Catastrophic signal failure / Spektrum SR310 / Loss of new Pro Boat Impulse 31 V3

Looking for insight into this scenario which occurred yesterday.

I sold my buddy a BNIB Pro Boat Impulse 31 V3. It comes with the Spektrum DX2E Tx and SR310 Rx.

He read the manual front to back, followed all instructions to a T, and did additional research on the boat on his own. Pre-run maintenance was completed and CorrosionX was applied where necessary.

He took the boat out for the first time on the bay side of Point Loma, San Diego. Everything was running perfectly. Late in the day, he experienced a 100% catastrophic signal loss. He described it as an alien hand reaching down out of the sky and taking over control of his boat. The boat starting ripping circles on the open water, then turned, and shot out towards the open ocean disappearing from sight. He searched for it by flashlight into the evening unsuccessfully.

He came across a neighbor on the marina a few boat spaces down from him, who was binding and calibrating an RC sailboat at the exact time his boat took off. He felt like the two instances were more than coincidence.

I'm not so sure.

I had the same exact Impulse V3 get saltwater in the receiver in Barbados a couple years ago and take off on me. Fortunately it stopped on its own and I was able to recover it.

I have only had a catastrophic signal loss happen to me one other time, and it was also with a Spektrum DX2E Tx and, I believe, a SR310 Rx, though it was with a vehicle. There was another Spektrum setup operating nearby, but neither was in bind mode, so I attributed the signal interference in that case as being caused by some type of jammer or full size vehicle signal on the freeway above the parking lot where we were driving.

Who has experience with this? Spektrum has been very reliable for me over the years and saltwater seems much more likely the culprit, but I had that similar instance happen, with the same radio setup, on a surface vehicle.

Fortunately my buddy is not letting this get his morale down. He's got a new one already on order, and we are going to conformal coat the Rx board ahead of time. Hard to know why Pro Boat didn't include a truly waterproof Rx into this boat. For $429 it should be a given.

Mark D.

Davey, I had a somewhat similar experience a short while ago. My MC, which had been extremely reliable , and has been raced for years started doing spontaneous circles during a mill lap. I replaced the servo thinking it got stuck. Second heat - same thing. Third heat replaced Rx (the same radio, my trusty Flysky ran my other boat perfectly for four heats of P-Ltd Hydro.) SAME thing. There went my points for the year in that class - bummer. After the race, during open water I replaced Rx again & used a Rx battery pack. (Yes I disarmed the ESC bec wire ). Ran, stuttered, ran, stuttered. Bringing it back in it went uncontrollably WFO into shore and impaled itself on a metal pit table. (see "Buffing out a small scratch" elsewhere here on the forum). After I repaired the hull I pulled the ESC. It was a very old (but previously extremely trusty) Turnigy 120 unit that had two extra caps and was shrink-wrapped (but not waterproofed, likely Corrosion-X'd ). Removing the shrink, there was the culprit ! After years of racing there was bits of melted insulation and close inspection yielded wires from the 3-wire harness that were un-romantically attempting to "mate" with the positive battery lead. While I can't say exactly what signal path these horny electrons took which resulted in a spastic servo AND an ESC stuck WFO I'm confidant that that in your case there's a good chance that some saltwater-inspired electrical mating ritual was responsible for the ills you describe. I ran in saltwater years ago behind my liveabord yacht and know the havoc that highly conductive saltwater can cause.

As an aside, I worked out on Point Loma (lived in OB) during the late 1960's when, as a military reservation, it was known as NEL (Naval Electronics Lab) and can tell you (in a general way since it was all hush-hush classified) that there's likely some REALLY INTENSE RF in them airwaves ! Plus of course the Sub base right below. And Coronado is close by plus NTC, MCRD, Miramar and even Camp Pendelton + other defense locations.

Insulate, isolate (Traxxas has a nice waterproof Rx holder BTW.)

Even with the r/c plane guys, Spectrum Radio is not what you would class as being ultra reliable by no means. my first 2.4 gig radio was a Spectrum DX6 and this radio was just so bad with drop outs quite often, bind and re bind until that was it . Bought a JR 2.4 gig radio and never had an issue atall over 15 years with that particular set. now i only use J.R. and Futaba radios. I know many guys out there do have zero issues with there Spectrum gear but never again for me.

Thank you for the responses! Both informative and helpful. My buddy was able to snag another brand new Impulse, although since being discontinued, availability is getting pretty limited. He’s stoked to get back out there. I think some serious waterproofing of the Rx’s is in order for our boats, especially since we run them so often in saltwater.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Get one of these

https://www.offshoreelectrics.com/pr...p?prod=hh-3628

Attachment 159144

[QUOTE=properchopper;716464]Get one of these

https://www.offshoreelectrics.com/pr...p?prod=hh-3628


Perfect, thanks!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Saltwater will cause you some serious issues if you can’t keep things dry. I’ve experienced it also. I don’t think it has anything to do with your radio (well being it’s a spektrum and being interrupted by some other signal) if you as so much as got a drop of water on something that it shouldn’t have, you gonna have issues. I ran one of my boats in Panama City once and water go in and luckily the boat kicked on after I took it out the water. And glad I wasn’t near the prop because I probably wouldn’t be typing this with my fingers right now. My advice to you is search out my threads on epoxy coating components and epoxy coat them. Use dielectric grease on the servo and esc plugs going into the receiver. I pack that area with dielectric grease.

Thanks for the solid advice! All the feedback on here is a validation of sorts as to the likely cause. Going forward we are definitely going to use the recommendations received on here. I picked up both a bottle of MG Chemicals conformal coating, as well a handful of the Traxxas waterproof Rx boxes. We're going to get the Rx boards waterproofed up asap before getting the boats back on the water. San Diego has so many great ocean and bay spots to rip the boats, that in order to keep enjoying the ocean running, I think my buddies and I are gonna just have to adapt to the harsher toll that the saltwater environment can take on our gear, and be really proactive in utilizing a comprehensive preventative and post maintenance routine.