Thank you very much for your explanation.
After Larry's latest update the fog slowly started to disappear
Wonder what the capacity/condition of his receiver battery is
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Ad Wouterse
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Lawrence Godson
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Thanks again to everyone hanging in there with me on this. My receiver battery is theoretically new----at least it came with the new transmitter/receiver last month. One of the first things that I did was to charge it again when the problem first happened. Will a simple check of the voltage tell me anything about if it is holding a good enough charge or do I need to meter it in some other way?
Lawrence Godson
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Ad Wouterse
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Hi Larry,
On one hand a new battery requires 8-10 charging/discharging cycles to reach it's maximum capacity. On the other hand you never know how long your "new" radio has been stored and under which conditions, both of which may have an impact on the battery's condition.
Btw, what capacity is stated on your receiver battery in Ah or mAh ?
A simple voltage check is no good indicator, a current check under load will give a proper picture of the condition of your battery.
On one hand a new battery requires 8-10 charging/discharging cycles to reach it's maximum capacity. On the other hand you never know how long your "new" radio has been stored and under which conditions, both of which may have an impact on the battery's condition.
Btw, what capacity is stated on your receiver battery in Ah or mAh ?
A simple voltage check is no good indicator, a current check under load will give a proper picture of the condition of your battery.
Cheers,
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Lawrence Godson
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I've now had time to remove the steering servo and replace it with a duplicate. The problem is still there. Even with the servo free of the chassis and with no mechanical connection to the servo arm it soon starts operating irregularly and then I lose all RC functions. I have now also noticed that I'm having problems with the turret rotation even if the throttle and elevation and sound control is functioning (with steering servo disconnected) so perhaps the battery is the next place to look (notice how I'm avoiding the possibility that it is the transmitter) :')
Lawrence Godson
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Lawrence Godson
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Armortek
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Ad Wouterse
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Hi Larry,
A 700 mAH battery has way too little capacity for digital servos like the Hitec one supplied with the motion pack.
Initially I used a standard 900 mAh battery and the servo went out of control. Following Armorteks advice I replaced the battery by a higher capacity one ( 3600 mAh ) and everything workes fine ever since.
Good luck !
A 700 mAH battery has way too little capacity for digital servos like the Hitec one supplied with the motion pack.
Initially I used a standard 900 mAh battery and the servo went out of control. Following Armorteks advice I replaced the battery by a higher capacity one ( 3600 mAh ) and everything workes fine ever since.
Good luck !
Cheers,
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Armortek
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A 700mAh battery is perfectly capable of running the digital servo. Our demonstrator uses precisely this size of battery. Changing to a larger size of battery extends the running time, nothing else.
The problems that Lawrence is experiencing are not be caused by too small a battery capacity, nor are they due to mechanical interference. He has either a loose electrical connection somewhere, or (most likely) he has radio reception problems. These are most probably being caused by an incorrectly fitted receiver aerial or improper use of the transmitter aerial.
Mark
A 700mAh battery is perfectly capable of running the digital servo. Our demonstrator uses precisely this size of battery. Changing to a larger size of battery extends the running time, nothing else.
The problems that Lawrence is experiencing are not be caused by too small a battery capacity, nor are they due to mechanical interference. He has either a loose electrical connection somewhere, or (most likely) he has radio reception problems. These are most probably being caused by an incorrectly fitted receiver aerial or improper use of the transmitter aerial.
Mark
Armortek
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Ad Wouterse
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Lawrence Godson
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Hello Mark and all,
Yes I did get your E mail ----sorry if it seems that I'm ignoring it. I guess I'm loath to consider major problems with my transmitter. I've made sure that I have extended the aerial all the way during my trials and have been no more than a few feet away from the receiver when running my tests. It is true that I have not attached the antenna wire to the antenna supplied with the kit. I've either had the wire come out of the turret and trail off down the vehicle or I've had the entire receiver outside of the body of the vehicle with the wire trailing off.
The wire is still uncut from the length that it came attached to the receiver. I was thinking that as long as the insulation is intact along the length of the wire that it was OK to let it touch the outside of the body. Perhaps that is not true.
