Staveley Silver Star and Analogue
Posted: 07 Sep 2024, 23:39
The latest addition to my collection arrived today, a near-new condition boxed 2-channel Staveley Silver Star, complete with the original receipts, guarantee cards, user instructions and sales brochure (it was sold in December 1971). It fits nicely with the boxed Staveley Analogue 2-channel set I got a little earlier this year.
There were a few things that surprised me about the Silver Star, even though it is only 2-channel, it is fitted with normal 2-axis joysticks, complete with all the pots, so externally you would think it was a 4-channel set and to convert from two to four channel would only need to populate the PCB, not fit new joysticks. The Silver Star 2-channel set was dry cells by default, this one had the NiCad upgrade, but it had an external charger, the 4-channel Silver Star I also have has an internal charger (there is a transformer in the transmitter, so you plug the transmitter into the mains to charge, similar to many other transmitters of the period). The set came in two boxes, the transmitter in one, the flight pack in the other and another small box with the power supply. Three boxes where one would have sufficed, strange idea on the packaging! The 2-channel analogue came in a single box and was sold just a few months before (February 69)
The NiCads had just started to leak and there was a pin-prick size of corrosion on the PCB, lucky I got it now and not in a few months time as I think it would have got damaged.
You would think the Staveley 2-channel Analogue set was from a different manufacturer, the case and joysticks (and circuitry) are very different, but so is the packaging, the Analogue is cardboard packaging around the transmitter, the Silver Star polystyrene, the instructions are so different, only the sales invoices are the same! I think I read somewhere that there were two development teams at Staveley, headed up by Doug Spreng on digital proportional and Mike Dench on analogue proportional. I don't think the two teams could have ever spoken to each other about documentation or the presentation of the sets. Both are lovely sets however.
There were a few things that surprised me about the Silver Star, even though it is only 2-channel, it is fitted with normal 2-axis joysticks, complete with all the pots, so externally you would think it was a 4-channel set and to convert from two to four channel would only need to populate the PCB, not fit new joysticks. The Silver Star 2-channel set was dry cells by default, this one had the NiCad upgrade, but it had an external charger, the 4-channel Silver Star I also have has an internal charger (there is a transformer in the transmitter, so you plug the transmitter into the mains to charge, similar to many other transmitters of the period). The set came in two boxes, the transmitter in one, the flight pack in the other and another small box with the power supply. Three boxes where one would have sufficed, strange idea on the packaging! The 2-channel analogue came in a single box and was sold just a few months before (February 69)
The NiCads had just started to leak and there was a pin-prick size of corrosion on the PCB, lucky I got it now and not in a few months time as I think it would have got damaged.
You would think the Staveley 2-channel Analogue set was from a different manufacturer, the case and joysticks (and circuitry) are very different, but so is the packaging, the Analogue is cardboard packaging around the transmitter, the Silver Star polystyrene, the instructions are so different, only the sales invoices are the same! I think I read somewhere that there were two development teams at Staveley, headed up by Doug Spreng on digital proportional and Mike Dench on analogue proportional. I don't think the two teams could have ever spoken to each other about documentation or the presentation of the sets. Both are lovely sets however.
