3EGX FASST conversion.

[Hydro Junkie]

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Your allowed to modify up to five of the same transmitters for your own personal use but you can't sell them. But truth be told, its a paper tiger. When was the last time you saw an FAA agent coming to your, or anybody's door for that matter? Or even heard of one? I'm going on 45 years in R/C and even back when you had to apply for a license I've yet to see an actual FAA agent.

Turning gimbals isn't an issue, changing frequencies and transmission modes is. The only "home work" that I know of that is legal is fine tuning a 50MHz band system and that is only legal if you have the appropriate equipment and FCC license to do so. I have two transmitters that I can't use due to them being wide band. It would be illegal for me to try to change them to narrow band or, for that matter, 2.4GHz since I don't have the license or the equipment to verify they are tuned properly.

 

[Grimracer]

View attachment 275516

Your allowed to modify up to five of the same transmitters for your own personal use but you can't sell them. But truth be told, its a paper tiger. When was the last time you saw an FAA agent coming to your, or anybody's door for that matter? Or even heard of one? I'm going on 45 years in R/C and even back when you had to apply for a license I've yet to see an actual FAA agent.

Here's a few pics of a very old Futaba I did a few years back. Pretty easy to do. Hook up Power (red), Ground (black) and Signal (yellow) then mount your antenna.

Here's where I mounted the FrSky in the side panels of the transmitter. Since this transmitter is just for me, I replaced the trainer switch with the FrSky mode selector. But in hind sight I probably should have just tucked the switch into the side panel and forgot about it.
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I found good place to tap the PPM signal, the blue wire at the trainer port. I simply soldered the yellow wire from the FrSky there.
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I also found a nice place to tap the Power and Ground on the back of the circuit board and again soldered the FrSky wires there. DON'T forget to remove your old transmitter crystal.
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Mount the antenna and done!
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Do you mean.. FCC?

Grim

 

[MikeReed]

Turning gimbals isn't an issue, changing frequencies and transmission modes is. The only "home work" that I know of that is legal is fine tuning a 50MHz band system and that is only legal if you have the appropriate equipment and FCC license to do so. I have two transmitters that I can't use due to them being wide band. It would be illegal for me to try to change them to narrow band or, for that matter, 2.4GHz since I don't have the license or the equipment to verify they are tuned properly.

What you mean??? People did it all the time. You can narrow the bandpass but you cant widen it and shoot people down. Remember the big frequency change in the 90's. People were narrow banding existing RF boards as well as changing frequencies. I don't know what part of "You can modify up to five transmitters for your own personal use" is confusing to you. Especially if you're gonna use already approved, pre-packaged RF sections.

 

[MikeReed]

Do you mean.. FCC?

Grim

Hahaha, yeah, I've got brain lock right now. I'm mostly a plane flyer these days and the FAA is in the process of stealing the entire airspace to turn over to commercial special interest groups using the of morons with drones as justification and lumping us in with them.

 

[Hydro Junkie]

What you mean??? People did it all the time. You can narrow the bandpass but you cant widen it and shoot people down. Remember the big frequency change in the 90's. People were narrow banding existing RF boards as well as changing frequencies. I don't know what part of "You can modify up to five transmitters for your own personal use" is confusing to you. Especially if you're gonna use already approved, pre-packaged RF sections.

Show me in the FCC rules that allows you to change the transmitter's frequency band legally. I know we routinely used to change crystals when there was a frequency conflict but that's different, we didn't change the internal circuitry. I tried to have a Futaba Conquest series transmitter changed out and was told it was illegal to do so by every shop I talked to. Since I've read of other people doing that very thing(without an FCC license) and hoping to not get caught, I would very much like to see this in the FCC regulations.

 

[MikeReed]

Show me in the FCC rules that allows you to change the transmitter's frequency band legally. I know we routinely used to change crystals when there was a frequency conflict but that's different, we didn't change the internal circuitry. I tried to have a Futaba Conquest series transmitter changed out and was told it was illegal to do so by every shop I talked to. Since I've read of other people doing that very thing(without an FCC license) and hoping to not get caught, I would very much like to see this in the FCC regulations.

Awww man... I'm not doing that again. Here, you look it up - https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text its in there somewhere.

As for your experience with shops I have no idea what you were asking them to do. From what I understand of the rules, you cannot sell modified transmitters (or modify for profit or something like that) under certain conditions so it may have had something to do with that. Maybe your request was ridiculous and they simply didn't want to be involved. I don't know....

What I can tell you is that you are allowed to modify your own personal equipment. Of course there are rules for that. You cannot modify to some other band that is reserved for some other use. But if your going from an approved R/C use band to some other R/C band there is no problem as far as I'm aware. Of course you still have to adhere to specification guidelines. i.e.you can't make a radio that shoots everything down the second you turn it on or is over approved power output specified for that use. You also have to take into account the level of certification necessary for the band you want to use. 6 meter(50mhz) is a licenses required band and as such is more heavily regulated. 2.4ghz is a public use band so not so regulated.
Another thing I'd like to point out is that, Futaba and many other radio mfg made modules for some of their radios that included 50mhz versions that were interchangeable by the user. They probably still do. In the early days, I flew ACE R/C Micro-Pro 8000 radios. You could buy RF decks in 50,72 and 75mhz. In fact, all the 50mhz decks I bought were kits that I built myself. You simply unbolted and popped them out at will. In any case, it is NO DIFFERENT than the topic of discussion here. Pop out or disable your old 72mhz and pop in a new 2.4ghz at will. Once you do that though (install a different rf section from a different mfg or modify the circuitry), you cannot sell it.

