I got a FrSky Taranis Transmitter from T9 Hobbies recently. I will do a fuller review but so far it has been good and bad.
I would absolutely recommend that you buy the Taranis from an authorised supplier as it is great to be able to return it if it is faulty. T9 seem to carry a wide range of spares and haved a skilled technician who can repair them in the UK.
I absolutely love the software and the open source nature of it. It is really powerful ( see this great example from Mike Shellim ) and I love that you can just surf through all of the open bugs with total transparency.
The bad is the build quality. The hinge pin on the antenna was missing and it had to go back to T9 for repair. Then the navigation buttons came loose. I needed to use the Transmitter over the school holidays so spoke to T9 and they agreed to let me try fixing it myself without invalidating the warranty. It turned out to be reasonably straight forward.
1) Put all of the switches in a known position so that if any fall out ( SE and SG ) you know which way around to put them in.
2) Open the Transmitter shells by undoing the 6 screws
3) As you open the casing make sure the sliders on the side go with the back half and the switches SE and SG go with the front half. Don’t worry if they come loose as they are easy to put back in again if you loosen of the collar nuts.
4) Open the casing like a book and lay it on a soft surface
5) Undo the 5 screws holding the LCD circuit board and lift this to show the navigation button strips
6) These are a particularly poor design. Use some superglue to re-attach the ends of the button bars. I did consider using a hot glue gun but wasn’t sure. I would also add some glue to the same component on the other side of the transmitter while you have it open.
7) Reverse the above but switch on the transmitter before tightening the screws and check that the switches are the correct way around.
Good guide Sean. I have had 2 transmitter do this now, the first was delivered with all the buttons sunken into the case which went straight back to Giantshark. My current one has done this now but within 20 minutes it was fixed. Thanks !
Dave
I fixed mine by using a soldering Iron and some scrap plastic wire ties. Think of the wire ties as if it were solder. Melt it into the plastic weld points. The weld is now stronger than it was initially from the manufacturer. The good thing is the wire tie and the plastic casing melt at about the same temperature so you can create a really strong bond. Its really a shame that such a good radio at such a great price has a flaw that could be fixed with better engineering that would add no additional cost to the manufacturing cost.