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[tt1]

Hello to all.  Have finally plucked up courage for this, my first posting attempt. I'm an absolute beginner to modelling and a little dim to say the least at computing and especially the electronic & R/C side of modelling - but I do like a challenge! I have followed the forum for a while now trying to pick up tips, learn the protocol and by no means least - understand the jargon and abbreviations! I am currently building a loyal class kit from Model Slipway with working lights, engine sound and foghorn. (Well I hope they'll work!) I'm using an Msonik 25a esc, an MFA como drills 500 motor, and have bought a Laser Hitec 4 radio control which came with 3 servos. Now the problem, I haven't a clue as to how to use it for best effect  There are so many questions I'd like to ask but don't want to clog this post with them - and I'm slow at typing!  is there anyone out there that would allow for me to call them for help? or even visit? I live in N.W. Leicestershire close to Tamworth, B.O.Trent and Ashby areas. Forgive me if I'm out of order in anway, I'm still trying to learn how to use the forum - If I get a response I'll probably struggle to find it - but got to start somewhere.
Hope I haven't bored you too much! bye fro now, Tony.

[dodgy geezer]

... There are so many questions I'd like to ask but don't want to clog this post with them - and I'm slow at typing! ...

Welcome to the forum!

I think I speak for many Mayhemers when I say "Bring 'em on!". We actually LIKE questions...

Besides, you'll soon find that after you have sorted out a few basic things, all the other issues will become obvious, so there won't be nearly as many questions as you think....

[tt1]

Thanks for the welcome dodgygeezer, if no one's daft enough to volunteer then I suppose I'll have to - ask questions that is!

[barriew]

Hi tt1

I have a suggestion. If you are free tomorrow evening - Wednesday - go along to the Burton & District Model Boat Club meeting. You will be very welcome, and someone there will be able to answer your questions.

You can find details of their meeting and how to get there from http://www.burtonmodelboatclub.org.uk

Ask for Mark Hawkins, the Chairman.

Barrie

ex member BDMBC

[tt1]

Thanks for the response barrie, unfortunately I work evenings Monday - Friday, it's the only work I could get (redundant last year ---------"xxxxx"!)

[AlanP]

Sent you a PM Tony 

[tt1]

Thanks Alan, when I said I was a bit dim re computing, should have scribed "thick"! - am using the forum help guide to find where personal messages are located! 

[AlanP]

 In your profile Tony 

[tt1]

In your profile Tony 

Found them (3 off) thanks for your responses esp to Peter (M), Bob and Alan (p)

[tt1]

Thanks Alan, will be responding - am under orders for tea right now!  Thanks also to Peter(M) and Bob for their messages.

[tigertiger]

HI tt1

Welcome aboard.

[red181]

Hi Tony, just a bit of info incase your private messages dont say this. I think (stand to be corrected) the hitec 4 tx is a 40mhz set. This means that you will have a crystal that is numbered in the transmitter front cover, and another in the receiver, which should have been in the box (are you sure you have 3 servos? maybe 2 servos and a receiver, that will have a long aerial wire from it?) This is important, sorry if you know this but you did say you are a beginner, do not turn on the transmitter if you are operating in the vicinity of others, if you do, your signal and stick inputs will affect the other user with possible disasterous results! Fly a pennant on your aerial showing the number of your xtal, so others know your channel, oh, and always turn the tx on first, and turn off last.

Its a 4 channel set, channel 1 is for rudder serv, channel 2 is for throttle, ( normallly on a mode 2 transmitter, the throttle is the left stick, rudder is right)through a speed controller, leaving channels 3 and 4 as spares for other uses. That tx is primarily a fixed wing or helicopter use, channels 3 and 4 are the other directions on the sticks, eg, left stick, right and left is useless for yo, and up down on right stick also useless. I think you have a couple of switches on the top, one being flaps, and one maybe landing gear. You can use these as on off switches to operate other things, for example, I use one switch which is channel 5 on the rx to operat a microswitch which turns on a smoke unit.

