FlySky i6X DIY Harness Clips

Note: While this printable was designed for the FlySky i6x, there's no particular reason you can't use the parts with any similar R/C radio, as long as you can find a place to attach the screws that doesn't short out the radio.

Background

Many R/C radio transmitters have a balance bar located roughly in the center of the unit, to which the user can clip a lanyard in order to support the unit's weight and keep it tethered to their body.  

As a builder and operator of life-sized droids, I've found that the problem with this single-point attachment is that if I need to bend down to grab something or otherwise go hands-free (such as to operate the bluetooth soundboard on my phone), the radio can tilt or swing around, potentially hitting sticks or switches and causing unintended inputs (problematic, especially if you lack a throttle disarm switch or forget to use it)

For some high end R/C transmitters, you can get a harness like the one to the right instead of a simple lanyard.  While some harnesses are intended merely to support the weight of the radio from the shoulders instead of the neck, others offer more attachment points or even a plate.  These do the work of holding the transmitter horizontal and stable, leaving the operator's hands free to use the controls or do other things.  

However, budget radios like my FlySky i6X or even my FrSky Taranis QX7 typically do not have attachment points for such accessories, so I took it upon myself to add such a feature.

Installation and Use

While I was altering my FlySky i6X to run the Openi6x port of OpenTx, I designed the simple parts in this Printable and attached them to the shell of the radio.  They provide sufficiently large holes that I can use the clips on my DIY harness (and potentially an aftermarket harness). 

To install, I simply took the back cover of the radio off -- being careful to detach the wires for the batteries and the rear port from the motherboard -- then drilled a hole near the lower corner on each side of the back half of the plastic shell.  These holes were sized for an M3 screw.  The screws I had on hand are overly long, so I put a couple of nuts on them as spacers, then fed the screws through these printed parts, through the shell, and into an M3 nylon lock nut on the insideof the shell (so it wouldn't work loose and potentially short something out). You could coat this lock nut in hot glue for extra protection if you are paranoid.

There are two holes on the printed parts (in case you don't want the part to be able to rotate), but I only used the ones at the opposite end from the larger clip holes.

The Harness

My prototype harness is constructed from a handful of the lanyards that I get each year with my Dragon Con badge.  Specifically, I chose two lanyards that had no safety disconnect on the strap (because those would pull apart immediately), and which together were long enough to go around my torso to reach the printed parts.  I joined the two together by their straps via an ordinary metal “split ring” of the sort people use as key rings.

Clipped to this ring was also a third lanyard that was long enough to reach my neck (which is worn backwards, as the harness sits across the back) but short enough to hold the others up a bit … you could substitute two lanyards around the shoulders if you prefer.  You can also add short keychains or additional rings if you need more length somewhere.

The two horizontal lanyards then clip onto the printed parts (orange in my photo below).  

In the photo, you can also see a lanyard clipped to the center balance bar between the gimbals and laying across the screen.  That is not one of the lanyards shown in the previous photo of the prototype harness; it's the lanyard that came with my QX7 radio, which you wear around the neck normally.   It is adjustable, kept a bit longer than the one on the back, and provides the third attachment point needed to hold the radio horizontal, since my design doesn't have a tray/plate to support the radio.

There are undoubtedly better ways to do this, and I will likely upgrade the harness to something more professional looking eventually, but for now it suffices as a simple, low-cost (very nearly free) solution and it worked fine during my test run at a recent convention.