Protecting that 2.4ghz receiver

It's always necessary to protect your electronics onboard your helicopter. Electronics are what keep your helicopter in the air.

Of all the electronics, the receiver is the most important, as it is the only link between you the pilot, and the model. It's in your best interest to protect the receiver from shock & vibrations to ensure it keeps functioning properly to avoid a dangerous or disasterous situation.

A few years ago when everyone and their brother used FM receivers, a popular method of choice was a plastic case padded with foam on the inside. It had an openings on either end. One end wider to pass through all of your servo, gyro & governor wires, the opposite end just a small hole just large enough for the antenna wire.



A simpler option, possibly even lighter weight, was a foam rubber sheet wrapped around the receiver. A rubber band would be placed around the wrap to hold it all together, and usually more rubber bands, sometimes zip-ties, would hold it to the helicopter. It looked kinda tacky, but it worked. It didn't matter that it looked ugly since everything would be covered up by the canopy anyways. It was a good option both economical and extremely effective at serving it's intended purpose.

Today, it's a different story. Those FM receivers are a thing of the past, at least in the RC Helicopter world they are. Unless you've been living in a cave you know that 2.4ghz spread spectrum radio technology is commonplace in the hobby.

The new receivers are great. No longer do we have to worry about routing a long antenna wire. Brands like Spektrum, JR and Futaba have available several different receiver models, some of them purpose-built for specific models such as helicopters, giant scale airplanes and park flyers.

It's still important to protect our receiver from the shock of a crash impact or vibration from an obnoxious nitro engine. With the 2.4ghz receivers comes a problem; we can no longer protect our equipment like we did with the FM stuff. The plastic box and the foam rubber wrap are no longer practical. With the new technology comes unique requirements in the positioning of antenna wires and additional "satellite receivers" where applicable. Not to mention the wires on some of these receivers are very fragile.

I've seen some pretty iffy setups on others' machines. I've seen the receiver stuck to the frame with some double-sided sticky tape, hard-mounted with a couple of zip-ties... What are they doing for vibration absorption? Nothing.

I've been searching for the best way to mount a 2.4ghz receiver, and I think I've found it. Credit for this (to the best of my knowledge) goes to Augusto from AvantRC.
He posted this himself on his own forum in the beginning of 2007.

It's very simple to do, and the only equipment you need is Velcro.
Put a prickly side of Velcro on both the receiver and the airframe.

Next, take 2 pieces of the fuzzy Velcro and stick them back to back to form a 'pillow'.
Secure the receiver with a Velcro strap, and thats it, you're done!

Understand that when you put the strap over the receiver, you don't want to fix it too tight, as that would just squish down our Velcro pillow and defeat it's purpose.





The Velcro pillow we have created is pretty thick as you can see in the pictures. It should do quite well in absorbing vibes, keeping them out of the receiver.
What I like about this solution is that it's Velcro. Removing it is a breeze, and reinstalling it is just as easy.

Some other options in vibration damping for your 2.4ghz receiver I have seen or tried myself:

A foam rubber pad between the frame and the receiver, secured with a velcro strap.
This works just as you would expect, the downside is that the foam rubber pad (along with the receiver) can still slide around and work it's way from under the strap.

"Zeal Tape." Zeal Tape really works. It's really nice and squishy and provides excellent vibration damping capabilities. The downside is that it's got a pretty strong adhesive, and doesn't work too well after you pulled something off of it. If you need to remove your receiver at the field for whatever reason, you might have to cut yourself off a new square of Zeal Tape to remount your receiver.
As always with any other method, be sure to use a Velcro strap to ensure your receiver isn't going anywhere.