Make sure the left stick (assumimg you have bought the normal UK use mode 2 transmitter) has a self centring, fixed wing and helicopter do not have this, you will need to sort that out. Hope I have offered useful advice for now, if any points are wrong, maybe someone can correct me 

[tt1]

Hello Red181, thanks for your input and response. Yes I am very much a beginner to modelling (and a late starter to boot!) but its great getting the help I've been receiving from this forum and a lot of the fog re the Laser4 is begging to clear, (Dodgygeezer was quite right. )  I'm on my first model boat - (my first model infact) and am thoroughly enjoying the challenge. I've been wondering to take some snaps and learn to post 'em - but that's another thing just yet. I'm a pretty practical and dextrious sort of fella ,but as I said earlier my computing skills leave much to be desired and R/C and electronics even moreso.  Thanks for the info re displaying a pennant for crystal I.D. I've a fair bit to do yet before a maiden voyage looms, meanwhile I shall keep poking around the forum picking up tips and reading a book I've just bought, "Radio Control in Model Boats" by John Cundell. I'm told some of the content will be old hat and a little out of date, but when you know very little you can always learn something. You're quite right the Laser 4 is 40mhz and there are 3 servos with a Y lead. Channel 4 is marked---- B/Ch4--- on the receiver, (assuming B being for the battery feed) and I've been advised that use of the Y lead in this channel will allow input from the battery and an output to another function, or, by plugging the Y lead into another channel i.e. 1,2,or 3 will allow operation of 2 servos/functions at the same time - Just tried this bit and it works!    Can you explain a little more re mode 2? also the left stick in the up and down movement is a ratchet and not self centering, I realise flying aircraft is the primary market for these type of transmitters but is there any advantage in using the stick as is for boating control?  I'm sure I've seen written somewhere on the forum the stick control can be mechanically altered. Anyway enough for now, thanks again, Tony. 

[dodgy geezer]

Can you explain a little more re mode 2? also the left stick in the up and down movement is a ratchet and not self centering, I realise flying aircraft is the primary market for these type of transmitters but is there any advantage in using the stick as is for boating control?  I'm sure I've seen written somewhere on the forum the stick control can be mechanically altered. Anyway enough for now, thanks again, Tony. 

Easiest way to do this is to provide a reference. Click on the url here: http://www.rc-airplane-world.com/radio-control-functions.html

[FullLeatherJacket]

If you contact Amerang, who are the UK distributors for Hitec gear, and explain that you need the parts to convert a ratchet stick to a spring-centred stick, then I'm pretty sure you'll get them. They did the self-same deed for me for nothing. Once you have these, it's a simple task to take the back off the transmitter and replicate the RH spring thing on the LH stick. A couple of words of warning:
This will probably invalidate any warranty, and you must ALWAYS disconnect/remove the battery pack before you start messing around inside the Tx (or you may inadvertently short something out).
FLJ

[dodgy geezer]

Can you explain a little more re mode 2? also the left stick in the up and down movement is a ratchet and not self centering, I realise flying aircraft is the primary market for these type of transmitters but is there any advantage in using the stick as is for boating control? 

For those of us who like history, there has been a long-running issue about how to 'position' controls on a radio box - stretching way back to the 1950s. Are you sitting comfortably?

In the early days people used non-proportional systems - boxes with a multitude of switches, with each switch causing a corresponding single 'movement' to happen on the model. There was no standardisation on these boxes - they were often home made and unique to that user. This did not matter at all, since they were rare and expensive pieces of equipment - there were few occasions when someone might switch rapidly between several different control boxes.

As proportional equipment came onto the market and dropped in price, and in particular as the hobby expanded, people started to swap between control set-ups more frequently. In particular, people started to learn to fly model aircraft at clubs, which often meant an instructor using a set that a beginner had installed. And as competitions became more common people had the chance of trying other planes at meetings. For aircraft flying it is critical for the control movements to become second nature - you have little time to react.

Unfortunately, for technical reasons which I won't go into here, the US fliers tended to use aileron/elevator on the right stick and throttle/rudder on the left, while the UK and Europe tended to use throttle/aileron on the right stick, and rudder/elevator on the left. As you can imagine, flying a plane which has a different control layout to yours is a dangerous undertaking, and so arguments about the different 'modes' became quite heated. They are not really resolved, and nowadays you can buy sets which are pre-set-up for either Mode 1 or Mode 2, and these can often be changed by a simple switch.

All of this is vital for a flyer who wants to interact with other flyers, and probably important for a fast boater, though less so because there are fewer main controls. If you have a slow boat, or do not intend to use other peoples systems, it is pretty irrelevant - you can set your system up so that your rudder is controlled by the stick marked 'throttle' should you so want. But in practice I think most boat people set things up so that the horizontal right stick controls rudder and is self-centering while the vertical left stick on a ratchet controls speed - sort of Mode 1, though given that ailerons are a primary turn control you could also claim it was Mode 2?

