Teething issues

Just a few questions....

Has anyone else had issues of using failsafes with electronize 30a? The thing runs fine without them in but as soon as I put them in and the bot picks up the transmitter, it goes 40% forward speed? Tried a few things but nothing seems to be working. When I ran blue eBay escs, I never had this issue which is making me lean towards it being something to do with this variable frequency thing on the electronize?

And....

Has anyone ever changed any of the toggle switches on a dx6i for a push to make button? Had the thought of changing the gear retract switch for one of these so it's more of a trigger.

And....
When a solenoid valve is activated (but none of the pneumatic system attached), should I see the insides of the valve move? And I can hear something moving but not see anything from the various ports?

Did you do that balancing thing on the electronize after you added the failsafes? Not sure if you call it balancing, but I mean where you put the screwdriver in the hold in the casing and centre it so that its neutral when the sticks are neutral.

I don't know if that will help, but worth a try, hopefully someone else can give you better advice :)

Got the balancing sorted. Put them both to full speed and adjusted the transmitter one step back! My logic being that the failsafes should set to that as normal when you set them?

Just been browsing the forums and some notes, the electronize speedos have their own built failsafes which saves me a load of hassle! Sorry all

you wont see anything in the valve move, as it uses the air pressure to activate it. The clicking is the solenoid itself.

Thanks, two problems sorted!

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_7311388/tm.htm

If anyone is interested! Does the spectrum dx6i system have a built in failsafe?

It depends entirely on which reciever you use - the AR6110 recievers definitely failsafe from personal experience, as does the BR6000 if you can find one of those, but there are some around that only failsafe on one channel or not at all (as they're generally designed for aircraft).

ive got a AR6200 which only has the throttle failsafe so all ill have do to (i think) is have a failsafe for the weapon (the battleswitch) then ill have the failsafes in the electronize speedos

That may not work - what the Spektrum recievers without failsafes do (or at least did) is they keep outputting a valid signal after the loss of transmitter reception, so the speed controller failsafes wouldn't be triggered.

Hmmmm, not sure how to check then? It does all stop when I turn the transmitter off

Have the drive at full speed whilst turning the TX off.

That's what I did

Is it me or are electronize 30a speedos a little temperamental? One produced a little puff of smoke this morning then suddenly started working perfectly?! Then the other went into some weird mode where it wouldnt run the motor forward then I fiddled with the frequency and it sparked and suddenly started working again?! I'm just going to assume they are breaking-in issues as they are both now perfectly balanced and working fine!

I'd suggest that all the problems stem from .... Ummm ...how best to put this?

Build quality ( wiring ) and lack of experience / understanding of the interaction / setup between the various parts.

It's very difficult to diagnose faults and pass on experience via the web....
A number of good pics will help in any diagnosis.

It's all running fine now, got two Argos motors each side at 16.8v running in parallel from each speedo. Wiring is fine (not amazing but adequate), both sets of power wires from the speedos go into a connector block with a deans connector to the battery. This is testing set up anyway, gotta add the power switch and LED. Just think it was one of those things! One thing I may do is put some rubber washers in the speedo mountings to isolate from vibrations. I've now set the electronize's to highest frequency setting and 125% speed and all seems fine

Gone for 4 electronize 30amps now for 4 24v drill motors. Has anyone got any tips about setting them up? The older two are fine but the newer two like to suddenly throw on the brake every now and then. One especially doesn't like going in reverse at all and throws the brake on every second or so when at full throttle. Any tips? All of the speedos have been set at 125% throttle with the highest possible frequency. It's almost as if the new speedos are bouncing of the rev limiter?!
Thanks
Dan

Just a check ..you have just the ONE BEC connected?

correct. 1 parkBEC connected to the connector block where the speedos get their power from. It would seem that the problem only occurs to the two newer speedos when they are running in the same direction. Im thinking its something with the speedos because they run fine in the other direction? unless someone knows any better?

Just out of intrest, what would happen if you had more then one BEC connected?

Not a lot really. Before, I had 4 BECs running and it didn't seem to do anything? Suppose you run the risk of blowing something

Is it possible that the BEC circuit I'm using is underpowered for the 4 speedos?

This is what I'm using at the moment:

http://www.dimensionengineering.com/ParkBEC.htm

I would suggest not, the BEC is only powering your receiver not the ESC's

is it powering the relays though in the ESCs? if so, its only pumping out 5v at 1.25amps i think. divide that up and each ESC would only be getting 5v at 0.31amps?!

Its not no, as far as i'm aware its just a signal. The batteries are connected to the ESC to supply them and the motors with power.

Hmmmm ok, looks like I'll be back on the phone to them in the morning! Thanks for your help!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHdgtVa_YuA
heres a video of the problems. any help?

I suppose you could try swapping one of the misbehaving ESC's for one that is working fine and that will tell you if its the motor or the ESC thats problematic? Only other things I can think of is things like making sure the wires are in proper contact etc and that vibration isn't causing any problems with any of the connectors. If your 2 ESC's that are misbehaving have any shared connectors that the front ESC's aren't connected to I would be inclined to start there.

defo the speedos! just tried

sent both off for servicing so we'll see what becomes of them

anyone else had any problems like this?

just heard back from electronize and they said the speed controllers are fine and it must be interference?! surely if i have two ESCs (one running fine, the other not) running off each channel then any inteference would affect both ESCs (have a look at the youtube video)? they also said that a seperate receiver battery would be a good idea, any thoughts?

Can't hurt to try that I suppose.

got no other option really! lol. isnt there a trick where you attach a resistor to the connector tabs on motors to reduce interference?

do both esc have a bec? if you have the bec from both plugged into the reciever together the two will compete and cause issues. if that is the case just have the white single wire plugged into the receiver on one esc and the full 3 on the other.

someone may have already suggested this, I haven't read back through the thread...

I think you're maybe thinking of a capacitor between the two connector terminals? Could try it I suppose, but I think that was more important back in the 40MHz days where interference was regularly as issue.

Replacing the BEC with a receiver battery or external BEC would probably be a better place to start I would guess, but I could be wrong! :)

whats the way to work out the value of the capacitor needed? only have 1 BEC circuit which is external to the speed controllers.

1 micro F I think is what is used on most RC Car's. + to can and - to can.

But you shouldn't be getting any interference from a 2.4Ghz set.

The large sparks look like the controller is rapidly forcing the motor to change direction, so could be signal drop out...

Neat looking robot though! I can't begin to imagine how frustrating this must be for you!

My only advise (given how strange this is) would be to start from the beginning, and go through the process of elimination.

New batteries in Tx, re-bind, try with servos and external bat pack, try with one esc and one motor, then the other, change the motors, try with bec no bat pack, both esc 2 motors, 4 motors etc......

It's a pain, but could be necessary.

Have you tried swapping the controllers onto different motors, you could be getting nasty spikes coming off the motors, capacitors across them will help with that.

i did try and it seemed to sort it? but electronize seem unable accept that it MIGHT be their controllers. I think ill rewire the whole thing and probably test the system out of the robot. See how that goes then try the capacitors. If it is interference, i don't think its to do with the placement of the receiver in regards to the motors as all would be affected.