RAK402
Veteran
Location: Alhambra, CA
| FASST has had two reported problems, that I know of (these being discussed on various forums):
1) The issue of the six and, I believe, seven channels being shipped with either the GUID set to zero, or able to be accidentally set to zero by the user.
I think that very, very few of these went out, and Futaba acknowledged the issue and has been taking care of it.
2) A heat issue in some of the receivers reportedly cropping up as the weather becomes hotter. Recievers mounted in an aircraft which is subjected to high temperature (such as sitting in the pits in very hot weather) have reportedly shut down. People are installing fans and cooling hole to prevent the problem.
On the Spektrum side, there has been the "Brown Out" issue (rx voltage dropping under load to below 3.5 volts briefly and causing the reciever to re-set (which takes several seconds). Spektrum has addressed this by offering to upgrade all recievers to "Quick Connect" firmware at no charge, and shipping all new units with "Quick Connect". Quick connect causes the reciever to come back on the same two frequencies it was on when it experienced the power shortage, rather that having it scan the entire range of 80 frequencies to search for the GUID (which takes the aforementioned several seconds).
Proper reciever power (i.e. a large capacity pack, regulated Lipo, Lion, or Lithium Manganese pack, etc., will avoid the #Brown Out" issue entirely.
All the information above was gleaned from the forums.
The above information was gleaned from the magazines and the forums. It was not intended as a shot at Futaba. They are a good company and, I believe, will correct the problem.
In the interim JR/Spektrum has proven to be the most solid radio system I have flown in R/C in 32 years of flying helicopters. The "connected" feeling of the 12X that some people have mentioned is true, and almost unbelievable (extremely good). |