In short it's an aircraft thing. If you get into aircraft as well you will need to think about it, and in the UK everyone uses Mode 1. So you might as well use that unless you have a reason not to....

[dodgy geezer]

 
 Thanks for the info re displaying a pennant for crystal I.D.

Oh, and a few comments on frequency pennants.

There are several legal frequency bands to operate radio controls on. In each of these bands there are 'spot' frequencies which individuals use - this lets several people work in the same band without interfering with each other. It is considered very bad practice to interfere with another model - it may crash, destroy itself and injure or even kill people - so care must be taken to avoid interfering.

If you are operating a radio control totally on your own of course you don't need to worry about interfering with anybody else. But it is hard to be sure of this. Even if you can't see people using a radio they may be doing so in the next field... So it is usual to:

1 - Use the right band:

27Mhz for any model (usually toys, which may suffer or cause interference due to cheap design anyway)
35Mhz for aircraft only
40Mhz for surface vehicles (typically cars and boats) only
2.4Ghz for any model (this is a special new technology which does not have any requirement to select a spot frequency, but may have its own different issues...)

2 - check around you before switching on:

If you are alone at a pond you will probably be all right to use any spot. If there is someone else, go up to them and check their pennant. The colour details are here: http://www.ukrcc.org/27mhz.html http://www.ukrcc.org/35mhz.html http://www.ukrcc.org/40mhz.html  You will see that there are more frequencies allocated in the UK than the ones I have mentioned, and other countries have different ones as well. But the ones above are the main ones...

Make sure you pick a different spot frequency crystal to any existing operators and put the appropriate pennant on your aerial before switching on.

If you are at a club site or competition, there may be a peg-board system running. This works by going to the peg board (provided by the club) and looking on it to find a free frequency. Each spot frequency has a little token called a peg on it - if someone is using that frequency the peg will be missing. You chose yours, take the peg and keep it while you are transmitting on that frequency. When you have finished, return the peg so that someone else can have a go....


If I've missed anything I'm sure others will add to this....

[tt1]

Thanks dodgy Geezer! this is becoming really interesting with such helpful info. Might as well start out in the most popular / frequently used method then : R/h horizontal stick for rudder - L/h vertical ratchet for throttle. I think I will try and get a conversion kit as outlined by FLJ in case, when the time comes, I don't get on with the ratchet.  How do you change spot / frequency ? do you need more cystal sets and matching pennant colours?

Time to join a model boat club me thinks! the nearest to me is Kingsbury near Tamworth I believe.

Have tried to insert selective bits of quotation in this reply but keep coxxxxg it up!    Cheers, Tony.

[dodgy geezer]

 
 How do you change spot / frequency ? do you need more cystal sets and matching pennant colours?

Yup - you've got it. Note that you need a crystal Tx/Rx set for your system - different manufacturers ones may be not work. I guess you might expect to pay £10-£15 for a set - I haven't bought any since 1980!

In practice, if you only have one set and another boater is using 'your' frequency, it is worth asking him if he has a spare and would swap. But this sort of issue depends entirely on where and when you sail. If you plan to sail on a deserted loch in the north of Scotland you will probably never need more than the crystals your set came with. If you can only sail on a Sunday morning between 11:30 and 12:15 at a crowded club venue in the South-East you may need several sets to be sure of getting some water time...

[red181]

great explanations guys! beat me to it, just one thing though, mode 2 (throttle on left ) is the UK accepted norm, mode 1 (throttle on right) is usually overseas

TT, great explanation here

http://www.fraserker.com/helilessons/modes/Radio%20Transmitter%20Modes.htm

B on receiver is for battery, depending on your esc you might have to use a seperate battery feed to power it, and this is where it plugs in,  I would recommend that if that is the case, dont run anything else off it, as its generally 4 aa batteries, 6volts, you dont want anything else draining the receiver battery pack really. When connecting servos etc, make sure the connectors are the right way round, as some makes can go in both ways. I always think that the negative lead is furthest away from the rx body, if that makes sense! .

As regards the ratchet action, you really need self centre o throttle. Its easy to do with the hitec tx, but like FLJ says, you invaidate the warranty, and if we are going to be real picky, opening up the tx breaks the CE approval for the tx.
Get the back off, take the mechanism that lets the left stick self centre left and right, its a small catch and spring, there are location holes to move to the up/down action, (just mirror thwe right stick). Put back on, and make your self a disc that goes over the stick, with a slot in it, so the stick only goes up/down. You now have a self centre stick, it wont go right/left, but you have no use for that, all the bits you need are already in the tx!