savagemonte

Hi everybody,i need advice on a new fail safe,right now i have the venom w/temp fail safe,and i just installed a used jr xs3 radio with receiver,the radio seems to work great no glicthing or anything,but lately even on my old stock savage radio the fail safe was engaging brakes either at a distance or even pretty close when the truck was moving towards me,so the only thing i can come up with is the fail safe is going haywire on me,or maybe i'm totally wrong, any body got any ideas what maybe causing the brakes to be applyed,btw its about 40 degrees with snow and ice out,not sure if that has any effect on the fail safe,but it was acting up on my old radio in warmer weather,so whats a good and reliable failsafe?btw the temp gauge on my venom,over time seemed to get less accurate,anybody have one of these that might have the same problem? thanks for any info.

DaveG55

I don't have one of the Venom failsafe combo units but I have seen several people over the years have lots of trouble with that failsafe. Usually the Ofna, Duratrax of Venom (failsafe only) failsafe's work well and w/o problems but something about that combounit gives problems.

savagemonte

yeah thats what i'm leaning towards is the ofna and the futaba failsafe's,they seem like an overall pick,does anybody have an ofna or futaba or duratrax failsafe?like to hear your opioion on them.

DaveG55

Me again.
I've got both the Duratrax and OFNA ones. I don't have strong feelings about either. They both work and have not given any problems at all. I actually don't think about them much. They're just there until they do their job then I charge the batteries and go on. I don't know if that's any help or not. My usual critera is to buy whichever basic unit is on sale. I would also suggest a seperate temp gun. Their much more versitile than an on board temp guage. Ofna is selling one with a stop watch for $40 but the Duratrax one I use is surprisingly accurate and $10 less.

savagemonte

Amen to that i learned quick not to trust the venom temp guage it wasnt very accurate,it always read a higher temp than my handheld duratrax temp gun did,but i hear ya for the money the duratrax is a much better buy imo.

senator050

Gday Bro
Have the same ,And had these problems earlier on (Nothing worse than haveing a top full speed run and the brakes come on at about 50kph never seen so many cartwheels in my life) Went back to instructions again and started all over again, The only thing i could work out was my setting which i bumped up to 19 on Radio Failsafe setting and no probs so far,Have keeped everthing as per instructions.

Hope this helps
.

SpeedAddict

This might seem like a useless comment, but I found this out and like it a lot. I can move my OFNA Micro Failsafe from my Smartech to my Savage and back and etc. without resetting it. I think that's kinda cool. Anyways, I really like my OFNA failsafe, I've never had a glitch, it doesn't take up much room, and it's cheap.

savagemonte

Hey thanks for the input so far guys,but i got to looking at my wires on my venom fail safe,and the brown wire has a cut in it, not sure but i think thats the problem with it,so i'm not sure how to fix it,black tape sounds good,but i want to make a permanant fix,anybody got any ideas,cause if it can be fixed,i'd like to keep it,the digital voltage meter is what i like about it the best, i called my lhs today,and i can get a duratrax for 20.00 bucks,not bad,but i really like this venom unit,it's never gave me problems till now,so any ideas how to fix a nick in the insulation?and does anybody know what the brown wire is used for? i think i'll get ahold of venom tommorrow,if i can find a phone number.

SpeedAddict

Is the wiring cut or just the rubber casing stuff. I think you can use some heat shrink stuff, electrical tape works too.

savagemonte

its just the insulation,i can see bare wire if i bend the wire right,not sure if thats what is making the failsafe apply brakes.

SpeedAddict

If the wire isn't pinces, broken, or touching another one I think it should be working fine. I would just put some heat shrink tubing around it and shrick it so it won't come off like electrical tape can.

joeseif

i would turn the remote and the power, not the motor, to the truck. then wiggle the wire, see if the failsafe comes on. I use venom failsafe only. Heat gun is better seperatly, that way when your not using it on you car you can use on your coffee as you preach K.I.S.S.

savagemonte

Hi again all, well did some more looking around on these forums last night about my failsafe,venom with temp,well i found one forum in which alot of ppl who are running jr xs3 and a few other jr brands,well i guess if you use a jr radio with these venom units,they dont click,to much interference,cause after i heat shrinked the wires on my failsafe it still wanted to apply brakes for no reason,so then i shut off the failsafe feature,and i had poor signal,which the day before when i ran my savage without the failsafe on the truck,it worked great,and had good range and signal,so today i went and got a new duratrax failsafe,i'm gonna run it tommorrow and see what happens,but according to my lhs fellow,he dosent care for failsafes,he says the jr radio has a good range for signal,and that i shouldent even worry about losing signal,but for me,after watching my savage float in a pond due to a no signal,yeah i aint taking a chance....oh and btw did you know a savage will float,not sure if its cause the truckzilla tires i had on at the time,but it was floating and even running,but i took to long(walking like nothing major had happened)to see where my savy went,sure enough in the middle of the pond lool,i still wanna try it on purpose,to see if i can drive it in,then out.