Spirit System

Ktm250 wrote: when you have a solid light on the sat does that mean that it is seeing the transmitter?

Yes. but with all things electronic, this does not guarantee that the "output side" of the unit (sat) behaves as it should. The light being on, only shows that the "input side" works.

Have you tried to measure the continuity of the three wires from pin to pin ? I guess you can extend the test to see if a signal goes down the wire if you give stick inputs.

As a shot in the dark, could you be suffering from CF shielding ? Is the TX in the same place, in relation to the sat every time ?

Are your sats real Spektrum ones?

Coco66 wrote:Are your sats real Spektrum ones?

Yes they are.
Have some heavier cables coming.
Did some testing with pulling on the sat wire and got no receiver loss signals. It looks like the cable is fine. Pointing more and more to the spirit unit.

Can you perform Range test?
Some transmitters have fragile antennas so it can loose signal strength easily.

I am using a Spektrum DX9 transmitter. Like I said before I use this for all my helis. In fact I flew two of my other helis yesterday both have spirits on them and got no signal loss on either one of them. So this would tell me that the transmitter is fine. If you still think it's worth trying the range test then I will do it.
Thanks

In this case it seems that something is probably bad in the connector. Can you check if pins inside the connector of the unit are OK?

Checked the connector looks ok, pins nice and straight. I tried wiggling the connector on the spirit unit and could not get it to give me signal loss. So right now I am unable to get it to give me a signal loss or the other problem were the servos don't responed to stick movements. Seems very intermitten.

Next problem can be, if there is too low voltage. The unit can still work, but satellite will brown out. Spektrum satellite requires at least 3V. In this case you can see lost signal message too.

For example when the rescue is engaged, then there is the biggest current spike and the biggest possibility for such situation. In the worst case helicopter can crash if the voltage drops under 2V (absolute minimum for the unit is 1.8V).
So the problem can be either in too hungry servos or the BEC.

There is very small possibility, that something in the spektrum connector of the unit can be wrong. Soldering there is very good (this can be verified only by inspection of the unit).

So if it is a low voltage problem then I should see a power voltage is low in the log. It states in the manual that if the voltage goes below 2.9 volts it will log it. I never see this error in my log. Also this would not explain the power up problem were both the light on the spirit and sat are solid but I don't get the arm signal and the servos don't responed to the tx sticks. Anyway what I am going to do is move the primary sat and add a second one. I will then monitor it and if I see if there are any issue, I will contact you and send this thing back to be checked.

You are right, altough this can be still problem with the BEC. For example Align ESCs are often problematic that the voltage is not there immediately when you connect the battery, but it slowly increase. This is the problem for the most electronic. In this case additional capacitor for the BEC could help here.

If you observed, that the problem occured, then you have re-plugged the battery and it worked, then the problem is not with either satellite, cable or the unit.

I guess that the second satellite will not help with the power up problem at all.