Initial thoughts on the Jeti DS-16

[Bonkievan]

Originally Posted by Grok

Great review. Perhaps I will be reconsidering the purchase of a 14SG later this year.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

I'm in the same 'boat' as you, Grok.
I was considering the 14sg also, along with the DX18.

The Jeti is nearly twice the price of the SG but light years ahead(even the MZ), according to mkovalcson's review.

This has made my next Tx purchase all the more difficult now

[Rudy]

So for a normal FBL unit which receiver would you used, and how many wires run between the two?

Thanks

[mkovalcson]

Originally Posted by Rudy

So for a normal FBL unit which receiver would you used, and how many wires run between the two?

Thanks

One servo wire.

The Jeti uses PPM for serial communications. They have a 20ms and 10ms frame rate. This is similar to Futaba's serial S.Bus and JR's new X.Bus receivers

You can use any EX receiver from 4 channels all the way up because the digital stream of data doesn't depend on the number of ports.

The R7 and larger use a plastic enclosure and that's what I got because I like the look of the package.

The R6 and smaller are lighter and in a shrink wraped package.

For telemetry like I'm using you need an ext. port and I believe they are available on the R6 on up.

So I would recommend either an EX R6 or an EX R7 for most people.

plus a spare for a simstick

[ROGER G]

Would love to get one. The one feature above all that I like is that you can rotate the gimbals to your preference. Looks like a great radio.

[dominoedge]

Originally Posted by mkovalcson

plus a spare for a simstick

Does it work with Phoenix?

[Grok]

Originally Posted by mkovalcson

One servo wire.

The Jeti uses PPM for serial communications. They have a 20ms and 10ms frame rate. This is similar to Futaba's serial S.Bus and JR's new X.Bus receivers.

So.... Which FBL units are compatible with Jeti's comm scheme?

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

[Jotto]

Originally Posted by dominoedge

Does it work with Phoenix?

Yes!

[RogerRabit]

Originally Posted by Bonkievan

The Jeti is nearly twice the price of the SG but light years ahead(even the MZ), according to mkovalcson's review.

I disagree.

I have the T18MZ and a buddy has the Jeti.
The jeti has a nice anodized aluminium finish.

Programming and setup of the T18MZ fits me more.
The very big letters in the Telemetry display are readable without reading glasses on the T18MZ (ok you do not need that, you can have it talk to you..)
The T18MZ fits perfect in your hand.
The touchscreen and menue is clear and easy and FUTABA style.
On cold days the rubber on the sides does not feel as cold as aluminium.
The Jeti "boxed style" housing is not lying good in the hand while thumbing for my feeling.
The positions of the switches are "more at the fingers"
For pinching it is ok on the jeti.

From the gimbals i do not feel any real difference. I tried pinching and thumbing.
The 18MZ gimbals are perfect. The Jeti gimbals are perfect too.
How long will they last?
They lastet 13 years on my Futaba FC28, i do not have a doubt that a company producing industrial control equippment can make lasting potentiometers like they did for tens of years.

We produce industrial equippment and the most thing what fails is not potentiometers but connectors.
Jeti has to show some long time experience on the TX´s, it is their first one.

The side regulators are better on the Jeti and harder on the MZ. It seems a different philosophy there.
They are double on the MZ, i like that a lot.
I like the one which you can turn from the upside and from below.

Very good is the free programmable 3 potis which can be tucked away with a press to adjust things like idle, e.g.
The jeti concept on that is not as sophisticated or my buddy did not program it well.

The working together with servos and FBL and sensors and telemetry is a piece of cake with the FUTABA.
You feel their tens of years of experience and the fact that they are market leader.
So everyone is compatibel with their s-bus and s-bus2 protocols.

Do not get me wrong, but i think the jeti is more blinked out and the futaba is more advanced.
They got late in the telemetry game so they had the advantage of doing it carefully

But on a scale 1-10 they are both in the 7-10 area depending on your own preferences.

[mkovalcson]

Roger,

The 18MZ is an impressive peice of hardware and there is a lot of technology in it, and it is a very refined looking piece of equipment.

You made the comment that Jeti had more time to do telemetry carefully out because they waited longer, but Jeti has actually had Telemetry a lot longer than Futaba and has a very full range of telemetry devices to support their full range of Duplex recievers. They have had a Profi Box that has allowed people to replace the transmitter section of their Futaba and other transmitters to work with these Duplex recievers and allow telemetry at least outside the US. Jeti also has an open standard for telemetry, where Futaba and JR have kept theirs proprietary and arrived later to the game.

