AD Band with Futaba 3PK

It's been a little while since you've seen a new post from me. Things have been a little busy trying to get things going at the Charlottesville Mini Speedway and I have a couple of draft posts that I need to clean up and/or add pictures to. A couple of projects are coming together so you'll get updates on those as well.

This post just recaps a little experiment that one of our Toronto MZR contributors completed successfully. pchan0 was looking for a way to get the benefits of AD Band (KoPropo's FM Mini-Z conversion) without having to buy a $200 Helios radio. He already owned the Futaba 3PK and found a Spanish Mini-Z site TechnicalRP that has a post on how to perform the conversion. I am by no means fluent in Spanish but when pchan0 asked for someone to translate I was able to provide a little bit of information.

The original thread has several pictures to describe the mod. First, you remove the circuit board from the module and use a dremel or similar tool to cut 5mm off of the side of the board with the crystal holder.

Then if you hold the board so the crystal holder is on the left and the 5 pin connector is on the top you want to cut the connections at pin 2 and 3 (starting count from the left). You will see in this image that all of the pins are cut but pins 1 4 & 5 are soldered back together. Then you want to connect a jumper between the board connection at pin 2 and the tip connection of pin 3. The 5 pictures in the original thread demonstrate the process pretty clearly. pchan0 was kind enough to privide some pictures of the finished product from his own installation.

Click here for the full thread on MZR. The conversion discussion starts at post 114.




Look for upcoming reviews of some Atomic AWD parts as well as a full play by play of my latest project. I'll also be posting a full review of the Giro Z Lap timer as soon as I get some time to learn the software. I will also be posting pictures of the Riddler VDS body shortly...