Search the Community

I was going to post this under a "recommend me a radio" heading a while back, but I ran out of time and money to be considering such things, so I left it. As chance would have it, while at the Tamiya Junkies meet at RHR yesterday, I was pitting next to somebody with a FlySky GT-5 radio just like mine and I asked if he'd had trouble with the throttle. He told me yes, indeed, he had, he'd had it with 3 of them, and had been able to fix them all. But that's all to come - for now, here's the back story: The GT-5 radio was a happy budget purchase for me a few years ago when I decided to try RWD drift. The receiver has a built-in gyro which can be programmed from the Tx, and as I was running out of model memory for my Spektrum DX3C and receivers are no longer available due to some updated law, it seemed like a good option for all my future runners. It works with the cheap, readily-available FlySky/Turnigy iA6 receivers (of which I already had several), it has 5 controllable channels, and a neat crawler mode which can switch on-the-fly between off, crab steer and rear steer. All the other usual functions like EP adjustment, expo and steering rate made this a great option. Unfortunately, despite good reviews from all round, I immediately had problems. The gyro in particular gave me all manner of gyp on track. Often it would say "not available" when in the gyro settings page, despite it being a gyro-enabled receiver, so I couldn't change any of the settings or calibrate it at all. On track, it would give seemingly random steering inputs. There's a neat "priority" setting which determines if steering input from the Tx should override the gyro's input or be mixed with it, but as I couldn't get into the settings I couldn't change this. Basically it was rubbish, and after a couple of failed drift club runs (which are over an hour each way) I gave up and fitted an Onisiki gyro instead. And continued to have steering problems. Even with no gyro at all, it would randomly give steering input. But here's a neat feature on the GT-5: it shows a graphic display of where all the trims are at. And I could clearly see that when I gave throttle input, the steering input changed. Ah-ha! This was interfering with the gyro operation and putting unwanted inputs when I was trying to control a slide. I pulled the handset apart and found the culprit - the wiring loom from the steering daughterboard was running past the top of the throttle tensioner assembly, and when I moved the throttle it was pinching the wires. This was obviously enough to upset the steering signal. A quick bit of re-routing and I was drifting like a pro. Well, no, like a complete novice, but like a complete novice with a gyro that worked properly.

I'm trying to decide on a radio for my Arduino project and can't choose between the Turnigy 9X and the RadioLink AT10ii. I know the AT10 will do everything I want but it's nearly 3x the price of the 9X, which might be OK provided it has enough switches. I'd really love the AT10 but I'm on a tight budget and it will push the rest of the build back by a few months. Unfortunately in the current era of maximum test, minimum information, nowhere can I find a detailed list of the number and type of switches mounted on the case. If anyone has a 9X, can they please tell me what switches is has and if they are 2-way, 3-way, latching or momentary? Thanks in advance!