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PHOTO: PETE CARPENTER


The USB Trainer Switch (battery 4 AA cells—wire to pin 1 usually red, wire to pin 4 usually black) selects which transmitter is powered and in control (above left). Mike Tully’s nifty Earl Stahl TG-2 (above center) from December 1942 Model Airplane Newswith ParkZone gear. Pete Carpenter caught this neat shot


of Jinwoo Choe’s Sopwith Tripe closing in on Dave’s Fokker Tripe (above right). Jin’s table was filled with a wide assortment of micro airplanes. He flew everything but the F-86 (below left). Deltang Rx33 receiver installed in Albatros test bed with Falcon servos (below right).


actuator is more precise than when driven by a Plantraco receiver due to the fact that my DX6i has more resolution than the Plantraco transmitter. If you use actuators, this receiver is a good choice. I chose the Rx33 servo receiver with


1.0mm JST SH (IDC) connectors to mate with Spektrum AS2000 and Falcon servos. In addition to channels 1–4 there is a MOS- FET on the back that will drive a brushed motor from the built-in 2-amp ESC. Since I did not want to use an external ESC, I made an adapter from an SH servo connector to a power connector. I plugged this in the throt- tle channel (#1). On the back of the receiver, I wired a Nano connector to the MOSFET and positive land. I was able to thread the wire between the two connectors and secure it with Goop. This makes a good strain re- lief. I also glued a piece of ¹⁄₈ balsa on the back with Goop to provide a surface flush with the connectors to make mounting the receiver easier. I bunged the receiver with some Falcon Nano servos into my old profile Albatros BII that has seen a variety of in- stallations in the past. Power is a PKZ J-3


motor. The discontinued Falcon half-gram Nano servos have the power of a one-gram magnetic actuator—just enough for the job. The Rx33 functions well and would be a bet- ter bet with AS2000 servos and a P-51 mo- tor for a heaver installation. Of course you could use an external ESC and any power you want. Just a word here about the proliferation of connector types. David Theunissen also makes the Rx34 to match the 1.25mm Molex Picoblade used on Futaba/Walkera/Hobby - King Orange servos as well as a Rx35 to match 1.5mm JST ZH—as used on Spek- trum AR6300 and available on many small servos. Dave’s web site provides a good iden- tifying photo of these connectors. Glenn Goode, www.rc-connectors.com, has mating connectors and adapters. A word of warning: always check the po-


larity (wiring) of connectors before mating them. There are some out there with identi- cal connectors but reversed wiring. In some cases, such as plugging an original Falcon connector into a Spektrum AR6400 nothing bad will happen. In fact nothing will happen;


the servo won’t work. This is akin to plug- ging in a Berg type connector backwards on a standard receiver. The center pin is posi- tive and the outer pins are signal and ground, white-red-black pinouts. The signal output is buffered and connecting the ground to it doesn’t cause failure. Falcon makes a servo lead that does mate correctly with an AR6400 or Rx33 JST SH servo connector. Just to confuse things, the standard JST


ZH configuration is white-black-red (signal- negative-positive) pinout. This is compatible with the Spektrum AR6300, JMP, MPS and Wes-Technik, GWS, Blue Bird, and new Blue Arrow. Old Blue Arrow and Cirrus Mi- cro Joule are not compatible. There are also servos with 1.25 Molex Pico blade connec- tors with reversed wiring. These have been available recently for ridiculously low prices. Guess why! Be forewarned mating these is not benign. With many connectors you can release the pins with a probe and reinsert them with the correct polarity. It is advisable to glue the pins back in with Goop or RTV as the locking feature is often de- graded by this process.


David Theunissen connector ID photo (at left). Note the color coding on the wires. 1.0mm JST SH (IDC), 1.25mm Molex Picoblade, and 1.5mm JST ZH connectors. Bottom view of the Rx33 receiver (above) showing brushed motor output leads strain relieved between connectors.


FLYING MODELS 43


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