Receiver advice

Hello,

I'm building my first featherweight and trying to teach my child a thing or two along the way. Only problem is I've realised I know next to nothing about robots!

I've built 2 ants before so have a vague idea about some things. I've built a chassis, got 2 12volt drill motors stripped down with their gearboxes. Got a 3 cell battery (may upgrade to 4 cell.in the future), got some 50amp ESCs(should be ok?). I run a Devo 7E transmitter. The robot won't have an active weapon and will be 2 wheel drive.

So what receiver should I get, I take it the lemon Rx ones I've used for antweights won't be beefy enough but don't really know?

I need something super easy to wire and setup!

Many thanks!

Hi there, welcome to the forum!

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So what receiver should I get, I take it the lemon Rx ones I've used for antweights won't be beefy enough but don't really know?

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I use something like this in my Featherweight (https://hobbyking.com/en_us/orangerx...er-w-cppm.html) which works well. I guess you'll already know this but you'll need to match up the protocols between your transmitter and receiver (DSMX transmitter, DSMX receiver and so on).

I use a pair of LemonRX DSMX receivers in my Middleweight bound to the same transmitter for my drive and weapon as an aside (https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/262538900148) which have been immensely reliable.

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got some 50amp ESCs(should be ok?)

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I presume these are brushed ESCs from the overall description? They'll be easier to get started with. The motor will only ever draw as much as it needs so provided that the draw from the motors isn't above 50A (which drill motors realistically shouldn't under "normal" use), that should be OK.

To add, your battery, if a LiPo, will need a fuse in the wiring loom rated below the burst rating of the battery to meet the FRA rules. You'll also want a power light to show the robot is powered up and a removable link to turn the robot on and off. Hope this helps.

Thanks for the advice! So it seems that you don't need a more beefy transmitter for a bigger robot?

Nah. So long as the receiver can link up with your components that need to be controlled (usually speed controllers), then the size won't matter. What does matter is that if you link up more components to the one receiver, you cut the positive wire on the RC wire on all but one of the wires as so to not overload the receiver and cause a burnout or other control oddities.

How I tend to achieve this is by using JR extender wires (https://hobbyking.com/en_us/10cm-ser...10pcs-bag.html) and cut the positive line there so if I need that component to power a receiver later, I don't need to re-solder the wire.

This normally does work but I have had it in the past where even doing this doesn't work. This is why my Middleweight uses two receivers, one for the drive and one for the weapon as having both on the same receiver caused the weapon to not fire properly. This does work, however, on my Featherweight so it is a bit of case of trial and error.

As long as the protocol matches up with the transmitter and has enough channels for your intended use, it doesn't really make a huge difference what receiver you use to be honest.

I'm running a Devo 7e flashed with the Deviation Firmware and am pairing it with an OrangeRX, which does the job fine running over DSM2 protocol.

The only thing to be aware of is, as Ocracoke said, is how the receiver gets it's power. If your ESC's have a 5V BEC built in, you can run it off this. If you are running 2 separate ESC's, one per drive side, and both have a BEC you will have to cut the positive wire on one of them as having 2 active power supplies to the RX can lead to glitching as the supplied power fluctuates.

If the ESC's do not have any BEC built into them, you can add a separate 5V BEC board into the wiring to provide a nice regulated supply to the receiver.

Thanks so much for the advice. I'm planning on running 2 ESCs so will find out which is the power lead and disable one of them.