450 Trex 450l Initial Setup Help

[Eospro]

Still no luck with the receiver, We installed a firmware update on Tuesday, though now we can't get a throttle signal on any channel, but a servo will work on any channel.
Our current thoughts are that seeing the receiver is supposedly channel programmable, maybe somehow it has been reprogrammed without a throttle channel, if that is at all possible.
Hooking up to the Spektrum program on a PC gives a firmware update and reset option, but that is all.
I believe that I read somewhere that the microbeast can alter the channels on the receiver to get the correct channel order, but this would not explain the no throttle channel.
I really want this receiver to work as it will provide some telemetry ( flight battery voltage). But we are running out of ideas and I am ready to give up on it.

It's got to the weekend to get its shit together or its getting donated to science and will be replaced.

Also, I am hugely impressed with the TS16X and Edgetx firmware, Very tempted to make the change.

 

[fran11784]

The beastx cannot change the mapping in the receiver. You can change the channel mapping in the beastx to match your receiver, but I have never had to do that with Spektrum. I wish I could get it on my bench, I know I could figure it out but I'm out of ideas to tell you to try. Did you try another flybarless controller? I mean like an iKON or vbar? Anything really

 

[Eospro]

The beastx cannot change the mapping in the receiver. You can change the channel mapping in the beastx to match your receiver, but I have never had to do that with Spektrum. I wish I could get it on my bench, I know I could figure it out but I'm out of ideas to tell you to try. Did you try another flybarless controller? I mean like an iKON or vbar? Anything really

I don't have another controller, but I did hook it up to one of my cars, with the same result unfortunately. If we were in the same country, I would send it to you.
I'm giving it to my mate on Saturday who will try it with a couple of his helicopters. If he has no luck I'll be asking you guys for recommendations on a new receiver, either Spektrum or possibly another brand if I go the Radiomaster EdgeTX route.

 

[RandyDSok]

We installed a firmware update on Tuesday, though now we can't get a throttle signal on any channel, but a servo will work on any channel.

When you updated the firmware ... you lost the previous calibration you did for the throttle settings. So you need to recalibrate so the throttle works again.

 

[Eospro]

That's what we were hoping for.

When you updated the firmware ... you lost the previous calibration you did for the throttle settings. So you need to recalibrate so the throttle works again.

 

[Eospro]

There is no calibration info in the receivers manual, just to have throttle settings at aleast 100% and stick at low position. We tried this with every channel starting with Ch.1 (spektrums default throttle channel).
Also tried with the DX5C with no luck.

 

[RandyDSok]

You calibrate it according to how the ESC states... not the receiver. I did describe in general in the post I made on the subject but had to generalize since each ESC may use different instructions. It was the second post I made in this thread.

 

[Eospro]

The esc manual gives no mention of calibrating, just a simple Initialization process of powering up in mid throttle then moving to low throttle when ready to fly which arms the esc.

 

[RandyDSok]

The esc manual gives no mention of calibrating, just a simple Initialization process of powering up in mid throttle then moving to low throttle when ready to fly which arms the esc.

That is an odd way of calibrating... and it is a method, just because they didn't say the word doesn't mean it isn't. You must consider that most of the writers of the manuals do not likely have English as their first language. It's obviously the method they use to arm with. Why it's odd is typically the ESC will want the 100% throttle and the 0% so it knows for certain the full range of the channel ( aka stick movement ).... starting at 50% it's not certain if that is exactly 50% or somewhere close.

 

[Eospro]

That is an odd way of calibrating... and it is a method, just because they didn't say the word doesn't mean it isn't. You must consider that most of the writers of the manuals do not likely have English as their first language. It's obviously the method they use to arm with. Why it's odd is typically the ESC will want the 100% throttle and the 0% so it knows for certain the full range of the channel ( aka stick movement ).... starting at 50% it's not certain if that is exactly 50% or somewhere close.

Very true, it wouldn't have any idea of the full throttle range.
Anyway, we hooked the receiver up to two helicopters and a plane, it bound to all 3 but wouldn't find a throttle signal. Even reinstalled the firmware and reset several times. So that's it, I've officially given up and am moving on.
i've decided to make the change to EdgeTX and will be ordering a Radiomaster TX16S shortly..
So I will need some suggestions on a receiver.
I did like the specs of the AR8020T, but am not too sure about getting another one.
My requirements are 8 channels with basic telemetry, mainly flight battery voltage.
What do you guys use?

 

[D.O.G.]

What do you guys use?

I cheat I use an FBL unit that doesn't use a receiver like the AR7200BX, AR7300BX, or the AR7210BX. My microbeast uses a spectrum satellite RX that I use on my FPV quads.

 

[RandyDSok]

The Radiomaster TX16S comes in two versions ( and several model styles )... one uses their own proprietary ELRS protocol. The other has a 4-in-1 which supports many different radio protocols ( using 4 different chips, hence the name ). Assuming you are going to get the 4-in-1 model, you could use your current receiver if you wished as long as you set the transmitter up to support it.

Suggesting which make/model or even protocol that would work best with the Radiomaster radios... isn't something I can make a suggestion from since i don't own one.

I will remind you that you can test the throttle channel on the receiver using just a servo hooked up to it. A servo doesn't need to know the full range and will just work, it's only the ESC's that require calibration. You wouldn't want to go past the range the servo travels in or it would result in binding... but the servo would still move.

 

[Eospro]

The Radiomaster TX16S comes in two versions ( and several model styles )... one uses their own proprietary ELRS protocol. The other has a 4-in-1 which supports many different radio protocols ( using 4 different chips, hence the name ). Assuming you are going to get the 4-in-1 model, you could use your current receiver if you wished as long as you set the transmitter up to support it.

