Turnigy 9X: 9X8C Reciever Mod!

Hi everyone!

I recently got into quadcopters and i'm having so much fun with it! The goal, as for many in the beginning is to build as cheap as possible simply because crashing a expensive drone sucks (atleast i'm assuming). Because I was on a budget I chose the Turnigy 9X transmitter, a cheap and price worthy transmitter that is easy to modify as you advance. At first i printed the Peon230 frame, designed by Tech2C. A great frame for newbies like me IF you have a 3D printer. It was a great little frame but I wanted something lighter, so i made my own frame! (more on that later if anyone is intrested). The problem now being the 9X8C reciever now being to big to fit the frame (d'oh!). This required some modification!

Note that this is not an easy modification, it involves precision soldering.

Step 1: Disassembly

Disassembly is as easy as removing the two phillip head screws and sliding the back piece towards the antenna. After that, take the board out. Now comes to tricky part.

Step 2: Desoldering

Desoldering. Yup, we'll have to desolder all the pins. To do this use suction or solder wick to remove the solder. I used a cheap desoldering iron with a manual pump built in, works great! Be careful not to overheat the board and also not to rip any pads off. I ripped half of some pads off, luckily that did not matter.

Step 3: Adding the Cables

Now i'm using a CC3D controller. The controller cables came with some dupont wire connectors which had to go. Then soldering the cables to the pads according to the picture. The bind function got left out but that would just involve soldering two extra wires from the bind position signal and ground.

Step 4: Final Thoughts

I think the reciever got much more useful like this and it saved alot of weight and space in my build. The only downside i see now is that it's missing telemetry but if you can live without that and want a small reciever for the 9X this might be the solution for you!

Thank you for reading and hope you liked this idea and if you would like to support me in the drone contest that would be much appreciated!

Comments

[jhitesman]

Nice job! I did the same thing to one a few years ago when I had to open it up to re-attach a broken antenna. While I was in there decided to shed a few grams of weight:

http://forum.flitetest.com/showthread.php?6236-Ult...

However...I'd warn VERY strongly against using those RX's for multirotors due to their lack of failsafe. If you loose signal they'll just lock on the last settings which is a great way to loose your aircraft. (I learned that lesson the hard way, thankfully I had my contact information on mine and the guy who's trailer it landed on called me a few days later to return it!)

The best bet is to upgrade your 9x's RF system with a FrSky TX module (or Spektrum DSMX, but FrSky is considerably more reliable.) You will probably have to modify the antenna connection on your stock TX to make the module removeable, but that's basically just a matter of desoldering the antenna then remounting it to the module instead of the radio and re-soldering it. It's one of my worst videos but here's me doing this mod on the 9x I bought for my wife:

Alternatively there are now two RX options that will work with your FlySky radio's default RF system. I'm cheap and while I did mod mine to use different RF modules I still have a lot of cheap planes with the FlySky RX's, and I'm also lazy so don't like having to swap TX modules often. So I still use FlySky on some of my multis but with one of these two RX's instead:

The easiest is these available at banggood for $11, if you get the "type B" version it includes PPM output which makes wiring from the RX to flight controller MUCH simpler as there's just 1 wire to worry about for signal. These are tiny and work fairly well in my experience but don't have as much range as the stock RX's http://www.banggood.com/FLYSKY-Ultra-Miniature-PPM...

The other alternative is to build your own! All you need is an arduino promini ($3 on ebay) and a A7105 RF module ($3-$9 on ebay depending on the version/range you want.) I've made several of these and used them on various aircraft with great success. If you can handle modding the stock RX like you did then soldering up one of these should be no problem for you. Details and the arduino code are available on RCGroups here: http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1921870

Keep up the good work and hope you don't have to learn the way I did just how important failsafe is on a multirotor!

[cutdact]

Hi!

I did a 5 minute google before i attempted this to try to find someone that have tried this, guess i missed you! I guess i should have added that this was just a temporary solution, my XJT module and XSR reciever is on the way so then i wont have the issues im having now. I've heard stories before about people who have lost drones due to the 9X8C module but never anyone who got it back, guess you were well prepared :). That DIY reciever would be great for mini projects, thanks for the idea!

Thank you for your support!!

[dominic0012]

Failsafe problem easily overcome using Turnigy Trakstar epic fail safe for car & boat

http://www.hobbyter.es/index.php?route=product/pro...

Hobbyking don't sell these anymore, don't know why, but I use them with the 9X8C and I can confirm that they do provide failsafe, ie RTH, land or whatever the failsafe is set to.