Looks worth a try for 100 bucks.

And he wonders why we call him Brain! My brain fogged out half through reading his post - just like in college when I was reading my EEET text books!

Thanks for the explanation though. He's heading to the LHS this afternoon to see if they will let him try a 75 in it. My best guess is that he's going to buy whatever they sell there. I'd go with him, but the wife is making me go to the Mariners game......100 million plus in salaries, and first one to lose 100 games.....at least the food and beer are good.

Someone on rcgroups is selling this radio for 100 and extra receivers for 25... Sounds like a killer deal to me! Cheaper than entry level Fm...

He ended up buying a Futuba 3PK, or PM....not sure which. The 2.4 model. We installed it yesterday, but he's still having some issues with it loosing signal periodically. It just stops, then a second or two later, it starts running again. Doesn't seem to affect the steering though. Gonna put my system back in it and see if its the radio or the ESC.

I have to say that Futuba manual stinks...Some of these companies need to hire English speaking tech writers that actually know a little about what they are writing when they do their translations. I wonder if manuals that are converted from english to other languages are as bad.

Seems like it could BEC on the HV Maxx causing a voltage dip to the RX which then rebinds and then goes again.

Either that or it is the batteries but when I had this issue it was more at initial start up than when it was actually running...

I had the same problem, I switched to a Rx pack and no more issues. The internal BEC can't handle much I guess.

An update to this:
After he added the Futuba 2.4, he still experience random issues - about every 2 or three minutes. I stuck my DX-3 in it, and same result. We then added a reciever pack (pulled the red wire). And that seemed to help.
We pulled the receiver pack, put mine back in, reprogrammed to eliminate the Lipo cutoff (that's new, so anyone else you might want to do that if you dont use lipos), and ran it on the bench a few times. After watching him do this, I realized that the reciever light was going out every time it "glitched". So we finally nailed it down to that.
Going to take it up to the LHS, and see if they will swap it out - otherwise he'll be sending it in to Novak.

UPdate: He ended up sending it back in to Novak, who sent it back after testing and said there was no problem with it. We put it back in, and it still does it. There is a little periodic cogging right at take off (but not enough to be an issue). However, every time he lands a jump it shuts down for a couple seconds. I put my DX3 back in it, and its the same result.

He tried emailing Charlie, but didnt get a response. Guess he needs to make a phone call, or try emailing again.

It could be the area you are running it in. You might want to try running it in a few completely different areas. Also, are you sure there are no loose screws, no bad connections on the battery side? (you might have to yank on all of your solder joints to test this or replace your connectors if they are being reused from a previous setup) All power wires should be neatly twisted around each other for best results.

We tried all that. Three different areas (10 miles different). Six different battery set ups. And the plugs on the ESC were changed (since Novak clips them as soon as they recieve it). Every different part on the truck has been changed, so we basically isolated it to the motor/esc. The fact that the only time we can 100% replicate it is on a jump tells me that something is loose somewhere. The only thing I thought of was possibly the sensor wires jiggling too much....everything else needs to be handled by novak.

I have a three step plan for you.

1. Sell the Novak on Ebay.
2. Use this money to buy a MMM combo.
3. Install in truck and let the stupid grins begin.....

I've been pondering that approach. :lol:
I'm sure he'll be up for it, but his wife is a little controlling with the funds. Yes, she holds his sack for him.

I have a buddy in the same position.....

Luckily my wife is very supportive and understanding, or maybe it's just because she wants to get here toys too!

Wow. So this saga is getting closer to an end I believe. I had him come over today so that we could try securing the connectors to make certain it wasn't his soldering that was contributing.
We hooked everything up, and I first tied down the battery connector to the chassis. I put out one of the ramps so we could run it over that to see what the effect was. He plugged in his battery, turned everything on, and started to run it out of the garage. He didn't get but 10 feet before smoke started rolling from under the body! The culprit - the capacitor blew.
http://i244.photobucket.com/albums/g...kcapacitor.jpg

So, he now has a burnt pile of crap to send back for retesting. I'm going to type up a synopsis of what we've tried, and he can attach that to the form, including the above picture.

After this occured, I put one of my old 4.5 systems in it, and it ran great. No cogging/glitching at all - even after landing a jump so hard that it snapped both rear shock mounts off the bulkheads! Yeah, he had a rough day!

Kinda sucks that this thing was returned once already - with a "nothing wrong" response.

Update part XXVX
 

Just thought I'd update this thread.

He recieved the system back from Novak a couple months ago, but due to all of our various vacations, we finally got around to putting it back in over the last week - in addition to converting his chassis to an FLM extended chassis.

Opening the box, it was the same system he sent to them, but with a new capacitor on it. I assumed that they checked and fixed "something" for the apparent BEC issue.

We put everything back together again, and dont you know it - same old glitching. :diablo: ESC shuts down, reciever shuts down, then comes back on.
I pulled his Futaba system off his, and put it in my Revo with the MMM/Neu, and it worked fine (after spending a half hour with the WORST manual in RC history).

I once again put my DX3.0 in his truck, and got the same glitching.

I then pulled my old HV-4.5 off the shelf, and put it in his truck. Worked GREAT!! Next step, I'll put his Futaba back in and run it, but I'm 99% certain that it will work.

Now, how in the @($* do we get Novak to replace this damn thing instead of just bench testing it to spec and sending it back. The Brother in law isnt a very technically minded person, and he's getting really frustrated with the hobby due to this one product. I'm trying to keep him positive, but the string is getting short I believe....

On Edit after sleeping on this: I was ranting a little here, so I'll kick my soap box to the corner now! I'll attempt to contact Charlie myslef tomorrow afternoon regarding this, and see what I can communcate. The first time it was sent back was through the LHS where it was purchased, so there is no way I can know what info was relayed to Novak. However, the second time, I typed up a synopsis of the events portrayed in this thread, so I know what was conveyed to them then.