Telescopic Antenna Repair

[PaulC]

Folks,

My antenna is broken at the first joint. One of the two copper shims is missing. I had it put back together with 1 copper shim and sticky tape, but.. it broke again.

I can probably source an antenna, but I want to run the buggy on Saturday and if my LHS don't have one I'll not get one for a few days.

For temporary fix do you think soldering that joint to be fixed should be okay?

Cheers,
Paul

 

[robmob]

You have nothing to loose at this point.

Be sure to do a range test after the repair before running your rig.

 

[PaulC]

Well, I first discovered that the shiny tin/chrome of the antenna does not accept solder very well, for a start it's very hard to heat at the whole antenna acts as a heat sink and the solder just slides off it in little balls.

So I upped the game and flooded the 'female' end with solder and put the other end in and it got a tiny bit of bite, could be broken easy when cool though, so I repeated this with more solder and then... for my secret weapon.

I took some old coaxial cable and removed the copper wire latice (sp?) shroud and warpped it around the join, then I literally flooded it with solder until it was dripping back out.

Cooled it against a beer can and it appears as solid as I need. I'm also thinking that at least some of the solder will have dripped into the antenna core helping conductivity.

Range test I will though .

 

[Rolex]

Using sandpaper to remove the chrome plating gives you a brass surface for excellent soldering. It won't adhere to chrome at all.

 

[cwest3355]

Have a failsafe

 

[PaulC]

Have a failsafe

My fail safe does not stop spastic servos when your antenna breaks. I discovered this on my second running of the car when the antenna first broke. Went more or less WOT and did a lovely donut while I tried to regain control. I couldn't walk to the car as it was 20 feet away on ice and I couldn't walk on the ice. Lots of damage when it finally slammed into a curb.

I believe this is due to it still receiving enough signal that it doesn't trigger the fail safe, but the signal is garbage.

In hind sight and for future reference, switching off the Tx would have force the failsafe to save the day until I could get to the car.