jlummel
New User
I'm been using FrSky equipment and OpenTX for a long time, still have an original modified 9X Radio with a DFT module (and telemetry display) that runs what would now be an ancient version of OpenTX. Also also have the original release model of the Taranis (bought here, from Aloft, during the original release) that has received several upgrades over the years (CNC hall effect gimbals, 6-way switch, new shoulder sliders, updated radio board, etc), and it still runs a relatively old version of OpenTX. In both cases, mostly because after getting a Horus X12S, I rarely used them anymore so never bothered to update them.
When I bought the X12S, it was one of those with radio problems that you may have heard about back then. It was a simple fix in the end, the internal antenna was not plugged in correctly (crooked connector was only partially engaged but glued in that position), I simply had to open it up and re-seat the antenna connector (I ended up replacing the internal antenna while I was at it, used one of the early FrSky black PCB receiver antennas mounted horizontally on a foam column glued inside the radio, worked great, see attached picture). I had moved the radio to OpenTX and used it as my main radio for a couple of years.
I bought a X10S during the time they had that R9M module/receiver promotion, where it was included free with the radio (fall of 2018, if I remember correctly). I never got a chance to do more than take it out of the box and test that everything worked properly as that's when I started flying multirotors professionally, mostly DJI. Given that there had been recent OpenTX development issues, and trying to figure out which FrSky firmware to use (or even how to flash the firmware) was a moving target, and just general chaos in the FrSky/OpenTX/FrOS ecosystem at the time (at least from my perspective), I put aside fix-wing RC flying and dove into the DJI stuff that was making me money.
Then several months ago (maybe longer), I got a email from Aloft with a cool article talking about how much of that chaos had simmered down and there was some clarity on how the FrSky ecosystem functions for the current and near future. He mentioned doing a follow up email, but it never showed up. But still I was intrigued as I was thinking about pulling out my radios and getting back into fixed-wing flying.
And recently with the news of the release of Ethos for both the X12S and the X10S, I decided to wade back in and update my radios so I can fly again.
As a lot of people are asking about it, this is simply to document how I, personally, did the upgrade on both my radios to ISRM boards and Ethos, one radio (X12S) starting from OpenTX and the other (X10S) from FrOS. I covered the historical information above, well, mostly because I wanted to, but to also give you an idea of what I was working with when doing this update (skill level and equipment).
Here are the steps I took, which was very similar on both radios:
1. Ordered 2x ISRM RF Upgrade Boards from Aloft, didn't bother with the Bluetooth board upgrade for the X10S (don't really need it).
2. Ordered a 5 pack of Panasonic CR1220 button batteries from Amazon, as both radios lost RTC time while in storage. The Panasonic batteries are rated for 10 years, instead of 5 or even 3 as most CR1220 batteries are.
3. Once the ISRM RF Upgrade Boards and CR1220 batteries came in, I opened up both radios and swapped the old RF boards to the new ones and replaced the RTC battery while I was there. Note that while the X10S already had 3 antennas connected to it and I was able to plug all 3 into the new ISRM board, the X12S had only 2 antenna connectors and the new board needed 3. Well, as it turned out, since I had added that PCB antenna into the case earlier, I was able to connect both it and the original antenna it had replaced to the new ISRM board, giving the 3 antennas it needed (2 internal antennas, and one external).
4. Next I went to the FrSky Ethos webpage and at the very bottom I found and downloaded:
Bootloader (.dfu&.bin) Horus & Tandem Radios V1.0.1
Bootloader Tool (PC) DfuSe_Demo V3.0.6
5. As I replaced my computer while my Horus radios were in storage, I had never loaded Companion on it and instead used DfuSe_Demo.exe to flash the correct bootloader to each radio (as per the instructions included in DFUSe_Demo zip file). Note that I did have to manually go into the Windows Device Manager and have it look for the correct driver files in the program folder for the app, it did not load them automatically, though I only needed to do that once.