Also you had mentioned the possibility of a bad connection inside the transmitter and I was thinking that that was eliminated because the problem seemed to follow the activation of the steering servo no matter which channel it was plugged into. (not so sure now with the problem of turret rotation )
Electronics is not my forte and so I guess I'm not following as good a procedure as someone with more experience might----but I'm determined to get to the bottom of this and once again am very grateful for all the help that I've been getting from everyone. Perhaps I should mount the antenna properly and check operation again. If I still have the problem. I guess I can try to borrow another transmitter/ receiver combo to see if that clears up the problem. I'm reluctant to start messing around inside my transmitter or receiver.
Yes I did get your E mail ----sorry if it seems that I'm ignoring it. I guess I'm loath to consider major problems with my transmitter. I've made sure that I have extended the aerial all the way during my trials and have been no more than a few feet away from the receiver when running my tests. It is true that I have not attached the antenna wire to the antenna supplied with the kit. I've either had the wire come out of the turret and trail off down the vehicle or I've had the entire receiver outside of the body of the vehicle with the wire trailing off.
The wire is still uncut from the length that it came attached to the receiver. I was thinking that as long as the insulation is intact along the length of the wire that it was OK to let it touch the outside of the body. Perhaps that is not true.
Also you had mentioned the possibility of a bad connection inside the transmitter and I was thinking that that was eliminated because the problem seemed to follow the activation of the steering servo no matter which channel it was plugged into. (not so sure now with the problem of turret rotation )
Electronics is not my forte and so I guess I'm not following as good a procedure as someone with more experience might----but I'm determined to get to the bottom of this and once again am very grateful for all the help that I've been getting from everyone. Perhaps I should mount the antenna properly and check operation again. If I still have the problem. I guess I can try to borrow another transmitter/ receiver combo to see if that clears up the problem. I'm reluctant to start messing around inside my transmitter or receiver.
Lawrence Godson
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Armortek
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Lawrence
From what you say your transmitter and receiver aerial set up sound fine. I would start looking for loose connections, but not in the transmitter at first. Check all the plugs and sockets on your receiver and check the xtals. We have had several cases where the xtal connection to the receiver or transmitter was not reliable. Check also your receiver battery connection. You can bypass the control switch by connecting the battery directly to the receiver, but remember to disconnect after or it will drain. If you are not convinced that the servo is not to blame, just dont plug it in for now, while you do all these tests. If all the above fails remove the receiver from the vehicle and plug in the servos that came with your radio. See how it operates in isolation.
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I am sorry if I sounded critical. I was trying to avoid Lawrence going down the wrong path if possible.
Mark
From what you say your transmitter and receiver aerial set up sound fine. I would start looking for loose connections, but not in the transmitter at first. Check all the plugs and sockets on your receiver and check the xtals. We have had several cases where the xtal connection to the receiver or transmitter was not reliable. Check also your receiver battery connection. You can bypass the control switch by connecting the battery directly to the receiver, but remember to disconnect after or it will drain. If you are not convinced that the servo is not to blame, just dont plug it in for now, while you do all these tests. If all the above fails remove the receiver from the vehicle and plug in the servos that came with your radio. See how it operates in isolation.
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I am sorry if I sounded critical. I was trying to avoid Lawrence going down the wrong path if possible.
Mark
Armortek
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Ad Wouterse
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Hi Larry,
Letting the aerial wire trailing freely along or behind the vehicle is not recommended. In this case the fact that the wire is insulated does not help to prevent radio interference when it bounces around the steel body.
For testing you could use a thin plastic tube as is used on RC racing cars.
This should be mounted upright and the antenna wire should be fed through it and secured at the top with some tape.
This set-up ensures an adequate signal for the receiver.
If this works, you can decide to use the steel antenna, but that has to be insulated from the steel body. We will talk about that when you get there
Whatever you do, don't fiddle with the transmitter and the receiver. There are no servicable parts in there. Mark refers to the plugs and sockets on the receiver. Sometimes you have to adapt the universal plugs used in the kit to fit into the receiver sockets properly. It depends on the brand of radio you are using. When you look at the receiver sockets you may see 2 angled corners on one side of the sockets. The plugs from the servo, battery etc. do not have these corresponding angled corners and may therefore not fit properly. Start by taking good notion of the correct colour sequence (top-center-bottom) of the wires in the plugs. You do not want to adapt the wrong side of the plugs, do you ? Using a sharp hobby knife or a file you can carefully remove the excess material from the plugs The plugs should still fit tightly in the sockets.
Fingers crossed
Letting the aerial wire trailing freely along or behind the vehicle is not recommended. In this case the fact that the wire is insulated does not help to prevent radio interference when it bounces around the steel body.
