fms interface problems help! - HELP!

[ifly]

i went to the <http://www heliguy.com/nexus/home.html> and built the interface.

i had some problems figureing out what he did and what it was to look like. i must have blown a resistor because the heat shrink was all melted aroung that area... so i figure ill just rebuild

i then was messing aroung with it and the npn transistor middle wire broke off on me. so we ran down to radio shack, but they were closed. so i took apart a little walky talky to get a transistor.

since i didn't have a buddy cord connector. i improviced, i sodered
some 1/16 peices of music wire to the ends of the cord(making sure the wire were the same on both sides) i also made a "short" useing some bent wire

i got it out sodered (sp?) it all togather for a preliminary test to see if it was working, and of corse it wasn't.

so i looked again and found that the wires where on the wrong poles. so i fixed that. now it looks just like the one on the web page

so i also checked to makes sure that the printer port is setup correctly and it is.

i then went to fms pluged the ground and the singnal in pushed the "short" in the radio turns on and it doesn't work! then the computer crashed
i really want to get this working, and really dont want to fry my comp or my futaba 8 channel so can some one melp me?

[Steve Lewin]

Have you checked that the printer port works with anything else recently ? Only if you have managed to pull enough power out of it to burn up a resistor there's a good chance you've already fried it.

Are you sure the 2nd transistor you used was a small signal NPN type ?

If you have been shorting the wrong pins on your Tx trainer connector that may not be very well any more either. Have you checked it ?

Steve

[ifly]

well i think that the wires were touching thats what cause the resistor to blow

ill be getting a new npn transistor today

do i need to have windows 2000 for it to work? i have windows 98

[uschuett]

ifly,

FMS works perfekt on Win 98 platform, you don´t have to change to Win2000.
Is your par. port still working? Check with printer or anything else that can be hooked to it,
Check TX. On DVM signalpin should give near 0V in DC range and around 0,9V in AC.
Check polarity of Transistor harvested from radio. DVM´s negative lead connected to transi´s middle pin (base) and positive lead to one of the other two should give a short beep in diode-testing-mode.
The interface is designed around the NPN small signal type of transi´s, so if you happen to get a PNP type it won´t work.

Good luck for the next version of your interface!

Happy landings

Ulrich

[ifly]

well thank God that the par. port still works! i printed out a page that i never printed before to check it

...im going to make version 3 today...
could i fry my radio if i conect things incorrectly? is the radio supposed to turn on when you plug the "short" into it(because it does)?
the voltage goes up when i put the switch in the on possition(even though its already on) im not hurting my radio am I?

[ifly]

if that does not work i also will buy the required electronics to make the one in the manual(fms)

[ifly]

well i finally got it working
i was doing some fine tuneing with the channels and trying a little flying and the computer crashed
then i un pluged the wires for the radio and waited for windows to finish laoding
so i click on the fms icon, it loads up while it was laoding i pluged the wires in, see the heli for like 1 second then it crashed again!
so i waited once more to load up windows clicked on fms, this time i didnt connect the wires to the radio and seen the heli and it crashed again!!!

im not sure what the problem is. its about 85 degs here and the comp has been on for a few hours, maybe it got too hot?
the original graphics card is still in my computer, do i need to upgrade so this doesn't happen again?