6. Once each radio was flashed with the correct bootloader, I was able to power them up into bootloader mode (as per the instructions) so the computer could see the SD cards as a flash drive.
7. From the top of the FrSky Ethos webpage I downloaded the correct SD card image for the Horus from GitHub (HORUS_SD.zip), and the correct Ethos firmware for both radios (X10-ISRM.zip & X12S-ISRM.zip, v1.0.11 was just released when I did this).
8. I put empty SD cards into both radios and then plugging in each radio separately, in bootloader mode, copied the contents of HORUS_SD.zip to the root of each card, and then copied the correct firmware for each radio to the root of the SD card and ensured it was named "firmware.bin". I strongly recommend starting with empty cards, if needed backup your OpenTX files and then delete the card's contents.
9. I ejected the radio thru Windows (to avoid file corruption) and once I unplugged it from the USB, the firmware update process started and once complete I turned the radio off and back on again to check that Ethos was loaded. Both radios upgraded perfectly, without any problems.
10. Once I had both radios setup on Ethos and had calibrated the controls, I created a simple model and turned on the internal radio for it (needed, otherwise System doesn't see the radio). I checked the firmware version and found that there was an updated firmware for the ISRM board I needed to flash.
11. From the FrSky website I downloaded the correct firmware for the board (ISRM Update Module - FW-X10S-ISRM-S-X10S_v2.1.6.zip in my case), and copied it to the SD card in both radios (into a folder called \firmware\ISRM Update Module), then updated the firmware with the File Manager in System on the radio. I have since loaded the firmware files for all the different radios that need to be updated onto the SD cards as well in the firmware folder as well, so I can update them with the radio as I use them.
12. Then I plugged in the R9M module as well, enable External radio on the model, and upgraded it's firmware using the X10S too. Still need to update the R9 receiver firmware, but wanted to check that it worked to upgrade the external module.
13. Profit!
Any questions, feel free to ask. It went pretty much text book for both radios, well except for having to find the drivers for the DFU utility manually.
My initial impression is that I like Ethos, it's easy to work with while giving much of the same versatility I liked about OpenTX. It's still new to me, but I find it easy to use so far. I really like that they have a simulator on the PC for it, I hope they keep updating it as Ethos is updated!
James
When I bought the X12S, it was one of those with radio problems that you may have heard about back then. It was a simple fix in the end, the internal antenna was not plugged in correctly (crooked connector was only partially engaged but glued in that position), I simply had to open it up and re-seat the antenna connector (I ended up replacing the internal antenna while I was at it, used one of the early FrSky black PCB receiver antennas mounted horizontally on a foam column glued inside the radio, worked great, see attached picture). I had moved the radio to OpenTX and used it as my main radio for a couple of years.
I bought a X10S during the time they had that R9M module/receiver promotion, where it was included free with the radio (fall of 2018, if I remember correctly). I never got a chance to do more than take it out of the box and test that everything worked properly as that's when I started flying multirotors professionally, mostly DJI. Given that there had been recent OpenTX development issues, and trying to figure out which FrSky firmware to use (or even how to flash the firmware) was a moving target, and just general chaos in the FrSky/OpenTX/FrOS ecosystem at the time (at least from my perspective), I put aside fix-wing RC flying and dove into the DJI stuff that was making me money.
Then several months ago (maybe longer), I got a email from Aloft with a cool article talking about how much of that chaos had simmered down and there was some clarity on how the FrSky ecosystem functions for the current and near future. He mentioned doing a follow up email, but it never showed up. But still I was intrigued as I was thinking about pulling out my radios and getting back into fixed-wing flying.
And recently with the news of the release of Ethos for both the X12S and the X10S, I decided to wade back in and update my radios so I can fly again.
As a lot of people are asking about it, this is simply to document how I, personally, did the upgrade on both my radios to ISRM boards and Ethos, one radio (X12S) starting from OpenTX and the other (X10S) from FrOS. I covered the historical information above, well, mostly because I wanted to, but to also give you an idea of what I was working with when doing this update (skill level and equipment).
