Category Archives: Radio Equipment

FR Sky Transmitters…!!

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I managed to get my hands on one of these a couple of days ago. From the airplane and gliding world, the FrSky Tandem X20….. Bit of a wow. It was interesting to see what they use over in flying.

They cost about double (450GBPs) what radio sailors would think of as “pricey”, but can you tell the difference?

Amazingly – a resounding “yes”…. the feel was a huge step up from what we are used to. The body was a lot more solid (alloy maybe) and interestingly weighed about 900g so a bit heavier than common radio sailing transmitters. It felt very good in my size/shape hands. The “Apple” of transmitters maybe.

Gimballs (“Hall gimbals”) very smooth and more central on the console which somehow gave a nice balance (nearer centre of gravity perhaps) while you used it. Thinking about it more, if you move the screen to the top of the unit (most of our transmitters have the screen at the bottom), you can then move the gimbals down lower on the console itself.

Another thing I noticed was that the gimbals can be rotated slightly for those in search of more comfort over longer periods. Somehow, the whole thing looked more showerproof too. Really tightly fitted together.

When we decided to write the radio sailing manual for Radiomaster transmitters, I came across FrSky because the previous range FrSky along with Radiomaster use the same OpenTX software. FrSky seem to have abandoned that OpenTX strategy now as it was holding them back. They have done their own modern looking operating software called EthOS. That’s amazing too – it’s like having a full iPhone aboard, …all icons, colour and sexiness. Lots of preloaded configurations for power mixing and the like.

I might have misunderstood, but the owner said you could send updates (like custom model configurations) to it “over the air”…. so he can swap configurations with friends very easily.

The owner of the unit that I tried was a Competition Gliding fan. I asked what he used previously, and interestingly he had a Spektrum DX6E – which of course is very common in sailing.

Way over-configured for the needs of radiosailing, but it was interesting to see what £450 would buy you.

More on Waterproofing Your Electronics with Corrosion X – Video on Sealing Up DF95 Electrics ….!!

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New member, Andrew G, has pointed me to this great and useful DF95 video about waterproofing your onboard receiver and other onboard electronics using “Corrosion X”

One of the notable things to me is that they are using a pointed 1oz dropper bottle to dispense the fluid. It looks like in North America 1oz dropper bottles of Corrosion X are easily available. At the time of writing, in UK I haven’t found this product packaging. The same company are doing a fishing reel lube called SpeedX in a 1oz dropper bottle, but that seems to be it.

I’d rather have some small amount of Corrosion X in the boat tool box and with me all the time. I find through past experience that if the cap comes off those dropper bottles it will leak everywhere. Instead, I am going to try one of these (very cheap on Amazon)

It has quite a pointy end on the pipette which I thought might be better for this particular job, than the ones with olive oil to stick in your ear! And once that lid is screwed in, I reckon you are going to be safe against leaks in transit. The bottle size I chose is 50ml… so about 3 tablespoons – that should easily be enough for radio sailing.

Beginner’s Guide : Losing Contact with the Boat and Diagnosing That It Turns Out To Be Moisture in the Electrics…..!!

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I’d heard a lot about this subject as a beginner. It must happen a lot !

As you may have seen on the website yesterday, during the Marblehead Rankings Nigel B lost radio contact with his F6.

It turned out to be “damp in the electrics”. We had only one discard in the day, so it was really important for Nigel to diagnose and fix it quickly. This is what he did (very rapidly!):-

1/ Boat on to the stand, pot lid off, and quickly verify power in the boat and especially at the receiver because the receiver’s LED was glowing green. Waggle the two joy-sticks to determine what was working and what was not working.

2/ Sure enough, for Nigel the rudder was not responding, but the mainsheet was OK. Conclusion = not a complete closedown and there is power in the boat. Good news.

3/ LED was green so that tells you it’s in the rudder setup somewhere. Where to look next?

4/ Statistical guess : rudder servos don’t fail all that often, so the connection where the rudder circuit joins the Receiver is number one suspect. Pull out the connector to channel one and have a close visual inspection which revealed the wicked glint of moisture.

5/ I’d heard about a product called “Corrosion X” before, but not seen it in action. It looks like WD40, may be a bit thicker perhaps. It is supposed to do all the WD40 type things plus be the best water dispersant and repellant that money can buy,… safe on electronics especially. Anyway, out comes Nigel’s Corrosion X aerosol from the van, …squirt squirt…. deep into the connectors of the receiver… right “in” there….I must say Nigel was not afraid to be generous. Then a good blow to help the excess away. I don’t think it needed a moment to dry or anything like that.

6/ Plug the rudder circuit back into the receiver, checking the plug is the correct way around (!!), instant fix !! Waggle joysticks and “job done”!!

7/ Pot lid on – go racing !!!

Lessons :-

a) I think GH uses Corrosion X as a regular setup tool (not just a “fix”) on the electrics. Interesting.

b) someone in the car park probably has a can of Corrosion X, but I resolved to get a 250ml can from Amazon and keep it in the car….. WRONG!!

This photo above is the smallest, cheapest Corrosion X unit on Amazon. Obviously to all of us, 250ml will last a radio sailor several lifetimes. However… I made a mistake because that trigger on the can is NOT an atomiser. Squeeze the trigger and there’s only one adjustment size…. A thick rod of lubricant shoots out – honestly one squirt would make an entire Chieftain Tank very slippery !!

You actually want the smallest aerosol can that you can find online. (see Nigel’s in the top photo). Eventually I had to go to the manufacturers own (UK) website and order it there. 475ml was the smallest aerosol …so two friends can share one, each for a lifetime. Shipment from amazon is free of course, but CorrosionX use Fedex so your total price is bumped up a lot. 475ml was though near the same price as 250ml with the trigger on top, so keep a sense of humour and sense of proportion about the whole thing!!

If you know anyone with a Chieftain Tank, let them know I have something for them….