Here’s the lowdown on installing OpenTX 2.2.0 to your FrySky Taranis X9D Plus, this being just the OS, this should also work for other transmitters using OpenTX.
3) Update Profile Info. Open your profile and check LUA and LUAC under the profile and save. This also solves the issue on “Invalid Language” Error.
OpenTX Invalid Language Error
4) Click on “Download Firmware and voice files”.
5) Write firmware to radio.
6) Read Models and Settings from Radio, you will be prompted with an error “eeprom old format” or something.. this only means that the model file format in the transmitter is still 2.1.9. Simply replace this file in the radio by “Write Models and Settings to Radio”.
7) Backup or save the radio and model profile found in your SDCARD to your PC as well as we will delete the taranis’ SDCARD contents in the next step. What I is go to the SDCARD and copy all the contents from there to the PC.
8) Replace your USB contents with default 2.2.0 SDCARD.. if you dont do this step, you will get an error re wrong USB version. Open the taranis USB and remove old files and replace with unzipped correct contents from http://downloads.open-tx.org/2.2/sdcard/
9) Transfer your saved radio profiles saved in #7 above, unplug the radio and test. Good Luck!
Optional:
1.) Remove Unnecessary sound files. Clean up /SDCARD/SOUNDS in your attached SDCARD (and SDCARD sync folder in your PC by removing folders of languages you dont need.
2.) Update sound files. Download Updated Soundpack for 2.2.0:
The Frysky Taranis X9D Plus SE from GetFPV.com is finally in my hands =) Having used a Spektrum DX6i for the past 5 years, the transmitter hardware (16 channels!) and OpenTX seems like light years away in features.
My particular interests in the Taranis are:
a) Future proof by having a transmitter that can handle > 6 channels.
b) Basic Telemetry even for fun flying aircraft.
c) Longer range with stock equipment < 3km range without using LRS.
d) Simplified setup.
The X9D certainly seems to be what I’m looking for plus more (e.g. the removable antenna!)
Frysky Taranis X9D Plus Special Edition
Anyway, enough of that.. after tinkering with the transmitter setup etc. I set up a range test kit, with a X6R RX (with an orange flag tied to a servo for extra visibility from 200ft away):
Range Test Kit with a Flag!
So here’s the result from an open field:
1) Stock 2db antenna – at 80 paces (approx 200ft) the receiver reported an RSSI range between 30 to 35 (the variation depends on the position of the transmitter antenna relative to the receiver). At 90 paces (approx. 225ft) the RSSI is 10-15. At this point I can see the tiny orange flag jerking as the receiver receives sporadic data from the transmitter.
2) 5db Frysky Antenna from HobbyKing – went up to 100 paces (or approximately 250ft) before getting a “critical” warning. The Taranis is registering 30-35 RSSI at this distance. At 110 paces (275ft) I got a 10-15 RSSI reading.
Conclusion: with low powered range testing a 5db antenna does give at least 20% more “range”. However, as expected the 5db does suffer from a narrower beam.
These are the steps I use to rapidly discharge my broken LiPOs and prepare them for safe disposal. If you are reading this bear in mind that discharging and charging lipos is always risky and require that these be done in a safe place, preferably outdoors with no combustible material nearby.
Lipos are not known to explode but they can generate a lot of heat, smoke and yes sometimes a bit of fire. So place the lipos in a non flammable material like a lipo sack, metal box or, in my case, on top of some ceramic or rock.
There are two common ways to skin this cat: a) Use a discharger exclusively or b) Use a discharger and some bulbs. If you want to use the discharger exclusively go to step 1 and jump to step 3. I like the combination since it allows me to discharge different sized batteries at the same time.
1) First bring down total battery voltage to 3v (or less) per cell using a discharger. This assumes you have a 12v halogen bulb which will be used to do most of the discharging. On the other hand, if you will be using a discharger exclusively set the discharge rate at 1C of your LiPO and discharge to the lowest voltage then jump to step 3.
2) Rapid Discharge with a target of 3-4V for the entire pack using halogen bulbs. I use Two (2) 12v 50watt halogen lamps in parallel as the primary and rapid discharger. The pair generates 8.3A of pull. Obviously for 5S and above the bulbs needs to be placed in series (with optional parallel) to accommodate the high voltage.
The 8.3A rate brings a 4S with 12v charge to 3-4v in about 30minutes. Once the bulbs show no light whatsoever, let it stay that way for at least 5 minutes before removing the pack. The halogen lamps are very hot so be careful.
High discharge rate will almost always result in a puffed pack.
Note that because of the high discharge rate and below minimum voltage this process induces on the lipos, they will almost always puff.
3) Drip Discharge on last Vs. After reaching use a charger to discharge at a lower amp. Set the charger to use NiCd (LiPo has a min termination voltage of 3V so it won’t do) and set to DISCHARGE at 1A without attaching the balancing cable. Set the target voltage to the minimum allowed by the charger, in the case of the Turnigy Reaktor its 0.10V. Discharge.
