More than meets the eye with Radiolink, DumboRC, and any of the Radiolink copycat transmitter/receivers

[kenm04]

I'm sure many of you know that DumboRC is or thought DumboRC was a copycat of Radiolink. Well, actually they are a subsidiary of Radiolink. https://www.radiolink.com/DUMBORC

This really means that Radiolink units should have as fast of response time as DumboRC does. The only other possibility is that they use different CPU's or more streamlined code to decrease processing time.

But here is where the fun begins and the real reason for the title, If you use or have a Radiolink, DumboRC, or other copycat receivers (I'll use the R6FG / X6FG as an example) and you remove the plastic housing. If you see a module circuit board like

this one labeled 3081st2v11. Then you have a reciever with a Texaas Instruments CC2500 1mw 100 meter SPI communication transciever. From what I can find so far at least is that the transmitter has a different module in it, probably higher power longer range, but still the same chip. The importance of this is that if you modify the code on the reciever and transmitters control chip you could get telemetry, you'd have to ad sensors too. The other option would be a new control chip board in the transmitter and reciever to add more info. To the telemetry, and possibly for very cheap other than time.

And thanks to the team that is working on the Multiprotocol TX module mainly for aircraft, here is a chart of some of the systems that use the CC2500 transciever

Protocol Name	Protocol Number	Sub_Proto 0	Sub_Proto 1	Sub_Proto 2	Sub_Proto 3	Sub_Proto 4	Sub_Proto 5	Sub_Proto 6	Sub_Proto 7	RF Module
Corona	37	COR_V1	COR_V2	FD_V3						CC2500
FrskyD	3	D8	Cloned							CC2500
FrskyL	67	LR12	LR12 6CH							CC2500
FrskyV	25									CC2500
FrskyX	15	CH_16	CH_8	EU_16	EU_8	Cloned	Cloned_8			CC2500
FrskyX2	64	CH_16	CH_8	EU_16	EU_8	Cloned	Cloned_8			CC2500
Frsky_RX	55	Multi	CloneTX	EraseTX	CPPM					CC2500
Futaba/SFHSS	21	SFHSS								CC2500
Hitec	39	OPT_FW	OPT_HUB	MINIMA						CC2500
HoTT	57	Sync	No_Sync							CC2500
RadioLink	74	Surface	Air	DumboRC						CC2500
Scanner	54									CC2500

 

[AIan]

So how does that make the radio’s better/worse?? Or what can we do with them?

 

[kenm04]

Since dumboRC TX/RX combos are touted as being the best cheap almost no lag units out there, it may be possible to reflash the control chip of Radiolink controllers to make them just as fast and still offer more features including possibly adding telemetry to a controller that might not have it by default.

Or perhaps like my case, I have an Old Futaba T3PK that I could modify to work with radiolink / dumboRc receivers instead of being locked down to the old FASST transmitter module that I have and the $50 per receiver. Sure the old 3PK can't do telemetry, but I could add in a sub-controller chip that takes in the Futaba PPm signal and talks with the RX, then any telemetry data sent back to the tx could be shown on a secondary display or just data logged on to an sd card.

As for the options of making custom control boards for a TX or RX it would open the ability to make relatively cheap feature-packed tx's with a lot of telemetry data similar to the Taranis or other really nice controllers for the air craft sector out hobby.

 

[AIan]

Oh