Problem with Transmitter for Nieuport

[toekneesoaprano]

Hello Everyone,

I recently purchased a Nieuport 11 from Micro Invent - it's a real beauty if I don't say so myself.

It uses a Penta receiver and MCA3-D Duo Micro server.

The Nieuport and the components above can all be viewed on Stefan Gasparin's website at Gasparin.cz

Here's my problem;

There is a channel 40, 72.59 Mhz crystal in the receiver in the plane. And I have a channel 40, 72.59 Mhz crystal in my GWS radio transmitter - should work fine right?

But when I plug in the lil poly to the receiver and then turn my transmitter on per the instructions, my radio transmitter does not seem to register with it.

I know that my radio and the crystal in the radio are fine, because it works with my RFFS-100 and my JMP receiver just fine.

It's like my radio transmitter for whatever reason isn't registering or picking up the signal from the Penta receiver.

The components in the Nieuport seem ok from what little I can tell because I hear the little singing from the receiver when the battery is plugged in and sometimes the motor will even turn initially but again, which is also consistent with a JMP or RFFS as well when the battery is initially plugged in.

But I don't get the beeping that the instructions say I am supposed to get when my radio is turned on as is supposed to callibrate with it.

Dave Robelen or anyone else, do you have any idea here what might be going wrong here?

Also, I did need to send Ivan my channel 40 radio transmitter crystal initially and I know that he had some problems with this working with the crystal in the receiver. I am not exactly certain how he got this working, he said he had to purchase a different type of crystal from Bob Selman. But I know that he did successfully fly and test the Nieuport and since the channel 40 crystal was in the plane upon receipt, I figured I just had to put the channel 40 crystal back in my radio transmitter and it work together.

JFYI, Ivan's transmitter is a Hitec Flash 5 and I have a GWS Dreamstarter.

I have just emailed Ivan Motycka at Micro Invent as he built this for me and test flew the plane as well and it all worked fine together. I am waiting for his reply but wanted to check out if anyone could assist me with this here as well as Ivan is quite a distance aways in the Slovak Republic.

Thanks All, I just don't know what to do next.

Best Regards,

Joe

[Mike Taylor]

Turn on the TX first, then plug in the RX...

[toekneesoaprano]

Mike,

Thanks but I tried turning on the radio transmitter first a couple of times as well and that still didn't work.

When I received the plane it already had the channel 40 crystal in the Penta receiver. Maybe Ivan needed this for his Hitec?

Ivan also did send the Nieuport with a channel 39 GWS crystal for the receiver and then a GWS channel 39 crystal for the transmitter.

Should I replace BOTH the channel 40 crystal in the penta receiver and channel 40 crystal in my GWS radio with the with the GWS channel 39 crystals? And then try it?

Joe

[Mike Taylor]

I have no idea. I know nothing about radios except you usually order them for the frequency and shift of the transmitter you have and they work.... Maybe it is a 'shift' thing?

[Dave Robelen]

Hi Tony,
You are getting into deep waters with this issue. For example, does the Penta receiver literature indicate it will work with both negative and positive shift transmitters? The Hitech is negative shift, I have no idea about the GWS unit. Also, I encountered a problem with a receiver that was supposed to work using GWS crystals. I plugged in the correct channel, switched on the transmitter, then receiver, and like yourself, had nothing. I assumed the receiver was defective and sent it back to the provider. As it turned out, the GWS crystal was so far off frequency that it would only work in a broadband receiver. Any receiver that was selective was far enough off frequency to not be able to "hear" the transmitter. Changing to another pair of crystals might be productive, it will not break or burn out anything, and it might get you going.
Good luck, Dave

[toekneesoaprano]

Dave - thank you. Just in case, do you know where I can get a Hitech Negative radio trasmitter?

Thanks,

Tony

[Dave Robelen]

Hello Tony,
I may have not been clear, but all Hitech transmitters are negative shift. I have seen some decent deals at www.hobbyhorse.com but another option would be an economy model Futaba from Tower. They are also all negatve shift.
Regards, Dave

[toekneesoaprano]

Dave,

I have some interesting news. After replacing the crystal that came in the receiver with a GWS, I can now control the rudder and elevator just fine. :)

However, I still cannot control the throttle on the motor. Nothing happens there when I move the lever on my controller up or down.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Tony

[Dave Robelen]

Hi Tony,
The various transmitters have different frame rates where they send the groups of pulses for the individual channels. The most common frame rate for Hitech, Futaba, JR, etc. is about 60 hz. In other words the stream of channel pulses are repeated at about this frequency, with a longer sync pulse in between each group. There are a couple of possibilities. One, the frame rate of the GWS is just different enough that the ch 3 pulse does not line up with the decoder. A different length sync pulse could cause the same effect. All this is assuming that you have checked the transmitter with a different receiver such as the GWS R4P to make sure it really is sending a throttle signal. Glad to hear you are making progress.
One more thing, if the ESC circuit is like some of the newer ones around, it will want you to turn on the transmitter with the throttle in low, turn on the receiver, leave the throttle stick in low for 3-5 seconds, move it to full throttle and hold for 3-5 seconds, then back to low. This may be what it is waiting for. If still nothing, start the cycle with the throttle at high, and go through the same process. Sometimes the throttle channel gets reversed to what the decoder is looking for. In this case, a flip of the reversing switch will set things right.
Good luck, Dave

[Tobias]

toekneesoaprano,

I got my Microinvent Nieuport 11 together with a PENTA receiver from Stefan Gasparin some weeks ago. Could you please tell me how to solder the MCA3-D actuator/serco to the receiver (pics and/or drawing?), because I'm new to that Micro-RC-equipment and cannot find any hint concerning that point neither on Gasparin's nor on Microinvent's website.

Thank you very much in advance!