With regard to seeing telemetry, the Jeti does allow you to double the size of your telemetry values if you want to make them very visible, I'm not at the moment, but more importantly the DS-16 places the information at the top of the transmitter where
it is easier to see especially if you tilt your TX away from you like I do.

I really love my no-neck harness and have been using it for a long time, but notice how the strap would cover up the telemetry values of transmitter with the display at the bottom. Granted I flip a switch to have my most important values read back to me, but, I have my telemetry in logical paged groups if I did want to see them.



I'm not suggesting that the 18MZ has bad gimbals, but they are plastic and do not rotate like the Jeti's. I agree that most of us are highly unlikely to wear out the pots on a high quality transmitter, and to be fair both the Jeti and 18MZ have 4096 point gimbal sensors which is far more than adequate.

There is no way that I am calling the 18MZ a bad transmitter. For a typical price of $3,000 with a reciever or two, it is definitely a preminum transmitter if there ever was one.

However I believe the Jeti has a lot more meat to it.

For example Jeti uses 2 separate transmitters that each have 2 dedicated antenna. These antenna are not flopping around on the outside of the transmitter so they can't break off. I think this gives it a very clean look and is one less mechanical failure point. I know people occassionally have broken these off.

The Jeti is switching between those two internal transmitters and using the strongest signal continually while you are flying. In addition it allows for a wireless buddy box. In addition it allows you to separately bind to TWO separate recievers and divvy up which controls go to which reciever. That is a a chunk of extra electronics and capabilities that the Futaba 18MZ does not have.

The Futaba's touch sensitive color Windows CE display is a very nice addition, and I believe their investment in this will eventually pay off. However I think that right now Futaba is cutting their teeth on getting payback from the investment they have in that and it has added a lot of cost to the 18MZ without creating a lot of benefit.

[Bonkievan]

Sorry, Roger.

Probably the wrong wording on my part. I should have said "because the Mz is twice the price, is it twice as good as the Jeti? And not "The Jeti is light years ahead". Apologies.

The Mz looks like a wonderful piece of kit (I'd have one and I find the Mz more aesthetically pleasing) but its hard to compare both when there is such a huge price difference, imo. One is half the price of the other and both are competing in the same high end class for customers......

[mkovalcson]

I didn't write this to slam the Futaba 18MZ.
Until the Jeti DS-16 was released, I would have considered the 18MZ the undisputed high end transmitter.

However that very title is why I focused my comparison with it.

More importantly, when the 18MZ was released I looked it and I assumed that I would eventually end up with a Futaba. However, I felt like the 18MZ was more of a test vehicle for a lot of new technology that it hadn't really leveraged yet and I was waiting for it to mature and give me more features I wanted. I didn't find it compelling enough to bother changing systems.

When I saw the Jeti was coming to the US, I felt compelled to jump in line and pre-order one. It had too much content and features that I really wanted to use and a great lineup of devices that supported it.

The voice telemetry is HUGE! I would call it one of the kill app features of the transmitter.

The Futaba already has some voice capabilities, but with a lot of restrictions like 3 second max playback, no verbal telemetry. You can move the switches, but you don't have the variety of switches available for the Jeti. With the Jeti you can put knobs, buttons and switches at the end of the sticks if you want them. Futaba has telemetry but not a full line of ESC's that will just plug in and numberous other telemetry devices and a full line of recievers. Futaba has ONE.

The comparisons go on and on this way.

The fact that the 18MZ is twice the cost is just nails in the coffin.

[Solmanbandit]

The Jeti "boxed style" housing is not lying good in the hand while thumbing for my feeling.

From looking at it, that is what I figured. It looks good for pinching, but not thumbs.

[mkovalcson]

I'll be the last one to tell anyone else what is comfortable in their hands.

The DS-16 has comfortable hand grips and thumbing feels fine to me. I purchased mine site unseen, but I would recommend that anyone feel how a transmitter feels in their hands before getting one.

I will make one comment about the hand grips. They are removable. What that means to me is that there could be different size grips installed or that the people out there with good wood working skills could literally create a bolt up compatible palm and finger grip for it. Just sayin.

For that matter the flat top surface lends itself really well to accepting a custom skin.

[mkovalcson]

They come right off with just two screws.

You could literally boltup anything that fit your hand like a glove.

