Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length.

[Bluebird v2]

Ive dug this out for FLJ to seek revenge for making me feel old somewhere I have a full article of how to build one of these 'old fashioned transmitter/receivers' like the one photographed below - mmmmmm is this guy related to FLJ? who knows 

aye
john
bluebird

[JayDee]

Hello,
 I have Sailed/Flown on the 459 Mhz band for 11 years, in all that time I have never had to stop enjoying myself because someone else required my frequency.
Never once had a Frequency Peg issued to me.
Sailed at all of the Ellesmere Port Events - - - ALL DAY !! each time, no problems, apart from envious boaters who wondered how I was able to do it !.

The UHF 459 Band is perfectly legal, but is greatly under used, almost to the point of if we dont use it, we may loose it!.
My TX was made by World Engines, to my design, all the switches etc were where I wanted them, they are all "locking switches".
They have to be lifted up slightly to move them, no accidental errors with my switches.
Servo reverse on all 7 channels, built in Mixer and Rates, 7 inch long TX aerial, short RX aerial.

After 11 years of owning this Set, the only one on the market, worthy of a swap, to me is one of the new 2.4Gig sets, UHF again,
 and no interferance.

John.     

[Ghost in the shell]

it probably isnt that much bigger than ther dx6

[bigH]

   PLEASE guys, give us ignorant, unintelligent, old and baffled by techno speak, a break.   All I want is an outfit that will do what I tell it when I press the button, pull / push the lever....     we aint no teccy brains, I have only just mastered the light switch   :laugh:   :laugh:   :laugh:

[Martin (Admin)]

That's all I want too BigH..... just lots and lots of buttons!
They don't need to do anything, just look impressive! 

[DickyD]

Ive dug this out for FLJ to seek revenge for making me feel old somewhere I have a full article of how to build one of these 'old fashioned transmitter/receivers' like the one photographed below - mmmmmm is this guy related to FLJ? who knows 

aye
john
bluebird

Whilst risking more complaints about my irrelevant postings, just how old are you John ?? [Model Engineer 1959]

[Bluebird v2]

eeeeeeeeee I was wondering why they wanted an MRI scan of me brain last week - now I know Dicky, its to count the rings to tell me age.....and what this has to do with radio controls I havent a clue.....erm what was the topic again Martin. 

aye
John E
Bluebird  :)

[bigH]

   Away to go Martin, and don't forget the disco lights as well

[Ghost in the shell]

Ive dug this out for FLJ to seek revenge for making me feel old somewhere I have a full article of how to build one of these 'old fashioned transmitter/receivers' like the one photographed below - mmmmmm is this guy related to FLJ? who knows 

aye
john
bluebird

Whilst risking more complaints about my irrelevant postings, just how old are you John ?? [Model Engineer 1959]

JD INVENTED radio control i think with the bluenose! its been around for melenia lol.

[Martin (Admin)]

"LED Disco Lights!" .... Now there's an idea!   

I remember in a very old American magazine that some of the 'fly boys' had built an aeroplane transmitter into a revolving seat, which had a proper joystick and foot pedals to fly the model plane! 

[OMK]

That's all I want too BigH..... just lots and lots of buttons!

Me too.
An earlier home-made Tx of mine employed:

1 x dual-axis gimbal (steering / throttle).
1 x miniture dual-axis gimbal (robbed from one of those Gameboy units).
1 x pushbutton switch (the one on the Gameboy gimbal).
2 x 3-position toggle switches.
2 x rotary pots.

Add those numbers and it comes to nine channels.
Then add a plethora of switches and pots' for dual-rates, servo reverse, etc., makes for a real fun radio.

[Kmot]

The shape of things to come:

http://www.modelrectifier.com/resources/flightsim/iVol%20Handout.pdf

Actually, it is available now.

[wombat]

As I understand Fleet went out of business because of the burden of getting their equpiment through the testing for CE marking.....But now we are at an interesting phase of the market.......

Essentially, IMHO, 27MHz and 40MHz are dead - walk away and leave it to the Far Eastern RTRs. I think the big thrust will be on 2.4GHz of various flavours, backed onto the growth of WiFi. But we are at an interesting phase, reminiscent of the early days of the RC market. You can get type approved (and therefore legal) radio modules in a whole set of flavours - 802.11B/G, ZigBee, Bluetooth, ISM etc etc. It means that hobbyists can concievably build their own customised sets that do what they want. May not be cheaper than basic sets but if you want anything out of the ordinary, certainly possible to build sets.

It may not be a business proposition, but neither was Linux at first - custom designs built in a community seems a real possibility to me - build your own. The price point for it to be cheaper than commercial I am not sure, but I suspect it is when you get past six functions or you need things like multiple channels, switchers, extra proportional channels.

A hard part is the control sticks, but I'm sure it is not beyond the wit of the members of the board to come up with some ideas....

Wom

[Tom Eccles]

This is wonderful stuff! sadly I am hardly understanding a word of it.

BUT, and it is a sincere BUT - In view of the interest this thread has raised it would seem that even the intelligent, knowledgeable and experienced among us agree that what the manufacturers are offering is not what the market wants.

