FrSky Taranis, X8R and the Phantom

[trintcole]

Davek, as per your request.

I did the beep on throttle center so I'd know that I'm not climbing or descending without having to look at the receiver.

I just took CD419's set up and tweaked it. I wouldn't have had a clue of where to get started. 90% of the setup is his. I also added a few new things on this next BIN file. Flew it today. Seems pretty good. I like tweaking this thing. Scott from aloft has posted great vids on youtube.

Latest setup
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/683 ... ARANIS.BIN

sounds
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/683 ... sounds.zip

 

[Davek]

Davek, as per your request.

I did the beep on throttle center so I'd know that I'm not climbing or descending without having to look at the receiver.

I just took CD419's set up and tweaked it. I wouldn't have had a clue of where to get started. 90% of the setup is his. I also added a few new things on this next BIN file. Flew it today. Seems pretty good. I like tweaking this thing. Scott from aloft has posted great vids on youtube.

Latest setup
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/683 ... ARANIS.BIN

sounds
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/683 ... sounds.zip

Thanks! Actually everything beeps and I believe since it's trying to find a sound file that isn't there so it just beeps.

Thanks again!

 

[supernut]

hi everyone....been reading up and i just got my new phantom 2 with gimbal

the stock TX has a problem and its not controlling the gimbal correctly, anyway i was going to replace it with a futaba, but a dealer advised me to buy a taranis.

i have read people have fitted the x8r into a phantom and thats great, anyone installed it into a phantom 2?

if so any chance off install details and also help in programming the taranis?

as for the phantom, wow not a single problem upto now, 6 flights with gimbal and gopro attached and its going great, i was worried when i started it the first time, but its child's play...

 

[Davek]

Here's my startup and install process. Let me know if I've lefty anything out. I could include pics if needed.

Taranis Radio Startup procedure

- Turn on radio and press & hold menu button for a long time. Then go to page 7 and do radio calibration screen. Important to remember that all of your calibration settings are now on that eeprom. If you download a model and simply write that to your radio, you will write over your calibration settings with someone else’s. You must add a model to your eeprom doing the following!
- Download and install companion9x.
- Go to file, preferences and under there change the firmware setting to opentx for frsky taranis
- Now you can download, save and open models in companion9x. Remember to read your eeprom to keep calibrations and drag and drop other models into your eeprom.
- Also, go into the removable drive that pops up on your pc and copy all directories and files to a known location. This includes sound files. Now go into preferences and point the “SD Structure Path” to that directory
- I’m not gonna go into programming but feel free to have fun wit that! Lot's of videos from Scott on that.

X8R install Process

- Open up Phantom and remove existing receiver board. It’s where the 2 cables, X1 and X2 connect from the Naza. There are 4 screws that hold this board in place and it weighs 8 grams so worth it.
- Find a proper place for mounting x8r. I used double sided tape where the old receiver was sitting but offset back a bit for antenna’s to exit body from middle. I drilled a hole and mounted one antenna down and one at right angles to that.
- Connect Naza X2 cable to x8r Sbus. And if you use trintcole’s model, X1 can go to channel 5 for variable gain adjustment. Otherwise, not needed.
- That’s it except for some minor cautionary measures. Go into Naza assistant and make sure your radio setting is on Dbus. Also calibrate sticks in Naza assistant. If you don’t calibrate your sticks in Naza, it’s likely one of them won’t center correctly. This happened to me and my phantom went into rapid blinking red halfway through a battery. Calibration in Naza fix it.
- Also, don’t keep your radio close to receiver while on, you’ll get constant alerts about telemetry lost and found.

 

[Dave Pitman]

Thanks for the list. I don't know when I will get my hands on the Taranis, but when I do, I will offer some feedback.

 

[trintcole]

updates on my setup

I got the lipo sensor. Setup alarm points that match up with the safeties on the phantom. Works great on mine. You may want to move the alarm point up or down on the custom switches page.

Gimbal setup. when I'm controlling camera manually , the ls knob beeps when I have the camera level. I also gave the gimbal less movement for more ls knob movement throughout the range.

Next I'd like to get the GPS setup. I also created telemetry screen for lipo and alarms.

If you download off my previous link. I'm putting the most up to date version in my dropbox.

I also updated sound files.

 

[Davek]

Very Important note: You must setup fail safe correctly or you will crash if you loose contact with Rx. This took me what seemed forever to figure out but here's the background. Firstly, if you go into Naza assistant and turn off your radio, you will see it go to Fail Safe BUT, you will also get a pop up error about check receiver type. That is the hint that it is not working. Apparently the Naza must get the right signal from the right channel that controls the flight modes (gps, ati) to go into fail safe and fail safe must be set to custom, not "no pulse" in the screen below. The pic below shows my mix with -50% failsafe on channel 7 so under the setup/failsafe tab, I had to set it to custom and set channel 7 to -50%.

