Vindicated!

[MarcV]

Those of you at the field on Aug 2 might have seen me lose control of my Mustang.  All of a sudden it started acting crazy.  Fortunately Glen was close by and graciously offered to assist.  Much to my relief, he did great job of landing it.  But he did ask me why all my trims were off.

After canvassing the instructors who saw me I was pretty sure that I lost control due to flying too slow and stalling it (Mustangs like to fly fast).  Glen took the plane up again, checked it out and gave me the transmitter.  It flew fine.

Today I was at the field and had two uneventful flights with my Mustang.  Two minutes into the 3rd flight I lost control again.  Same problem.  It's all over the sky.  Eventually I regain control and notice that the aileron is way out of trim.  I land it (more like bounce it) and notice that the ailerons are about 5mm from neutral.  I disconnect and reconnect the flight battery and the ailerons return to normal.  So the reason I lost control is that the aileron (and who knows what else) malfunctioned.  It wasn't me!!

By the way, the receiver is an AR500.  I'll be contacting Horizon Hobby on Monday.  Yes I know that there are bad AR500s out there - I just might have one of them.

Marc

[Michael]

What about the servo?



Michael

[Leo]

Michael I had a similar problem with my Radian Glider on which I had the elevator on the aileron channel.
I have now replaced the AR500 with an Hitec Optima 7 and no more problems.
Sold the Spectrum radio and the AR500.


Leo

[Papa]

Hi Mark I saw the first one and it was scary. That's too good a model to trust to a suspect Rx. I would swap it out for something reliable.

Jack.

[MarcV]

Michael, I don't think that it's the servo because I'm pretty sure both ailerons moved (one servo per aileron).  Also I suspect that I had elevator and throttle problems which would have caused the plane to pitch up and lose speed.

I'm pretty sure that my transmitter (DX6i) is fine since I flew my E-flite Pulse 25e (also with an AR500 RX) afterward with no incident.

Both times I lost control it was with an A123 pack.  I don't think that would matter.  The electronics is powered by a Castle Creations 10A peak BEC.  But if the BEC temporarily lost power, I would lose control, but when the receiver does regain power it shouldn't lose trim.

Except for the manufacturing problems with the AR500, it should be a great receiver.  Reasonably priced, full range, 5 channels and doesn't have that fragile link cable to a remote receiver.

Fortunately the plane is fine, and with a new RX it will be back in the air doing what it does best - patrolling the sky above TEMAC keep us safe from enemy planes:)

Marc

[Michael]

quote:Originally posted by MarcVenis

.. and with a new RX it will be back in the air doing what it does best - patrolling the sky above TEMAC keep us safe from enemy planes:)

Marc

I feel much safer now. []

Michael

[MarcV]

I called Spektrum today and they said to return the AR500 to them, which I did (despite the fact that it's out of warranty).
They'll check it and decide what to do.

Marc

[MarcV]

Yesterday I received a brand new Spektrum AR6200 in the mail as a replacement for my AR500 (no charge, warranty replacement).

Thanks Spektrum.

Marc