Transmitter and receiver questions...

[iRIsHsUicIDe59]

Hey yall, I'm new to the adult rc car world and I was wondering if someone could explain to me about the actual remote part of the operation. Mostly the channel operation. I kinda understand that steering is one channel and throttle is another channel. Am I correct? So why are there 3 channel and 6 channel etc remotes? I kinda know that if you want lights on your truck that's another channel itself? Or like if you want a winch, that's another different channel, right? But then I'm looking at all these different kinds of remotes on Amazon trying to figure this out and apparently some channels are just push on push off buttons and others are knows that go left and right and some are just on and off switches.

Can someone please explain this in somewhat simple terms for me? Please?

I'm sorry if this is a stupid question like I said I'm new to this hobby and still haven't even bought a adult rc car cuz I'm still kinda afraid I'm that I won't be able to figure this crap out.

 

[89Industries]

It's a lot easier than you think.

You are pretty close with your assumptions.

The transmitter (tx) and receiver (rx) both have a certain number of channels ie circuits. They don't have to match quantity of channels tx to rx.

Generally channel 1 is steering servo . Steering wheel on tx.

Channel 2 on is the esc(throttle). Throttle lever on tx.

The esc generally supplies power to the rx, and then all the other components. Many just have 6v Bec power to the Rx but better ones like the hw1080 can be adjusted up to 8.4v. You have to make sure that the Rx and other components can handle the voltage you set the esc Bec to.

After that you can simply use extra channels on the tx to control the extra channels on the rx. Or if you have lights that you always want on you can simply plug them into the rx, like plugging into an outlet in your house. Again make sure voltages and amperages are all compatible or you risk losing the magic smoke or other problems.

Different tx will have different kind of switches and knobs for the extra channels.

Some are simple buttons that some controllers will let you set up as a momentary switch (only on while holding the button down) or as a lockable switch (push to turn on, push again to turn off). Good for dig or 2 speed transmissions or turning lights on and off.

Others are 3 way switches. Also good for 2 speed transmissions, or a winch where middle would be off and the others would be winch line in or winch line out.

Then you have knobs that are infinitely adjustable. Can use that like a dimmer switch or for adjustable drag brake and stiff like that.

The tx will then have a way to program what each switch does, the end points, how it acts, etc.

Additionally some tx let you control some switches via another switch or even change the switch to control different channels on the rx. For example I have a truck that has a 2 speed transmission and adjustable drag brake. So I control the drag brake via the 2 speed switch. So 1st gear gets Max drag brake (crawler mode), and 2nd gear gets less drag brake (go fast mode).

If your looking at controllers on Amazon, I have the radiolink. Rc6 and rc7. Both are easy to figure out once you get them.

I also have a Dumbo rc ddf-350 which is also fairly easy to figure this stuff out.

 

[Col_Sanders]

You need a minimum of two channels. Steering will be channel 1, throttle channel 2. If you add a BEC, winch, lights, etc you need more channels.

Different radios have different switch locations and configurations. Some switches will be 2 position, some will be 3 position, some switches will be momentary, some will not be. Some radios have buttons or dials instead. Some radios you can assign the channels to different switches, where other radios they are what they are.

 

[iRIsHsUicIDe59]

It's a lot easier than you think.

You are pretty close with your assumptions.

The transmitter (tx) and receiver (rx) both have a certain number of channels ie circuits. They don't have to match quantity of channels tx to rx.

Generally channel 1 is steering servo . Steering wheel on tx.

Channel 2 on is the esc(throttle). Throttle lever on tx.

The esc generally supplies power to the rx, and then all the other components. Many just have 6v Bec power to the Rx but better ones like the hw1080 can be adjusted up to 8.4v. You have to make sure that the Rx and other components can handle the voltage you set the esc Bec to.

After that you can simply use extra channels on the tx to control the extra channels on the rx. Or if you have lights that you always want on you can simply plug them into the rx, like plugging into an outlet in your house. Again make sure voltages and amperages are all compatible or you risk losing the magic smoke or other problems.

Different tx will have different kind of switches and knobs for the extra channels.

Some are simple buttons that some controllers will let you set up as a momentary switch (only on while holding the button down) or as a lockable switch (push to turn on, push again to turn off). Good for dig or 2 speed transmissions or turning lights on and off.

Others are 3 way switches. Also good for 2 speed transmissions, or a winch where middle would be off and the others would be winch line in or winch line out.

Then you have knobs that are infinitely adjustable. Can use that like a dimmer switch or for adjustable drag brake and stiff like that.

The tx will then have a way to program what each switch does, the end points, how it acts, etc.

Additionally some tx let you control some switches via another switch or even change the switch to control different channels on the rx. For example I have a truck that has a 2 speed transmission and adjustable drag brake. So I control the drag brake via the 2 speed switch. So 1st gear gets Max drag brake (crawler mode), and 2nd gear gets less drag brake (go fast mode).

If your looking at controllers on Amazon, I have the radiolink. Rc6 and rc7. Both are easy to figure out once you get them.

I also have a Dumbo rc ddf-350 which is also fairly easy to figure this stuff out.

