Hi. I am completely new to flybarless systems, having mainly flown FP and flybarred helis. After reading much praise about the Spirit, I purchased two units to put in my old 500GF and my new 500L dominator kit. I currently have a Futaba 10J that came with the R3008SB receiver. Will this work fine with the spirit? If so, I will purchase an additional one for my 500GF. Or is there a better futaba receiver (S-FHSS)? I have Hitec HS-5245MG's on the cyclic on the 500GF. Are they fast enough for flybarless?
Sbus also confuses me, will it work with normal servos, or would I have to buy very expensive sbus specific servos?
I'm sorry for all these questions, but I live on an island with no other heli flyers and my brain is starting to hurt from the learning curve.

Hi,

Yes, receiver R3008SB will work fine. If you want to use single cable connection with the unit through the S-Bus protocol you want to buy S-Bus adapter too.

HS-5245MG are probably slow, they will work too, but you may see unwanted behavior.
I recommend at least Align DS510 (DS515 no) or much better servos from MKS, for example MKS DS9660A+.

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Spirit System developer

Thank you very much for your fast answer! My 500L Dominator came with 3x DS515's, so I should preferably swap them out as well?
I might also buy a hobbywing or kontronik for my old 500GF, since I've heard bad things about Align ESCs.
Can't wait to get it all setup, it's been on the workbench for months. Also thinking about geting some I2RC stuff (tail, head)

Great, you can use DS515M if you have it in your kit already. These servos are just power hungy, so you will need BEC that can handle it. Align BEC has no protection so it will not shutdown the BEC in high loads and it can work fine. But I recommend to do BEC test that is in our software to verify if it will really work correctly.

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Spirit System developer

It also has a DS525M tail servo. Should this also be replaced? The stock ESC scares me, with the issues you mentioned as well as other things I've read.
My 500GF probably has an ancient ESC that should be upgraded as well. Would you recommend a YGE, Castle Talon or a hobbywing platinum?
I'm sorry for all these questions, I just want to get my order right so I can finally start flying.
I'll be sure to mention your excellent service at helifreak.
Thanks!

DS525M should be fine too.

I recommend Hobbywing Platinum, it is very easy to setup and works mostly out of the box. YGE is very good too, it is extremely light but more expensive and you will need more experience with setup.

We are here to help you.

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Spirit System developer

+1 for Hobbywing Platinum V3. It has an RPM lead to connect to Spirit, and it has an excellent governor if you are struggling with the Spirit governor.

Yup, I switched back to the Platinum internal governor too. Hopefully the Spirit's governor get updated soon.