Tony
Staff member
I want to start out saying, I NEVER want to do this again. I received this quad from Banggood.com with some high hopes of a pretty cool quad. Thanks to weather, it took forever to get here (held up in newyork). But, it finally arrived. Once I had it in my hands, I had to fly it and get used to it for the upcoming video (testing features and such). So I pull it out of the box, install the batteries in the Tx (not included) and the battery in the quad (storage charge flight, then recharge). I plugged the quad in, then turned the remote on to initialize it. That is when it hit me, they sent me a Mode 1 controller. I thought well lets just see how stable it is. Once in the air I found out quickly, they sent me a MODE 3 controller!
Mode 1: throttle roll on right stick, pitch yaw on the left stick
Mode 2: throttle yaw on left stick, pitch and roll on right stick
Mode 3: throttle yaw on right stick, pitch and roll on left stick
Since when does anyone send mode 3??? This is such an oddball configuration and it's exactly reversed from mode 2 (which is what I fly). So I thought, maybe everything is programmed into the pots (there are 4 on a controller), but I knew this wasn't the case but I still had to get the throttle stick on teh left side.
So I busted out teh soldering iron and removed the two sticks, 4 pots and the temp button for when you push down on the sticks. Then I cleaned out the holes and soldered each piece where I NEED them to go. Fired it up and still the same configuration.
I knew now that the program was in the chip and I would have to do some rerouting of the traces, all 4 of them, but only the center posts (which is the signal post). So I swapped everything around where it was supposed to be and with a fresh battery I went flying. First, the throttle. Worked like a charm on the left stick. Then elevator, worked like a charm on the right stick. Then the yaw, worked but was reversed (right=left, left =right) then roll was also reversed.
Well crap. So I pulled the controller back apart and got to looking at the positive and negative for the pots. Yup, they are reversed from one side to the other. Go figure. So now, I have to isolate the pins from teh traces and remap those as well. About 1.5 hours into this little experiment and I have a properly flying quad.
So if anyone purchases this quad and your controls are off (all Mode 1 controllers are actually Mode 3), you can refer to the picture below for how to map everything. If you are ONLY needing to map the yaw and roll to reverse them back to Mode 1, I can point that out as well.
But I do have to say, once you have a properly configured controller, it works very well. Great flips, stable flight and even a pretty good inverted flight! More on that in the upcoming video!
Mode 1: throttle roll on right stick, pitch yaw on the left stick
Mode 2: throttle yaw on left stick, pitch and roll on right stick
Mode 3: throttle yaw on right stick, pitch and roll on left stick
Since when does anyone send mode 3??? This is such an oddball configuration and it's exactly reversed from mode 2 (which is what I fly). So I thought, maybe everything is programmed into the pots (there are 4 on a controller), but I knew this wasn't the case but I still had to get the throttle stick on teh left side.
So I busted out teh soldering iron and removed the two sticks, 4 pots and the temp button for when you push down on the sticks. Then I cleaned out the holes and soldered each piece where I NEED them to go. Fired it up and still the same configuration.
I knew now that the program was in the chip and I would have to do some rerouting of the traces, all 4 of them, but only the center posts (which is the signal post). So I swapped everything around where it was supposed to be and with a fresh battery I went flying. First, the throttle. Worked like a charm on the left stick. Then elevator, worked like a charm on the right stick. Then the yaw, worked but was reversed (right=left, left =right) then roll was also reversed.
Well crap. So I pulled the controller back apart and got to looking at the positive and negative for the pots. Yup, they are reversed from one side to the other. Go figure. So now, I have to isolate the pins from teh traces and remap those as well. About 1.5 hours into this little experiment and I have a properly flying quad.
So if anyone purchases this quad and your controls are off (all Mode 1 controllers are actually Mode 3), you can refer to the picture below for how to map everything. If you are ONLY needing to map the yaw and roll to reverse them back to Mode 1, I can point that out as well.
But I do have to say, once you have a properly configured controller, it works very well. Great flips, stable flight and even a pretty good inverted flight! More on that in the upcoming video!
