HELP!! Did I Inadvertently Make My Polk Tracker III Brain-Dead??? Can I reset it???

[wlambing]

Have been working on some boats and trying to get one in particular to the point of in-water testing. This boat (Ch 61) has been pretty good about the sticks, switches, and servos working the way they are supposed to. That is until the other night when I shut-down work before bed-time, not realizing I had left the transmitter on. The boat was turned off. Next day, I discover my error and slap the rdo on the charger for 16 hours. Try to resume my testing work, but:; ballast air pump stays running, unless stick is moved to vent position, throttle goes to immediate full-bore in ahead stick, (but in astern direction!), will go to neutral, and has some, small range of control in astern direction. No matter which way a stick is moved, the rudder and stern planes servos only move one way. I changed rdo over to another boat (Ch 69) and get the same results. I changed freq. thinking I may need to re-link my Polk Seeker 6 receiver in the Ch 61 boat, but it seems the transmitter is where the problem lies.

I like the Polk and have 7 models in it. I have 3 Seeker receivers that really seem to work well as spares. I also have a VEX unit rdo (CH 85) I use for another boat with the VEX receiver (SubTech ?) and have another of that type receiver linked to the Polk as the (Ch 69) boat.

Being a retiree, a wholesale swap-out of radios is not gonna be in the cards, which is another likeable feature of using the Polk system. Unless the accident settlement is really good.....

Take care,

Bill

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Have been working on some boats and trying to get one in particular to the point of in-water testing. This boat (Ch 61) has been pretty good about the sticks, switches, and servos working the way they are supposed to. That is until the other night when I shut-down work before bed-time, not realizing I had left the transmitter on. The boat was turned off. Next day, I discover my error and slap the rdo on the charger for 16 hours. Try to resume my testing work, but:; ballast air pump stays running, unless stick is moved to vent position, throttle goes to immediate full-bore in ahead stick, (but in astern direction!), will go to neutral, and has some, small range of control in astern direction. No matter which way a stick is moved, the rudder and stern planes servos only move one way. I changed rdo over to another boat (Ch 69) and get the same results. I changed freq. thinking I may need to re-link my Polk Seeker 6 receiver in the Ch 61 boat, but it seems the transmitter is where the problem lies.

I like the Polk and have 7 models in it. I have 3 Seeker receivers that really seem to work well as spares. I also have a VEX unit rdo (CH 85) I use for another boat with the VEX receiver (SubTech ?) and have another of that type receiver linked to the Polk as the (Ch 69) boat.

Being a retiree, a wholesale swap-out of radios is not gonna be in the cards, which is another likeable feature of using the Polk system. Unless the accident settlement is really good.....

Take care,

Bill

I assumed your transmitter battery has been banged back up.

Select your model, then go through all the endpoints for the channels for that model. The battery drop may have wiped some/all of the pre-sets.

I have a few Polks Tracker-3's sitting here doing nothing if you need a system really quick.

David

[wlambing]

Thanks, David! I'll see what I can maybe resurrect. Didn't these things have an auto cut-out for low voltage?? Seems like a computer would have such a thing to save itself from us!!! I'll holler if I need to get another radio!!

[wlambing]

Did an End Point Adjustment check on all 8 channels, and all showed to be at 100% in each direction. The jittering did seem to calm down a bit while I was in the set-up tracks.
Let's go deep and dark (e-mail) for a discussion re: Polk radios. Meantime, anyone with reasonable ideas (excluding accelerants, high-voltage arcs, antique firearms, etc.), please continue to offer ideas.

[wlambing]

I have also broken out and am charging up my Airtronics Vanguard 600. It is 29 years old (much newer battery, though!). If it works, its going in a boat! This was purchased from Skip way back in the day! The VG600 is installed now and works just fine!!

[RCSubGuy]

Highly likely that the memory backup battery is long dead and was relying on the main battery for retaining settings. If you crack into the radio, there is likely a button battery in there somewhere that you can swap out and get the memory backup back up and running.

[wlambing]

Cool, Bob! Will take a look and go from there. I'll prolly have to get with you and figure out something using one of those new radio systems for a bunch of models whose souls could be permanently trapped within that Polk chassis! More later...

[wlambing]

Exploratory surgery on another Polk Tracker III revealed no separate memory battery. Plenty of rheostat casings that resemble such batteries, but no proper batteries. I may have a solution in the works, and I have a good radio installed in the cylinder I'm working on.

[Schmitty1944]

It sounds like as the battery went dead with it turned on it corrupted the firmware. I'm sure there is a way to re-flash the firmware but I've been looking around on the internet and haven't found a solution. I did see old posts where people mention having their radios up-dated by the manufacture to the latest firmware versions so it is clearly possible. You might try asking on rc-groups or other sites that have a large community. Someone out there has to know.

Jason

[wlambing]

Jason,

Thank you for the thoughts, but I fixed the problem. I got another, working radio! There is no support for Aristocraft/Polk radios, as that business died years ago. If this one croaks, I'll have to attend antenna stuffing school I guess and get a dual freq. set-up from Bob.