My WFly wft-08 has died - HELP

[trout]

To say I do not cuss is not 100% true. In my mind I said some choice words. I stepped away and hoped I would have heard from WFLY by now, but not yet.
So I doubted my abilities and grabbed the second fuse (smart I am, yes? [said in your best Yoda voice]) This time I metered the fuse before soldering to verify it was good and it was. Then soldered this one in. Metered it, it was good. Put battery in and turned on - fuse is blown. Battery pack voltage is 10.67v

I think now is the time for WFLY to step up.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

agreed, Tom.

[trout]

Mike,
I need your help on getting this resolved. This was purchased from you 4 months ago, can you contact them and see what they will do to fix this? Since we have not gotten a response from them on this forum and they have not responded to my emails, I am relying on you for help.
Peace,
Tom

[trout]

Here is the response from WFLY:
Tom,

Excuse me for the later reply.

As a manufactory, we don't have the replacement policy. If you would like to replace it, you have to ask for Mike.

If you would like to repair the radio, you can send to China, we will check and repair it. If it is the problem of quality by factory, then we will afford the cost of repair and postage from China to your location. If not, you have to afford all the cost.

Best Regards

[trout]

Picture in your mind your favorite war movie, and your about to be overrun by the enemy, who come in at the last minute? The Cavalry!
Here is Mike's email:
I have already (yesterday) instructed my office to send out a call tag for the defective radio, and to supply Tom with a new one. We'll worry about getting it to China if the need arises. It's not Tom's problem.

Mike, Thank you for your care and service! This is the reason to buy from Caswell!

[Subculture]

In my favourite war movie, they get carpeted with bombs at the end!

[trout]

Not helping Subculture, not helping! LOL

[vital.spark]

In my FT08 I am now using a lipo battery. When I pluged in my charger to the plug in in the transmitter case The fuse blew! When I removed the battery from the transmitter the battery could be charged without a problem. I have now replaced the fuse and I have only 39 extra! Cheap at double the price!

My question is that there is a battery cable supplied with the WFLY FT08, should this have been installed on the battery? What is the purpose of the cable as there is no mention in the supplied mini disk of charging?

[KevinMc]

In my FT08 I am now using a lipo battery. When I pluged in my charger to the plug in in the transmitter case The fuse blew! When I removed the battery from the transmitter the battery could be charged without a problem. I have now replaced the fuse and I have only 39 extra! Cheap at double the price!

My question is that there is a battery cable supplied with the WFLY FT08, should this have been installed on the battery? What is the purpose of the cable as there is no mention in the supplied mini disk of charging?

I seem to recall that the "cable" that comes with the transmitter has a regulator built in so you don't damage the transmitter - I guess the 12.6V (hot off charge) from a LiPo is too much for the Tx? I've never used it - For a multitude of reasons I stick with NiMh in my Tx's.

[trout]

I just recently began using LiPo in my TX. For the longest time I was not sure what the cable was for until I ran across a newer manual or note, I do not remember, that said if using LiPo the cable must be used (might have been the web site). The cable has some components sealed with shrink wrap. So with trepidation, I attached the cable to the end of the TX LiPo battery and the other end of the cable to the TX. Fired up the transmitter and nothing bad happened. All is good. I decided to move over because my TX was sucking up battery juice. NiMH batteries would last an hour (guesstimate). I put regular batteries in and that would last a while, but I do not like the expense of buying batteries. So at the last Regatta, a friend showed me he was using LiPo and would be able to go a full day and still not need a charge.

[vital.spark]

Thanks Guy's, Up and running with a new fuse and cable installed! I did notice a voltage drop after I used the cable from 11 to 9.8V!

[bwi 971]

I use LiPo for years without any problem.

But I was a little concerned to use it in my older TX'ses. The 3S LiPo, nominal voltage 11.1V, when charged it can get up to +12V.
I thought that could put some stress to the circuit boards.

That’s why I use LiFEPo4 batteries, nominal voltage 9.9V, never reach more the 11V when charged and it has all the advantages of a LiPo battery.

I always take my batteries out of my TX when charging them.

The MHz TX'ses are hard to get these days so go very gentle with them.

Grtz,
Bart

[KevinMc]

I'm pretty sure I've stood on this soap-box before, but for all the places I've gone and switched to using LiPo batteries the one place I will not do so is in my transmitters*. Consider the following:

1.) How much capacity can you get in the "battery box"? Most transmitter have a battery compartment that's designed to take a battery pack that's exactly the size of 8x AA cells. Within that volume you can usually fit about 2000mAh 3S LiPo - which I admit is a lot of capacity. But when you consider you can get 2000mAh AA cells, you've not actually bought much (if any) capacity switching to Lithium, you could just get a better Nickel chemistry pack.

2.) Low voltage warning? Most transmitters have a low voltage warning that's calibrated for NiMh/NiCd cell chemistry. The low voltage warning for 8 x AA cells is not the same as an unregulated 3S LiPo. In fact by the time that alarm goes off you're already doing damage to your 3S pack. And it's even worse when you put a regulator on that 3S pack because it masks the discharge curve of the battery leaving you totally blind as to its charge state until the battery voltage drops low enough that the regulator doesn't regulate - and by then your battery voltage will fall off very quickly.

Sure, an equivalent LiPo will weigh less, but I use a neck-strap for my transmitter so there's no difference for me there. I can charge the NiMh pack using the built-in charge port so I don't have to open the transmitter up (or remove the battery) to recharge it. In a nutshell, the way I see it is switching a transmitter that's designed for nickel-chemistry batteries over to lithium cells is all downs and no ups.

(*My one exception to this is in my DX8, which is specifically designed to take a 2S LiPo, and yes I'm a happy LiPo user for that one!)

Your mileage may vary. Stepping down off my box now!