Horizon Hobby "Smoke Screen" for Spektrum???

[SrC]

Rx's and Tx's generally work or don't work. If both RX and TX as a radio set have intermittent issues, then both have a problem with reception and latency. Rebinding the STX2 has helped for some, but not myself with my STX2. When asking for a warranty replacement you must specify both a RX and TX replacement or Horizon is just wasting your time. One OP of this STX2 issue was told initially that a servo replacement was offered as the possible issue. That was just a bad call on the part of HH. I haven't bothered to warranty mine. A waste of time. But in light of this thread, I am curious as how they would deal with me regarding same. I just placed a call to HH tech. Waiting for their return call. Will update. I don't expect much, but perhaps if I send them a video of the STX2 being crushed by my car, they will get the picture. They like videos if you offer them!

 

[Mike-NLD]

"Horizon said it was likely the servo and not the radio, the servo failing is a common issue."

In the case of servo failing.. There must be damage to one of the gears in there..
If there isnt.. The only way the servo failed.. Is due to the RX not giving the commands to the servo..

 

[SrC]

In the case of servo failing.. There must be damage to one of the gears in there..
If there isnt.. The only way the servo failed.. Is due to the RX not giving the commands to the servo..

A failed servo doesn't intermittently fail. The gears are known to fail, specifically the center inner gear. I find it odd that we can't discern between a failed servo or a defective Radio set. Which one is it?

 

[Wmorgan]

In the case of servo failing.. There must be damage to one of the gears in there..
If there isnt.. The only way the servo failed.. Is due to the RX not giving the commands to the servo..

I think the "blame it on the servo" is a red herring. They know it's the radio, but don't want to own it. That said, i'm probably more cynical than most.

 

[SrC]

I think the "blame it on the servo" is a red herring. They know it's the radio, but don't want to own it. That said, i'm probably more cynical than most.

No more cynical than I.

 

[olds97_lss]

It's hard for me to relate to this, because I always change the radio when I buy an RTR. I don't care how good or bad it supposed to be. the radio and RTR vehicle comes with would never preclude me from buying it.

I'm the same. That said, I can understand a new person starting the hobby being a bit miffed about it only to have to either wait for horizon to replace stuff over and over or find out that the radio is a POS and now they have to sink more $ into it just to enjoy it.

I never used the tactic that came with my outcast. It's in a bucket somewhere with 4 or 5 other radios I never used, 2 or 3 of which are traxxas 2.4ghz things.

 

[bicketybam]

I'm the same. That said, I can understand a new person starting the hobby being a bit miffed about it only to have to either wait for horizon to replace stuff over and over or find out that the radio is a POS and now they have to sink more $ into it just to enjoy it.

I never used the tactic that came with my outcast. It's in a bucket somewhere with 4 or 5 other radios I never used, 2 or 3 of which are traxxas 2.4ghz things.

The radio that came with my Savage X wasn't even digital ?

 

[Reubydoobe]

So this is not just another rant on how much the Spektrum is a POS. That's already well doumented here on the AF. Rather a question about something that I recently became aware through a new Arrma Kraton V4 owner. My neighbor, who i evangelized into becoming a new Arrma owner, received his Kraton V4 6S last Wednesday. On the maiden voyage he described driving it around on the street to just check things out when i had a momentary loss of control...and ran nose first into a street sign pole. Bent the chassis and damaged other front end stuff. (I don't remember if i warned him about the POS Spektrum before his first run but for the sake of appearing to be a good neighbor, believe that i did ?). I told him what to do about the damage with a claim to Horizon. I was very curious how they'd respond to a claim due to the radio malf. This morning he tells me, "Horizon said it was likely the servo and not the radio, the servo failing is a common issue.". Uuuhhh...what?!? The servo!?! He didn't even mention the servo.
My conspiracy theory:
Horizon won't accept complaints that their POS Spektrum radio has common failures resulting in loss of control as such documentation would ruin their legal argument for plausible deniability in a court room.
Has anyone else had a similar experience??

Yea i lost control of my typhon twice now. Once it zoomed off and got stuck under a fence the other time it hit a friend in the leg and knocked them clean off there feet. After that i don't really use it around other people.
Lot's of other owners i know have had the same problem. More so in built up areas or places with metal fences. It's like a temporary signal loss. I can't wait to swap it out as soon as funds allow. Will be going for a tatic.

I'm the same. That said, I can understand a new person starting the hobby being a bit miffed about it only to have to either wait for horizon to replace stuff over and over or find out that the radio is a POS and now they have to sink more $ into it just to enjoy it.

I never used the tactic that came with my outcast. It's in a bucket somewhere with 4 or 5 other radios I never used, 2 or 3 of which are traxxas 2.4ghz things.

Wanna sell an old tatic radio?

 

[arrmadillo]

Yea i lost control of my typhon twice now. Once it zoomed off and got stuck under a fence the other time it hit a friend in the leg and knocked them clean off there feet. After that i don't really use it around other people.
Lot's of other owners i know have had the same problem. More so in built up areas or places with metal fences. It's like a temporary signal loss. I can't wait to swap it out as soon as funds allow. Will be going for a tatic.

Wanna sell an old tatic radio?

There are many members with Tactics just sitting around, I'm sure if they read this someone can help you out. ?

