Spektrum Receivers

[Rocker]

On 25/05/2023 at 10:54, Tosh McCaber said:

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?

I noticed that .Luckily for me I also have a Futaba Transmitter .So I have now swich back to Futaba .£57  for a 6 channel Specktum 620 receiver Futaba 8 channel receiver £58..,,It is a no brained  for a extra £1  I can have 2 more channels on my receiver !!!!!!!.Goodbye Spektrum 

[Basil]

23 hours ago, leccyflyer said:

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.

Wasnt that long ago it was about £30.

Bas

[leccyflyer]

15 minutes ago, Basil said:

Wasnt that long ago it was about £30.

Bas

£35, as stated in the OP, just before Christmas.

[Martin McIntosh]

I have been using Orange Rxs for a long time and have never experienced a failure, mainly 9ch which match my JR 921`s for range, although the 6ch ones have a shorter range even with two aerials and a satellite. Despite trying, I have never managed to fly even a basic Orange park fly one out of range. My Precedent Stampe and a Mustang have had 9ch ones in from day one and after 10 years they are fine. I do however use JRs on the rather more valuable models.

A Spektrum 7ch went dead after a year of languishing in a heated shed.

From what I can gather it is Spektrum Txs they do not get on with for some reason.

[Don Fry]

Experiences differ. I’ve been using a DX 9 for a decade. It physically works. It has issues with software settings, alter them, all is good. Avoid fake receivers.

Orange  receivers, no issues whatsoever. 
Statistically minute data sets are never reliable. 

 

[Basil]

Can anyone help me re ' Orange ' RX's . I have just bought one titled as ' Sharprepublic Orange CM703', it is labeled 'Redcom' in the picture. I am assuming its actually not a proper Orange. Can any one advise me please.

Bas

[Don Fry]

Redcom has not got a good reputation on other forums. Straight accusations that’s it’s a straight fake copy of the circuit board and firmware. I’m informed, Redcom stuff gets rebadged, and is the source of the Spectrum fakes on E bay.

 

Pays yer money, takes your choice. 

[Ace]

Correct its nothing to do with orange, it just happens to have an orange plastic cover. Although they have twin aerials I don't believe they are dual diversity. I have 4 and all work faultlessly in club sized IC aircraft, and never any range issues. They even accept a satellite  receiver. Have tried both Spek & Lemon and both seem to work!!!!!!  

Caveat - Mine are all 3-4yrs old.

Edited May 31, 2023 by Ace
Added info

[Basil]

Thanks you fellows for your experience. Sent it back.Will look for Lemon!!

Bas

[Nigel R]

Basil -

 

Root729 on ebay

 

Note, the £17 6ch diversity RX is functionally about the same as an old AR610.

[Keith Billinge]

I've had loads of the RedCom ones without a problem. 6,7 and 8 channel models.
But I did switch to the AR410 and AR620 genuine RX's because they had the benefits already stated by other posters.

 

Now they have shot up in price I don't think I'll buy genuine Spektrum stuff anymore. I'm sure all these electronics are made in the same factories in China.

I just wish a Chinese somebody would perfect/copy the antennor-less design and save me a few quid.

 

[Nigel R]

Can't say I agree Keith. Ripping off the company that put the work into making the thing in the first place, doesn't sound so great to this particular software engineer.

[MattyB]

30 minutes ago, Nigel R said:

Can't say I agree Keith. Ripping off the company that put the work into making the thing in the first place, doesn't sound so great to this particular software engineer.

Like it or not, you can’t patent a protocol, and companies like Redcom and Lemon are not creating fakes, but reverse engineered compatibles which are perfectly legal. 
 

Personally I have no problem with their existence; indeed they provide invaluable competition. Without that the likes of Spektrum and Futaba would have a total monopoly allowing them to charge whatever they like for an RX (owners of FASST TXs know all about this, as it’s never been possible to create a cost effective compatible because of the chipset they chose). 
 

At the end of the day even you don’t buy them these manufacturers are providing some value to owners of these systems by stopping prices for a basic RX becoming ridiculous.
 

Edited June 1, 2023 by MattyB

[Nigel R]

Nope - wrong on all counts MattyB...

 

1 hour ago, MattyB said:

Redcom

 

21 hours ago, Don Fry said:

Straight accusations that’s it’s a straight fake copy of the circuit board and firmware

 

Apologies if I'm not clear, but you've missed my point - I'm talking about the situation where firmware is 'borrowed' and the electronics just flat out copied. I'm not talking about a third party developing their own product that works to a publicly available protocol.

 

Further -

 

1 hour ago, MattyB said:

you can’t patent a protocol,

 

...you can patent a protocol:

 

proprietary protocols wikipedia entry

 

30 seconds google will show that DSMX is patent # 9,930,567. "Three Dimensional Spread Spectrum Remote Control System"

 

I'm not 100% certain, but given the details of DSMX are not freely available, Lemon and Orange will have made RX kit that is based on reverse engineering. That may miss details of operation that the protocol author/owner has knowledge of.

 

I imagine the only commercial reason Horizon have not gone after Lemon and Orange is the location of the companies, and pursuing individual importers would be a fruitless endeavour.

Edited June 1, 2023 by Nigel R

[steve too]

7 minutes ago, Nigel R said:

I imagine the only commercial reason Horizon have not gone after Lemon and Orange is the location of the companies, and pursuing individual importers would be a fruitless endeavour.

 

Wasn't it importing Orange stuff that didn't meet US standards that led to the FCC hitting HobbyKing with a huge fine?

