FliteFest Combat Brownouts?

kdobson83

Well-known member
I'll keep this short and sweet. Flew four times in combat Saturday at FliteFest this year. All 4 times the plane would last 2 minutes or so before brown out and fluttering harmlessly down into the wheat. Kinda disappointed as I wanted to kill the f22 in combat.
So, I was using a dx8e with a Lemon Rx. Zero issue flying outside of combat so I know it's not the other electronics (motor/esc/battery). It has to be brown outs due to the 100-150+ planes in the air.
What course of action should I take next year to prevent brown outs? It seems I am not the only person by far having that issue in combat. Did anyone flying Flysky have issue? I have a i6x I could use. Would adding a satalight Rx to my lemon help? Any suggestions would be appreciated as I'd like to actually be able to participate in combat next year.
 

MorningViewFPV

Active member
To many spectrum pilots flying all at once maybe? i heard of some frsky brownouts as well though. Flysky i didn't hear of failsafes and i seen allot of flysky.
 

chrisvdv

Active member
A brownout is an intentional or unintentional drop in voltage in an electrical power supply system. As per Wikepidia.
Are you sure it was a brownout and not a LOS?
 

b-29er

Well-known member
@chrisvdv brownout is a common term used in the rc community for partial or complete failure in radio communication. I understand this isn't correct notation, but it's common notation at this point. And yes, its a LOS due to background noise, or very likely one. I encountered this on an older FRSKY receiver i was running on my sea duck and would lose signal for roughly 3-5s at a time in 30s, but i switched to a newer x series rx and problems vanished.
 
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Horseman3381

Well-known member
I use Spektrum and have experienced several brownouts/loss of signal at Flite Fest when using OrangeRX receivers, though I have not yet experienced one on a spektrum brand receiver. The past two years, just to be extra safe during combat I used a spektrum brand receiver with 2 satellite receivers plugged into it. With this setup I have never had a loss of signal in combat. I do realize you can get a lot of Lemon or Orange RX receivers for the money I spent on that setup, but I wanted to make sure loss of signal isn't what took me out of combat.

You could try getting a Lemon RX receiver that is satellite compatible. In theory that should help.
 

kdobson83

Well-known member
I use Spektrum and have experienced several brownouts/loss of signal at Flite Fest when using OrangeRX receivers, though I have not yet experienced one on a spektrum brand receiver. The past two years, just to be extra safe during combat I used a spektrum brand receiver with 2 satellite receivers plugged into it. With this setup I have never had a loss of signal in combat. I do realize you can get a lot of Lemon or Orange RX receivers for the money I spent on that setup, but I wanted to make sure loss of signal isn't what took me out of combat.

You could try getting a Lemon RX receiver that is satellite compatible. In theory that should help.
The $$ on a Spektrum Rx is what kept me from switching to Spektrum until I found out about Lemon Rx. But I could get one Rx w/satalite for combat.
At this point I'm looking at 3 options. Take my chances using my Flysky i6x since their bands should be less crowded, get a diversity antenna lemon Rx with satalite, or get a genuine Spektrum with satalite. Guess I could pick one of the last two and bring along my Flysky just in case. Just looking for ideas of what others have done to avoid the evil brown outs (Los).

Thanks for y'alls input.
 

Bricks

Master member
One thing that may help when binding is not have your transmitter too close to the receiver, it can cause a false bind or double bind, everything works great until the signal to receiver gets a small amount of outside interference. What I have read is being so close to the receiver the receiver picks up multiple signal paths and binds but it is not a real solid bind. I always put my body between the transmitter and receiver with the antenna of the transmitter pointed away from the receiver when binding.

Not saying your problem is not the orange receiver not sure if you have the new gen 2 or the older one the older ones could be problematic. Running a satellite or just a receiver with 2 long antennas so they can be oriented 90 degrees from each other should take care of your problem.

It is never fun to miss out on a combat round.
 

Rasterize

Maker of skins and decals for foam board RC planes
Moderator
Mentor
My vote would be for the Lemon Rx DSMX Compatible 6-Channel Receiver With Diversity Antenna. $15.25 plus TT&L. Two 4" antennas plus a DSMX Satellite port if you want to go there. Put them on all the planes I love.

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Hai-Lee

Old and Bold RC PILOT
Just a note of caution! It is possible that your ESC was getting hot around the BEC and this caused the Rx volts to shut down!

I have found a few cheap ESCs with 3A BEC that just did not like getting very warm or hot and when they did my whole RX would just shut down because it had no voltage supply. I found it by using a set of lights on a 3 channel wing housing/using the suspect ESC. Sure enough after a little while at full throttle the Lights went out and the wing came down OOC.

Something to check before you spend too much money on possibly the wrong solution. The reason I suggest that the ESC/BEC might be the issue is the TIME nature of the failure rather than it failing during a particular maneuver or flying area.

Have fun!
 

kdobson83

Well-known member
Just a note of caution! It is possible that your ESC was getting hot around the BEC and this caused the Rx volts to shut down!

