Spektrum Forward Programming Discussion (AR630/AR637T)

[dam718]

Hi Guys, I've been lurking around on these forums for about a year now and never said much... A lot of you may know me as "The RC Air Marshall" on YouTube, or maybe you don't know me at all... If that's the case, hi!

If anyone needs a hand with Spektrum Forward Programming, ask away here. I know a guy :)

I have linked my AR637T Programming Series playlist here. It is long, but if there is anything in particular you have questions about, please don't hesitate to ask, and I will do my best

*** Forward Programming steps for AS3X and SAFE configuration on the AR637T and the new AR630 are the same! Please follow the AR637T programming series for both receivers!

[Mechanic]

Hopefully, you can help point me and a buddy of mine in the right direction. I've purchased (3) AR630's, set them up, but have not flown with them yet. I have a buddy that has flown three planes with them, but with some issues, including a crash.

Being a little familiar with programming the AR636 series receivers, we thought the rate gains and the heading holds would be the same for the AR630. However, after a crash halfway around the pattern, and subsequently testing another plane on a stand by rotating it to see how it reacted, we figured out the gain sensitivity is different in the AR630 than in the AR636. So, in the AR630, using the recommended rate gains of 40%, 50% and 60% for AIL, ELE and RUD, and starting with 0% heading hold, the planes (one an Arrows Marlin, the other one a Freewing F-16 90mm High Performance EDF) wanted to wobble just a little at about 3/4 throttle. Adding only about 8% heading hold to it made the wobble worse. As we went up on the heading hold (10% and 12%), the wobble continued to get worse (no heading hold on the rudder, just ailerons and elevator). If we had been using the AR636, we typically use much, much higher heading hold gains.

We want to be able to use these new receivers, because the forward programming is so much easier than using the cable or Bluetooth. However, we don't understand what the differences are in the receivers (AR636 vs AR630) from a programming standpoint. Is this something you can help us with? Is the programming different between them to make this difference? Do the gains shown above look right or do you have other recommendations? BTW, we never have set up SAFE.

[Gilatrout]

Hopefully, you can help point me and a buddy of mine in the right direction. I've purchased (3) AR630's, set them up, but have not flown with them yet. I have a buddy that has flown three planes with them, but with some issues, including a crash.

Being a little familiar with programming the AR636 series receivers, we thought the rate gains and the heading holds would be the same for the AR630. However, after a crash halfway around the pattern, and subsequently testing another plane on a stand by rotating it to see how it reacted, we figured out the gain sensitivity is different in the AR630 than in the AR636. So, in the AR630, using the recommended rate gains of 40%, 50% and 60% for AIL, ELE and RUD, and starting with 0% heading hold, the planes (one an Arrows Marlin, the other one a Freewing F-16 90mm High Performance EDF) wanted to wobble just a little at about 3/4 throttle. Adding only about 8% heading hold to it made the wobble worse. As we went up on the heading hold (10% and 12%), the wobble continued to get worse (no heading hold on the rudder, just ailerons and elevator). If we had been using the AR636, we typically use much, much higher heading hold gains.

We want to be able to use these new receivers, because the forward programming is so much easier than using the cable or Bluetooth. However, we don't understand what the differences are in the receivers (AR636 vs AR630) from a programming standpoint. Is this something you can help us with? Is the programming different between them to make this difference? Do the gains shown above look right or do you have other recommendations? BTW, we never have set up SAFE.

Wobble or oscillation is an indication of too high gains. The last thing you want to do is add heading hold in this situation. Depending upon which axis is oscillating, set up a trim switch for the gains on that axis and reduce the gains until the oscillation stops.

[Mechanic]

Thanks Gilatrout ......... we've actually reduced the rate gains, with no heading hold, with no success on reducing the wobble. I say wobble because it's not as fast as the oscillations that I've seen in the past. However, I do have only limited experience since I'm new to programming.