Suggesting which make/model or even protocol that would work best with the Radiomaster radios... isn't something I can make a suggestion from since i don't own one.

I will remind you that you can test the throttle channel on the receiver using just a servo hooked up to it. A servo doesn't need to know the full range and will just work, it's only the ESC's that require calibration. You wouldn't want to go past the range the servo travels in or it would result in binding... bu

 

[Eospro]

Sorry, I should have specified. TX16S MKII MAX with the included 4in1 module.

This is what we couldn't figure out. A servo would work when connected to any of the receivers channels, but any esc we used indicated that there was no throttle signal present.

 

[Eospro]

I cheat I use an FBL unit that doesn't use a receiver like the AR7200BX, AR7300BX, or the AR7210BX. My microbeast uses a spectrum satellite RX that I use on my FPV quads.

That's an idea skip the receiver altogether. Do you get any telemetry?

 

[RandyDSok]

This is what we couldn't figure out. A servo would work when connected to any of the receivers channels, but any esc we used indicated that there was no throttle signal present.

That is just an uncalibrated ESC / throttle ... it isn't the fault of the receiver.

 

[RandyDSok]

That's an idea skip the receiver altogether. Do you get any telemetry?

Maybe someone with a Radiomaster radio can answer that ... there aren't many but some here have mentioned having one. I just don't see them often in here.

 

[Eospro]

That is just an uncalibrated ESC / throttle ... it isn't the fault of the receiver.

We tried to go through the whole setup/calibration from scratch with each esc and radio combination we tried with no luck.
Every combination using both of our escs and radios worked fine with his receivers, but we couldn't get any esc to find a throttle signal with my receiver.

From the beginning,

Firstly motor, responded erratically on Ch.1 on receiver without actually starting up.

Secondly, receivers Ch.5 appeared to become the throttle channel.

And finally, sometimes the receiver would bind, sometimes it wouldn't. And when it did bind the escs started having issues finding any throttle signal. As of yesterday afternoon, no esc would find a signal on any channel and binding to the receiver continued to be hit & miss.

My buddy called me today and said he is putting it down to a circuitry issue due to some odd readings he got on his multimeter. He did mention resistance and some numbers, but it made no sense to me at all.

 

[D.O.G.]

Do you get any telemetry?

I don't use telemetry but I guess you can according to this individual BUT for DX8 "On my T700N I use TM1000 with AR7200BX radio DX8 it works well and has very simple wiring. Never try with another brand of telemetry yet."

 

[RandyDSok]

We tried to go through the whole setup/calibration from scratch with each esc and radio combination we tried with no luck.

I still stand on my comment that the ESC's you tried never got properly calibrated so they never would arm. Radio's even from the same make and model will vary the timings needed to perform a calibration. Since we can't rely on perfect signal timing... we start with setting the transmitter at it's own 0% and 100% positions and start to attempt our calibrations from there. If that doesn't work, you lower or increase the 0% side up or down until the ESC does see the proper signals.

Since different manuals may use different wording for "calibrate" ... I'll also describe it as setting the high and low end points of the range of the signal... ie the 0% signal and the 100% signals. Then add to the situation, that each ESC can use slightly different methods for calibrating them, adds some complexity to the situation. Next add the inaccuracies to the technology ( which is why calibration is needed to compensate for ), and you get this situation... where people think something isn't working when they are and it just appears as a bad part to them.

Warning, I'm about to get real technical... and still not technical enough to completely explain this accurately... but it will be the basics. Not to mention I may make a poor choice of words ( like saying length where the word width may be the proper term as an example ).

Your friends multimeter is not going to be good for testing the required microsecond signals on the signal lines going to the server/ESC. Most ( even expensive ones ) just measure average voltage for the line and not true RMS ( root square mean ) which the PWM ( pulse width modulation ) signal produces. Of the multimeters that I have seen that do test true RMS do it at a max rate of 6000 per second... the signals we are talking about are in µs ... aka microseconds which are in millions of times per second. So to properly measure the signal would require an oscilloscope with the sampling rate high enough to measure them. These packets of info are updated at the rates of either 11ms or 20ms ... ms is milliseconds or thousands of times a second.

So you get a signal pulse width that is measured in µs that gives the servo where ( what angle ) to place the arm of the servo... and this is updated at a rate of either 11 or 20ms per second. A servo isn't actually digital in the normal sense of the word, it's analog. Because the width of the individual pulses appear as a frequency to the servo, it knows what angle to place the servo arm. The frequency shows as about 40Hz to 200Hz. Said another way, a pulse width of .5ms, the servo arm is at its far left position, a pulse of 1.5ms will be the middle position and at 2.5ms is at it's far right. An ESC is simply the digital version of the servo basically that then translates that to the signal it outputs to a motor.

It is this fine output of and measuring of the microseconds that lead to this situation. Nothing is perfectly accurate so the widths of the signal pulses vary slightly from radio to radio even when they are the same make and model. The servos can work because they are reading at an analog level... the ESC's on the other hand are reading it digitally and then translating that signal to an analog PWM signal the motor understands. Since our measurement of the pulses can't be set or read perfectly accurately, we use the calibration step to tell the ESC where those values are really at.

Machinists have the same situation but in measuring the size of things exactly as they can. They have to purchase a set of exact size measuring pieces to use as their standard so all of their measurements they make are calibrated from those standards... but as the machinists know, they are only as accurate as the set of standards they purchased and the tools they use to measure with.