Ive got to come in here and make a comment
I thought I was on the wrong Forum when I saw the picture here of FLJ in particular, I thought I was on an Ornithology site for bird twitchers
doesnt half remind me of Bill Oddy.
To get to the serious stuff, Capt Povey, you have a HiTech 4 transmitter receiver: There are several options to you to make full use of your transmitter and receiver. Please bear in mind, these are just options which you can use.
You could have your two motors controlled from one stick, plus, your rudders on another stick, leaving the two further channels free for more accessories, e.g. 2 switching modules. The way you go around this is incorporate a mixing unit before your 2 speed controllers. Where your 2 speed controllers plug directly into this mixing unit plus your rudder servo plugs into the mixer. The 2 leads coming from the mixing unit plug into your RX receiver, one into the channel you are going to use for the throttles and the other into the channel that you are going to use for the rudder. This doesnt give total independent control of motors, but, it does give you a function where if you turn to port with your rudder, it slows 1 motor down and increases the speed of the opposite motor, giving a far tighter turning circle. Also, you can actually turn the model on the spot with a little practice using the throttle and rudder stick.
This has left you with 2 free channels on your receiver, where you can plug in a mixing module. There are several types of mixer:-
Electronize which I have used, they do two types; 2 switching unit and a 4 switching unit. The 2 switching unit and the 4 switching which this Company supply are known as 'Non-latching' What the 2 switcher unit can handle, I think is 4 amps - input and output across the swithes. The switcher unit with the 4 switching units can only handle 1 amp per unit.
We now go on to another Company, ACTion, who do 2 more switching units. The 2 units they do are what are known as 'latching switcher units' and, if memory serves me right, the smaller latching unit (2 switches) can be made to be non-latching. The 4 switching unit is permanently latched at least the one I built is.
A quick description:
Latching and Non-latchingLatching - as you move your control stick on the receiver to say, left position, it switches on the relay which energises (for arguments sake) your navigation lights. The lights will stay on, and this will remain latched until you move that stick back to the centre and back to the position where you had first moved it to. This de-energises and un-latches the switch.
Non-Latching - Moving your control stick to the left switches the relay on. Your lights come on and as soon as you release/move your control stick to any other position, the lights will go off and the relay will de-energise. This is just a very quick description of how the switching mechanism works. If you go on to the Electronics Topics on this Forum, you will see I have build 1 mixer unit from a kit - plus I have also built 1 switcher unit from a kit. I have also given a short description of how the latching relay works on there.
Hope this is of some help. by that picture of FullLeatherJacket eeeeeeeeeeeeee my word
aye
john e
bluebird