The real issue that we'd like to understand is if the two receivers, AR636 and AR630, are supposed to work the same from a programming standpoint. Take the following as an example: (FM2 only)

We used the following very successfully for an FMS Avanti S 70mm:

AR636: FM2 only
Roll Pitch Yaw
Rate Gain 70% 50% 50%
Heading Gain 70% 50% 60%
Priority 100 100 100

When we tried this in a new FMS Avanti S 70mm with the AR630, it crashed within about 30 seconds from takeoff - it was uncontrollable. We thought the same gains from the AR636 would be right for the AR630. So, after the crash, I set up the same plane on a plane stand (an uncrashed plane), put the same gains in it, and the control surfaces went crazy using the AR630. You only had to rotate the plane 7 degrees to get full control surface displacement, and it was very aggressive getting there ... split second fast. I replaced the AR630 with the AR636 programmed the same way, and full control surface displacement didn't occur until the plane was around 35 degrees, and the deflection was linear with the rotation, which I would expect. The next thing I did was to get rid of the heading hold with both receivers. The control surface deflections for both planes were about the same, if I remember correctly. So, I started adding heading gain to the AR630 (I already knew what heading gain would do to the AR636). A heading gain of 50% made the ailerons go crazy at about 7 degree rotation again. I kept backing the heading hold down until maximum aileron deflection happened at 18% heading hold while the plane rotated to 35 degrees. And the deflection stays there until you right the plane. Without heading hold, the control surfaces deflect slightly and return to zero deflection; with heading hold, they remain deflected until the plane is righted; I think all this makes sense. Oh, and we made the yaw heading gain 0% across all FM's and kept priority at 160 across all FM's, as recommended by Spektrum for the AR630.

What we're having a hard time with is the max deflections are occurring with 70% heading gain and 35 degrees plane roll with the AR636, but only 18% heading gain and 35 degrees roll using the AR630. If the two receivers have different firmware to make this difference, this could be a tragedy waiting to happen for many of us (as it did with us) that think we can use the same settings from receiver to receiver. As I said in my first post, my buddy tried the AR630 in three planes, crashing the first. The next two planes flew pretty good, but had the slow wobble. He had been able to smooth any wobble out using the AR636, but hasn't been able to smooth it out using the AR630 at all. And now I'm reluctant to fly my new Freewing Avanti 90mm and Freewing F-16 90mm HP using the AR630 until I understand the differences between it and the AR636, and can adjust the gains semi-intelligently for a successful maiden flight.

Sorry this is so long. Hope it's not confusing. This stuff is real interesting ........ I just want to be able to get these planes down to make adjustments instead of having to buy a new one every time. And I'm just now learning about programming, so I'd like to hear from anyone that has looked at and experienced this same issue. Where am I going wrong? Thanks!

[rcJETnut]

Hi Mechanic,
This is your “buddy” you were referring to on your previous post. Like you said, I want to like these AR630 receivers because of the compact design and ease of use and forward programming. We were able to stop the wobble on the roll axis but only after reducing the gain to 2% or less on heading hold and reducing the rate gain to 20% or less. Then the AS3X is reduced so much that it doesn’t smooth out turbulence any more. Between “Mechanic” and myself we have 17 different EDF’s that we fly which are mostly 80 and 90mm sized with all kinds of different models like the F-22, F-4, Mig 29, F-18 and so on. I’m not saying that to brag 😬, but to illustrate familiarity. All of these jets have the AR636 series receivers installed and are either factory programmed BNF or we programmed them. I download the same basic program from jet to jet and tweak what’s needed. The gains behave linearly on rate and heading hold and work flawlessly. That’s why we can’t understand why the AR630 doesn’t respond the same way. I’ve tried every programming combination I could think of and the AR630’s just fall short of the task.
Any ideas are helpful.
Thank You

[Gilatrout]

Just to be clear, the orientation settings are defined as correct? What you describe sounds a lot what I've seen when the actual orientation doesn't match the defined one.

As to firmware, make sure both receiver and transmitter are up to date with latest. While I don't think this is the cause of your issues, it does work to make sure all the latest features and fixes are in place and all are on the same page.

One thing that matters is gain trim on both old and new version. You may have set gains in programmer, but the trim switch will modify those gains. So a gain set at 70% with a trim set at 35 would have an actual gain of 35% of 70%. This means your gains may not actually have been the same between the new and old receiver depending of if you had relative gains with a trim switch assigned.

I've asked a Team Horizon buddy of mine if he has any thoughts. Also for definitive answers, you might want to check the appropriate rc groups forum. I know the development staff at Horizon monitor and engage directly there.