I have found a few cheap ESCs with 3A BEC that just did not like getting very warm or hot and when they did my whole RX would just shut down because it had no voltage supply. I found it by using a set of lights on a 3 channel wing housing/using the suspect ESC. Sure enough after a little while at full throttle the Lights went out and the wing came down OOC.

Something to check before you spend too much money on possibly the wrong solution. The reason I suggest that the ESC/BEC might be the issue is the TIME nature of the failure rather than it failing during a particular maneuver or flying area.

Have fun!
This is what I thought might be happening. With the wind I was having to fly with more throttle than I do here at home. But in between combats it was fine. I'm running the old FT Emax B-Pack motor with a 8045 slow fly and a 20a Emax esc. When I got home I gave it a test. I flew a pack at 85%+ throttle the whole time with no issue. As soon as I landed I grabbed the motor and esc and they were hardly luke warm.
At this point I'm pretty sure the Lemon Rx had Los issues with all the planes in the air.
 

Verris

Active member
Make sure you arent using DSM2 receivers, I used one for my first combat plane this year because it was the cheapest receiver I had and well it was a combat plane. After crashing in the first 30 seconds on my first two combats, I swapped it out for the dsmx lemon diversity one liked above and had no problems. I got home and threw away all my dsm2 receivers.
 

CarolineTyler

Legendary member
Make sure you arent using DSM2 receivers, I used one for my first combat plane this year because it was the cheapest receiver I had and well it was a combat plane. After crashing in the first 30 seconds on my first two combats, I swapped it out for the dsmx lemon diversity one liked above and had no problems. I got home and threw away all my dsm2 receivers.
DSM2 don't do all the frequency hopping that DSMX do - hence you got knocked out. I still have a couple of models with DSM2 receivers in them and I usually only fly them when there are no other planes up.
Useful link on protocols...
https://oscarliang.com/pwm-ppm-sbus-dsm2-dsmx-sumd-difference/
 

VerinWville

New member
I've never had any problems with a lemon rx unless it lost an antenna. My favorites are the ones rasterize showed above. I have heard that because there was the 2nd oil pump at furey field this year people think it was putting out some sort of bluetooth signal which is also on 2.4ghz.I was lucky and only had one brownout for about 1/2 a second and then regained control on my p-40.
 

LitterBug

Techno Nut
Moderator
DSM2 don't do all the frequency hopping that DSMX do - hence you got knocked out. I still have a couple of models with DSM2 receivers in them and I usually only fly them when there are no other planes up.
Useful link on protocols...
https://oscarliang.com/pwm-ppm-sbus-dsm2-dsmx-sumd-difference/
DING DING DING, we HAVE a WINNER! This comes up every year. DSMX or newer is the way to go! We have problems with DSM2 with only a handful of flyers during indoor fly events. Can't imagine flying one with 100s in the air. Make sure you actually are bound in DSMX mode and that it didn't fail back to DSM2 during the bind. DSMX RXes are usually backward compatible and depending on the radio settings, will bind in DSM2 mode when you least expect it. :-O

Cheers!
LitterBug
 

MorningViewFPV

Active member
One thing that may help when binding is not have your transmitter too close to the receiver, it can cause a false bind or double bind, everything works great until the signal to receiver gets a small amount of outside interference. What I have read is being so close to the receiver the receiver picks up multiple signal paths and binds but it is not a real solid bind. I always put my body between the transmitter and receiver with the antenna of the transmitter pointed away from the receiver when binding.

Not saying your problem is not the orange receiver not sure if you have the new gen 2 or the older one the older ones could be problematic. Running a satellite or just a receiver with 2 long antennas so they can be oriented 90 degrees from each other should take care of your problem.

It is never fun to miss out on a combat round.
I've experienced this "false bind" it can provide crazy results. It was on spectrum and the reason i switched to frsky. Unpredictable
 

sprzout

Knower of useless information
Mentor
Only time I've ever experienced bad signal like this was on a DSM2 receiver. My dad bought a bunch of them from HobbyKing when they were on sale for $5 each, and every time we've used them, we've had problems with loss of signal. Switching them out to a DSMX OrangeRX receiver, everything worked great, no issues. My dad just doesn't trust them, and I can't say I blame him...
 

kdobson83

Well-known member
Make sure you arent using DSM2 receivers, I used one for my first combat plane this year because it was the cheapest receiver I had and well it was a combat plane. After crashing in the first 30 seconds on my first two combats, I swapped it out for the dsmx lemon diversity one liked above and had no problems. I got home and threw away all my dsm2 receivers.
Nope. Not dsm2. I only have one dsm2 Rx and it only flys at home when no ones around. Lol I use a couple different types of dsmx Lemon Rx's. Here an Amazon link to the exact Rx I was using. Lemon Rx DSMX Compatible... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N03RESZ/?tag=lstir-20
Had to be interference with either/both all the Spektrum in the air, or the two oil pumps shooting out signal randomly, or some other unknown issue.
I think the "false bind" issue is a little scary but I've never had issue before or since. And outside of combat at FF it was fine.
Anyhow, it's no biggie. Never hurt the plane with all that fluffy wheat out there. I'll come next year with a better combat Rx.