jeti DS14 REVIEWS

[SONNY MONKS]

Hi All,Does anybody own the above,i would like a review please.

[Denis Watkins]

From Helifreek online

Picked up a DS14 a couple days ago to replace the DS16 that I sold while I played around with a Vcontrol for a couple months waiting for the DS24 to come out. I was surprised at how different it is than the DS16, and thought I'd share some observations that might help those who are new to Jeti. I've flown the DS16 since release in 2013 aside from the last 5 months or so where I tried to convert my brain to VControl.
Weight - Picking it up, it is noticeably lighter than the DS16. I wasn't expecting that, but checking the specs, it's 6oz lighter, which is confirmed with my scale.
Feel - I wasn't expecting everything aside from the case to be plastic. The buttons, selector knob, switch nuts, gimbals, it's all plastic. It's not bad, just unexpected. The plastic on the buttons etc has a sandpapery texture to it, I like it. I may even like that feel on the buttons better than the AL in the DS16, although I did prefer the programming knob in AL. There are less switches in the DS14 VS DS16, but the same number of hookups inside and holes on the front. When I sold my DS16 I kept some of my favorite switches like the locking, pushbutton, and double spring switch, so I was able to easily populate the radio with the same switch setup as my DS16. I did have to buy a $5 set of black plastic switch nuts so everything matched.
Gimbals - Plastic VS AL. Big deal. They feel exactly the same, I was able to get the tension the same, and they feel nice and smooth. The exception is the collective stick. My 2 DS16s were slightly sticky at the top and bottom, apparently the wheel that provides the tension wasn't perfectly round. The DS14 is perfect on collective, I expect newer 16s are as well, mine were both early models (one was a preorder from the initial batch).
Software - Out of the box, the DS14 kind of sucks. It doesn't even have DX9 levels of functionality. I hope that all the people who buy this radio immediately buy the logic switches, accelerometer, and voice announcements. Those are the things that make a Jeti truly special, and where the real power lies. Without those you're just buying a pretty box that is fairly incapable. In addition, the extra flight modes are a must for helis, or you are limited to Normal, Idle 1, and Hold. That sucks. I understand why they sell it that way, it lets everyone setup their radio exactly how they want it and save money, but I fear that people are going to buy the radio and just use it and never see what a Jeti can actually do.

Edited By Denis Watkins on 11/10/2018 19:39:59

[SONNY MONKS]

Thankyou for the review denis,i dont fly helis,im just wanting a more reliable radio than my current spekky dx6,and im willing to pay that bit more for better quality,i wont probably need most of the functions it has,im just a four channel plane flyer,i was thinking of purchasing the jeti ds12,but that apparently is now due for release maybe next summer,so im a bit tired of waiting hehe.

[MattyB]

Posted by Denis Watkins on 11/10/2018 19:39:03:

...Software - Out of the box, the DS14 kind of sucks. It doesn't even have DX9 levels of functionality. I hope that all the people who buy this radio immediately buy the logic switches, accelerometer, and voice announcements. Those are the things that make a Jeti truly special, and where the real power lies. Without those you're just buying a pretty box that is fairly incapable. In addition, the extra flight modes are a must for helis, or you are limited to Normal, Idle 1, and Hold. That sucks. I understand why they sell it that way, it lets everyone setup their radio exactly how they want it and save money, but I fear that people are going to buy the radio and just use it and never see what a Jeti can actually do.

Definitely not in agreement with the bold text from that reviewer. They don’t do it to make the radio more affordable, they do it to demarcate it from the model above and because they want to get more money from follow up software purchases for features that could/should be there from day 1. Remember they wrote all this code already for the DS16; there is precisely zero additional cost to them to include it, but that could hurt sales of their more expensive models so they don’t.

Frsky have their faults but are the only mainstream manufacturer to have ditched the “more channels/mixing/features = more £££s” model - using open source means those parameters stay the same in the main across models, with only the form factor and physical build materials/design altering across models. OpenTX may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but at least you get all the features and channel coounts that 99.999% of flyers will need in even the cheapest sets.

Edited By MattyB on 12/10/2018 00:23:41

[Mark Howard 1]

When I was flying mainly heli's I went for the Jeti system (DS14 & DS16) mainly for the integration with a number of the popular flybarless controllers. I have found them to be totally reliable and just great to use. I have never had signal drop outs or any other issues that seem to get reported for some other brands and this seems to be common for other users too.

The commonly reported cons of the Jeti's are: weight (aluminium case), cold to use in the winter (aluminium case), price.

The main pro's seem to be: top screen (visible when using a neck strap), software and setup, quality, great gimbals, ease of adding switches and moving them around, signal quality and reliability, telemetry options available (voltage/current sensors, vario's, air speed etc).

When I bought my DS14, it came with a voucher which allowed you add a few functionality modules free of charge - I'm not sure if the deal is still available but I thought it worked well as for helicopters you probably want a slightly different set of functions to those flying planes and the voucher allowed you to only add the functions you needed at no extra cost.

So I'm definately a Jeti convert.

Having said all that, when I came to add more planes to the fleet, I bulked at the cost of buying a whole bunch of Jeti receivers as they are not that cheap. A basic 6 channel rx is around £65 and those with stabilisation are approaching £120. If you don't have many planes to equip this may not be an issue.

For planes I went for the FrSky Horus X10S with OpenTx, partly because I was interested in getting into OpenTx but also because receivers are much cheaper (6 channel stabilised around £25) and I needed quite a few. There are similar telemetry modules available for the FrSky system too. The signal reliability is also reported to be pretty solid.

There are a few areas of the Horus that are not up to the Jeti quality but overall, it feels good to use and the gimbals are excellent.

There are pros and cons to everything in this game but for me, it's Jeti or VControl for heli's and Jeti or FrSky for planes. I still have a DX9 for some BNF's but have drifted away from Spektrum for all of the commonly reported reasons.