[Mechanic]

Thanks Gilatrout ........ great suggestions! We checked orientation and it is correct. We updated our transmitters to 2.07 at the time, which was about 2 or 3 months ago. We didn't know you could update the receivers, so we'll need to check on that. The receivers are new, so I would hope the firmware is up-to-date, too.

The gains were captured and fixed in forward programming instead of leaving them adjustable. However, we will check to make sure the gain adjustment was at the max when captured.

I didn't know about rc groups, but will go there and see if I can find anything.

We certainly appreciate your help with this!!

[rcJETnut]

Thanks Gilatrout, we will check the updates and we appreciate your help.

[Gilatrout]

Thanks Gilatrout ........ great suggestions! We checked orientation and it is correct. We updated our transmitters to 2.07 at the time, which was about 2 or 3 months ago. We didn't know you could update the receivers, so we'll need to check on that. The receivers are new, so I would hope the firmware is up-to-date, too.

The gains were captured and fixed in forward programming instead of leaving them adjustable. However, we will check to make sure the gain adjustment was at the max when captured.

I didn't know about rc groups, but will go there and see if I can find anything.

We certainly appreciate your help with this!!

I came across this in the manual for a new 10 channel version of the receiver. It sounds like it would be relevant to your needs and should be part of the forward programming on your receiver.

_------------
• If your aircraft is over or under sensitive to the range of gain available,
adjust the
Gain Sensitivity
. Agile aircraft with extreme control surface
deflections or high speed aircraft should use
1X
. Moderate sport
airplanes should use
2X
. Slow and inherently stable aircraft with mild
performance should use
4X

[Gringotuerto]

In my experience the Rate Gain is much easier to manage (and much more tolerant of a range of values) than Heading Gain. So on all my planes, I don't use heading gain at all. I tried it a few times, and didn't like it. It is much more subject to error because it uses integrated rate of rotation to infer a change in direction. Whenever you integrate, any bias turns into an error that grows linearly over time, and noise variance grows over time also. Of course there is some time-limiting filter to squash these so they don't become infinite, but it is not easy to hold heading using just a gyro. By the way, I'm talking about a receiver that only has gyro, not gyro + accelerometer. With accelerometer, you have an absolute reference rather than relying solely on integrated rate of change.

And one other complexity is - I wonder if the receivers that are marketed as 3-axis actually have a sensor that is capable of 6-axis. I never opened up one of these to look at the chip inside, but it might be tempting to buy just one type of chip and use it in both the 3-axis and 6-axis versions of the receiver. Last I knew, the cost was about 10c per axis, and that was a couple years ago. Now it is probably less. So is it worth buying and stocking two parts to save 20-30c on the 3-axis version? Maybe so, maybe not. And if you had a 6-axis chip in the 3-axis version, it might be tempting to "cheat" and access the accelerometer for the purpose of improving Heading Gain, even on a receiver that is marketed as 3-axis (i.e., AS3X but not SAFE). I don't know what Spektrum does, and am too lazy to look into it further, but it seems not impossible that a gyro-only receiver has an accelerometer in it anyway.

[rcJETnut]

Thank you guys, this is great information! I will try some new settings and see how that works.

[Flyer93]

Hi folks, brand new to this forum so hope you can assist me. Have gained some good experience on a Sonic Sport Cub 500 (RFT) but now looking to 'upgrade' to a bigger wingspan aircraft. After a good amount of research, I am almost certainly going to buy a Maxthrust Riot V2. I already have a DX6i transmitter and will buy an AR630 receiver to go in this model. A lot of people I have spoken to advise me to go 'in at the deep end' and fit a receiver that doesn't offer any gyro/stabilisation (i.e. a 620) but for a bit extra money I want to go for the AR630. Looking for advice as to whether I can set up/program the receiver and radio so that I can use one of the two-position switches to toggle between AS3X mode and SAFE select. I think I might need the pc program and a USB programming cable or the bluetooth cable and the phone app. Any help/suggestions will be really appreciated!. Thank you

[Gilatrout]

Hi folks, brand new to this forum so hope you can assist me. Have gained some good experience on a Sonic Sport Cub 500 (RFT) but now looking to 'upgrade' to a bigger wingspan aircraft. After a good amount of research, I am almost certainly going to buy a Maxthrust Riot V2. I already have a DX6i transmitter and will buy an AR630 receiver to go in this model. A lot of people I have spoken to advise me to go 'in at the deep end' and fit a receiver that doesn't offer any gyro/stabilisation (i.e. a 620) but for a bit extra money I want to go for the AR630. Looking for advice as to whether I can set up/program the receiver and radio so that I can use one of the two-position switches to toggle between AS3X mode and SAFE select. I think I might need the pc program and a USB programming cable or the bluetooth cable and the phone app. Any help/suggestions will be really appreciated!. Thank you

Forward programming is done via the transmitter, not the app. I'm not sure the DX6i is capable of it or not. Some of the DX series received firmware upgrades, others did not. If your transmitter does not support forward programming, you will need to upgrade and replace your transmitter with one that does in order to use the feature.

