TOPIC:

As the car collection grows so does the need for a good supply of ESCs, servos, transmitters and receivers. Servos are simple enough as they are one module powered by the ESC, any servo can be used. The ESC is also a one module item, both can be used independantly and mixed with other brands of servos and motors.

Now, we also need a bunch of receivers to go with our transmitter, one for each car. We only need one transmitter, perhaps two if we drop one and need an instant replacement. I have found the perfect radio gear on ebay : ebay link , and the receivers for it are available separately: ebay link

But what if I wanted another transmitter, like a more expensive brand. I cannot pair my current receivers with it. Or can I?

What badwords me off is that the transmitter and receiver need to match by brand, even though they may be manufactured in the same factory. Has anybody succesfully hacked a transmitter to work with a different brand receiver, or a receiver to work with another brand transmitter? They do run the same protocols right? It's all 2.4G right?

2.4GHz is just the frequency of the digital signal. The encoding and protocol are completely different for each brand. There are even differences within brands. Futaba FHSS transmitters do not work with Futaba FASST receivers. Spektrum STX2 transmitters do not work with Spektrum DSMR receivers. I don't think there is any hack you can make to correct for having the wrong protocol. Even supposing you could do that, you need to bind transmitter and receiver together and they would not recognize each other's identification codes.

There may be some cases in which some brand is a literal copy of another brand with a different sticker on it. If you could find those cases you may be able to get it to work.

uncletom wrote:

As the car collection grows so does the need for a good supply of ESCs, servos, transmitters and receivers. Servos are simple enough as they are one module powered by the ESC, any servo can be used. The ESC is also a one module item, both can be used independantly and mixed with other brands of servos and motors.

Now, we also need a bunch of receivers to go with our transmitter, one for each car. We only need one transmitter, perhaps two if we drop one and need an instant replacement. I have found the perfect radio gear on ebay : ebay link , and the receivers for it are available separately: ebay link

But what if I wanted another transmitter, like a more expensive brand. I cannot pair my current receivers with it. Or can I?

What badwords me off is that the transmitter and receiver need to match by brand, even though they may be manufactured in the same factory. Has anybody succesfully hacked a transmitter to work with a different brand receiver, or a receiver to work with another brand transmitter? They do run the same protocols right? It's all 2.4G right?

If tou need a set of 2,4 radio, I think that flysky is a good deal. Cheap and efficiency. I found one one ebay for 22€. And you can find receivers for cheap on wish etc.

Thanks for your input guys. I found a few leads that involve exchanging the transmitter chip to make it work with various other brands.

I am quite satisfied with the GoolRC / TG3 / Austar cheap chinese radios, just that I would like some higher quality pots in them. So something like Futaba would really be excellent, if it would only work with the cheaper TG3 receviers.

A "TG3" 3-channel recevier costs about $6. A 3-channel Futaba receiver costs more than ten times of that. I want maybe 20 receivers, simple math.

I think high end transmitter manufacturers price their products like inket printers. Printer makers sell the printer at a loss because then you have to buy their proprietary ink cartridges that they can charge $90 each for. Spektrum and Futaba transmitters aren't cheap, but they aren't that bad for what you get. The receivers, on the other hand, are ridiculous. There is no way it costs $50-$80 to make a tiny chip receiver. They could sell them for $10 but they don't because they know you are locked into their brand once you have the transmitter.

I did look at fancy transmiters with multiple model memory, but some basic maths quickly put me off: a fancy transmitter costs 20x that of a basic combo, additional recivers cost as much as that same basic combo, so there is never a point at which you can break even, let alone be better value.

Since then I've always stuck to one transmitter per vehicle, though that is a lot easier now with less than 40 than over a 100... I have lots of 27mhz sets, some 40mhz, but the newer/project stuff is 2.4ghz.

I cannot get my head around steerwheek transmitters, so that limits my choice & puts the cost up a bit.

When the Planet t5/r6 2.4ghz combo first came out some years ago I bought (I think) four of them at 50 GBP each, that was good value at the time but they've since become rare & gone up to 60 GBP, Acoms 2 channel 2.4ghz sets have disappeared entirely & weren't that good value TBH. I'm not sure if the etronix pulse 2 channel 2.4Ghz combos are still available, they seemed pretty good value at the time but I haven't looked at set with less than 4 channels in a long time.

I get the feeling it's become a bit of a race to the bottom in terms of price, quality and gaudiness at the lower end of the market, but I've found the the Flysky FS-CTB6 & later FS-i6 to be competant enough, if a bit crap looking. - that goes even more so for Hobbykings' (22 GBP) 4 channel set. The 25 GBP Turnigy T6A-V2 6 channel set uses the same case but is a lot less pants looking.

Apart from the Acoms & Etronix, all the transmitters need opening up and fiddling with to swap parts to the unsprung up/down on the left stick (mode 2 flight throttle) & external plates/shift gates making to lock off at least one channel (& sometimes make the other useable for a vehicle function like gears), I know that scares some people off.