safety issues

[cliveb]

I like the video Luke, you will have to do some more on other things to help all the newcomers and older roboteers out.

[widow_twanky]

Regarding its failsafe capabilities, copied this from Andy Steels' post:

Not had time to test it on a motor yet but I think the drive side of the receiver goes to the last known setting rather than neutral or off. The throttle does however fail safe (as I say not actually checked it).

Is there ways to get around that 'last known setting' anybody? Or would the throttle channel have to be reserved for failsafing a servo that controls a kill switch? (Wasn't this sort of failsafe setting the reason why Futaba 2.4GHz handsets were a lot less useful than the Spektrums for combat robots?)

I know people will find it hard to believe but on that occassion I was talking crap. It does appear to fail safe properly.

Andy

[widow_twanky]

I like the video Luke, you will have to do some more on other things to help all the newcomers and older roboteers out.

Cheers Clive,

Lot of effort in that, took him a while

Andy

[RogueTwoRobots]

I know people will find it hard to believe but on that occassion I was talking crap. It does appear to fail safe properly.

No problem Andy. I guess it will become clearer when you test it with a speedo but from that video I'm assuming the failsafe position is 'off' rather than 'neutral' in which case it's much like the DX5e and therefore standard plug-in failsafes can be used.

As much as I love my Skysport 6 and Field Force 6 transmitters, that is a damn good price for a 5-channel 2.4GHz RC combo. Wish they were around when I was starting out in this hobby

[john_frizell]

A proposal was put forward to phase out 40Mhz over the next 18 months firstly in Heavyweights from Jan 2010
and featherweights from Jan 2011. This is now open to further discussion by the membership.

So let's discuss.

I think a phaseout of 40 MHz is both unwise and unjustified. There is no safety issue with 40 MHz.
The current situation is that almost everyone has moved to 2.4 gigahertz, not because they are required to but because they see advantages in running it. That's good, we should always aim for best practice, but it does not justify a ban on 40 MHz.

There are about 80 robot teams in the UK. We need more newcomers if our sport is to survive and flourish. We should allow everyone to compete with whatever equipment they can find that will pass safety checks. At present 2.4 gigahertz equipment (transmitter and receiver both) can be bought for under £ 40 but for some that is a lot of money and the kind of equipment most people use costs over £100. A used 40 MHz set (or 27 MHz) is a lot cheaper. If we keep out just one person who would have started if s/he could have afforded the RC gear we are weakening ourselves.
Let's accept the reality that most people use 2.4 gigs but leave it open for others to use the other frequencies that are currently allowed. No phaseout.

[grant_ploughbot]

The number 1 reason the Spektrum and Futaba equiptment is so good and safe is due to their channel switching abilities, and capabilities to block out any other TX or 2.4ghz signals. These cheaper sets dont give any information on how they actually work. COnsidering both Spektrums and Futaba's methods are patented, and the extreamly cheap and basic price of this TX set i wouldnt be too quick to jumo on and say theyre just as good and safe because they say 2.4ghz .
Lots of other 2.4ghz equiptment suffers interfeirence.

[widow_twanky]

I think the voice of reason last time this came up was Pete:

I dont think there is too much of a saftey issue i think it more a case of interfearance and missfires due to the number of 2.4ghz being used and this being the case a lot less suppression on motors ect the interfearance is increasing and thus this appears to have started into a debate about saftey when it should be more along the lines of reliability ...... Not wanting to start a debate more just to offer my oppinion ...

I would sugest that the above is only my interpratation of what i see going on as i used to suffer from iterfearance with everything i built ie:

ok at home ... in the garage ... tech check ..... but in the arena ...like it was nothing i built.. lol.. but then i changed to 2.4ghz and have never suffered since ...

So i would recomend and do so quiet often that all newcomers buy 2.4ghz and anyone with problems try it i always have a spare set at most events so anyone with said issues is always welcome to try it out ........

I think it is absolutely right that this is not a safety issue. It is a reliability issue. Personally I wont be affected by any ban on 40Mhz so from a really selfish point of view I don't really care about it.

Kane advised that before implementation this would be discussed at 'the next FRA meeting', maybe an update is required before getting into a heated debate.

Andy

[muchalucha]

These cheaper sets dont give any information on how they actually work. COnsidering both Spektrums and Futaba's methods are patented, and the extreamly cheap and basic price of this TX set i wouldnt be too quick to jumo on and say theyre just as good and safe because they say 2.4ghz .
Lots of other 2.4ghz equiptment suffers interfeirence.

I used a planet 5 set at RR Portsmouth along with many spectrum and other 2.4ghz systems operating and id just like to say the fail safes still worked ok and there was no interference at all (that i noticed).

[peterw]

I have bought one of these systems and in general I am very impressed for the the money.
There does seem to be a problem with the failsafe certainly on my system. If you power up with the throttle channel closed the failsafe remembers this and if you open the throttle and then turn off the transmitter it fails safe and closes the throttle. The problem is that if you then turn the transmitter back on to simulate a tempory signal loss the receiver resets the failsafe to throttle full open as that is where it is set when the system regains the signal and from then it fails very unsafe. It may be that this only happens when the transmitter goes through its power up cycle and may not happen with just loss of signal but it does seem a bit hit and miss.
The other thing that worries me slightly is that as there is no bind button on the Tx so what is to stopping the receiver binding to another transmitter that is turned on between the bind button on the receiver being pushed and the transmitter you want to bind it to being switched on in a transmitter busy environment like an event.
I have put down a few more findings at http://www.robotwars101.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=1226

[muchalucha]

it did also worry me about the lack of a bind button , i think its unlikely , but is there any possibility it could bind with another 2.4 ghz rx ( a spektrum one or similar)