Recently I was contacted by a person that had a issue with his Spirit running 2S and thinks he fried the Spirit on 8.4 volts. I was the one that suggested to him to get a Spirit and also told him that he is not going to fry it on 2S something else went wrong.

He told me that he was setting up his Spirit the other day and using a 2S as I had sugested and plugged into his PC and was setting things up getting ready to plug in his servos. Minutes into the setup with power supplied to the Spirit he was about ready to plug in his servos and the Spirit went dead. NO LED. In the setup instructions it reads that the Spirit is capable of handling 3 to 15 volts and to be honest I never read the Voltage requirements because with my Experience with many other FBL FC's over the years, BeastX, Futaba , Ikon, and many others the input voltage does not exceed 8.4 volts on all the newer equipment.

I have a Spirit pro that I have flown all summer and I DO NOT run over 2S that's 8.4 volts to power the FC and anything over 3S always a BEC. For my own reasoning, Please explain to me in what scenario would a person run 15 volts DIRECTLY to the Spirit because the max voltage of a HV servo is 8.4 Volts.

What upset me is this guy also told me that he was told that he should send the Spirit in for repairs because he plugged the power backwards ""reverse polarity"" and it would cost him $30.00 US for repairs. I'm sorry but that doesn't seam right. About a week before he ordered the Spirit I spent over an hour showing him setup and requirements on My Spirit Pro just to jump start his setup and I specifically stated to him to make sure to mark the outside of the Spirit with a BLACK marker because there are no markings on the Spirit for polarity ,
Outside - middle + inside signal.

This person has been flying and building for years and has plenty of knowledge as I have flown with him for years and he also works with electronics all day long every day at his job so I know he knows how to read + / - and read English. I also have yet to see any flight controller get plugged into a 2S Lipo (( reverse polarity )) for more then a split second before it smoked unless it has reverse polarity protection.

Please explain to me how the Spirit can handle 8.4 volts REVERSE POLARITY for over 5 minutes DURING SETUP, before it goes dead and again I have yet to see a LED light with revers polarity. If this is the case I am about ready to try for myself plugging in my Spirit Pro in reverse polarity and see how long the Spirit will last. I don't think it will last 5 seconds.

Needless to say this person is upset and I personally am regretting suggesting the Spirit to him and I do believe this was a Spirit issue and not user error.
I don't want to sound like an asshole but is $30.00 or a warranty replacement worth loosing two customers or more over? If I believed for a moment this was User error I would not have written this post, I have had a great experience with Spirit but Spirit is not the only one now integrating with Jeti. Please do whats right and keep two of your customers smiling and more will follow.

thank you
OHD
Rodney

I've run the spirit with a 2s battery and it works perfectly well! Either way why not send the unit in to examine it?

Hello,

I am sorry for the troubles.

First from all, I dont know where you have obtained the information that we will charge 30$ for the repair. This is not true and we have not told any person anything like this prior to examination. I or anybody from our staff have also not told him he reversed the polarity or something like this.

Unfortunately we really can't tell, where is the problem and what the customer did or didn't wrong before examination.
Before doing any conclusion, we are always checking the unit and after everything is sorted, then we will make a report.

Probably all the questions were raised because of some wrong interpretation.
Can you please tell me from where you have received all the claims?
Actually I dont even know to whom you are referring to?

Our unit is capable of running from 15V power supply. This is guaranted capability of our hardware. Even if there are no real servos that can handle it, there are still possibilities somebody can make them, either in DIY way or proffesional. Our units are prepared for it.

Also please note, if you are in contact with other dealer, he may act according to their policy that we can't control. If you wish Spirit System service, please contact always us directly. We will always try to find solution which will satisfy customer.
If given information is true and was raised by any of our dealer, then we will solve it.

For now I can just tell, that you or your friend contacted some support, but certainly it was not Spirit System.

_________________
Spirit System developer

ZeXx86
As there may have been some wrong interpretation I know you are not in control as to what the vendors do or say and I know that its standard procedure is to send it back and this is not a problem. In a private email that he retrieved from James @ Esprit that there normal service fee is $30 and this is implying that he will automatically be charged $30.00 for repairs. I guess this can be read two ways if you look at it. I know emails can be misconstrued. I just think its strange that the service charge would be mentioned before determining the cause of the issue. I know he is sending it in Monday so I guess we will wait to see what becomes of it.

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=1679&p=17049&hilit=power#p17049

Hello,

thank you for your message. In case of Spirit System, there is no "normal" fee. We are checking the goods and all circumstances always before.
Esprit has own policy - their point is to solve the issue as fast as possible (they have no possibility to repair it in the USA). Thus in some cases customer will receive completely new unit so he do not have to wait for anything.
In the meantime they are shipping the unit to us. For some customers this is perfect solution, for some unfortunately not. There are expenses that they have to cover (such as shipping).
If you can ship the package directly to us, everything will be according to our policy and warranty service will be of course completely for free and done in 1 day.

Alternatively you can ask Esprit to do the service in a similar way (not that you will get a new unit). I will contact them, since this way should be default.

_________________
Spirit System developer