4) Set the second cycle using the charger to half an Amp (0.5A). This will be quick. And will bring the voltage to around 2V after a 3-5 minute pack rest.
5) 3rd cycle we use 0.2A discharge rate. This will take a few minutes and bring the voltage to about 1.5v. Once done make the pack rest for 3-5 minutes.
6) 4th onwards cycle set the discharger to 0.10A (the lowest setting) and discharge. This will take some time (8-10minutes) and is designed to really squeeze most of the remaining juice out of the pack. Let the pack rest for 5 minutes. After rest, it will bounce back to about 1.5v-2v. Do this same same (step #6) 3 to 5 more times making sure to make the pack rest for 5 minutes per discharge. Each cycle will be quicker than the previous one as the chemicals in the pack loses its capacity to regenerate charge.
1.5v-1.8v good enough terminal voltage for disposal
7) Repeat until 1.5V is reached. After at least 3 cycles of step #6 the packs will have a voltage of about 1.5v. Wait for 15minutes and verify that the voltage is steady at 1.5v. If the pack goes beyond this after this longer rest period, discharge it using step #6 a couple of times.
Cut leads prior to being shorted.
8) Cut off charging lead. At 1.5v the battery is basically dead but still has residual charge. You can reuse the red and black charging wires and plugs by cutting off the wires leaving just enough to short the battery. In my case I also cut off the balancer wire. After cutting the charging wires, use a pair of long nose pliers to expose a bit of both wires and twist them together to short the battery.
9) Safe store for a day. Tape the exposed lead and balancer wires and place in a secure place with no flammable material. It will take 2-12 hours for the residual charge to finally zero out depending on the battery’s capacity. In my experience a 3S 2200mah charge was completely depleted after 3 hours, a 4S 5000mah about 6 hours, leaving me with just inert material. This means I get to throw these tomorrow with the rest of the trash.
The Magnificent 7. Goodbye amigos! Thanks for the fun and memories!
If you’re reading this and just started with the hobby, let me give you a piece of advice to save your LiPos and hard-earned money:
Get a good balancer charger and
Do not charge each LiPO cell to the max of 4.2v, charge instead at 4.1v or 4.15v. This will make the lipos last longer — as much as twice the cycles/lifespan.
I’ve had this generic B6AC+ 80watt AC/DC charger for a little over 3 years now, my first one in fact and its seems to work ok, but I noticed that a big percentage of my lipos are puffing up. At first I attributed this to my usage, but with mainly planes used for FPV and not being an aggressive flyer at all, I found this strange.
Fast forward recently and with about 25 Lipos of varying cell counts and capacities, half of them have puffed, somethings not right! I can’t be the most stupid RC flyer out there!
What really convinced me was when I bought a 3S 2200mah JRPropo battery. After a couple of cycles, the 3rd cell is always 10% higher in charge and often exceeds 4.2v when trying to charge. No matter how often I discharge and how long I charge it (balanced of course), the first 2 cells can not get the 4.2v full charge. Checking the battery with a fellow flyer’s Powerlab 8 v2 showed that the 3rd cell has twice the resistance as the first 2, however unlike my charger the cellpro is trickling charge into the first 2 cells attempting to catch up with the 3rd. I didn’t complete it though as I had to leave the field.
So bottom line, the charger had to go. But what to choose? the Powerlab 8? iCharger? Reaktors? I eventually decided to get the Turnigy Reaktor 250w 10A from HK. It’s cheap (< US$50), full featured (it being a copy of the iCharger 106B+) and looks really cool too. Fortunately, I also found a local supplier of a good power supply (360w) for it:
So the verdict? this small charger did a lazarus on my LiPO above! after setting the termination voltage at 4.15v (I can’t do this with my old charger). I proceeded to do balanced charging.
The image below shows the charging several minutes after I started. This shows cells 1 and 2 catching up to cell 3, which was pared down to 4.15 (it was registering 4.21v at the beginning) by the charger and maintained at that charge all throughout the charging cycle.
An hour later, I got fully balanced battery charged at 4.15v each cell!
I’m beginning to really like this charger.. here’s the balanced cells.
So if you’re thinking of getting a 2-6s charger, this small charger is very capable. Full-featured, adequate power to handle high C charging and best of all, cheap!
I got a used Canon Powershot SX230 SH for only about $70 (brand new this is about $250).. its beat up pretty good but everything works except for the lens cover which doesnt close even if its turned off.. I dont think this is a big issue at all.
A used Canon Powershot SX 230 SH (eyes wide open!)
This will be used as the mapping component of my Skywalker rig and which needs to be updated with CHDK for added features relevant for my use. Here’s the steps on how to do it:
2) Download the Automatic Camera Identifier and Downloader (ACID) to check for the camera’s installed firmware (mine was 100c) and download the correct CHDK version (http://www.zenoshrdlu.com/acid/acid.html)
3) UNLOCK the SD card and format it using the camera’s format function
4) remove the SD card and insert into your PC/laptop.
