FrSky Ethos - A new programming environment is coming!

[Wayne]

There is a good TOC at the start of the thread on RC Groups and that will teach you how to install Ethos on the X10 radios. That is a great informational thread there!

MPM - IMHO MPM is not a solid foundation to base a business. They are very much in a grey legal area that could have fall back onto the manufacturers and resellers. It is also an "interesting" business model for a manufacturer. Will be interesting to see what comes of the MPM market in future years. I suspect the MPM players will come and go, but there will always be someone willing to make them. The cat is out of the bag, and they are cheap to make.

 

[Landru]

There was some discussion over on RCG about a software developer's right to reverse engineer for personal use and commercial production of the MPM. It is indeed an "interesting" model. It seems to propose that an Open Source intermediary may publish reverse-engineered IP that in turn can be adopted with impunity by competitors of the IP owner. Did the music industry already deal with a similar issue? Remember Napster?

As far as I know, the matter hasn't been tested in court. My guess is it never will be. For one thing, what could any injured party hope to gain? For another, it's business as usual in the manufacturers' jurisdiction. Sadly, I'm beginning to think that OpenTx may turn out to be the biggest loser. And that hurts.

 

[Wayne]

Yeah, it gets to be a mess. I think the bigger legal risk is in selling an item that you know does not meet FCC or CE regulations. Sure, sell it with a BS firmware that is only there to get past FCC and then supply a link to the MPM firmware for your customer to load. And stating all of this in your marketing and instructions.. There is a reason they do not have FCC certifications with the MPM firmware in place.

I agree with the personal use, but not the statement about commercial production. As soon as sales are involved the FCC has very strict rules on this. I can legally import non-FCC certified products under VERY limited range of uses. Sales is not one of them.

 

[Landru]

I bought a Jumper 4-in-1 MPM to play around with. It lost the control link at very near range in a ground range test with the ACCST D16 equivalent protocol. Perhaps my unit was a dud or contained a counterfeit RF chip (a known occurrence).

Whatever the problem, I set it aside. A cheap foamie parkflyer flown close in is the only model I'd consider flying with it. Maybe not even that since it's cheaper to replace the receiver in a BNF than replace the whole model.

 

[Cole Hallman]

Thanks for the response... That said... I am not buying a new radio anytime soon... I help a lot of beginners in the RC field and honestly I do NOT get why opentx is considered more complex than Spektrum or Futaba.... They both try and hide the complexities, thus making it REALLY hard if not impossible to do anything other than same buttons and switches for the same function no matter what you want... And now with AS3X stuff. the young'ns..(newbs really) try and move the receiver from one plane to another or try and use a servo they picked up somewhere which rotates the opposite of the original and they crash because they have no knowledge of how it all configures.

I digress.... I will see about the Tandems... I have a Horus which has OPENtx but I don't use often because it is hard to see the screen on sunny days. Maybe the tandem is brighter..... but It would be hard for me to justify spending 300 dollars on a product that does not run Opentx. We just our night fly and I set my lights up using 3 optical switches and a second receiver bound to my taranis on channels 13 14 and 15 each with multiple settings for flash rates and combinations thereof, and ON and off ....... THAT SPEKT RUMMIES

So.... I installed and I am here to eat crow....... It is pretty good. I like the Miixer being able o put multiple channels... and I had to figure out how to drive channels to my desired value with a switch which I used to do with a special function.. override channel is gone...


I have gotten through near everything and I can see this would be great with a touch screen...

AND I wouldn't have gotten through installing ethos without the finde how to video on the ethos page at frsky

one thing though..... I cannot seem to to get the timers to run I have tried throttle triggers as well as switch AND always on. is this broken?

Also I don't like that I cannot select colors for telemetry screens

any help"

 

[Wayne]

I have not messed with timers or colors.. Will check them out next time I'm allowed to leave my desk..

 

[Cole Hallman]

I have not messed with timers or colors.. Will check them out next time I'm allowed to leave my desk..

And one more thing I current run wireless trainer through the external bay using an sbus receiver.. do you know if they intend to add sbus to their list of ways to do trainer?

