Futaba 14MZ - Page 2
Simon Lockington

Throttle Cut

Idle down. Not sure what this is for, but think it's probably for the Condition Hold settings.

Timer settings

Trim and dial monitor

Data reset

Model menu (formerly the Condition menu in the 9Z)

Create and manage conditions from here.

AFR and Dual Rate configuration, very well thought out and implemented.

Complex, but highly capable programable mixes.

Hardware Reverse:
Here you define if you want the actions of the transmitter (ie the stick direction) reversed or not. Why in the hell you want to do this I’m not sure, but I’m sure if it made it onto the system, there must be a reason.

The theory here is if you some how learned to fly and pushing the pitch level up meant the heli went into negative pitch, then this is the thing for you. However, I don’t think there’s too many of you around….

Information:
This screen displays the current information on the software versions currently loaded as well as the memory card information (memory size and free space). Empty, the provided Compact Flash card will take 246 models…

Also, you change the language settings from here.

LINKAGE MENU
This menu is what the MDL menu in the 9Z is. It sets the model wide settings such as Fail Safe and the like. Why they’ve called it the Linkage Menu I’m not sure…

Servo Monitor:
The servo monitor is the same as it was on the 9Z, however there are two buttons that are new. They are Test and type of test.

The Test button toggles between on and off and the type of test toggles between Neutral and Moving Test. I haven’t yet figured out what these buttons are for. I’m hoping that the English manual will help out with that.

Model Select:
This is where you select which model you’re going to use. The location button toggles between the transmitter’s inbuilt memory and that of the Compact Flash card.

On the left is a list of all the current models. As you select each model, the picture associated with the selected model is displayed in a window and below that, the date the model was created.

On the right hand side is a list of five buttons that allow manipulation of the model (Select, New, Delete, Rename and Copy).

Model Type:
In this menu there are two buttons one which defines the type of model (Airplane, Helicopter, Glider or Motor Glider). The second button defines the subtype (ie Mechanical Mixing, and each of the various types of CCPM). The 14MZ now also accommodates 140 degree CCPM.

Picture:
This is where you associate a picture with the selected model memory. On the right is a directory listing of the available picture files stored on the system.

On the left the preview window displays the selected picture.

Sound:
This is where you associate a sound file with an action on the transmitter. For example you can define the sound file that will be played at start up and shut down, then you can assign files to switches. So you could have a sound that plays when you engage Idle Up one or Hold or anything.

I’m not entirely sure all this is going to get me more points in a competition though….

Frequency:
You allocate the frequency for this model here. All the available frequencies (which depend on the region the transmitter is set to) are displayed and you select one of them.

Using the Wireless communication system allows you to change the frequency on your model without actually having to touch it. As long as you’re within about two or three feet of the receiver, the transmitter can communicate with it using a wireless protocol (ie not transmitting on an aircraft frequency). The transmitter and receiver talk to each other over this channel to agree on what channel to use, then once selected, revert to communicating on that channel.

This beats the crap out of pulling the canopy off, unwrapping your receiver, changing crystals (or if you had a synthesized 9Z, using a screw driver to tell the receiver what channel to use), well done Futaba.

Going into this menu allows you to select the type of modulation used PCM-G3 (ie 2048 PCM resolution), PCM1024 (1024 PCM resolution) and PPM (FM).

If you select PCM-G3, you also define which receiver you’re using and you can also define a second receiver, which I’m ASSUMING can be used as a backup. I know plankers using large planks often use a second receiver, so this is probably what this is for.

Function:
The function menu is much the same as the 9Z. You define which function is assigned to what control and trim. This is also where you can define if you want separate trims for each flight condition. 9Z users will know what I’m talking about here.

Sub-Trim:
Sub-trim menu is the same as the 9Z. Nothing different here.

Servo Reverse:
Nothing different here either. I spose though how much different can servo reversing be.

Fail safe:
This is where you define the fail safe settings for the helicopter Hold or predetermined failsafe setting.

You can also determine the battery failsafe settings here too (for when the batteries run low).

End Point (ATV):
As you can imagine, this is where the limit settings are defined for each channel function. On the 14MZ though, there are separate Limit and Travel settings for each end of the servo travel. As of yet, I haven’t determined what the difference between these two is.

As with the 9Z, you can define a speed setting so you can slow your servo action down if you want.

Throttle Cut:
The throttle cut settings are determined here such as Activation, Cut Position and Switch. There is a graphical representation of the throttle positions and the current cut position.

Idle Down:
I haven’t yet figured out what this setting is for, I have a hunch that it’s for the Condition Hold setting though.