Now, wouldn't it be nice if someone very close to Mr Futaba is reading this and decide that we as a forum are worth listening to?............

Clegg

[Colin Bishop]

I think that, as already pointed out, the manufacturers are catering for the aircraft market. In comparison the boating market comes almost nowhere. Fleet were responsive to boating needs but the bureaucracy was too much for them. Don't expect changes anytime soon.

[Bartapuss]

Maybe an easy starting point for manufacturer's would be to dump all the stuff related to planes on their "so called" boat sets and replace them with channels controlled by switches and knobs and make available a simple relay unit which would plug into the corresponding "switch controlled channel"  like a servo, so you could plug in a servo that goes full one way then centre then full the other way as some do now or plug in the relay unit to give you on/centre off /on. FLJ does a such a unit I think. If you ditched the dual rates and trainer switch etc, then you could easily have say three switches and two proportional knobs on a standard set layout without having to go to the expense of redesign the case.

[Ghost in the shell]

having the dual rates is handy, as if you get the 7th model on a 6model set, you could set things up for the dual rates to work the EPA on the 7th model. 

[Telstar]

Hi
 I have ,like Jay Dee, a 459MHz RC set and although it is now getting a bit past its best I am very reluctant to stop using it.  With a TX aerial 7cm (3in) long positioned so that with the Transmitter on the neck strap the aerial is pointed about 30deg up from horizontal I don't have any problems with people walking into the aerial. (some people don't look where their going)
With a Rx aerial just 15cm (6in) its easy to mount on virtually any model.
Made before all singing and dancing electronic it only has adjustable throw on some of the channels, not much of a disadvantage.
Marketed by Ripmax it originally used Futaba M series servos and the plug in RX aerial with coax feeder was useful with the remote mounted antenna and feeder being left in each model while the RX was unplugged and moved (no problem about cutting aerial to fit)
I believe the lack of any modern equipment on this UHF band is due to this being a legal frequency in UK only

Cheers Tom

[kenthompson]

it appears that we want to control all our boat of one transmiter, surely the trannies are cheap enough to buy a couple ,  before long we will need a transmiter as big as a shoe box, full of switches and twiddly things, then we have to remember which setting it is for a particular boat, or perhaps we can include that into our box, a memery list for which model it is we are going to sail today.It is not that long ago that a motor car, if it went wrong, we could put it up on ramps and sort it out ourself, not any more, if it goes wrong now its a garage job, gone are the days when you had a few wires in an electrical loom, now days its a birds nest.Lets keep it simple and improve on the quality of our hobby.  All the best Ken..

[Bartapuss]

Ken, There are plenty of simple sets out ther hence the name of this thread "Theoretical Transmitter design" if all you want is a simple design ie rudder/throttle then stick with a 2 channel set , but for some of us who want to add extra dimensions to our models and we need something that the market is not suppling at the moment unless your a plane fanatic. Surely the point of this thread is to allow us our flight of fancy so to speak. A simple way of switching something on & off without using a servo & microswitches is not too much to ask, is it.

[malcolmfrary]

Looking at previous posts, the usual thing is apparrent.  We are individuals and have individual wants.  Perhaps we actually need a basic transmitter that can have a customisable accessory box clipped to the back for the individual arrangements that we want. 
It would probably cost an arm and a leg.........

[FullLeatherJacket]

A simple way of switching something on & off without using a servo & microswitches is not too much to ask, is it.

B-P
Ask away, matey - you know where to look.
FLJ

[kenthompson]

Hi Bartapuss,    we can all dream, about our theoretical transmitter, Good luck to the skilled who want to put more into their boats. Yes, it will be nice if someone could provide us with what we want so we can produce our details , it is nice to see, at the shows, the details that you are including in your models ,, keep up the good work I wish I could produce halve the things you do....Ken...

[Martin (Admin)]

 
Has anyone ever converted 2 stick transmitter to 1 stick, throttle and wheel, steering?

If so, how did you do it?

[roycv]

Hi, I did it about 20 years ago.  I had a multiturn potentiometer about 5 K ohms.  Took the wires from the pot in the Tx. and extended them to the multiturn pot, which is outside the Tx. and attached to the side of the box.  I had a very nice ships wheel about 2 or 3 inches dia.  If it goes the wrong way then reverse the end connections on the pot.
To reduce the number of turns the wheel does, experiment with connecting say 10K resistors between the centre and ends of the pot.

If you look there are 5K pots with about 2 turns to go end to end and these work out better.

There is something else you can do to a Tx. and that is to simulate "weight" to a model by making the rudder and esc operate more slowly.  It's a bit like the acceleration and braking controls on a model railway.

To do this get a large value(low voltage, i.e. small) capacitor (try 500 micro farads) and connect it across centre and one end of the pot in the Tx.  (I think that is right, its quite a while ago) I put one into a Tx. with a switch connection so that I could disable it.

It is then a bit like full size having to anticipate how long the controls take to be effective.  Could be an interesting steering event.

regards Roy