Akom's Tech Ruminations

I can't say that I have a good reason for doing this, other than the potential for letting inexperienced family members fly my plane, but I thought this should be easy enough to do:

RTF Radio with DR Switch

The RTF transmitter that came with my Pitts S2A has a bunch of dip switches, which are not so quick to flip on the fly - and I've played with friends' real professional transmitters - and they have what seems to be useful toggle switches to control this stuff. So I figured I'm gonna pretend that I'm cool too.

The transmitter turned out to be very neatly designed, and finding the switch and soldering a pair of wires was surprisingly easy. Moreover, the cute silver pads on the top corners of the transmitter are actually silver stickers, covering up pre-drilled holes intended specifically for what I'm putting in there - a toggle switch.

In short, here is the result. Now I can cut my throw rate in half with a flip of a switch. Whether this is at all useful, remains to be seen

Can't say that I'm about to turn my 4 channel RTF transmitter into a 6 channel with a toggle switch, though it'd be pretty nice if I could. After writing that, I figured - what the heck, I'll try it. No go - sticking pots or switches on the unused circuit board connections did not get me a 6 channel transmitter - I don't think it transmits the carrier signal at all on ch 5 and 6. Perhaps the IC's are not the same.

The dip switch board (back)

Soldered on to the board

Switch location

Overall Layout

All Finished

UPDATE

This turned out to be a bad idea!
See the outcome: Not All That Is Hackable Should Be