Now in Naza assistant, I do not get that pop up error and also tested it in actual flight by just having it land when radio was turned off.

 

[Ton4]

Not sure on how to mount the antennas. I was told the one should be vertical and the other horizontal. Does this sound right?

I have them both inside the body. The horizontal one is in one of the arms and the vertical one is next to the battery tray in the front.

This is how I installed FrSky Taranis and the X8R receiver with telemetry on my Phantom v1.1.1.

I used the folowing :
- FrSky X8R receiver
- FrSky altimeter/variometer FVAS-02H
- FrSky current sensor FCS-40A
- FrSky Taranis

How does the X8R antenna work inside the body? Doesn't it reduce range like that?

 

[Stinger]

Hi,

I have loaded CD419 eeprom into my Taranis and I noticed that in the eeprom that none of the mixes correspond to what is actually working on my Taranis. In the mixes it says that the pre-set gimbal positions is suppose to be SE but its actually pre-set gimbal positions is SD and the manual tilt is suppose to be LS but in reality the manual tilt for the gimbal is S1. In the eeprom SD is suppose to pre-set gain and the manual gain is S1. But its not working that way.

Yet, the Fail Save, Timer, IOC and GPS switches are correct.

Don't understand what's going on?

I then tried trintcole's modify version. And nothing works other then the sound. When I open NAZA assist it shows that my failsafe is on and I switch turn it off or migrate from GPS to ATT. I tried DaveK solution regarding setting up my Failsafe but that didn't work either.

Can assist me with this?

Thanks

 

[Stinger]

FYI, I had the same issue with another eeprom that I tried. I was unable to turn off the fail safe and was unable to get the Taranis to function.

 

[Davek]

I'm not sure I understand your problem since there are so many. You do realize that you have to rebind the receiver when you change models? I'm sure trint's works just fine. I could send you my bin file later if you want. Although my sound files are not politically correct nor safe for work or young children

 

[Stinger]

I didn't rebind it. But I didn't rebind when I used CD419 eeprom. Ill give it a shot and see if that fixes the problem.

Let me see if I can explain this another way. I loaded CD419 eeprom and it works but the switches are mixed up. Not all the switches do what they are supposed to do. In other words the LS suppose to be the Gimbal tilt but its not working instead the S1 switch is the Gimbal Tilt. This is happening with half of the switches while the other switches do what they are designed to do. Does that make sense?

 

[porl_hopkins]

Just had confirmation that my Taranis will be with me on Monday. Got my X8R this morning... How do you get the ariels out of the Phantom shell??? Mine have big plastic "bits" on the end of the ariels!!

 

[OI Photography]

Just had confirmation that my Taranis will be with me on Monday. Got my X8R this morning... How do you get the ariels out of the Phantom shell??? Mine have big plastic "bits" on the end of the ariels!!

If your X8R is from the latest batch(es), it should have detachable leads for those, that can be disconnected from the receiver and fed through the holes in the Phantom body.

 

[porl_hopkins]

Just had confirmation that my Taranis will be with me on Monday. Got my X8R this morning... How do you get the ariels out of the Phantom shell??? Mine have big plastic "bits" on the end of the ariels!!

If your X8R is from the latest batch(es), it should have detachable leads for those, that can be disconnected from the receiver and fed through the holes in the Phantom body.

Will look now

 

[porl_hopkins]

Just had confirmation that my Taranis will be with me on Monday. Got my X8R this morning... How do you get the ariels out of the Phantom shell??? Mine have big plastic "bits" on the end of the ariels!!

If your X8R is from the latest batch(es), it should have detachable leads for those, that can be disconnected from the receiver and fed through the holes in the Phantom body.

Will look now

Well I cant see anyway of removing the ariels

 

[Davek]

I got mine a few weeks ago and couldn't find away to disconnect the antenna's so I drilled a hole and mounted them at right angles as suggested .

 

[OI Photography]

If you don't have the option to remove them, it's also fairly easy to just remove the top shell, cut a very small notch in the seam at some point, lay the antenna cables though that and then close the shell again.

 

[porl_hopkins]

Many thanks both for your replies

 

[Davek]

If you don't have the option to remove them, it's also fairly easy to just remove the top shell, cut a very small notch in the seam at some point, lay the antenna cables though that and then close the shell again.

****.....where was that idea when I was hunting down large drill bits?

Duh.... Oh well mine needs more air vents.