Originally Posted by brushless55

.. only one flight though as I lost signal to a dang Spektrum rx

I just lost a P-47 with retracts in January due to rx lockout... with many expensive planes, I no longer had the confidence to continue using my 11x and made the jump to Futaba...

Originally Posted by bsbauman

I just lost a P-47 with retracts in January due to rx lockout... with many expensive planes, I no longer had the confidence to continue using my 11x and made the jump to Futaba.. .

I may do the same, specially with a high speed plane like this one...

I have over $1k invested into several different planes... no matter that my tx came back from horizon 5 days before the accident with a note saying the radio passes all tests for range, bind, function, power output, etc.

I realize all radios have problems, but I could not convince myself to take up any of my big birds with the 11 after my accident... I am flying the 10chg now with loads of confidence, feel much more connected using the futaba high speed rx's in combination with the digi servos in the SD50 I am at peace now...

Originally Posted by bsbauman

I have over $1k invested into several different planes... no matter that my tx came back from horizon 5 days before the accident with a note saying the radio passes all tests for range, bind, function, power output, etc.

I realize all radios have problems, but I could not convince myself to take up any of my big birds with the 11 after my accident... I am flying the 10chg now with loads of confidence, feel much more connected using the futaba high speed rx's in combination with the digi servos in the SD50 I am at peace now...

I feel ya. Hurts when a plane goes down from lockout.

Its been years since I personally have had an RX lockout. The only lockouts I ever had was with spektrum and it was from a low RX battery brown out. Most of the RX I run are the old AR6000 on my DX7. I found most lockouts from people at my field are due to bad orientation on the dipole antennas, voltage drop from RX batts going bad / low charge or over amping BECs.

Father in law had an Dynam Detrum ESC with built in BEC in an Electrifly F-20 with a BEC that was spotty, so it locked out one day and crashed. He thought it was the RX, so he put the ESC in a new MPX Gemini for maiden. It crashed from a lockout. At that point, we looked at each other and went "oh, that's the problem...".

Originally Posted by brushless55

I had it in a .60 size Cap232 with a 16x8 on 6s and I think it peaked at about 1650watts.. temps were good on it and the power was awesome.. only one flight though as I lost signal to a dang Spektrum rx

Sounds like it will work if you keep the amps down and use throttle management. Let us know if you do it, I wanna see.

Stuped question but what is rx lockout? last month i lost my shoestring running on 5s i was using a 1300kv moter with a casle 10amp bec. 2 min in to my flight i just lost signal and no control and my plane went right in the ground. I did ground testing on that plane befor and i was way below on amps but watts on moter was ok. Is that rx lockout when u just lose the plane cuz of the Rx? Thx

The terms "lockout" and "brownout" are common in DSM conversations; I believe that is due to the sheer numbers of units on the market. This describes what happens when your receiver stops relaying the signal from the transmitter. You can wiggle the sticks all you want, but the control surfaces do not respond.

Many times this happens, but the rx regains the signal before it is even noticeable. If you are flying DSM2 rx's, then they will be flashing if you had a dropped signal.

These can happen for any number of reasons, as stated above the most common causes are from low voltage input to the rx, and also if you have any linkages or servos binding, you can sag the voltage and the rx drops the signal. Less often, but I still feel it happens regularly, it is just unexplainable dropped signal. I have read of a lot of instances where no explanations were found. I have also read many folks that believe it is an issue within the coding of the DSM rx's.... But I have no insight into that.

I am aware of radio installations and how to best possibly position rx's, satellites, and antennas; regardless, mine lost signal. I checked the wreckage and put volt meters on everything, even hooked up a watt meter between an Rx battery and rx, checked the flight battery I was using, and used just about every measurement device I have to check all my equipment. Everything checks out okay from the wrecked electronics Problem had to be in the rx.

Anyway, that crash resulted in 3 weeks of testing equipment, 1 week to sell JR 11x DSMX, 2 weeks waiting on Futaba 10CHG, and about 3 days to program my first model... not quite as intuitive as the JR/Spektrum but I am getting the hang of it.

After all that, I am glad to say I am confident enough in my futaba to be flying the big, the expensive, and the projects I put a lot of hours into (like my nightflyer). Prior to the new radio, I did not have the confidence to fly anything with the 11x, so I am happy to be flying again.




The last weekend I had the SD out again and she is slicker than goose sh.!t I love the pucker factor I get from this one

I have personally witness a few "lockouts" Last year at out clubs Big Bird Fly....there were two LARGE 3D planes that both lost signal approx the exact same spot of the field within a few hours of each other. One locked back on about 6 feet from the ground and levelled it out enough to pancake it in....only wrecked his landing gear and gear block. The other was a total loss. Both were on JR 2.4. Not sure what model radio...but both were well seasoned pilots, and aircraft that have flown quite often. My stepdad had lost 3 planes last year with his DX7 to suspected lock outs. Each time was the same general area of the field (not the same end as the big 3D planes)...first we thought it was poor placement of the antenna's. Second coincidence and the third was too much of a pattern. Each time...he was in a shallow dive, and everything shut off. No motor, servos...anything. He was running a separate 2000mAh 6V receiver pack with standard Futaba S-148 servos so nothing with HUGE amp draw. After wreckage was picked up...everything worked fine again. We now run 72mhz and have not had a problem since. We are using JR 7102 Synthesized and love them.

Originally Posted by mattyhawk

Sounds like it will work if you keep the amps down and use throttle management. Let us know if you do it, I wanna see.

I will for sure
I had forgotten that I have this plane still setting in the box for the past year until I saw this thread a few days ago!

Question for another project.

For those running a lipo / regulator setup in your sundowner, what capacity are you running? I was thinking of a 750-1300mah 2s, but the plane it's going in will have more servos. The plane is already on the heavy side and since its a Cap 60 size, weight matters. I want to run a 2s 500mah, but I think the pack may need to be charged every other flight. I would rather stay between 750mah to 1000mah

Thoughts?

Originally Posted by mattyhawk

Question for another project.

For those running a lipo / regulator setup in your sundowner, what capacity are you running? I was thinking of a 750-1300mah 2s, but the plane it's going in will have more servos. The plane is already on the heavy side and since its a Cap 60 size, weight matters. I want to run a 2s 500mah, but I think the pack may need to be charged every other flight. I would rather stay between 750mah to 1000mah

Thoughts?

I am using a 800mah life 6.6v hyperion and it last me 6 flights

Good to know, thx!

I am not using a reg and separate battery on the SD, but on a similar plane I use 1300mah 2s nanos and it will last about 8 flights.

Many Spektrum lockouts are/were due to low voltage from BEC. I believe some crashes are blamed on the radio that are not it's fault. I decided to test a couple BEC's and some of my rx batteries by hooking them up to a CBA II. Some dropped voltage so low under load that I would be crazy to fly with them.
BTW, I had a lockout once and it turned out to be the BEC's fault. I was lucky enough to get control back before it crashed.