 

[2MUCH2DO]

And one more thing I current run wireless trainer through the external bay using an sbus receiver.. do you know if they intend to add sbus to their list of ways to do trainer?

The X-lite module pinout does not appear to have SBus, it does however have the wireless PARA trainer via bluetooth.

https://static.rcgroups.net/forums/attachments/7/3/7/5/8/4/t10983800-97-External%20Module%20Pinout.png

 

[Cole Hallman]

The X-lite module pinout does not appear to have SBus, it does however have the wireless PARA trainer via bluetooth.

https://static.rcgroups.net/forums/attachments/7/3/7/5/8/4/t10983800-97-External%20Module%20Pinout.png

ya I am dumbfounded why they took functionality out of their high end... I still use my taranis most of the time. They are sure a strange bunch there

 

[gnichola]

I don't know anything about the politics between FrSky and OpenTX, but I still see Bernard making contributions on OTX. But when I saw Ethos coming along, I wasn't sure what their long term plan was, but it seems to me that they could continue to use both, OTX on their "lesser" radios and Ethos on their higher end. It seems there is precedent for this as they had both FrOS and OTX on radios at the same time before, no?

 

[Landru]

A few posts up, Wayne mentioned something similar to your suggestion.

 

[Cole Hallman]

Ya it would be awesome th have continued support for taranis. I put tandem on my x10 for a whilethere is good AND bad. I am back to opentx again so nothing earth shaking

 

[Wayne]

I think you will see OTX continues to develop for all of the existing radios, heck they still support the old Ersky radios and such, right?

Moving forward I'm not sure if we will see OTX used on many new radios from FrSky. Time will tell. They also have been teaming up with Er9X (aka ErskyTX) since the X9 Lite came out. Er9X is the firmware that was forked when they started OTX. You can read up a bit about Er9X here:

ErskyTx

Discussions about ErskyTx that can be run on many FrSky radios as well as some other brands.

forum.alofthobbies.com

It is very similar to OTX since OTX came from it, but in some ways ErTX does things better and cleaner, but lots of support with OTX, and OTX may look a little better. The good thing is if you need help with Er9X, it will be coming for the creator, one of the best programers I have ever had the fortune to work with. Very gifted. You all have been using his code in more ways than you probably know, and his impact on the hobby has been large.

 

[Landru]

The fact that the X20 will support ErskyTx has gotten me quite interested.

From what I've read online, ErskyTx has a devoted following. Truth be told, I've haven't tried it ... yet.

Of course, I have seen its creator popping up to help with various problems and generally make life better--and not just with ErskyTx.

 

[Wayne]

Yes, he is also an active contributor for OpenTX and he is creating our new Universal ACCST firmware. He created the code that allows you to plug in an Sbus or CCPM receiver to the module bay for wireless training back in the day when others told me it could not be done. And a lot more!

 

[l Shems]

The fact that the X20 will support ErskyTx has gotten me quite interested.

From what I've read online, ErskyTx has a devoted following. Truth be told, I've haven't tried it ... yet.

Of course, I have seen its creator popping up to help with various problems and generally make life better--and not just with ErskyTx.

I try to find where the statement was made that X20 would run ErskyTx.

?

Have fun and just fly!

 

[Landru]

It's mentioned in this post on RCG and discussed further in the same thread.

 

[MikeB]

Files for flashing are here: https://openrcforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=13679
It is still in development, but it is very useable as it is, particularly as it includes support for a MPM.
Note that it is easy to add it to the X20, resulting in a "dual boot" system so you may use Ethos or erskyTx without needing to re-flash firmware.

Mike

 

[Cole Hallman]

Honestly. After pounding on ethos for a while, I find it really superior to OTX. I am not looking back

 

[spoke2570]

Hi everybody, I would like to revisit the topics with global variables.
In OTX I use them for setting several things on my sailplanes: aileron differential rates, base flapperon angles, elevator base trim points. I adjust all of these with the throttle trim tab in particular switch positions, the popup window shows the value. 6 flight modes and 3 values. I am not seeing how to accomplish something like this here. Every thing I have tried goes to 0% as soon as the adjustment condition is removed.

I am looking for a way to push a value to a point with a single source and have it be persistent while I use that same source to adjust a different value.