The light that transmits through the fiber optic on my Smart-Fly ign. kill seems to have burned out or broke. Can I buy the transmitter part separate? If so, where?

Rishelman

If it was me......I'd send the entire unit back to SF with either an email or phone call letting them know the issue. Let him tell you whats wrong and the cost to repair/replace. I've never heard of the light burning out though.

Call Bob Ritchey @ Smart-Fly. He will let you know what is most likely the problem.
Bob is a great guy to deal with and has an excellent product.

Barry Finck

Hi,
Just so you know, the light the transmitter transmits is infrared and is not visible. You cannot tell if the transmitter is working or not by looking at it. Does the green LED by the transmitter go on and off with your toggle switch?

Yes, the green light operates as it should. The red LED does not. I didn't know about the infrared thing, I assumed the when the green light came on, but the red one didn't, and I couldn't see a light "transmitting", that was my problem. Maybe the red LED is bad? Or could there be something with my setup?
Thanks

Rishelman

Hi Rishelman,
Did you trim both ends of the fiber-optic cable with a sharp razor blade or Xacto blade? This is critical. You can also see if the unit is turning on and off using a volt meter, if you have one, on the output of the Cutoff receiver. The LED could also be bad. If you want you can send the unit back and we can check the whole thing out.

Dude,

Just send it in. These guys are the best with service.
Mine quit working in a similar way about 2 years ago. They sent me a new one in short order.

Ronster

Or go to Radio shack and buy some new LED's.

I buy green ones for all my SF optic kills. Green on means I'm good to go for start!

Mine did the same thing, after about 3 flights... As mentioned above, I simply went to Radio Shack, bought an LED and soldered on a new end.

Thanks to all who replied, I guess I have some stuff to do tonight.

Rishelman

You could test the unit.........

Hook it up to a battery that then goes to servos in a matchbox (instead of the jumper). The matchbox goes to say ailerons on a RX. This way you could turn the ailerons on and off with the battery power to the matchbox.

It could all be done with gear outside of the plane.

make sure your endpoint adjustments on your TX were not moved on the channel that you are using for your ign kill... they need to be at atleast 100 i believe... just a thought.

I guess I forgot to report back. I saw smokin's reply in "subscribed threads" today and was like, "oh, yeah."

I trimmed the ends of the fiber optic cable as "rrritchey" had posted and it began to work.

However, I've had a new development. The whole unit started working erratically after a few flights. Sometimes with not allowing spark, and sometimes not killing the engine. But, I bypassed it and basically had the same issue. Long story (and a few trips to the field not flying) and I discovered I had a defective ign. battery. Replaced the ign. batt and engine running good now. I think next trip to the field I will plug units back in (left them installed in the plane) and see if I get consistent results.

Thanks to all who helped.
Rishelman