Mike

 

[Terry Keeley]

Won't be selling my 1982 Mode 1 modified transmitters to anyone! lol!

 

[MikeReed]

Won't be selling my 1982 Mode 1 modified transmitters to anyone! lol!

LOL... Even if you did, you'd have to have some seriously bad karma to have anyone come knocking on your door.

Speaking of Ace Micro-Pros in my last post, I just saw this - https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/sho...cropro-8000-single-stick-with-Spektrum-module I see it all the time but again, not big enough fish for the FCC to worry about us lowly little hobby guys.

 

[John Beardslee]

LOL... Even if you did, you'd have to have some seriously bad karma to have anyone come knocking on your door.

Speaking of Ace Micro-Pros in my last post, I just saw this - https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/sho...cropro-8000-single-stick-with-Spektrum-module I see it all the time but again, not big enough fish for the FCC to worry about us lowly little hobby guys.

Tony probably did the original conversion, I haven’t been close to anyone having him do a conversion recently but knew of many single stick flyers that him convert old style single stick radios to 2.4. All I was familiar with had XPS modules in them and he/Radio South is an FCC certified house.

 

[Hydro Junkie]

All I was familiar with had XPS modules in them and he/Radio South is an FCC certified house.

There is also, that is if it's still in business, an FCC certified shop in Spokane Washington.

 

[MikeReed]

Tony probably did the original conversion, I haven’t been close to anyone having him do a conversion recently but knew of many single stick flyers that him convert old style single stick radios to 2.4. All I was familiar with had XPS modules in them and he/Radio South is an FCC certified house.

Yeah there's a whole other set of rules for commercial transactions that I'm not privy to, or really care about and if you're not capable to do the conversions yourself that is a good way to go. I had some XPS modules I used to convert my Airtronics Stylus transmitters when XPS first came out. They worked okay but prices were kinda high and there wasn't much selection for receivers so When Airtronics came out with their own 2.4g conversions, it ended my involvement with XPS.

 

[rctinman]

Terry, sorry for not getting back to you sooner. There are quite a few FrSky receivers to choose from, but the one I use the most is the D4R II 4ch. Use them in my gliders, plenty of range, and no glitching.

Steve Ball

Hi Terry..
Please let us know how the FrSky conversion works out for you. I've been using FrSky in my planes for a few years now, and love em. I've even used the hack module, like you're using, to convert some old aircraft transmitters, with great results.

Have a good one!
Steve Ball

Will do. I range tested it yesterday to 1 km (1000 m or about 0.6 mi) with no problem. I did have some issues with noise and the servos jumping around but tracked it down to the supplied tx antenna, could have been how I had wires routed close to it. It does use an external connector tho and I was wondering if that was the cause so I installed a FASST antenna and it's solid now.

BTW, which receiver(s) are you using? Any glitching?

 

[Terry Keeley]

Been running it but the servos are still glitching a bit, just not as bad with the FASST antenna. Weird tho, when I put the module in "range test" mode (1/6th the power) it stops completely.

I might try some different receivers...

 

[David Bryant]

Tony at Radio South figured out what to do to the encoder and with a pinout from Pete at Kraft Midwest I'm on my way to converting my 25 yr old 3EGX's.

After lots of head scratching I figured the best way was to bury the FASST board in a 3EGX module case:
I'm trying to figure out where to mount the antenna. Does anyone know what's inside the plastic cover? I'm wondering if it's just coax with 1" bare like the rx? If so maybe I could use one of the "long" antennas in it's place? Sure would make it easier to get to the top of the Tx where I want it.

wow, Kraft Midwest is still in existence?

 

[Terry Keeley]

wow, Kraft Midwest is still in existence?

Yup, here's his FleeBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/kraftypete

How's this for a blast from the past? https://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-WO...916638?hash=item3d919bdf5e:g:nmQAAOSw7OFdWr3b

 

[David Bryant]

Yup, here's his FleeBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/kraftypete

How's this for a blast from the past? https://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-WO...916638?hash=item3d919bdf5e:g:nmQAAOSw7OFdWr3b

cool! thanks for the link.

Guess we're from the same generation. I grew up using Kraft radio's (early 1970's). Mostly two-stick. Eventually graduating to Airtronics, as I concentrated on surface models (primarily RC boats, and on-road cars). Airtronics (and Futaba) dominated, at least on west coast. I only recently finally gave-up my original metal case Airtronics FM 3-chan wheel transmitters (comparable to your Futaba 3EGX). they sold very quick on eBay. I use current Airtonics/Sanwa M12 2.4GHz radios (expensive)