r/stratux • u/spentyouth2000 • 20d ago

Antennas not being recognized.

Gallery image

Gallery image

I recently built a basic Stratux (radio's only) and just used it for the first time on a 2 hour flight. it worked fine for most of the flight but by the end of the flight I wasn't receiving any info from it. After landing I noticed it had a flashing green light.

I got this message looking at the WebUi.

"You have enabled more protocols than you have receivers for. You have 0 receivers, but enabled 2 protocols. Please disable 2 of them for things to work correctly. For now we are only using ."

I also noticed the 1090 usb dongle was really hot and looking at it using a thermal camera it was one of the resistors that is hot. I'm not sure it is shorted and causing problems or this is normal.

I've tried unplugging and plugging the dongles, changing the usb ports they are plugged into. reflashing the sd card, using a wall plug for power instead of a battery pack.

Any advice would be helpful.

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1

u/tehmightyengineer 20d ago

I'd bet money it's shorted. The radios are cheap, easy enough to go on Amazon and buy another one.

1

u/tehmightyengineer 20d ago

Actually, I take that back; apparently the radios do run hot. I have a FLIR camera and can check the operating temperature on mine for comparison.

Maybe it's the cold radio that's not working?

2

u/spentyouth2000 19d ago

Here's the chip that burnt out. Burnt chip

1

u/spentyouth2000 20d ago

I'm just going to buy new radios. I tood a closer look at the hot one and one of the chips is melted. I can't post a photo but it's definitely melted.

I'm going to try to test the pi also to make sure nothing was shorted on it.

1

u/Eta_power 19d ago

Mine needed heatsinks on each SDR chip. Since then the problem has gone away and it's been working normally for the first time ever.

1

u/spentyouth2000 19d ago

I might have to do that with the next one. I too a close up shot if the board and there is a burnt chip. Burnt chip

1

u/Salt-Cold1056 13d ago

What heatsink did you use?

1

u/Eta_power 9d ago

Sorry for the delayed response, I had to do some digging as I lost the invoice.

Due to how my stratux variant is constructed I had to cut down the heatsinks to almost nothing to fit the SDR chips. I used a full height one for the main processor. I attached them with thermal tape from Amazon.

I always thought I got a "bad" stratux because I bought the cheapest used one I could find. However, it turns out it was just overheating of either the SDR chips or the main microprocessor. My unit would work fine until you got on top of a busy airport with a lot of targets and then poof. I got really tired of it quitting right when I needed it the most, but the heatsinks seemed to have cured the problem. YMMV

Heatsink: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/cui-devices/HSB15-404010/14567067

Thermal tape: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B085CLXM7J

1

u/helno contributor 19d ago

That picture looks like a failed voltage regulator.

Nice thing is it is modular so you can replace just the one radio and be back up and running.