For testing you could use a thin plastic tube as is used on RC racing cars.
This should be mounted upright and the antenna wire should be fed through it and secured at the top with some tape.
This set-up ensures an adequate signal for the receiver.
If this works, you can decide to use the steel antenna, but that has to be insulated from the steel body. We will talk about that when you get there
Whatever you do, don't fiddle with the transmitter and the receiver. There are no servicable parts in there. Mark refers to the plugs and sockets on the receiver. Sometimes you have to adapt the universal plugs used in the kit to fit into the receiver sockets properly. It depends on the brand of radio you are using. When you look at the receiver sockets you may see 2 angled corners on one side of the sockets. The plugs from the servo, battery etc. do not have these corresponding angled corners and may therefore not fit properly. Start by taking good notion of the correct colour sequence (top-center-bottom) of the wires in the plugs. You do not want to adapt the wrong side of the plugs, do you ? Using a sharp hobby knife or a file you can carefully remove the excess material from the plugs The plugs should still fit tightly in the sockets.
Fingers crossed
Cheers,
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Joerg Schaeffer
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DC/DC converter replace the 4,8V batterry
Hi,
I use a DC/DC converter to replace the 4,8V batterie. The converter pull down the 24V to 4,8V with a high efficiency factor. So it is possible to drive only with the 24V battery. This solution works very fine. I haven't any shut down after the replacement. Unless the 24V battery is flat.
The converter is from Cincon typ EC7B-24S05, a 18 k Ohm trim-resistor, some Phonix connectors and a small PCB. That's all.
Ciao
Jörg
I use a DC/DC converter to replace the 4,8V batterie. The converter pull down the 24V to 4,8V with a high efficiency factor. So it is possible to drive only with the 24V battery. This solution works very fine. I haven't any shut down after the replacement. Unless the 24V battery is flat.
The converter is from Cincon typ EC7B-24S05, a 18 k Ohm trim-resistor, some Phonix connectors and a small PCB. That's all.
Ciao
Jörg
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Lawrence Godson
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- Location: Westchester, suburb of Chicago, USA
Hello to all again. I've been able to spend a bit of time on the 222 again just now and the end may be in sight.
It is now looking like a simple matter of a low Rec. battery that was masked by a freak outage of power during the recharge that I thought I was doing a week or so back.
I recharged the 4.8 V battery again and things seem to be working again. Sorry to have possibly waisted a few people's time on this but I was posting to the forum pretty often so you got to see the whole process of trying to eliminate possibilities as systematically as possible only to have a freak undiscovered happening lead me astray.
Now my local RC shop wants me to use a 5 cell receiver battery which amounts to a bit over 6 volts when fully charged. They insist that the receiver and turret motor and speed controller and servos are made to take this much voltage. Do you all agree?
Thanks
It is now looking like a simple matter of a low Rec. battery that was masked by a freak outage of power during the recharge that I thought I was doing a week or so back.
I recharged the 4.8 V battery again and things seem to be working again. Sorry to have possibly waisted a few people's time on this but I was posting to the forum pretty often so you got to see the whole process of trying to eliminate possibilities as systematically as possible only to have a freak undiscovered happening lead me astray.
Now my local RC shop wants me to use a 5 cell receiver battery which amounts to a bit over 6 volts when fully charged. They insist that the receiver and turret motor and speed controller and servos are made to take this much voltage. Do you all agree?
Thanks
Lawrence Godson
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Ad Wouterse
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Hi Larry,
Good to hear that you are looking at the bright side of life again .
.
Yes for the receiver, the speed controller, the servo and the switchunit for the turret motor (the motor itself runs on 24 Volt).
No for the sound unit. According to the Benedini manual the output voltage from the receiver shold not exceed 5 Volt.
A 3000+ mAh NiMh battery will last for several hours.
Good to hear that you are looking at the bright side of life again
.Yes and noDo you all agree?
. Yes for the receiver, the speed controller, the servo and the switchunit for the turret motor (the motor itself runs on 24 Volt).
No for the sound unit. According to the Benedini manual the output voltage from the receiver shold not exceed 5 Volt.
If you want your receiver battery to last longer go for a 4,8 Volt with a higher capacity than 700 mAh.The max. supply voltage of the receiver must not exceed 5V.
A 4.8V battery or a BEC system is recommended.
DON'T use a 6V battery !
A 3000+ mAh NiMh battery will last for several hours.
Cheers,
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