[Philip Lewis 3]

3 hours ago, MattyB said:

Owners of FASST TXs know all about this, as it’s never been possible to create a cost effective compatible because of the chipset they chose). 
 

That's because the chipset they use they get from Futaba Robotics divission and isn't available for anyone else to buy.

[MattyB]

5 hours ago, Nigel R said:

Apologies if I'm not clear, but you've missed my point - I'm talking about the situation where firmware is 'borrowed' and the electronics just flat out copied. I'm not talking about a third party developing their own product that works to a publicly available protocol.

 

Fair enough, if they've been actively copying the physicals such as the PCB then I agree.

 

5 hours ago, Nigel R said:

...you can patent a protocol:

 

proprietary protocols wikipedia entry

 

30 seconds google will show that DSMX is patent # 9,930,567. "Three Dimensional Spread Spectrum Remote Control System

 

I'm not 100% certain, but given the details of DSMX are not freely available, Lemon and Orange will have made RX kit that is based on reverse engineering. That may miss details of operation that the protocol author/owner has knowledge of.

 

OK, but even a patent does not bestow any protection against reverse engineering to deliver a compatible protocol. HH and all the other manufacturers know this well; if they could do anything about it they'd have gone after the MPM radios and the likes of LemonRX long ago, based in China or not...

 

PS - Yes, DSMX was reverse engineered in 2012. At that time there was a glut of people collaborating internationally to understand the various proprietary protocols out there, work which was then used in the MPM project that so many open source radios use today.

 

Edited June 1, 2023 by MattyB

[MattyB]

5 hours ago, steve too said:

 

Wasn't it importing Orange stuff that didn't meet US standards that led to the FCC hitting HobbyKing with a huge fine?

 

It was import of non-compliant VTX transmitters for FPV that generated that; from memory I don't think they were Orange branded, but they were definitely way over the max power limits!

 

https://dronedj.com/2022/05/04/hobbyking-fcc-illegal-drone-case/

Edited June 1, 2023 by MattyB

[MattyB]

3 hours ago, Philip Lewis 3 said:

That's because the chipset they use they get from Futaba Robotics divission and isn't available for anyone else to buy.

 

Indeed. It's also part of the reason Futaba have essentially killed FASST, and have prioritised another FHSS based protocol that can be manufactured more cheaply.

[Brian Cooper]

After hours spent building a model, not to mention the cost, is it really worth trying to save a few quid by buying non-branded radio equipment? 

 

Don't get me started on "cheap" extention leads which might be only 50p but will cost you a model. . . I have lost count of the number of models seen falling to earth due to these "money savers". 

 

Oh well, let's hope nobody is underneath when they fall out of the sky. 

.

[leccyflyer]

I agree completely on the cheapo extension leads. I got a pack of those but they never even made it into the model for flight. One pull test and they went straight in the bin.

 

However it's not just saving a few quid in the case of the receivers in question, it's a price increase of more than 50% applied virtually overnight.

[MattyB]

6 minutes ago, Brian Cooper said:

After hours spent building a model, not to mention the cost, is it really worth trying to save a few quid by buying non-branded radio equipment? 

 

The answer is "it depends". I have some parkfly foamies that cost <£20 in materials and other gear to build, so I'm certainly not going to put a £50+ RX in them. Those models just get a cheap (non-telemetry) Lemon which have always worked perfectly; if they didn't pass the range check I wouldn't use them. Anything bigger gets at least one telemetry enabled Frsky RX, often with some a power and RF resiliency solution added if I really care about it. It's horses for courses, but using this strategy since moving to 2.4GHz ~10 years ago I have never had an incident attributable to an RX failure.

 

Time after time in this hobby (and lots of other areas of modern life too) the link between cost and quality has proven to be a misnomer. I feel like that is particularly true for a large percentage of our radio gear this days. Brands still exist (such as Jeti) where it's clear to see the physical quality is at a much higher level, but there are plenty of cases where it appears the price premium has been used up on anything other than the physicals. This is why at the lower end of the market (TXs below say £200) I'd always go for challenger brand OS radio, purely because a higher percentage of the money has gone into the physicals (as they dont need to pay for marketing, software development or distribution) and you aren;t locked into a single RX brand. YMMV.

[Tim Kearsley]

55 minutes ago, Brian Cooper said:

After hours spent building a model, not to mention the cost, is it really worth trying to save a few quid by buying non-branded radio equipment? 

 

.

The most sensible thing I've read for a long time. 

[steve too]

1 hour ago, MattyB said:

I don't think they were Orange branded

 

 

Quote

Specifically, the Division received complaints regarding HobbyKing’s marketing of the OrangeRX DSMX/DSM2 Compatible 2.4 GHz Transmitter Module (JR/Turnigy compatible) and the OrangeRX T-Six 2.4 GHz DSM2 Compatible 6CH Transmitter with 10 Model Memory and 3-Pos Switch (Mode 1) (collectively, the OrangeRX Transmitters).

 

https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-16-1290A1.pdf

[Keith Billinge]

If Spektrum had a bit more customer focus maybe they wouldn't have inflated their prices to a crazy level overnight. Who can afford £50 for a basic 4Channel RX when the competition is pumping them out for £15-£20?

I really believe Spektum probably manufacture the AR410 for less than £10 each in the same Chinese factories that the competition are using.

Yes I'll use my Spektrum RX's if I have a favourite or expensive model but I hate the feeling that I'm being ripped off. Doubling the price overnight does not seem reasonable to me.