Originally Posted by TTRotary

Jim says "board will run on anything over 3.7V". That to me means this is absolute minimum voltage, so I don't think you want to power it with 1S Lipo: nominal voltage is too close to this value. 2S LiFe seems perfect, even if it is wasted power from an electrical efficiency standpoint. Jim?

Will be LiFe for me regardless for safety and battery longevity reasons.

I'll be adding a deans connector and will be throwing in 2S lipos... easier for me to charge, have plenty of them around if I need 'em.

You don't want to run a switching regulator in anything that has an RF output. No matter how much filtering you do, you can never get rid of 100% of the harmonics.

The board's power connector is a two pin JST (the red ones). I happened to have a bunch of those setups for my foamies (3DHS of course!)

Originally Posted by JimDrew

The board's power connector is a two pin JST (the red ones). I happened to have a bunch of those setups for my foamies (3DHS of course!)

Perfect, that's what I use. Will this board be user-installed, or do you recommend we send you the radio Jim?

The replacement boards will be just like a PC motherboard... you open up the case, unplug the connections, unscrew the original motherboard, replace it with ours, plug in the connectors, close the case...done! The antenna can be ran through the top or used with a module port.

I don't think anyone is going to need to send in their radio.

Originally Posted by JimDrew

The replacement boards will be just like a PC motherboard... you open up the case, unplug the connections, unscrew the original motherboard, replace it with ours, plug in the connectors, close the case...done! The antenna can be ran through the top or used with a module port.

I don't think anyone is going to need to send in their radio.

Sounds great. When? Oops, didn't mean to say that.

Jim, you said somewhere that the reason you have the standard 2.4 antennae is because no one believed that the 1-inch antennae "hump" actually worked - does that mean that on my module for the 9Z I can remove the 2.4 antennae off the back? I guess a range check would answer that question . . .

I've been trying to understand how a retrofit board can just drop into a case, and have everything fully operational. Different Tx's have varying interfaces, different displays, different numbers of input buttons, may or may not have a touchscreen. How can you account for all the differences without having it feel shoehorned into place?
I hadn't really considered going the retrofit route until the other day when you said you'd just as soon just make boards, and I got thinking how nice an A9 might be...
I'd always figured the programming fit would be best with the case you are using, and doing the major development with.
Thanks!
Dave

Originally Posted by SumthinsFishy

I've been trying to understand how a retrofit board can just drop into a case, and have everything fully operational. Different Tx's have varying interfaces, different displays, different numbers of input buttons, may or may not have a touchscreen. How can you account for all the differences without having it feel shoehorned into place?
I hadn't really considered going the retrofit route until the other day when you said you'd just as soon just make boards, and I got thinking how nice an A9 might be...
I'd always figured the programming fit would be best with the case you are using, and doing the major development with.
Thanks!
Dave

The core stays the same, swap out the interface code for the system. Tx's are still just a collection of switches and pots. The programming should be very similar for the XPS3216, 9C and 9303 (all being click-wheel style), the touch-screen interface change of the A9 would be a little more involved maybe as the screen artifacts change. Ultimately, only Jim knows deep down how modular his code is for the programming parts with respect to display/interaction...

Originally Posted by SumthinsFishy

I've been trying to understand how a retrofit board can just drop into a case, and have everything fully operational. Different Tx's have varying interfaces, different displays, different numbers of input buttons, may or may not have a touchscreen. How can you account for all the differences without having it feel shoehorned into place?

The board needs to be a copy of the original one (shape, connectors etc.), with new logic. Maybe production costs are low enough these days to make this happen. Time will tell

I'm just curious, I've seen the pics of the new transmitter, but haven't used a transmitter with the type of selection buttons for the programming like this one has. Is the 4-way pad to the right of the screen a rotary type selector or is it just a 4-way arrow pad (sorry if I'm not using the correct terminology)?

-Dustin

Originally Posted by j_whitney

Jim, you said somewhere that the reason you have the standard 2.4 antennae is because no one believed that the 1-inch antennae "hump" actually worked - does that mean that on my module for the 9Z I can remove the 2.4 antennae off the back? I guess a range check would answer that question . . .

Last year I forgot to install the antennae on my XPS Hitec Optic 6. I was flying a .25 sized nitro plane and I took off, turned left to crosswind and then left again to down wind staying in the pattern. I then turned to left base and half way before I was going to turn to final the plane dove straight down and crashed. On the way out to pick up the pieces I was trying to figure out what went wrong when I glanced down at the transmitter in my hands and noticed the missing XPS antennae. Mystery solved! Probably, if I had turned the transmitter to one side or the other, I might not have lost signal, but oh well, not the first time I have done a stupid thing in this hobby . Destroyed fuse forward of the wing, but after almost tossing the plane in the trash, I decided to rebuild it and it is now flying again. That is the only time in 3 years of using XPS equipment that I have even had a glitch.

SpadCat

Thanks SpadCat

Originally Posted by JimDrew

The replacement boards will be just like a PC motherboard... you open up the case, unplug the connections, unscrew the original motherboard, replace it with ours, plug in the connectors, close the case...done! The antenna can be ran through the top or used with a module port.

I don't think anyone is going to need to send in their radio.

Great. Can you tell us where you think pricing would fall for this?

Originally Posted by j_whitney

Jim, you said somewhere that the reason you have the standard 2.4 antennae is because no one believed that the 1-inch antennae "hump" actually worked - does that mean that on my module for the 9Z I can remove the 2.4 antennae off the back? I guess a range check would answer that question . . .

NO!! The original modules had a small stubby plastic antenna enclosure. That was replaced with a screw-on type connector. The original stubby antenna is gone on the board, so you MUST use the external connector w/antenna.

Originally Posted by SumthinsFishy

I've been trying to understand how a retrofit board can just drop into a case, and have everything fully operational. Different Tx's have varying interfaces, different displays, different numbers of input buttons, may or may not have a touchscreen. How can you account for all the differences without having it feel shoehorned into place?
I hadn't really considered going the retrofit route until the other day when you said you'd just as soon just make boards, and I got thinking how nice an A9 might be...
I'd always figured the programming fit would be best with the case you are using, and doing the major development with.
Thanks!
Dave

The case doesn't matter. With replacement boards, ALL transmitters would then have the same programming. The interface would be basically the same (based on the display size).