Comment by Melih Karakelle on August 8, 2010 at 10:50am

@Chris

If you talking about "OpenSource" and "Community", you are completely right and i'm with you.

But Futaba is a company, like Atmel, Mediatek or SiLab and all of us using their products on our amateur (or opensource or community what ever) projects. And anyone cant design a Futaba transmitter or Atmel processor under an OpenSource community! This is why we need them (like someone need us on professional life)

Profit calculation or other things isnt our business, If you dont like Futaba's price policy you can buy other brands or modify your transmitter for Assan or Corona (or Xbee) this is only legal thing we can do it.
I'm sorry but I can not applaud this clone things.

About Ardupilot: of course it was a joke :)

Developer Comment by Michael Smith on August 8, 2010 at 10:57am

@melih - I'm puzzled by your continued concern trolling.

There is nothing "illegal" in most countries (including the USA, which tends to be the 500kg gorilla in the room when it comes to international IP law) about reverse-engineering a device for the purpose of interoperability.

Moderator Comment by Morli on August 8, 2010 at 10:57am

10$ cheaper ?!! I am all yours , I would not make any one let alone Chris or jordi richer I am " Al cheapo" , my 10$ is worth 100$ in may other places , so I guess I have to value my money in my terms coz it is my sweat and blood... Sorry this not a topic I usually participate but today is not my day..

Developer Comment by John Arne Birkeland on August 8, 2010 at 12:14pm

I just finished reading the user manual for this orangeRX receiver, and it supports failsafe on all channels regardless of transmitter. R608FS only does ch3 unless you have a 10C or better radio!?!?. Also the orangeRX specs is 4-10v. Meaning so you can use unregulated 2S lipo to drive it. It is starting to look more like an upgrade then a cheap clone...

Comment by bGatti on August 8, 2010 at 2:20pm

@Melih
Yours is an interesting and increasingly diminishing view (WallMart replaced "Made in America" for "Everyday chinese price have" some time ago - and never looked back)

Protectionism is (ironically) an important value to Karl Marx - who believed that competition caused people to work harder and longer than necessary. The truth is more complicated, Futaba can produce a new product by making small changes to an existing product, While a copier has more work to create the entire product from scratch - in addition, the copier has to create his own market etc...
Now, if someone has access to the market, and similar skills, they might be able to enter the market, but many cannot, and those that have will need time, so the premium Futaba can charge is based on barrier and time advantage - in short, if you bought 2.4 in the last year, you paid the premium (while I bought 72Mhz equipment used.)

Good luck getting anybody to salute to the pay more flag.

My question is if the Receivers are hackable...

Comment by Melih Karakelle on August 8, 2010 at 9:04pm

Hi Guys

I slept better and now I realize I can not explain why
I guess its about my English or electronic skill.

At first, you should know this things for understanding 2.4 systems:
All 2.4 receivers uses same chips(2 brand 10 different chip) and all 2.4 chips comes with a perfect circuit design sample and they uses same protocol with different register numbers for their capabilities.
By the way, you need only a 1$ priced Atmega88 for talking them and sending servo signals. Engineering not into the circuits, all circuits engineered by rf module producers, you can choose them. All 2.4 rx brands (10+ now) can talk with others if you can write 200 lines code. You need only a protocol analyzer(140$) and few seconds for learning FAAST, DSM2 or other brands protocols. And you can talk with all transmitters or your wireless computer mouse or home theater system :)
And all rx/txs uses a transceiver(not a receiver/transmitter) for binding. And you can use them for 2 directional telemetry too in short range ;)
And another thing, 2channel or 14channel all receivers same, you need only a firmware change for other channels because it is a digital data protocol, big question is "why we are paying 10 times higher price for only few extra pinouts and same technology?"


After that:
Most important part of 2.4 digital transmission is PROTOCOL. Protocol is keeps you safe, resolves conflicts. And engineering starts here, because you need more than few months for designing a good protocol.(I know that because i designed 4-5 different transmission protocol for secure internet transmissions and talking with a medical implant) And this is why producers gives name to protocols. FAAST is not a device name, it is a protocol name,also DSM2.
Remember Corona 2.4 systems they changed protocol on v2 because few guys crashed on the field and reason was protocol.

Take a Corona receiver and find programming pins on PCB, copy FAAST protocol and type your FAAST code in to the Atmega88 chip, that's all. And maybe you want to add some sailsafe features or total PPM output for quadrocopters?
But if you want to sell it, i will call you thief and product will clone for me, because you are stealing everything as possible(protocol here) when you using their protocol without their permission. (@michael "purpose of interoperability" is a good word but is just an excuse for copiers)
Futaba doing this job for profit, RC not their hobby, we should understand this before talking about their price strategy or reasons. If they says "FAAST is our..." i cannot say "why man..." rule is buy or not for us.

Anyway
I'm not lawyer of Futaba/Spectrum, This is my personal comments about stealing something or not without designer's permission. And we need designers for next technologies.

I'm done, thanks for reading.

Comment by Melih Karakelle on August 8, 2010 at 9:16pm

@bGatti

Yes they all hackable of course, If you want to crash all planes at the field, just you need a tx and few line code. 2.4 and frequency hopping is not a magic ;)

Moderator Comment by Morli on August 8, 2010 at 9:32pm

Why does HACK mean bad things like crashing all the other RC models in the field? !! Most of DIY involves hack one way or another IMHO.
@ Melith,
Thanks for details, I understand your openion better now.
Have a nice day

Comment by Uwe Gartmann on August 9, 2010 at 4:05am

There are more receiver on the market using Fasst protocol.

Simprop, a well known brand in the german speaking part of Europe, has a new receiver generation. If you study the specs, you will find out that this receivers will be far more than a simple reengineered product. Some Pilots has problems using Futaba receiver on their older planes, because the 14ms impuls rate is not working for some legacy Graupner servos. Now, with the Simprop receivers, you can change that rate back to 20ms.

FrSky has a receiver that looks quite the same as the one from OrangeRX.

Comment by bGatti on August 9, 2010 at 2:32pm

Wow Thief for using a protocol.
I would say that Protocals are not a candy bar. (look it up)

If I were to "use" a protocol, it would be so that I could communicate with something else that does - and I would most likely needs purchase that something else - perhaps from designer of Protocol.

But I want a receiver to do more than the stock design - why does a UAV need so many wires? because the function of the receiver is duplicated in the uav controller (ie driving servos) plus the messy conversion from PPL and back. All of that is dead weight, and the path to improvement lies in communicating in the Lingua Franca.

Another point, if you expect a protocol to be "in use" at a field, it may be better to cooperate with that protocol than to broadcast a new protocol into the same space.

Now - if they have a patent on the Protocol, than using it violates Patent rights, but if they choose to operate under the rubric of secrecy, then it is public domain when discovered - that is the law in the US.

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