I appreciate your response and understand most of what your saying but you mention Bec but didn't explain what that means. I'm slowly starting to understand the electrical part of the hobby grade rc vehicle. Funny you mention radiolink cuz I've actually been checking out some of their models on Amazon. I think I'm going to purchase one of those cheap wpl trucks for my first crawler. It seems like I'd be the best things for me to learn on. Second big purchase I'd like to make is a radiolink transmitter and receiver. I'm pretty positive I can get the Rc6 or Rc7 and it should work with the wpl. Also to my understanding I'll be able to use the same remote with additional vehicles by just buying another receiver if I'm correct. I'm not 100% on how many different vehicles it can hold mabey 15 or 30?

Is what I'm talking about here sofar making sense? Please redirect me if I'm wr9ng somewheres!!!

 

[high plains drifter]

I appreciate your response and understand most of what your saying but you mention Bec but didn't explain what that means. I'm slowly starting to understand the electrical part of the hobby grade rc vehicle. Funny you mention radiolink cuz I've actually been checking out some of their models on Amazon. I think I'm going to purchase one of those cheap wpl trucks for my first crawler. It seems like I'd be the best things for me to learn on. Second big purchase I'd like to make is a radiolink transmitter and receiver. I'm pretty positive I can get the Rc6 or Rc7 and it should work with the wpl. Also to my understanding I'll be able to use the same remote with additional vehicles by just buying another receiver if I'm correct. I'm not 100% on how many different vehicles it can hold mabey 15 or 30?

Is what I'm talking about here sofar making sense? Please redirect me if I'm wr9ng somewheres!!!

A BEC ( battery elimination circuit) lowers the voltage of your battery to protect your servo(s) and receiver. The voltage in a lipo battery can fry your electronics if not regulated. Most ESC's have an internal BEC but often times they aren't rated to be able to handle higher voltages. I've skipped going the BEC route by upgrading my ESC's and using direct-power servos but that's just me. It's pretty common to immediately swap an RTR ESC for something with more protection to avoid having issues like brownouts or glitching.

My first true crawler was a TRX4 and at least imo there is no learning curve between something like that or a WPL. I guess I'm suggesting that you don't need to steer clear of certain vehicles or scale sizes due to the concerns that it sounds like you have. And I ran the stock XL5 ESC in my first TRX4 for a long time with no issues ( lower voltage servo but no issues). Then I upgraded to a direct power servo and still ran the XL5 for a while with no issues before eventually upgrading the ESC to a HW1080. Only reason that I upgraded the ESC was to have more settings. They're easy to program too.

I've actually got my first RadioLink transmitter coming to me right now. Ordered a few days ago. It's the RC4GS V3 with R6FG receiver. Anxious to get my hands on it. I went for the lipo upgrade to eliminate burning through a bunch of AA batteries. I've also got a FlySky GT5 that packs a lot of features into an affordable unit. I like it a lot simply for the feel and the features... oh, and the price. FWIW I've never had any issues with the stock Traxxas TQi transmitters although they don't offer much out of the box regarding features/ settings. Yes... up to 30 model storage on the RadioLink RC6GS and RC4GS radios. And yep... you just need to buy however many compatible receivers to use that transmitter for multiple vehicles.

 

[89Industries]

Sorry, you are right I didn't explain the BEC. High Plains Drifter explains it above but the BEC (Battery Elimination Circuit) also confused me for a while when I first got into this so I will explain it at an even more basic level than HPD did above. I feel like I only figured it out after reading different explanations and then actually getting a truck or two and messing around with this stuff.

So each electrical thing in your truck can handle a certain maximum amount of voltage to operate. Too much voltage and you fry your electronics. Without a BEC in the ESC that supplies power to the receiver, you could have to run a separate battery of a certain voltage for each of those. For example your motor/esc can generally run up to a 11.1v, the steering servo could then use 7.4v and the receiver could use 6v. If you just had the one battery for the motor/esc without a BEC supplying power to everything at 11.1v then the servo and receiver would be overloaded and burn up. Conversely if you just ran a 6v battery to power everything then you aren't using the maximum from your device but doesn't usually hurt it. But you would also be bummed your truck was so slow since you only have 6v maximum going to the motor.

So most ESC's have the BEC in them so you can plug 1 higher voltage battery into the ESC, then the ESC via the BEC knocks that voltage down to a lower level, say 6v and sends the 6v to the receiver which then also sends the 6v to the servo (and anything else being powered by the receiver). At the same time the ESC is sending 0-11.1v to your motor depending on your throttle on the tx. So you get more power from the motor but don't overload the other components.

If your ESC has an adjustable BEC and you are powering all the other stuff (servo, receiver, lights, winches) then you have to set it to the voltage of the component with the lowest voltage capacity. This works fine most of the time and honestly when starting out is what you should do.

In the future though you can add other circuits straight from the battery to power some components (most common is a direct power servo) and run other things off the receiver. But this gets more complicated because you could still need another in line BEC and you then need to figure out how to get power to the device from the battery or second external BEC and also get the control signal to it from the receiver.

A direct power servo is what I think is the most common first thing to not power off of the receiver with power coming from the BEC in the ESC. Using a Holmes Hobbies SHV650LP direct power servo as an example, this servo comes with two wire leads, one to plug into the receiver for control signal, and a second lead that you need to connect directly to the battery lead on the ESC (generally with a jst plug pigtail on the ESC wires and then you just plug the servo power wire into that). The Holmes Hobbies SHV650LP is rated for direct power from a 3s or 4s Lipo battery so approximately 11-16.8 volts. This will allow the servo to be a lot more powerful and fast than if you are limited to the 6-7.4 volts that most receivers are limited to.

Make more sense? If not keep asking questions.