 

[bicketybam]

Something struck me as odd as I was ripping out the receiver from my new Kraton 4S. Three-quarters of the antenna is wrapped around the base of the receiver box. Only a quarter of it ends up in the tube and standing upright. I'd have to say the entire antenna is probably 8 inches long. If I was going to run that radio and receiver, I would drill a small hole in the top of the receiver box and feed the antenna straight up through it. I would then get an antenna tube that was much longer than what it comes with and use that. I wonder if that would rectify the range issues that people have with the radio. It's just really surprising how much of the antenna is buried at the bottom of the truck.

 

[olds97_lss]

Something struck me as odd as I was ripping out the receiver from my new Kraton 4S. Three-quarters of the antenna is wrapped around the base of the receiver box. Only a quarter of it ends up in the tube and standing upright. I'd have to say the entire antenna is probably 8 inches long. If I was going to run that radio and receiver, I would drill a small hole in the top of the receiver box and feed the antenna straight up through it. I would then get an antenna tube that was much longer than what it comes with and use that. I wonder if that would rectify the range issues that people have with the radio. It's just really surprising how much of the antenna is buried at the bottom of the truck.

On a coaxial 2.4ghz antenna, the pigtail is what matters most. As long as that is sticking up in the air, it's doing it's job. The rest of the wire is shielded coax. If you took a working receiver from a good radio system, cut the pigtail off, you'd destroy the range. Just cutting the pigtail in half will affect it quite a bit. That pigtail length is tuned to the frequency it's trying to receive.

 

[bicketybam]

On a coaxial 2.4ghz antenna, the pigtail is what matters most. As long as that is sticking up in the air, it's doing it's job. The rest of the wire is shielded coax. If you took a working receiver from a good radio system, cut the pigtail off, you'd destroy the range. Just cutting the pigtail in half will affect it quite a bit. That pigtail length is tuned to the frequency it's trying to receive.

So scrap that idea!

 

[PaPa Thorn]

It sounds like while they don't want to admit fault with their radio, they are perfectly willing to throw Arrma under the bus by blaming the servo. Even though Horizon "owns" Arrma they can still distance themselves from the issue because Arrma has been using these servos for awhile now. I've had many Arrma servos fail and the truck stops turning, but do you know what it doesn't do? Take off at full throttle.

Someone should tell Horizon that electric cars don't have servos for the throttle because someone over there doesn't know sh!t about RC's.

I've switched my radio not that long ago, mine came with a Tactic, and I'll never use another RTR radio again. Huge difference, and I'm kind of feeling like a d!ck for putting the old one on my wife's car. I gotta get her something better.

 

[Wmorgan]

It sounds like while they don't want to admit fault with their radio, they are perfectly willing to throw Arrma under the bus by blaming the servo. Even though Horizon "owns" Arrma they can still distance themselves from the issue because Arrma has been using these servos for awhile now. I've had many Arrma servos fail and the truck stops turning, but do you know what it doesn't do? Take off at full throttle.

Someone should tell Horizon that electric cars don't have servos for the throttle because someone over there doesn't know sh!t about RC's.

I've switched my radio not that long ago, mine came with a Tactic, and I'll never use another RTR radio again. Huge difference, and I'm kind of feeling like a peepee for putting the old one on my wife's car. I gotta get her something better.

Ah ha!! Someone read the OP! Your first paragraph is what i believe is going on if...IF ...it's a common occurrence. And if it is the case it's slimy and means that it won't be corrected, ever. I don't expect it to change for any releases this year as whatever it is is already in production.
I would hope they'll respond to the customer and either improve the radio or allow customers to fit their own in new releases beyond 2019.

 

[Dauransx]

The ARRMA CEO said to a comment in one of the newer ARRMA vids that they (ARRMA) were looking into the poor STX2 and looking into better radios. Even ARRMA agree's but they got new masters telling them what radios to use and such. I hope this upcoming hidden ARRMA RC wont have the STX2...

 

[SthlmM]

I have both the tactic for my neros and The stx2 for my v4 typhon. I got bad connetion only once, otherwise i must say i am pretty happy with the stx (only a year into rc) bit have not tried a high end radio yet.

On the horizon subject i think it is as simple as they have a paragraf in the deal with arrma that they must use the stx2 because they have a warehouse flowing iver of this cheap radio... So probably a bad deal that arrma "had" to take to be saved.

 

[Custnam]

One good thing is that if you watch Aussie RC Playgrounds videos he gets Arrmas to review all the time and has a direct connection with them. And he addressed the issue in his review videos as well. So has Kevin Talbot. They both described delays and the overall cheapness of the radio. So its nice that big reviewers like this are also mentioning this as well. Should get more attention. Hopefully!

 

[arrmadillo]

You can bet your left nut HH knows about this radio. They can't replace all these radios that went out so far, the ones sitting in boxes, and who knows how many sitting in a warehouse. So while we crush them, Horizon will keep pumping them out until they'll exhausted.

 

[slick2500]

You guys act like Arrmas are the first vehicles to ever use the STX2...... The Spektrum STX2 has been around for about 2 or 3 years now. I know Ecx was the first to get these radios.
And who tf is reviewing these things? Seriously all 4 or 5 star reviews? That doesn't look fishy at all
https://www.google.com/shopping/pro...8&ved=0ahUKEwivwoD-9PTkAhWYsp4KHXtYCPUQ4jUIPg
Tower both 5 star https://www.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?I=SPMJ1023
Amazon 4.4 out of 5 https://www.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?I=SPMJ1023