Deviation - Engaging the traditional RC hobbyists

I get alot of flak for my choice in Tx and software. ALOT.

I am a 2801Pro fanatic, but made the move to an 8S and Deviation on 3 500 size heli's.
I had the misfortune of having an Rx lock me out a few times, and it really shook my confidence. I CANNOT equate the incident with Deviation, in fact, I cannot confirm the cause in anyway. I dont really know it was a bad Rx, or something with Deviation, heck it may have been antenna issues on the heli???
All other heli's have been rock solid, so I have for the moment, chalked it up to a bad Rx. I have since, replaced the Rx, ( WK802 ) and havent had an issue yet. I still fly my 700 with the 2801. But have been ready to set up a model in Deviation for that Rx and the 700.
The bad Rx is just what the haters want to hear, and I have to admit, after NEVER having a failure with the 2801 Pro Rx's...I am not happy.
Confidence. Or lack of. Thats my issues right now. I want it. Like I had for my 2801. I fly my 500's with confidence...but the 700 is another story. And until there are many many more of us flying larger birds with no issues, you wont convince the masses. I am NOT allowed to fly Walkera at the local club. ( I dont fly there anyway....but this is a problem. )
I too, recently brought up to a fellow member taking heat in a forum about his choice of Tx and software, that one worry I have is if and when, support for a non profit software wains or leaves completely. No offense to PB or the people making this happen for us.. I know you are all committed to this and have no plans to just leave.. but it's a concern. A worry for me.
So far, I LOVE my set up on my 500's, and am VERY eager to have the same confidence with my 700...in fact, the plan was to set up the 700's 2801 Rx in my Devo8S today. I'd like to have an 802 for the 700, but I dont right now, and after getting a bad one ( maybe??) I'm not sure I can trust them with the lives and well being of bystanders. Time will tell for me...By this week, I will at least be able to say that my 700 is flying on Deviation 4.0.1.
I really dont think Walkera will ever shake its rep. I think Taranis has opened up something, other name brands will follow, but Walkera just wont ever be taken seriously. I used to have alot more fight in me for this topic, but it just gets old trying to defend against a very old and long history of disregard.
The ONE thing, that could REALLY thrust Walkera into being taken seriously as an alternative, with great open ended abilities, would be ...support. All it would take is some kind of product support here in the US and Europe. If the products themselves were easily supported, Deviation would be THE solution for MANY model owners. The one thing that regularly brings a Deviation/ Walkera debate to a shrieking hault, is....no support.
I've said it in forums more then a few times...theres no way I'm going back to a non programmable Tx ever again. The freedom, and abilities that Deviation has given me, on a $200 Tx, is unparalleled.

Oh and not to derail.. but....
Ever thought of a start up for your own Tx PB???

I currently run my Gaui X3 and Compass 6HVU on a Devo 10 with Deviation. I have 100% trust in the Tx and firmware. I use 2 DSMX Lemon Rx sats on both birds and have full confidence in those as well. I found the range and soldering in those modules to be on par with spektrum if not then exceeding them.
Whats this rumor about deviation support for Taranis?

I wish Taranis could support DSMX without having to add an expensive module, however, if Deviation opens up to Taranis I will be all over it.

The Walkera radios are excellent, however, I think the Taranis hardware is a step above. For the money they really did not hold much back.

Blayd,

I hear you and know how you feel regarding Walkera TXs. I got the same responses and reactions when I was asked about my radio, mostly because it's not a Spektrum, Futaba or Hitec.

I just placed the radio in their hands, told them to launch the plane (plane flier here) and watched them enjoy themselves. The reactions I got afterwards was anywhere from "Wow!" to "Great radio!"

But, like you, it was all about support and Walkera must, if they want to be taken seriously, establish solid support across the board for their radios.

FrSky showed how it's done and I am seriously surprised that Walkera, and I am a 100% certain they know about Deviation, hasn't embraced PB's and this community's effort - as FrSky did - and threw all their support behind it.

Why not? That's my big question.

Deviation makes the Devo line extremely compatible with even the most prolific Txs out there...

So, Walkera, if you are reading this... get on it!

Walkera doesn't care about it's customers, and clearly does not understand how open source could benefit them.
They might as well just take the current Deviation work, tweak it a little, and make it their own closed source release.