Timer:
Same as the 9Z setting, but now you can define a ‘Split’ setting so for whatever reason you can record what time you threw a defined switch while the timer continues to run.

Can’t think of an application for this, but I’m sure it’s cool anyway.

Dial Monitor:
On this screen is a graphical representation of all the trims, sliders, dials and such on the transmitter.

Data Reset:
Here you can define what level of data reset you want, trims and dials, Direct Key (not sure what this is), Model Menu setting or the whole model, lock stock and two smoking barrels worth.

MODEL MENU
Formerly known as the Condition Menu (honestly Futaba, what’s the deal with changing the names on the menus?). This menu dictates the settings used in each condition/flight mode selected.

Servo Monitor:
See the description in the Linkage Menu. They’ve included a link to this screen from the Model menu.

Condition Select:
Manage all your conditions from here. Add conditions, remove them, manage their priority (ie Hold has greater priority over Idle Up Two), copy a condition, rename it and define which switches active the condition.

There is also a delay function which allows you to define a delay on each channel so that it ‘fades in’ rather than suddenly comes slamming on. For instance, you might want your throttle to slowly ramp up if you have a slow hover speed but a ballistic aerobatic speed. This is a tidy function which I think is cool. You can of course group this setting (so it applies over the whole model) or separate it so that it applies only for the selected condition.

I can see this could be a useful function. Nice one Futaba.

CURVE MANAGEMENT – Pitch and throttle curves
This is the one area where I think Futaba have missed the boat in terms of user friendliness opportunities.

I spent a couple of hours sitting in a bar at Hong Kong airport trying to figure out how to use the curve system on this transmitter. The screen layout and buttons are not intuitive and unless you know what you’re doing (or have an English manual), it’ll take you a lot longer than it should to set up

I had initially thought that you might be able to take the provided stylus and draw a draft curve and have the transmitter ‘snap’ the various points on the curve ready for manual fine adjustment. That’s not the case.

Instead what happens is you select the type of curve you wish to use. The types of curves are:

• Linear:
  There are only two points on this curve. Top and bottom points and the mid goes through the middle point on the graph that represents zero degrees.

• EXP1:
  This is an exponential curve that allows you to set the top and bottom points and also an ‘exponential’ setting for both A and B values to allow a flattening off, or a steepening of the curve through the centre point. If that’s how you’d like your curve.

• EXP2:
  This is another exponential curve. This one also allows you to set the top and bottom points, but only allows one expo setting which affects the center of the curve. Not sure where you’d want to use this setting.

• VTR:
  I’m not sure what the acronym VTR stands for, however what it allows you to do is essentially give you an easy five point curve where the second and fourth points are moveable up and down the curve.

• Line:
  This gives you a line much like the default one in the 9Z. There are nine default positions on this curve. All of which can be individually moved and adjusted as well as deleted. Additional points can be inserted at any position. I inserted 16 points before I lost interest in the exercise.

• Spline:
  This is a little bit of a trickster. At first it looks a lot like the Line curve, but the difference in this one is that when one point is moved, the transmitter tries to ‘smooth out’ the change in values of the neighbouring points so there are no ‘hard’ jagged edges in the curve.

All of these curves have an Offset function which allows you to move the whole curve as one, up or down.

There are two types buttons available for setting the values of points. Gone are the ‘bulk movement’ keys of the 9Z where you could select 0, 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100. Now you select the fine tuning up and down keys which move the point by one step, or the ones that move the values by 5%.

You can also select to separate or group the curves through all the conditions.

You can choose to see the curves of all the conditions in the same graph as well which I can see would be useful.

There is a copy function available to use if you want to copy your complex curve into other conditions which I think is a fantastic function!

Those familiar with the 9Z will recognise the function where you can set top and bottom pitch point trims that you can assign to a slider or a dial. This is used for when you may want to dynamically increase or decrease the top end pitch in flight.

In this same menu is the settings for hover pitch as well.

You can easily toggle between Pitch and Throttle curves without having to back out into the Model Menu.

In the pitch curve, you can define whether you want to view the pitch curve values in terms of percentage, or in actual pitch degree values which I reckon is marvellous.

There are no points that you can directly manipulate on the curve graph, it is all done via buttons that appear on the screen. For example, you cannot touch a point on the graph and manipulate that directly. You must use the buttons to scroll through the various points.

One thing I haven’t been able to work out is the ‘Speed’ buttons. One marked ‘In’, the other marked ‘Out” and a further button between them which toggles between ‘Lin’ and ‘Sym’. Hopefully the English manual will help me out with this.

Page Three