I would suggest that any new one you get not be 6 channels. It is highly desirable to put nose gear steering on a separate channel when available. For many planes this needs 7 channels. The extra channels also give you some flexibility for future growth in models and the hobby.

I highly recommend the NX10 due to the gimbals.

[Gringotuerto]

I think I might need the pc program and a USB programming cable or the bluetooth cable and the phone app.

It is true, they discontinued support for both the phone app and the USB cable. I have the USB cable and can still find the older receivers in hobby stores that work with the cable, but they are being phased out in favor of the AR637T. That can *only* be programmed from the transmitter, and so requires a transmitter that supports "forward programming." I think it is possible to set up so that SAFE vs gyro is on a two-position switch, but I can't say I have done that.

[xviper]

It is true, they discontinued support for both the phone app and the USB cable. I have the USB cable and can still find the older receivers in hobby stores that work with the cable, but they are being phased out in favor of the AR637T. That can *only* be programmed from the transmitter, and so requires a transmitter that supports "forward programming." I think it is possible to set up so that SAFE vs gyro is on a two-position switch, but I can't say I have done that.

"Forced upgrade" if you want to use the new "forward programming" type receivers. Could he not take his AR630 and have someone who does have such a TX do the programming and he could put it into his plane, bind it and do the switch select on his DX6i? I'm actually surprised that any of those old DX6i's are still functioning properly.

[Gilatrout]

"Forced upgrade" if you want to use the new "forward programming" type receivers. Could he not take his AR630 and have someone who does have such a TX do the programming and he could put it into his plane, bind it and do the switch select on his DX6i? I'm actually surprised that any of those old DX6i's are still functioning properly.

I've been messing with these receivers for years. The old way via the app was a hot mess. The forward programming solution is a clear improvement in almost every regard.

If you don't want or need it, no one is forcing you to upgrade.

[xviper]

But he does WANT the AR630. Whether or not he NEEDS it is another matter. That being the case, he can't do it with a DX6i. Therefore, he is forced to upgrade. "You" doesn't apply to me, just to Flyer93. I don't have an issue with forward programming (DX9)

[Gringotuerto]

If you don't want or need it, no one is forcing you to upgrade.

I don't think that is correct, my understanding is that no new receivers support the USB cable or phone app. So although you can find old receivers that work without forward programming today, you will not be able to in the future. Spektrum *is* forcing you to upgrade. I thought this was confirmed by Spektrum, but let me know if you think otherwise, I'd be glad to be wrong about this.

[Gilatrout]

I don't think that is correct, my understanding is that no new receivers support the USB cable or phone app. So although you can find old receivers that work without forward programming today, you will not be able to in the future. Spektrum *is* forcing you to upgrade. I thought this was confirmed by Spektrum, but let me know if you think otherwise, I'd be glad to be wrong about this.

Correct. I was referring to the forward programming in general as a feature not the receiver. If you don't need as3x you don't need to upgrade.

Also of note, the old receivers did not support a user defined safe mode at all. (Yes I know about the 3rd party stuff, but that doesn't mean Spektrum supported it) So if anyone wants safe they already have to upgrade to do it correctly without risking the model.

Clearly moving forward setting up as3x will be done via the transmitter and forward programming.


I suppose an analogy might be standard vs automatic transmissions. If you want a new car with the good gas mileage and low emissions, you're not going to find one with a standard transmission.

[Tokinpurpleguy]

I’m not entirely sure if this is off topic. I’m fairly new to the hobby. I have a couple ar630 receivers and I just got a blade cfx300 helicopter. I was hoping I’d be able to use the ar630 with it. Is that possible? If so is there a link or something that you can direct me to that’d be able to assist me in that setup? Any help to this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for your time.