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Setup

This page describe steps absolutly required to proceed before first flight.

Connecting to Betaflight Configurator

Once you download and install Betaflight configurator you need to change few options first. Open configurator and go to Options tab, and then

  1. Disable Advanced CLI AutoComplete
  2. Enable Show all serial devices
  3. Disable Auto-Connect

Options

Then select your device from list and click connect.

Note

Not all functions displayed in configurator are avalable in firmware. The rule of thumb is if you cannot change specific option in Betaflight Configurator, that means it is not supported. It usually rolls back to previous value after save.

Note

Leaving some tabs, especially CLI requires you to click "Disconnect" button twice, and then click "Connect" again.

Configure wiring

Go to the CLI tab and type get pin. This command will show what pins are associated to specified functions. If you wiring is diferrent, you can make some adjustments here. For more details, see Pin Functions CLI Reference

CLI Pins

Gyro calibration

Go to Setup tab, make sure that your model is in horizontal steady state position. Then click "Calibrate Accelerometer" button and wait two seconds.

Note

Important! Ensure that model in preview moves exactly in the same way as yours. If it is not the case, go to the Configuration tab, and configure Sensor Alignment

Sensor Alignment

System configuration

In Configuration tab set Pid loop frequency. Recomended values are 1kHz to 2kHz. Keep eye on CPU Load displayed in bottom, it shoudn't exceed 50%.

Receiver setup

If you want to use Serial based receiver (SBUS,CRSF), you need to allocate UART port for it. You can do it in Ports tab, by ticking switch in Serial Rx column.

Then go to the Receiver tab, and select Receiver mode and Serial Receiver Provider.

To use Serial RX on ESP8266, you need to connect reciver to primary UART. In this case you lose ability to configure through UART. To deal with it activate "SOFTSERIAL" feature. In this case if board stay in failsafe mode for 30 seconds (transmitter is turned off), then automatically WiFi access point will be started. Default name is "ESP-FC". After connecting to this AP open configurator, select "manual" port and type port: tcp://192.168.4.1:1111. You can also configure board to automatically connect existing wifi network. In this case set wifi_ssid and wifi_pass parameters in CLI.

To use ESP-NOW receiver, choose "SPI Rx (e.g. built-in Rx)" receiver mode in Receiver tab. You need compatible transmitter module. Read more about ESP-FC Wireless Functions

Motor setup

In Motors tab you must configure

Mixer

You can select mixer type here, this configuration depends on type of aircraft you are configuring.

Important! If you build multirotor, you must ensure that

  1. Specified motor number is connected to specified output and placed in specified position in your aircraft according to gyro orientation, presented on a picture.
  2. Specified motor is rotating in correct direction according to image.

Warning

If these conditions aren't met, your quad will go crazy on the first start and may cause damage or even injury.

To verify it you can enable test mode and spin each motor selectively. To do that,

  1. remove all propellers,
  2. connect batery,
  3. click "I understand the risk...",
  4. move specified slider to spin motor.

If you are using any analog protocol (PWM, OneShot, Multishot), you need to calibrate your ESCs here. To do that

  1. click "I understand the risk...",
  2. move master sliders to highest value
  3. connect battery
  4. when escs plays calibration beeps, move master slider down to lowest value
  5. escs should play confirmation beeps

Note

Only Quad X supported at the moment. Motor direction wizard is not supported, you must configure your ESC separately. The easiest way to change direction is swapping motor wires.

Motor direction is reversed

This option informs FC that your motors rotating in reverse order. This option desn't reverse motor direction. It has to be configured with ESC configurator or by swapping motor wires.

ESC protocol

You can select here protocol according to that you ESC can handle. For multirotor it is recommended to use DSHOT150 or DSHOT300. Older ESCs may not support digital protocols, in this case it is recommended to use OneShot125 at least. Brushed protocol is for driving brushed motors through FET drivers.

It is not recomended to use PWM for multirotors.

Motor PWM speed separated from PID speed

This option allows to separate PWM frequency. If your pid loop is set to 1k, but ESC can accept maximum 333Hz. PWM is limitted to 480Hz.

Flight modes

Flight modes can be configured in Modes tab

Arm

It is required to enable this mode to be able to fly. Armed quad cause that motors are spinning (unless Motor stop option is enabled).

Angle

By default ACRO mode is engaged if none of flying mode is active. This mode enables self-leveling. In this case you control titlt angle of multirotor instead of rotationg rate. It affects only Roll and Pitch axes. Yaw axis behave the same way as in Acro mode.

Air mode

Increases the range of control at extreme throttle positions. Recommended to enable, can be controlled by the same RC channel as Arm to get permanent behaviour. Activates, when throttle achive about 40% remains active until disarmed.

Buzzer

Acitvates buzzer, for example to find lost model in high grass.

Fail safe

Triggers Failsafe procedure.

Blackbox

Logging using serial device is possible, like D-ronin OpenLager or OpenLog. To configure it

  1. In Ports select uart to generate stream and in Peripherals column select Blackbox logging on free port
  2. Then in Blackbox tab select Serial Port as logging device

Note

Port speed from column Configuration/MSP is used, and the same speed must be used in logging device, (this might be subject of change in a future versions).

Recommended settings

  • To log with 1k rate, you need device that is capable to receive data with 500kbps.
  • To log with 2k rate, you need 1Mbps

OpenLager can handle it easily. If you plan to use OpenLog, you might need to flash blackbox-firmware to be able to handle more than 115.2kbps. Either 250kbps and 500kbps works well with modern SD cards up to 32GB size.

Limitations

Failsafe tab

Only "Drop" Stage 2 procedule is possible

Presets tab

Presets aren't supported, do not try to apply any of them.

PID Tuning tab

  1. There is only one pid profile and one rate profile
  2. Feed-forward transition has no effect
  3. Iterm-rotation has no effect
  4. Dynamic damping has no effect
  5. Throttle boost has no effect
  6. Miscellaneous settings has no effect
  7. Dynamic Notch works from 1k pid loop, but is not displayed in configurator if this speed is configured, to reconfigure switch pid loop to 2k.

Besides that most of Betaflight principles can be applied here according to PID and Filter tuning. But keep in mind, very aggresive tunnig tips aren't recommended to apply and might lead to diferrent results.

Receive

  1. Not all protocols are implemented, currently only PPM, CRSF, SBUS
  2. No telemetry and rssi_adc
  3. RC deadband applies to RPY, no separate Yaw deadband

Modes

Add range works only, no add link

Adjustments

Not implemented, for replacement you can use pid scaler CLI

Servos

Not Implemented, for replacemnt you can use output cli to change output protocol and rate.

Motors

No 3D features

Video transmitter

Not implemented, no replacemnt

OSD

Not implemented, but MW_OSD should works via serial port and MSP protocol.