[abanihani]

Mark, you did an outstanding review of this futurestic transmitter and i admire you for that but my thoughts so far on it is that we can't compare apple and oranges, I personally have the 18 mz and love it. The DS-16 looks outstanding and very impressive with alot of capabalities. The only negative side so far is that it has not been in the market that long, one or two years is not enough to judge in their product. Things may look great in the outside to discover later there are a huge problems. No one can argue about Futaba reputation, they have been in the industry before most of us are born and their system is meticulously tested. As a thumber i have concerns about the fit of the DS-16 from what i saw in the photos. If more people have their hands on it then we will know for sure how it performs but unfortunately the price is steep that only few will own. Nontheless i can't wait to see this Tx at IRCHA and have a feel of it

[abanihani]

One more thing, I think the plateform for the 18 mz using windows may open alot of options for futaba to improve their product in the future and keep in pace with telemetry. Again, the outrageous price on the futaba 18 Mz means less people to buy, means less interest in utilizing the plateform as it may not be cost worthy for investment

[DaveHolland]

Originally Posted by abanihani

Again, the outrageous price on the futaba 18 Mz means less people to buy, means less interest in utilizing the plateform as it may not be cost worthy for investment

Thats pretty much how I feel about any radio over $600. Another reason why Spektrum will continue to take the market and why in cell phones, Android now owns the market. The highest end products are not the market and are niche. The main body of consumers will buy products in the mid grade, which these companies do not fill.

[mkovalcson]

Originally Posted by abanihani

One more thing, I think the plateform for the 18 mz using windows may open alot of options for futaba to improve their product in the future and keep in pace with telemetry. Again, the outrageous price on the futaba 18 Mz means less people to buy, means less interest in utilizing the plateform as it may not be cost worthy for investment

I absolutely agree that Futaba has a LOT of potential to leverage what they have. For all I know the only thing keeping your 18MZ from reading back telemetry is a software upgrade. It looks like all the hooks are in there.

There is also no arguing that Futaba has been an extremely solid and reliable company for many years producing some great equipment and that Jeti is new to the show. Infact the design still wasn't quite finalized when I preordered mine.

I agree that the 18MZ's price will make it hard for Futaba to have any economies of scale with it. For all we know they invested so much time and effort into it that they have lost money on it to date and that they purposefully created it at this price point just to test all their new technology out without having a huge base to support.

The really important thing here is that we ALL benefit from competition. I fully expect that the DS-16 will cause waves that will improve products by other companies.

So we all win indirectly no matter what we use!

[mkovalcson]

Originally Posted by destroyerbmx

Thats pretty much how I feel about any radio over $600. Another reason why Spektrum will continue to take the market and why in cell phones, Android now owns the market. The highest end products are not the market and are niche. The main body of consumers will buy products in the mid grade, which these companies do not fill.

I am not telling everyone to rush out and get a DS-16.

Jeti has raised the bar and added a lot of really cool features that I believe most people would love to have.

What this does is good for everyone.

1. Create new features that people really want.
2. Sensitize people to these new features.
3. Generate Pent up demand.

Suddenly Futaba, JR and Spektrum are in a battle to make as many of these cool features as they can inexpensive enough to bring them down market where the volumes are.

You don't expect a $600 TX to have a solid billet aluminum chassis, but if voice telmetry can be easily put on a chip and only adds $20 to the price of a transmitter. They bump the price by $100 because of this feature and sell a pile of them, because there is pent up demand while making more profit.

Everyone wins!

[DaveHolland]

Originally Posted by mkovalcson

I am not telling everyone to rush out and get a DS-16.

Jeti has raised the bar and added a lot of really cool features that I believe most people would love to have.

What this does is good for everyone.

1. Create new features that people really want.
2. Sensitize people to these new features.
3. Generate Pent up demand.

Suddenly Futaba, JR and Spektrum are in a battle to make as many of these cool features as they can inexpensive enough to bring them down market where the volumes are.

You don't expect a $600 TX to have a solid billet aluminum chassis, but if voice telmetry can be easily put on a chip and only adds $20 to the price of a transmitter. They bump the price by $100 because of this feature and sell a pile of them, because there is pent up demand while making more profit.

Everyone wins!

I really wouldnt mind getting their TX, I have nothing against it, but I would rather put my money into flying a heli than just controlling one differently. For the price of the ds-16 I could get a Logo XXtreme.