RRacer wrote: Walkera doesn't care about it's customers, and clearly does not understand how open source could benefit them.
They might as well just take the current Deviation work, tweak it a little, and make it their own closed source release.

Not entirely true, they do know about Open Source, just look at their upcoming DJI Phantom killer, it is using APM and APM:Copter has it FC and firmware. To say that Walkera doesn't understand how OSS helps them is just doesn't support their current direction.

As far as TXs go they are aware of Deviation but it's not geared toward their primary market, those customers are plug and play types, not advanced or experienced RC pilots that want control of all aspects of their aircraft.

Every hobby suffers from a sort of myopia, the top users wanting the most control is in reality just a sliver of their market. We would love to think that Walkera and others cater to us, but the truth is they would rather have "fat, dumb and happy" (idiomatic expression) customers than ones pushing their hardware to the limits.

Hi all, sorry to drag up a slightly older post, but wanted to add my thoughts to the conversation - i'm a fairly recent adopter of the Deviation ecosystem, and have never had second thoughts regarding the reliability of my kit.

I started flying with an RTF a7105 moduled helicopter kit, closely followed by a blade nano cpx heli with a Spektrum DX6i - I hated the feel of the dx6i, and quickly sold it when I found out about Deviation. (I replaced it with a Devo 10 - the Rtf heli transmitter donating its radio module quickly too)

I'm now flying using Lemon RX DSMX radio gear in everything, from 250 sized through to a pair of .50/600 sized helis, and have never had a radio related issue or a lockup. I'm seriously contemplating giving the Devo 10 to my girlfriend, and upgrading to a 12s!

The main issue i've experienced in flying with 'off brand' kit is the general fear of change. Most of the guys at the club I very briefly flew at don't trust anything new, the very thought of flashing homebrew firmware provoked scowls from some, disinterest from others, and general disapproval. Funnily enough the only people truly interested were the guys still flying on 72mhz and thinking of making the jump to 2.4 - they found the radio gear interesting.

I don't think that the customer who'd a spektrum radio would ever trust something unbranded or left field, so I doubt that Deviation will ever generate a large following - if anything I'm rather pleased to be one of the people in the know, and appreciate the versatility and design of Deviation. Long may it continue!

seems most of the discussions are focused on SW and HW capabilities. Reliability of V4 is of no problem as told by my fleet of R/C stuffs. Range check on the 7e mod is 1Km which is way beyond the biggest planes visual range, only coming a bit short for the fpv.

However, one thing that hinders Deviation as from day one to become a professional Tx is the user interface. The naming conventions, trim, channel ordering etc which seems to be too easy to be corrected technically are still there.

cmPang

Hi Guys,
This is my first post here.
I'm back to the hobby after a long break so know nothing of modern radio. When I started in the early 1970's the radio to have at the club (Croxley Moor, North of London, England) was Skyleader (yellow metal Tx case), McGregor (blue metal case) or Fleet (silver metal case). Along came this newcomer "Futaba" with a plastic case. It was ridiculed. I had a McGregor 4 channel followed by a Fleet 6.
Fast forward to 2006 I fancied a go at electric and bought myself a second hand Futaba FF6 on 35mhz which I flew in an electric glider and it was ok.
Just recently I bought myself a Genius CP helicopter which came with a Devo 7e. The thing is hard to fly so for fun I built myself a foam F18 parkjet and installed the Futaba using 6 Turnigy 9g servos. The first flight was nerve wracking with glitches on throttle and elevator. I lost confidence in the (admittedly old) Futaba so bought a Devention Rx and used the Devo 7e Tx from the Genius. I noticed straight away that the servos ran more smoothly and the F18 flew perfectly. I bought a Devo 10 from ebay which arrived today. I was trying to work out how to connect them for buddy box training and came across Deviation which I have installed on them both. After a bit of programming I now have them working together so can train my wife to fly.
The only problem I had was that when connected with the buddy box lead, the Devo 7e aileron and elevator functions had swapped round. Fortunately it is possible to configure Deviation to workaround it but I suspect it might be a bug in Deviation!
This is a quite amusing video of my F18 flying with the Devo 7e.