Spektrum Receivers

[Tosh McCaber]

Was looking to buy another couple of Spektrum AR620, and AR410  aerial-less Rxs, which are very useful.  On a heads-up from a club member, we see that the prices have suddenly dramatically increased-  £35 now up to £57-  £24 up to £35-£40 (Don't know about their other stuff?)

Or is it the same as the with the cost of petrol and heating, simply- because they can??

Back to the Lemons and Oranges!

Any thoughts, anyone?

[PDB]

The price rise isn't great but I'm still buying them for their reliability, ease of airframe installation, push button binding and simple configuration on a Spektrum TX. 👍

 

[steve too]

33 minutes ago, Tosh McCaber said:

Back to the Lemons and Oranges!

Any thoughts, anyone?

 

If you use reverse engineered almost-compatibles, please don't blame Spektrum if you lose a model due to "radio problems".

[Cuban8]

As consumers, we're in a difficult situation when it comes to modelling goods.  It's not like when the supermarkets chance their arms and make a stupidly high price rise on say a particular brand of coffee. My usual brew jumped by 20% to £8 a jar - sorry I'm not paying that and simply went to another equally good brand that hadn't been bumped up (cheap own brands of coffee are in my experience quite undrinkable). Nothing will bring the retailers to their senses like shelves of unsold goods. We do have a great deal of power as consumers when it comes to the price of many goods - unfortunately many of us are just too lazy to shop around (why do some drivers still fall over theselves to sometimes pay 15p a litre more for branded fuel, rather than going to a supermarket - don't tell me it's better quality, please). If you fill up on a motorway, then the attendant should stamp your forehead with the word MUG. Even when I was doing thousands of miles a month as a field engineer, I never used motorway fuel (our company banned us from using it anyway) and never ever ran out because of a little forward planning.

A bit different, I suggest, with radio gear. No way that I'd  trust 'compatible' brands like Lemon and Orange when in almost fifteen years of using genuine Spekky gear I've never had any sort of issue with it. I hate being taken for a ride over prices, but in this case saving a few quid on a cheaper alternative may well lead to a far greater loss. I do have a couple of Orange RXs that I use for setting up and I have used them in rubbishy old models where they've actually performed faultlessly. I'd still be on tenterhooks if they were in anything decent though.

 

Edited May 25, 2023 by Cuban8

[leccyflyer]

I'm about to try out the V2 Lemon 7 channel receivers with telemetry and stabilisation as an alternative to the AR620. It's a shame that HH have upped the cost of the AR620, as I've found them to be excellent receivers since they came out.

 

My only previous  experiences of the Lemon receivers has been with half-a-dpzen of their wee 6100E tiny 6-channel parkflyer RXs, which have been perfectly fine in my SEMFF depron profile "warbirds".

[leccyflyer]

Just now, Cuban8 said:

As consumers, we're in a difficult situation when it comes to modelling goods.  It's not like when the supermarkets chance their arms and make a stupidly high price rise on say a particular brand of coffee. My usual brew jumped by 20% to £8 a jar - sorry I'm not paying that and simply went to another equally good brand that hadn't been bumped up (cheap own brands of coffee are in my experience quite undrinkable). Nothing will bring the retailers to their senses like shelves of unsold goods.

A bit different, I suggest, with radio gear. No way that I'd  trust 'compatible' brands like Lemon and Orange when in almost fifteen years of using genuine Spekky gear I've never had any sort of issue with it. I hate being taken for a ride over prices, but in this case saving a few quid on a cheaper alternative may well lead to a far greater loss. I do have a couple of Orange RXs that I use for setting up and I have used them in rubbishy old models where they've actually performed faultlessly. I'd still be on tenterhooks if they were in anything decent though.

 

Experiences differ - many modellers have been using the Lemon compatible receivers with no issues at all, for several years. It's not a few quid either in the case of the AR620 - it's a rise of >50% in the price.

 

OTOH the only significant issues I've had with Spektrum gear was the total destruction of a model due to the notorious AR500 receivers - replaced by HH after investigation with an AR600, described as "no fault found, receiver replaced for customer peace of mind" - heard of quite a few folks who had the same sort of issue. The other issue was far less satisfactory, consisting of three AR 6010 receivers which all stopped working within a few weeks of each other and refused to bind. HH's response was that these were somehow corrupted, but the firmware could not be updated and they "were not economically repairable".  They sit in a box as a reminder that buying the manufacturer's kit at full retail price is no guarantee.

[Cuban8]

I agree Leccy. We've bought several consumer items from  what might be called a premium brand and TBH their quality and longevity was way off what I expected. A difficult one to judge. Just whatever gives one confidence, I suppose.

Spektrum's response to your other RX problems was shameful. I have very little confidence in so called after sales service when it comes to consumer items (including our gear).

Edited May 25, 2023 by Cuban8

[steve too]

8 minutes ago, leccyflyer said:

OTOH the only significant issues I've had with Spektrum gear was the total destruction of a model due to the notorious AR500 receivers

 

I lost a model with an AR500 in to what I strongly suspect was a receiver problem. Since that incident I only use my AR500s in boats (with no issues 🙂).

 

The pound was quite low six months ago, I suspect that that is one of the things behind the current prices.

[leccyflyer]

Aye - I retired my AR500s to aeroplanes with a low emotional attachment. Prior to that crash - where the model flying straight and level over the field simply lost all radio and came down sharply, hitting the ground quite hard and writing off the aeroplane - I was a staunch supporter of the AR500. Along the lines of "I've got several AR500s in models that have been working perfectly, without a glitch or any problems at all - they are bulletproof". Hmmm, that didn't age well.

