Problems!! 14MZ 2.4 R6014FS

[Judge]

	Quote: Originally Posted by lazun
	It is also happening to ALL the Futaba 2.4 RX out there with the same IC in it!!!

I'm sorry, but you have absolutely no evidence to back this up. In fact, there have been several people who have reported that their 6014 RXs have NOT failed with high heat, so how can you say this??

This is why I keep saying that now that Futaba is aware of the issue we need to let them investigate it and find out what the root cause is and how widespread it is. But making sweeping statements such as this is not really doing any good at all. All it does is spread misinformation and is not based on any facts, just your impression of the problem.

[DougV]

	Quote: Originally Posted by Woketman
	Why do we have to wait a few weeks? Why have they not made a statement already? It has certainly been enough time to determine if this is real or not.

That’s how big companies are, I use both systems JR/Spektrum and FASST, we waited an entire year for JR/Spektrum to do something about the lock-out/Reboot issue, and they still will not admit that there is an issue "users fault", yet they came up with a band aid called “quick connect” (I said band-aid because the reboot is still there).

Let’s just see what Futaba will do now.

Just my opinion,
Doug.

[Judge]

	Quote: Originally Posted by Woketman
	Why do we have to wait a few weeks? Why have they not made a statement already? It has certainly been enough time to determine if this is real or not.

As Bax has tried to explain, they got this info 2 weeks ago this coming Monday. And Futaba was shut down for one full week due to a national holiday week. I suspect they have not said anything yet because they are still working on it. And maybe, just maybe, they know more about how fast they can figure out what is going on than we can here on the Net.

[RTK]

Judge- Your last two posts hit the nail on the head.. I know everyone is anxious, but only time will tell.

[rcflyer]

	Quote: Originally Posted by reyn3545
	Has ANYONE experienced a failure (loss of control) while flying with the 6014? There's no guarantee that a control loss would absolutely be a receiver shutdown, but lets turn our heads to that for a moment. Has ANYONE lost radio control of a plane while flying with a 6014 receiver?

Here's one report from RCU that I read http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=7476788 . The text is as follows:

Unfortunely one of my friends fell victim to this very problem. We are in Arizona were it is common to have high temps. This particular guy was flying a CARF Superextra and is using a 14mz with the 2.4. The plane went into lock out and went straight in at full throttle. He also had the receiver up in the canopy area. We have been able to confirm that the higher temps inside the fuselage can cause the receiver to disconnect. Needless to say I think this issue at least deserves a fair investigation. I have yet to switch to the 2.4 with my 12ZAP but I have never had any issues with a properley set up PCM system. I love the idea of the 2.4 and hope this all gets resolved soon. Right now there are about 300 members at the club that are non-believers! Futaba may have a lot of P.R. cleanup to do.

[reyn3545]

I've got an Eagle Tree system.. I'm going to do some more temp testing, with covering the currently open fuse area, keeping a towel over the canopy, measuring the receiver temp with the motor running, etc..

It's supposed to rain this weekend, and I'm traveling the first part of next week, but I should have something meaningful before next weekend.... we'll see if I can beat Futaba to the web!

[RTK]

In a week it is supposed to be in the 100's where I live. I have a friend that flies just about every day with a Futaba 2.4 smack dab in the middle of the canopy, I will know in a week Oh, the hottest it's been here has been in mid 80's, he has had no problems to date.

[Fish07]

	Quote: Originally Posted by Judge
	It is still kind of curious to me that nobody really talked about this until 2 weeks ago when Yuri's issue was posted. Suddenly there are a host of "Me too" posts. I am NOT saying this is not happening, but it is sort of odd that nobody mentioned it sooner. Perhaps we just had to wait for it to get hotter. It is also kind of odd (fortunate?) that the failures seem to happen on the ground. Probably just some sort of coincidence I suppose. It makes me wonder if perhaps one batch of RXs got made with some heat sensitive component. One with a lower temperature threshold. Something seems to have changed. And other than Yuri, has anyone sent in a RX that suffered this fault? It will be very interesting to hear what Futaba determines. I hope it is soon too, with summer heat on the way and people freaked out about using their 6014 RXs time is critical. I think Jurgen's point is that all electronic components have a temperature range that they are spec'd for. We usually don't pay any attention to it, but maybe now we need to. As far as why this appears to be mostly in large aerobatic planes I think that may be because that is where most people are going to use a 14 channel RX. A very curious situation that is just another example of how weird the wonderful world of electronics can be!! As far as what we can learn, I think that most everything now is in the hands of the Futaba engineers. They are the only ones who can really give us a definitive answer. All I know is that I would hate to be the guy who designed this thing, because you know he's got a lot of people staring him down right now!!

Can you hear me now !!!!you see all this problem with futaba sounds suspicious.

