Originally Posted by Swen

As Fred said, with shipping options the customer make the choice and click the box where he takes full responsibility in case of any loss what-so-ever. It is then his choice to risk losing on his expense a $250 or whatever amount order if he clicks the indemnity box.

it's a cool idea, but doesn't actually work when the chips are down... I've seen the blow-ups on RCGroups over this exact thing, where people selected the cheapest option but still demanded replacements when it went missing, saying that they expected the service and that it was up to the vendor to make it right. It's my guess that Jim has been through this same issue and this is what set his policy.

...it's the few completely unreasonable people who spoil it for everyone else.

I've helped a few vendors out with customer support... and those few unreasonable customers, regardless of how good the product is, are completely demoralising and depressing to deal with...

During the first year of business, we "lost" about 50% of the packages going to Europe. Now, I am sure that some were really lost - but nowhere near what we were seeing. So, we adopted the policy that everything had to be tracked. It's the same policy we have in the U.S.

Well, what's the latest on the Channel Expander? I have some Nanos and would order some more if I could get the expanders all in the one delivery. Are these still coming? I don't see them on the products page at XPS?

Thanks

G

Originally Posted by garrykeogh

Well, what's the latest on the Channel Expander? I have some Nanos and would order some more if I could get the expanders all in the one delivery. Are these still coming? I don't see them on the products page at XPS?

Thanks

G

They will be here alongside the transmitters.......

Yes, they are still in the pipeline.

Originally Posted by JimDrew

I will need some feed back from you guys on what I should build for a big expander. I like the nice little compact version that I showed in some pics, but I really would like to make it look more like a typical power expander, with a double-stacked PCB and stand offs and make it a bit like the 16 channel receiver I have shown where there are pins front, sides, and rear. The Nano will then become a satellite receiver, with only a single wire necessary. You can put the Nano at the top of your rudder (inside) and run a long servo extension to the power expander board. That eliminates having the Nano around any wires. At that point, you plug your servos in just like you would a regular power expander, and power it with the heavy input leads. Ah... I guess I just start a new thread about this!

Of the things that are out there... I'm unsure that form factor is all that important. Vertical pins are more common, but most of them provide nice mounting holes. the simplest is the servo power board from ServoCity, and that can make a very nice and easy setup, and that's just a bank of pins with a second bank going up to the receiver.

In short, I think that what you pictured previous would be great, it's small size means it could fit into smaller places... but then again I can also imagine something like this also being cool...




but, of the feature list...
- will need somewhere handy to solder some serious wires for plugging in some more serious wires. the giant scale dudes will appreciate larger soldering taps than needed just cuz size matters to them...
- the mounting holes, smaller holes would be fine, but having the area around them be open enough to allow drilling out to add grommets... or simply have grommets for the gas engine crowd
- auto-matching of servos will sell these things faster than you can imagine for the giant scale

pin count... 10 channels would get the 80 of the 80/20... 16 takes care of everyone. if it's easy to have two of these working off the same Nano, could probably even bump it down to 8 or 9 channels... at the price point mentioned previously, none of these scenarios seem like much of a problem. 8-10 pins, two mounted side by side, the ability to output from Futaba's s-bus signal or Spek satellites, the only scenario I can think of is that this is going to be crazy popular.

The channel expander as described sounds like an awesome idea, and would be well worth the cost.

could even have two plugs up the signal end that could jump the signal over to a second expander....





...the power taps closest to each other could also be soldered to the other expander, so one pack plugs into one expander, one pack into the other... still has connection if one pack goes belly up.

but even just as you pictured on page 2, I can't wait...

If you are going to have autotrim, I think the way it should work is; you press a button and the trim is adjusted to the value indicated by the stick position when the sticks are returned to their relaxed position. Its been a long time since I have programmed in assembly, but it seems to me that could be done. It just depends on the capability of the instruction set of the chip you are working with.
I understand the Ace autotrim does not work that way.

Dirtybird, wrong thread! But, that is how my autotrim works.

theKM, I know the auto-match feature is something that you want and it has to be done in a form factor the size you are showing (big by comparison to a normal size receiver).

The power wires (1 foot long) will come already soldered. I was planning on having 12awg wires. Maybe I should just make 1/2" x 1/2" tabs that can be soldered easily instead?

I want a smaller type expander that resembles a receiver as well. Perhaps a few different options, but I want something quickly. The new Nanos will be coded so that they already have the new expander output. I added it to option for selecting either PWM or PPM outputs for the pins. Now you can have PWM, PPM, or XPS. XPS = super fast entire 16 channel packets. We get as many groups of 16 channels as we like with how the system is encoded, this is why making a transmitter with 32 or more channels is pretty easy - you just add another packet.

Oh, one other thing. You can drive as many of the expander boards as you like with a single Nano, using a Y type harness.

all sounds great.

12awg doesn't seem excessive... but my guess would be that easily solder taps wouldn't pose a problem for people. There would be no other matching/related product that amount of wire for the 12awg though. Wolverine switches have two deans plugs with 16awg wire on them (if one selects the Deans option), and a depressing amount of switches (Booma RC, etc) with heavy servo wire of 20/22awg. I know you hate switches and regulators, but people will be using them. Taps may be the low bar for a good easier-nicer-cheaper ratio. I like the shunt style plug switches, currently wiring them up with 14awg...

...with the nekkid/rx-sized expander, that will take care of smaller planes that will be happy with the 20awg wires coming out of BECPro's and such.

You won't need a regulator as this has one built in (500mA), and the Nano needs about 20mA max. You could use 2.5v to 25v for the input, but that voltage gets passed to the servos. I think pads are the way to go. I will just fill them full of vias (through holes) to prevent copper delamination. I will also use 2oz double pour (top/bottom) for power and ground to the servo pins.

Now, the question is, how many outputs per channel. I guess with the Nano, since you can do all of the servo reversing/matching in it I would only need a single output for each channel. Thoughts?