[Outrunner]

2 hours ago, steve too said:

 

If you use reverse engineered almost-compatibles, please don't blame Spektrum if you lose a model due to "radio problems".

I've had no issues with oranges and lemons, can't say the same for genuine Spektrums.

These days Lemons are definitely more reliable and a good price.

[Tosh McCaber]

I've been using a 6ch Lemon Generation 2 Rx from Root729 on eBay for a while now.  Full range, lightweight, (and £18.00!)- so far- absolutely no problems!

And excellenet personal service!

[Nigel R]

42 minutes ago, Outrunner said:

These days Lemons are definitely more reliable

Than the old spektrum receivers?

 

Or the current generation?

 

 

I must admit I get a sense of deja vu with this thread...

[Colin Carpenter]

I had 250 flights on a Sebart Angel on 🍋! Then on a reversal , it just wouldn’t pull out !🔥💥That and a few other strange things with others on 🍋meant going back to Spekkie !  Shame really! Colin

[Shaun Walsh]

2 hours ago, Tosh McCaber said:

I've been using a 6ch Lemon Generation 2 Rx from Root729 on eBay for a while now.  Full range, lightweight, (and £18.00!)- so far- absolutely no problems!

And excellenet personal service!

I have several caseless Lemon 6 channel receivers in thermal gliders and can vouch for the fact that they have out-of-sight range.

I also have several 7 channel Stabiliser Plus receivers (not the latest version) which have been less successful. The stabilisation function has worked fine but I have had a number of holds which fortunately have not resulted in destroyed models, just one simple repair. More recently I suspect that the stabilised receivers may be more BEC power supply critical and I may have not been supplying enough wattage to keep the receiver and all 4 servos happy given that the receiver is constantly moving the servos when stabilisation is engaged. May retry with a beefed up BEC and see what happens,

Edited May 25, 2023 by Shaun Walsh

[john davidson 1]

My experience suggests that Orange and Lemon works well with DSM2 but with a DSMX transmitter I get total loss for a few seconds, then range test ok later. After crashing some nice planes I have retired them all and fly solely with Spectrum receivers. Quite expensive but not worth losing good planes.

 

I once bought a batch of six receivers from HK and had problems with every single one, began to suspect my  DSMX transmitter and sent it away, but same issues so asked HK for a refund , given without question, but only after losing several planes

[Outrunner]

3 hours ago, Nigel R said:

Than the old spektrum receivers?

 

Or the current generation?

 

 

I must admit I get a sense of deja vu with this thread...

I must admit older generation Spektrum as I lost faith with Spektrum and apart from an old DX6i that I only use for boats I no longer use Spektrum transmitters although I do have an AR610 Rx that has been very reliable but I don't like the silly short range telemetry.

Edited May 25, 2023 by Outrunner
Typo

[Zflyer]

RC Groups  radio fiirum has a whole section devoted to Lemon.

Re price increase, they were held for awhile then shot up. A number of reasons i suspect, its not like models havwnt increased in price!

At the point of sale its your wallet so the choice is yours

[leccyflyer]

21 hours ago, PDB said:

The price rise isn't great but I'm still buying them for their reliability, ease of airframe installation, push button binding and simple configuration on a Spektrum TX. 👍

 

Yep, the push button binding and simple configuration of the AR620 are the main reason why it's my go-to receiver of choice, so I have dozens of them. A >50% increase in cost in a few months  is taking liberties though.

[Nigel R]

1 hour ago, leccyflyer said:

A >50% increase in cost in a few months  is taking liberties though.

 

Can't say I agree. I work for a company that produces electronic items. It's frankly carnage with supply chain issues on all kinds of parts.

 

You might find Spektrum are having to pay a lot extra to actually make these things in the first place, which maybe puts the price increase in a different light. Perhaps they held prices as low as they could for as long as they could before needing to increase them to cover costs. Not being employed by Spektrum Inc, I don't think any of us really know.

[MattyB]

I suspect the truth is somewhere between these viewpoints. Yes supply chain costs will have gone up, but things like shipping is now stabilising again. There is a growing body of evidence that quite a lot of this is driven by "greedfaation", with many company profits (not just energy) increasing massively in recent times. This narrative is different to the so-called "wage-price spiral" that is the in vogue topic amongst economic commentators and our friends at the BoE to explain inflation...

 

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/mar/12/global-greedflation-big-firms-drive-shopping-bills-to-record-highs

[Zflyer]

We will find out next year when company accounts and dividends get released. The Guardian, another well known none bias publication. The Bible anyone!!!

[MattyB]

17 hours ago, Zflyer said:

We will find out next year when company accounts and dividends get released. The Guardian, another well known none bias publication. The Bible anyone!!!

The research is from Unite not the Guardian, though obviously they are not unbiased either since they are always going to be advocating for things that benefit their members. However, it’s difficult to argue with the stats which are based on actual released profit data - there is no need to wait for next year for this. It’s pretty clear to see from this that profits at the bigger companies are rising significantly faster than wages.

 

 

Edited May 27, 2023 by MattyB

[Zflyer]

Interesting data, using the 2019 figurres, not mentioning losses during the covid period. There is a while discussuon to be had but hey ho this is about our hobby.

[Nigel R]

Losses during covid are fairly critical to that discussion really. Also we would specifically need Spektum's figures to see it they are being overly greedy or making up losses or accounting for new red tape or similar. Lastly, are they creatively accounting and declaring higher profit for a reason rather than actually making higher profit?

Edited May 28, 2023 by Nigel R

[leccyflyer]

That's all very interesting  (actually not very interesting at all) but not really relevant to the end user, who sees a >50% increase in price instantly applied, for exactly the same piece of kit. I do note that competition is starting to set in and some retailers are now selling the AR620 for just less than fifty quid.