Spartan vortex rx changes and ex failsafes

[dw45]

I was finding the same kind of sat changes but not as bad as your having, 51 in a flight, I was using DSM2 sats, I thought one was playing up so swapped to DSMX and now rarely get any changes, I also am running a align 2in1. just another idea for you to consider.

David

[Danwild]

Thanks dw45 are you using dsmx Sats with a dsm2 tx

[dw45]

Yes as they are backward compatible, I am using a JR dx9 tx.

[Danwild]

I've got the same tx how many ex changes are you getting now that you have changed to dsmx

[dw45]

last time 2, still setting up my srimok so happy now with the set up so now consentrating on vibration side but looking good.

[Danwild]

Thanks mate will have alook into it

[sutty]

Hi Dan

That took me by surprise Dan, Adlington. I thought how odd, 10 minutes down the road from me, nr Chorley, but no, there is another one in Cheshire, who'd a thought it. Not me. Close to Woodford, suprised they let you fly there. Or did you only get that field after they closed it? Not sure if there is any air traffic there now or not?

Anyway, I was just pondering further the amount of switches as a function of the type of flight. For example, if you were a good close up 3D pilot, or at least your friend was, then one might expect it to swap fairly infrequently, as even if the sat was on the other side it may well be near enough for the signal to remain adequate for communication. I fly like this sometimes, but right now I am learning piro everything, lol. I am almost none stop pirouetting around the sky, including doing large open piro circuits. In this case I could imagine that if one sat were being screened each time around, on the far side of my circuits, where the range was quite large as well, I can imagine with the combination of screening and range it would almost certainly make it switch. If this were the case I would get hundreds of switches per flight, yet this would be almost expected.

Sadly I can't actually tell you because I am flying with a full size receiver and sat, not two sats, but if I ever change I will look up this thread and add in the details of my switches for a flight like that.

Cheers

Sutty

[dna001]

Originally Posted by sutty

Sadly I can't actually tell you because I am flying with a full size receiver and sat, not two sats, but if I ever change I will look up this thread and add in the details of my switches for a flight like that.

Sutty

Hi
That would be interesting.
I do no that if the BEC is the problem you can get the sats to change with the Tx and heli in the same room, no need to do it in flight, thats how i found out what my problem was. I tried two ESC's with 5a BEC, one the sats would keep swapping and the other the servos would stall as well, and both the ESC worked ok on the aligh 3gx and a beastx an ebar and a tarot xyz, just will not work with the vortex, the vortex seams to have more controll over the servos and works the servos harder.
Anyway I cant test anything at the moment as I am sat in a hotel room on holiday in crete, god I wish I had a heli with me :-)

[Bob O]

Well, not sure if this helps any, but I checked the Flight Log when I got done in swash setup after replacing some servo gears.

When I first checked it, there were 9 Rx changes. This was after about 10 minutes. I'm running a 2-satellite setup, with the Vortex as the receiver. While looking at the DataPod and moving the heli around a little, I saw the number change to 10. While holding the heli still and looking at the DataPod, the number changed to 11. I then proceeded to rotate the heli around, forcing one satellite to face the transmitter, then the other, but there were no Rx changes. When I put the heli on the table and prepared to exit the Flight Log screen, the number changed to 12.

Not sure if that helps with this discussion, just figured I'd post what I saw this morning. Maybe the Rx changes don't mean a whole lot. There were no Rx drops though.

[sutty]

I imagine it doesn't, which is why I described doing almost constant piro flight, to ponder how that might affect it. Imagine this for a scenario though. One sat is in a really good position, and gets fairly decent reception nealry all of the time, but the other one is in a terrible position, and is nearly always in a worse reception state than the other one. On all of the rare occasions where the signal becomes poor enough on sat 1 to invoke a switch, when it checks with sat 2 it finds out that it is worse state. In a case like this I could imagine that there would be hardly any switches, yet your helicopter would be far more vulnerable to complete drop out due to the poor placement of one of the sats. So in a case like this, no swaps would actually be really bad. Maybe if they swap then they are doing their job and that is good?

Just thinking out loud.

Cheers

Sutty

[Angelos]

The number if sat changes is somewhat important. Every time a change is counted it means that the heli didn't receive one update of your stick positions. However it is very difficult to quantify what is good and what is bad. Just having another 1-2 transmitters switched on at the same time could make significant difference. Also if your wifi is working in the house and your are bench testing it could potentially create a sat change every now and then.

What sutty suggested is also very true. I see many people doing poor placement of the sats on the side of the frames where the signal can get very easily masked by the frame. If you are pirouetting like that it can potentially create 2 sat changes per piro.

Also there was an email sent out by Spektrum today to DX18 users saying that there is an update that improves RF performance. Coincidentally I was talking to someone last Wednesday who said he didn't trust his DX18 because his large plane lost control for a couple of seconds whist using it. Such prolonged loss of signal would result to the VX1 counting several sat changes as it will keep switching between the two sats continuously until it finds a sat that provides data. Obviously the failsafe will trigger too.

-Angelos

[Danwild]

Hi BobO i was getting about the same when messing about with it on the table in the same sort of time frame, i would be interested to see what you get in a 12 min flight so i can compare notes, if you could note this down the next time your out and post it for me to have a look at that would be great

Regards

Dan Wild

[Bob O]

Dan,

I did several 4-minute 3D flights today, one I checked on showed 83 Rx changes. No drops or anything else.

[Danwild]

Thanks BobO that prob the same as what my 3d friend was getting, since moving the sats I've had no rx fails so touch wood that has solved it. I still might upgrade to the cv bec pro just for peace of mind but love the align glow feature so it will be hard

[dna001]

Hi, I found this interesting :-)

http://www.archeli.com.au/forums/sho...d.php?t=136223

[Danwild]

Thanks Dna some good info i will look into the active ariel in the morning, ive also update to dsmx as i was told that the spartan has issues on v1.20 with dsm2 sats ive now upgraded to v2 and changes to dsmx sats just to be on the safe side, the only thing left is to change align 2 in 1 to cc bed 20a version and loose my glow feature

[Bob O]

I've been running dual DSM2 sats from the start without issue.
I just bought a Futaba radio though and we'll see how she goes!

Sent from my phone

[Danwild]

Thanks Bob o for info it was just something i was told with regards to rx changes issue on v1.20

[Angelos]

Originally Posted by Danwild

[...] i was told that the spartan has issues on v1.20 with dsm2 sats [...]

There are no issues with the v1.20 or any other version. The only problem is the sats themselves or their installation. When the sat doesn't provide data (due to loosing link with the radio) the Vortex changes over to the other one hoping for better luck. Every change is counted.

The only think the Vortex is guilty of is telling you how poorly the radio system is operating.

-Angelos

[Danwild]

Angelos

I'm not slagging of the spartan in anyway I'm a big fan it was just what someone said and wanted to clear up my problem as I have near enough the same set up as others at my club and they don't seem to have any issues with the spartan on dsm2 on v1.2. Hope this clears that up

Dan Wild