Here are the steps I took, which was very similar on both radios:
1. Ordered 2x ISRM RF Upgrade Boards from Aloft, didn't bother with the Bluetooth board upgrade for the X10S (don't really need it).
2. Ordered a 5 pack of Panasonic CR1220 button batteries from Amazon, as both radios lost RTC time while in storage. The Panasonic batteries are rated for 10 years, instead of 5 or even 3 as most CR1220 batteries are.
3. Once the ISRM RF Upgrade Boards and CR1220 batteries came in, I opened up both radios and swapped the old RF boards to the new ones and replaced the RTC battery while I was there. Note that while the X10S already had 3 antennas connected to it and I was able to plug all 3 into the new ISRM board, the X12S had only 2 antenna connectors and the new board needed 3. Well, as it turned out, since I had added that PCB antenna into the case earlier, I was able to connect both it and the original antenna it had replaced to the new ISRM board, giving the 3 antennas it needed (2 internal antennas, and one external).
4. Next I went to the FrSky Ethos webpage and at the very bottom I found and downloaded:
Bootloader (.dfu&.bin) Horus & Tandem Radios V1.0.1
Bootloader Tool (PC) DfuSe_Demo V3.0.6
5. As I replaced my computer while my Horus radios were in storage, I had never loaded Companion on it and instead used DfuSe_Demo.exe to flash the correct bootloader to each radio (as per the instructions included in DFUSe_Demo zip file). Note that I did have to manually go into the Windows Device Manager and have it look for the correct driver files in the program folder for the app, it did not load them automatically, though I only needed to do that once.
6. Once each radio was flashed with the correct bootloader, I was able to power them up into bootloader mode (as per the instructions) so the computer could see the SD cards as a flash drive.
7. From the top of the FrSky Ethos webpage I downloaded the correct SD card image for the Horus from GitHub (HORUS_SD.zip), and the correct Ethos firmware for both radios (X10-ISRM.zip & X12S-ISRM.zip, v1.0.11 was just released when I did this).
8. I put empty SD cards into both radios and then plugging in each radio separately, in bootloader mode, copied the contents of HORUS_SD.zip to the root of each card, and then copied the correct firmware for each radio to the root of the SD card and ensured it was named "firmware.bin". I strongly recommend starting with empty cards, if needed backup your OpenTX files and then delete the card's contents.
9. I ejected the radio thru Windows (to avoid file corruption) and once I unplugged it from the USB, the firmware update process started and once complete I turned the radio off and back on again to check that Ethos was loaded. Both radios upgraded perfectly, without any problems.
10. Once I had both radios setup on Ethos and had calibrated the controls, I created a simple model and turned on the internal radio for it (needed, otherwise System doesn't see the radio). I checked the firmware version and found that there was an updated firmware for the ISRM board I needed to flash.
11. From the FrSky website I downloaded the correct firmware for the board (ISRM Update Module - FW-X10S-ISRM-S-X10S_v2.1.6.zip in my case), and copied it to the SD card in both radios (into a folder called \firmware\ISRM Update Module), then updated the firmware with the File Manager in System on the radio. I have since loaded the firmware files for all the different radios that need to be updated onto the SD cards as well in the firmware folder as well, so I can update them with the radio as I use them.
12. Then I plugged in the R9M module as well, enable External radio on the model, and upgraded it's firmware using the X10S too. Still need to update the R9 receiver firmware, but wanted to check that it worked to upgrade the external module.
13. Profit!
Any questions, feel free to ask. It went pretty much text book for both radios, well except for having to find the drivers for the DFU utility manually.
My initial impression is that I like Ethos, it's easy to work with while giving much of the same versatility I liked about OpenTX. It's still new to me, but I find it easy to use so far. I really like that they have a simulator on the PC for it, I hope they keep updating it as Ethos is updated!
James
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