5) copy all the files downloaded in step 2 to the root directory of the SD card.
chdk directory to copy to your formatted SD card
6) Remove the SD card, LOCK it, then insert into the camera. Don’t worry CHDK will just ignore the LOCKED state of the SC card and will still allow the camera to write to the SD card (if this is UNLOCKED, CHDK will not start on bootup after step 10).
7) Press the “PLAY” button (not the on/off).
8) Press the MENU Key and under the ‘play’ tab, look for “Firmware Update…” and press the “FUNC SET” button. After the update, you should see a black/empty screen with “No Image” in the middle (which makes sense since we deleted everything).
Canon sx230 firmware update menu
9) Press the ‘PLAY’ key briefly, which is the default <ALT> key to bring up the CHDK menu and you should see the CHDK alternate menu.
chdk main menu after pressing ‘play’
10) Set the SD card to autoboot to CHDK, by pressing MENU (after step 9), navigating to ‘Miscellaneous Stuff’->’SD Card’->’Make Card Bootable’ and pressing ‘FUNC SET’. The camera will now run CHDK even after turning the camera off.
CTTools: CT Tool for MinimOSD Extra 2.3.2.0 Pre Release r727.zip
Firmware: MinimOSD-Extra_Plane_Pre-release_2.4_r719.hex
2) Setup EzUHF Receiver to send RSSI or LINK quality values. Since you are using a Pixhawk or HKPilot, the setup should be that all the channels goes through channel 1 which is ‘muxed’. Connect to your EzUHF receiver using a USB cable and open the ImmersionRC Configuration Tool. Once connected, just set channel 8 to either RSSI or LINK (only channel 8 will with MinimOSD for now so its pointless experimenting with other channels). You can use either RSSI or LINK, but I suggest you use LINK as RSSI is all about the signal strength and not the actual quality of the link. Upload the settings to the receiver. Here’s how it looks like:
ezhuf rssi setup
4) Do not edit any parameters in APM or MP. You do not need to change or update any settings in the AP configuration so leave it as is.
5) Get the maximum and minimum RSSI or LINK PWM values in MinimOSD. For this next step, both segments of the MinimOSD must be powered or any updates in the configuration you make with the MinimOSD will not be saved. The OSD output end must be powered with 12v and the other end is plugged to your laptop with an FTDI cable. Like so:
minimosd config setup
Use the configuration tool to set up the RSSI values (in Panel 1). Make sure you write the configuration to MinimOSD. On the main ‘Config’ panel make sure that you’ve set the ‘RSSI Channel’ to Channel 8… AND make sure the RSSI Enable RAW is checked.
minimosd rssi setup (the RSSI enable raw must be checked to get raw values)
Save the configuration, remove the MinimOSD, plug it into the Pixhawk cable and Vtx/Camera cables and power up your system. On the OSD screen where you’ve set the RSSI to be, you should see a number. Take note of this as this is your ‘maximum’ link quality value. Unplug your transmitter and take note of the value. This time you should see a smaller number. This is the minimum link quality value. For my setup, the highest was 1793 and the lowest was 1056. I just set it to 1800 and 1050 since the OSD is limited to steps of 10. Now power down the system, disconnect all cables, connect 12v power source to the MinimOSD and plug back the MinimOSD to your laptop.
6) Update the MinimOSD PWM Min and Max RSSI Values. Finally, fire up the MinimOSD CTools again and change the Minimum and Maximum RSSI values to the one you got in step 5. Also set uncheck the ‘RSSI Enable Raw’ so you can see the values in percentage format. Save the configuration and test.
The HKPilot32 (and other PixHawk variants) use a single “muxed” connection from the receiver to the AP. What I was not ready for was that the channel assignments were all totally mixed up. The throttle channel is now registering as roll (ie aileron), the roll as pitch (elevator), and the pitch as the throttle! only the yaw channel remained.
Here’s the stock channels using the latest ArduPilot:Plane firmware (3.1.1):
The main issue here is that the channels are fixed on my transmitter (a Spektrum DX6i). A quick check online shows that the consensus seems to be to change the assignment on the transmitter (oh boy) and not on the AP. At any rate, this is not viable for me right now.. so I have to implement it on the plane.
While these parameters are visible in both applications, for some reason I cant save it with AP Planner and the channels refuse to be reassigned. The following worked with Mission Planner (v1.3.11):
Note that this is only for the hardware combination above and may be different in other systems so a little trial and error may be required. Also, while available, changing these settings are not recommended for APM2.5/2.6.
The RC 5808 is a simple 12v, 8 channel video receiver with a single Video output for a monitor or goggles. I’ve had mine for over a year and I’m completely happy with it.
RC 5808 Receiver
The following channels and its frequencies are supported:
In order to change the frequencies, change the pin positions found on top of the receiver:
Figure 1: RC 5808 Receiver Channel Assignment
The pin combination assignment to change the channel is found at the back of the receiver:
Figure 2: RC 5808 Receiver Channel Pins
To change the channels, position the pin to closed or blacked out half. For example, figure 1 above, is set to use channel 8 (with reference to figure 2).
