Thanks to all who answered my questions about the switch harness. Apparently there are more problems with them that I was aware.
In summary if you are using a switch harness try to get a good one. The deluxe JR switch was mentioned on several emails as a good model. <http://www.horizonhobby.com/Shop/ByCategory/Product/Default.aspx?ProdID=JRPA001> The funny story was other than the battery pack and the harness everything else in the crashed plane was JR. I had one of the above switch at home without use but saw no reason to replace the brandless one that failed. I know better now. Hope to see you all in Cincinnati. The forecast is looking good for the weekend. Glauco On 5/16/05, Glauco Lago <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Guys, > > My beloved Artemis got to the end of his soaring life this weekend at > a club contest after what appears to be a switch harness failure. > > I'll describe what happened and see if someone can help me. > > The plane was a V tail Artemis with 6 x 368 JR servos, JR 770 PCM > receiver, 1750 mAh 4 cell NiCad pack from Servocity and was ballasted > with 8oz bringing the total weight to 76 oz. > > We were flying a MOM contest with brand new 290 line, brand new 12 V > deep cycle batteries and new injoy 6 volt motors on real balls (as > powerful as it can get :-). The wind was 10 to 15 miles. > > First launch went ok and I maxed it (10 m) and blew the landing. On > the second launch at the mid of the launch the plane started to spiral > down like if something was hanging on the plane (no retrievers) but it > released from the line from about 100 ft and kept flying like if > nothing happened. I even did some circles and got some landing points. > I then checked all that I could on that specific winch and in the > plane. All servos moved, had good range check, the charge on the > battery was good so decided to fly the last round. > On this launch the plane veered slightly left and popped off at 50 ft. > After that I had no radio control and it spiraled down to earth. > > Inspecting the wreckage I could see the servos were not moving with > radio inputs. The first thing I noticed was the switch harness quit > working. When I plugged the battery directly to the radio everything > worked fine. > > So at home after checking the wiring on the switch harness here is a > link to a picture of what I found > > http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=371701#post3758917 > > Apparently the circuit board blew like if it was a short but I don't > know how that could happen. The plastic case has no marks. > I don't know the brand of the harness but it had the Futaba J plugs so > it could be Futaba original or maybe Hitec. > > So my question is could the current load on launch blow the harness? > I've heard it could get to several amps on launch and I don't know how > these harness' are rated. > Maybe it got a weak spot on the first troubled launch but still worked > without the launch loads and at the last launch it blew like a fuse. > Any other theory? > > I can see the guys that will be in Cincinnati next weekend are all > happy (Gordy being one of them) since they won't have to fly against > the plane that won the 04 OVSS sportsman class. Anyway I'll be there > with the Organic so beware of a 2 m and flying as master now ;-) > > Glauco > MVSA > RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please note that subscribe and unsubscribe messages must be sent in text only format with MIME turned off. Email sent from web based email such as Hotmail and AOL are generally NOT in text format