[plane]

I remember reading that some of the failures were preceded by a 'click'. Could it be an internal temperature sensor/switch activating? Possibly something as simple as a bad batch of sensors? Let's say for arguments sake that that is the case. It would take Futaba a fair amount of time to verify said bad batch and then set up a way to rectify the problem of replacing or repairing said receivers.

That said the one thing I have never understood is why RC manufactures don't GROUND their equipment to prevent a catastrophic accident. You name the brand and they've all had problems at one time or another be it 2.4ghz or 72mhz, but I've never heard of a bulletin grounding their equipment in the name of safety.

Rich

[reyn3545]

Have you ever taken an out of control catastrophic crash and been able to trace it back to a difinitive component failure? I know what I would suspect of one of my 6014's ever took a dirt nap, but I'd have a heck of a time proving it!

Most electronics manufacturers categorize their engineering changes (EC's) into 3 categories..

GREEN is a simple component replacement, usually where a component within a product is replaced, but not because original was faulty

YELLOW is a "fix on failure" update, where the fix is only applied when a unit comes in for service.. this updated component would generally fix a minor issue with the original

RED would indicate that a proactive field replacement is in order.

In almost 20 years in the mobile computing business, and "issues" with virtually every new unit that my employers have produced, the only RED issues I've seen were Lithium Polymer battery recalls from our competitors notebooks, when they were suspected of having potential "rapid expansion" (explosion) issues.

If we cured every problem before we shipped a product to market, we'd never ship one. That's just the nature of the electronics business today. Also, nobody typically acknowledges that there's a problem until a remedy is adopted. The longer we wait on our friends at Futaba to answer, the more likely there will actually be a "fix" ... otherwise they'd just do what I mentioned earlier.... tell us to keep it within a certain temperature limit, at our own risk. I've got my fingers crossed that by now they've identified the failing component (that doesn't take long) and are busy scowering the market for a more heat tolerant replacement.

[Flyfalcons]

Add to that not only the problems encountered in the field with new RC technology such as Lipos, new engines, etc, but also in the "real world" such as auto mfg recalls, full scale airplane ADs from Cessna to Airbus, etc. Field reports are an unfortunate reality in this world and even more so with emerging technology. Personally I think the fruity drink umbrella fix is brilliant and I'll be taking royalties if Futaba goes that route.

[reyn3545]

I'll be more than happy to do my duty and drink more than my share of those fruity drinks if it will help the availability of the umbrellas!

[Flyfalcons]

We could go in the umbrella supply business together. We just need lots of foamies to keep us entertained.

[rcjunckie]

I've been told that the people at Futaba are now aware of this problem and that proper research takes time. Forgive me for being impatient, but what miff's me is the fact that they've got my dollars now...I've got a system that is unreliable. One that is causing catasrophic damage to the airplanes of others and almost got mine, and all I can do is wait for who knows how long before they break their silence. I believe I waited long enough for them to get the product developed and it would seem to me that they had sufficient time to build a reliable system that would work without failing right out of the box. It sure would be reassuring if Futaba made some kind of official statement by now just to let us know that they are working on a solution for the problem.

I've spent quite a bit of my hard earned cash on this new Futaba technology as I have shelled out the money to equip 4 of my planes with these receivers (R6014FS) and my transmitter (12Z) for this 2.4mhsz system and cannot fly a single one safely until Futaba decides to get off its duff, admit that there is a terrible problem with their receivers, and come up with a workable solution. That my friend is pure frustration to the consumer at its best directly from the corporate level. If it would help to speed things up on their end, I'd be happy to send their engineers a heat gun at my expense to prove that the problem is temperature related and get them working on a solution.

I'm not an engineer myslef, but it didn't take me a week to find out that there was a concern with the receivers, and that it is temperature related. Since my first experience with failure of the receiver last Sunday (5-4-08), I decided to run tests at my home today using this 2.4mhz system with the R6014FS receivers that I have with ordinary farenheit thermometers under the canopy areas. The outside ambient temperatures were from 85-90 degress duing the tests that I made. I waited until the hottest part of the day (3PM-5PM) to perform the tests in direct sunlight with the engine running. I have found that the receivers will fail at 135+ degrees consistantly. I have never had a failure using the PCM 2048 receivers (R5014DPS, R5114DPS) that I previously used for my planes at any temperature. They were also exposed to direct sunlight in the canopy areas. Why is this receiver having so much trouble? Houston, we've got a real problem here, and continued silence from Futaba isn't reassuring me that Futaba is working dilligently on a fix.

[Judge]

Well, as you have said, it's pretty easy to discover that there is a problem. However, I suspect that there is a bit more to it to find out what is failing, why it is failing, how it is failing, and what to do about it. But I'm not an engineer either, so maybe it really is a simple and easy some seem to think it is. My best guess is that Futaba has not said anything yet because they have not got it figured out yet. They're not as smart as we are so we'll have to be a little more patient and let them stumble through this.

Of course, I could be wrong!!