Spektrum SR 6100 AT Telemetry Receiver Failure

[John Boccher]

Has any one had a Spektrum SR 6100 AT Receiver failure. ? I have them in my gas boats.
The Receiver quit functioning. The internal led light stated to go dim and and then completely went out. No response from transmitter inputs.
I have checked all the wiring harness from the fully charged receiver battery pack to the receiver. Did not find a problem. such as loose or bad wire .
I have checked the on off switch. It was also OK.
I finally tried just plugging in the battery pack to the receiver. The receiver is dead a a door nail. No Led light at all. It seems that the receiver has totally failed.
The receiver is in the water tight radio box , and has not gotten wet. The receiver is secured in the radio box with the double sided tape and is secure.
I am begining to think that the boat and engine vibration may be causing the problem were the receiver is failing because it can't take the vibrations causing the failure.
This is a bad situation if the receiver fails while the boat is running at speed. Because when the receiver fails , the fail safe is lost due to lose of battery power to the receiver, the servos will not move to there lose of signal position and shut the boat down.
Luckily this failure happened to me while the boat was being started. Every thing was working fine, then then receiver would not respond to any transmitter inputs. At that time I noticed that the Receiver Led light became very dim and then went out as if the power was shut off.
I am getting a new receiver and will put it on a soft foam pad and hope that will eliminate the vibration.
These receivers cost $100.00.
This is not a new receiver and has been in the boat for a full season with out a problem until now.

Thanks for reading this.
John

 

[john v]

I know my futaba receivers overheat inside the radio box and lockout if you leave the boat in direct sunlight.
Maybe this is the case in your situation?

 

[Grimracer]

John,

Are your receivers FAST and have a blue label?

Grim

 

[john v]

Yes they are blue label

 

[Grimracer]

wow.. I have not seen those in YEARS.. yes.. they had HEAT ISSUES.. Futaba changed the RX and all the ORANGE label units do not have that issue!

its been at least 15 years...

Grim

 

[john v]

Mmm, I must be getting old, all my 603s are blue, don't have any orange
I bought a new 3pv with some 203gf receivers and never took it out of the box!
Just a backup incase my 3pm gives up the ghost
Other than the antenna mount broken its been good to me

 

[Grimracer]

IT IS RARE to have even a blue label fast have a heat issue (I personally never had it happen in my models).. but it can (Apparently you have experienced) happen.

The FHSS units have never had these issues.

Grim

 

[John Boccher]

Thank you all so far for your inputs. I don't think it is a heat issue, but i can't be sure. even after a week in my lower level cool temp work shop, the one SR 6100 AT receiver is still dead. I have turned on the transmitter and then to be sure , I just plugged the fully charged 6.6 v battery pack directly into the receiver and nothing . No power light , no nothing. It is dead as a door nail.
Well that's it for now. I will continue to keep you posted.

John

 

[Roxyflash]

Did you open the case and had a visual on it?

 

[John Boccher]

After a long talk with the Spektrum people at Horizon hobby. I was upset because no were is there any information about the SR 6100 AT Receiver that indicates it is only good for both electric and larger gas RC cars and off road Trucks and buggies.. The Teck reps said the the SR 6100 AT Telemetry Receiver has gyros in it. They can not take the pounding from boat use because the Gyros fail and destroy the receiver. It would have been nice to have that written in the receiver manual. So Two SR 6100 AT receivers destroyed at a lose of $100.00 each. I will still use my DX5C because it has a few more capabilities over the my DX4C. Luckily I had one Spare SR 315 receiver that binds very nicely with my DX5C and works perfectly.. So I still need to get one more SR 315 for my other boat. LESSON LEARNED.

Thanks for all your return post on this subject.

John

 

[Daniel's Racing]

After a long talk with the Spektrum people at Horizon hobby. I was upset because no were is there any information about the SR 6100 AT Receiver that indicates it is only good for both electric and larger gas RC cars and off road Trucks and buggies.. The Teck reps said the the SR 6100 AT Telemetry Receiver has gyros in it. They can not take the pounding from boat use because the Gyros fail and destroy the receiver. It would have been nice to have that written in the receiver manual. So Two SR 6100 AT receivers destroyed at a lose of $100.00 each. I will still use my DX5C because it has a few more capabilities over the my DX4C. Luckily I had one Spare SR 315 receiver that binds very nicely with my DX5C and works perfectly.. So I still need to get one more SR 315 for my other boat. LESSON LEARNED.

Thanks for all your return post on this subject.

John

It is best to consider ANYTHING Spectrum not for marine use.

 

[John Boccher]

Thanks Daniel, for your input.
This may make a great new conversation. I have been using Spektrum Equipment for years with out any problems at all. This was the first time I have ever had a problem. Well they ( Spektrum ) should indicate in any and all the literature that Gyro equipped Telemetry Receivers can not be used in big fast RC boats.
It has always been my understanding, that a persons choice of Brand Radio equipment is person and what they have gotten used to over the years.
So lets hear from a few people what the have been using for a long time.

Thanks ,
John

 

[Grimracer]

I am bias BUT..

I have raced many different brands of radios. KOprpo, JR, Airtronics, Tactic and Futaba. I have seen many different brands of radios used as well.. Cheap to VERY pricy!

In then end trusting the system is NUMBER ONE! The only way to gain that trust is though "great performance".

With all the "marketing" hype now days and MFGs offering more "Stuff" just because.. well.. it can make performance tricky.

I like BASIC.. I like TECH.. so what really works....

I have a relatively extensive background in this subject from range testing to radio RF swamping to you name it. (I have seen some crazy things..lol) Worked with an RF engineer for a number of those years.

My avatar (NO BS HERE) does support MY choice to get me that TRUST needed to feel good about my RC program.

General thoughts here, but please know this is part of my sponsorship.. so take that for what its worth!

One idea is to CHOOSE Futaba
Use a 324 RX (gold pins, diversity antennas)
Use a 400mm RX antenna (ALL BRANDS GET THAT RX ANTENNA AS FAR OFF THE WATER AS YOU CAN)
Use a 5C or more Life RX battery
USE FUTABA SERVOS! (With all the servos out there and all this "tech stuff" getting tossed at us, the market is seeing challenges with this)


Now that I have said this.. it just needs to work for you REGARLESS of the system you choose. Ask around.. see what others are using! There are some nice choices out there!

Grimracer