 2 ways wether to replace the servo just to be safe and am a bit nervous on flying again today till i know what the cause is, Scott Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Cotsford Posted December 18, 2012 Share Posted December 18, 2012 could it be a dry joint on the receiver board that opened up in the cold? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Cole Posted December 18, 2012 Share Posted December 18, 2012 A: your Tx is partly broken B: your Rx is partly broken C: that servo is broken D: you set D/R "on" to give zero movement, and switched D/R on in flight E: you are mistaken, and the elevator was working If I think of any more possibilities ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scott finnie Posted December 18, 2012 Author Share Posted December 18, 2012 ive just been back out and it seems to be fine , threw it around a fair bit and nothing happened till just now , ive turned it on and all other servos are working but the elevator, d/r off ect wiggle the sticks and nothing, tried different servo and nothing so its either the rx or tx, will pull a rx out another aircraft and see what happens, i dont like how its got a mind of its own just now, i dont have much room for error where i'm flying Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Harris - Moderator Posted December 18, 2012 Share Posted December 18, 2012 Flew my little EP Extra the other day and noticed it was out of trim in pitch - decided to land and check it out but apart from the elevator being trimmed slightly more down that I remembered everything looked OK, no apparent movement on the rear mounted elevator servo arm, screw tight, clevis and horn secure, nothing looked out of place or loose... So I re-trimmed and gave it the usual wringing out with plenty of flicks, flat spins, square loops and general hooliganism, landed and retired to the clubhouse to restore the bloodflow to my fingertips. Popped back with a nicely warmed fresh battery and during a quick look-over found the tailplane was loose in its slot! I can only assume that it had moved initially and then the subsequent flight had worked it properly loose...but after the re-trim it had felt fine for the rest of the flight! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank Skilbeck Posted December 19, 2012 Share Posted December 19, 2012 Posted by scott finnie on 18/12/2012 15:12:58: ive just been back out and it seems to be fine , threw it around a fair bit and nothing happened till just now , ive turned it on and all other servos are working but the elevator, d/r off ect wiggle the sticks and nothing, tried different servo and nothing so its either the rx or tx, will pull a rx out another aircraft and see what happens, i dont like how its got a mind of its own just now, i dont have much room for error where i'm flying Scott, change one thing at a time, if the tx works fine with another aircraft you can discount that, so then just change the Rx and fit the old Rx in the other plane and test that,if it works in there you are narrowing it down to the servo. I'm going to guess that there is an intermittent break somewhere in the servo lead is the most likely cause. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Beeney Posted December 19, 2012 Share Posted December 19, 2012 I once had a similar intermittent fault, on the rudder of a powered glider. Fortunately it happened when I was trying it on the ground, or at least it was the first time I’d noticed it was not working. This was a while back, and it was one of the then new small but quite expensive Futaba servos. It was the servo motor that had gone intermittent operation, and I was able to get new one and replace it in the servo. This was from the now much missed Model Avionics, that used to service Futaba radio. Also I had some experience of another intermittent fault, on a buddy system. It came down to the solder joint on one of the pins in the DIN plug on the back of the transmitter, it looked perfect and was the original manufacturer’s work. It only occasionally went open circuit, so it did cause some head-scratching for a while! But re-making the joint, just re-melting the solder, completely cured it. There is, or at least was, perhaps, also a intermittent open circuit problem in the switch on the Spektrum DX5e transmitter, I’ve seen two examples of this. PB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkippyUK Posted December 19, 2012 Share Posted December 19, 2012 Scott, have you upgraded your firmware in your DX8 recently? I did the upgrade a few weeks back and dutifly went thru' all the settings on all my planes even if the warning message did not appear on that model and everything appeared OK. I was flying a well used powered Zagi with a genuine Spekkie reciever in when and after about 15 minutes flying the controls failed to respond properly - I got it down OK but when I picked it up and waggled the sticks, the responce was notchy and not at all smooth with a lot of stick input neaded to move to the next 'notch' position - not proportional at all. On doing a full power cycle of both TX and RX all appeared fine and I've flown it many times since with no problems at all or indeed any problems on any of the other models on the DX8. At the time I put it down to interference and the re-boot selecting a different pair of frequencies or something. I've always waited a while after a firmware upgrade to see what bugs fall out and apart from the resetting of trims etc. which the radio warns about (good thinking Spektrum), I've not seem many problems with the latest update reported (I'm not a troll so I might be missing a whole raft of issues tho' !!!). Skippy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scott finnie Posted December 19, 2012 Author Share Posted December 19, 2012 Hi skippy nope not upgraded yet but from what you just said it sound very similar. I was out sloping with my a10 earlier using the dx8 and different rx and although most of the flight was perfect there was a few moments where i thought there was no elevator , though this could be down to insuffient airspeed of the control surfaces, im going to take my 2ch bullet glider out later and see what happens with that, atleast its nearly indestructible, will report after. ive also contacted HH and will see what response i get back, im not wanting to chance it on homebuild aircraft or worse the raptor 90. Quite tempted with Philip Bakers Hitec aurora 9 in the classifieds but ive always enjoyed the feel with my spektrums Scott Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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