Also, if you're only available switch modes are "hybrid" and "wide", then switch your packet rate from 250Hz hz to 333Hz. It took me looking in detail at your setup to spot the difference. Thanks for the video!
Thanks so much for this video. Had exactly the problem with gyro mode. Eventually just used channel 6 and got my gyro modes working, but it bugged me so much! Spent a day trying to discover what was happening finally solved by this video 😀👍
Thanks for the vid, I'm going to direct people here in future :). For anything without a flight controller, I just set channel five to a high value (armed) and pretend it doesn't exist. Most of my aircraft are gliders without a motor, but even on stuff with a motor (and therefore a throttle cut switch) I prefer to just leave the TX armed all the time. The only real downside for my use case is that if the TX is on and the model off, the module will be blasting out at max power. But I cap it at 100mW for LOS use so that's not a big deal, and is in line with what other fixed power protocols would do.
I'm the one who wrote that "dynamic power is fully enabled" and I feel like I need a bit more description.. TL;DR: You don't need to set it fixed power. Use it. It'll work in LoS almost always. Dynamic power will work as always even with the arm switch is set off. as long as telemetry packet is incoming. There's the important keyword: "as long as telemetry is incoming" Dynamic power behaviour on telemetry lost situation is changing from the arm state (=ch5 low/high). As quad guys ourselves who flies long range, we have to think about what's the situation when telemetry is lost while we're arming... that means the quad is having hard time for sending the telemetry, which means we need to kick up the TX to the full power to send any command with the highest chance. That's what's the meaning behind the "dynamic power is fully enabled". When arming is off and telmetry is lost, it's probably you cut the power off the quad. The dynamic power will set the TX power to the minimum.
OH! Thanks for the clarification. Yes, that would be very very helpful to see in the documentation. Thank you so much for the time and effort you've put into it. Very good work.
Here is CapnBry’s explanation of how the armed/disarmed state affects dynamic power when telemetry packets are lost: “Dynamic Power uses the ARM state to determine what to do when telemetry packets are missed. If armed, then each missed telemetry packet after the first raise the power one level. If the connection is lost entirely, it will raise the power all the way up. If CH5 is always high, your TX will always run full power when no receiver is connected (when there is no telemetry received technically). If CH5 is always low, your TX will never raise power due to missing telemetry but will still raise power when the telemetry reports the signal is low.” So perhaps there may still be some wisdom in turning off dynamic power if using Ch5 as a fully proportional channel.
@@divingfalconfpv4602 Dyn power will still work when you have telemetry turned on. Only on "telemetry lost" situation will matter w.r.t. Ch5 "arming".
The way i configured arming channel 5 was by use of a logical switch. If the tx voltage is above the minimum i.e. 3.2v for 1s and 6.5v for 2s it automatically arms when the tx is turned on. Saves on using a switch.
Another thing you can do is because all of this is configurable, if you have a PWM reciever you just go and set your reciever to output channels 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7 instead of 123456, and then in your TX set 5 to always be high, or link it to your throttle safety switch.
Usually for fixed wing configurations, we don't broadcast the throttle lock state though. That said, if you can give up ch5 and not affect the other controls of your model, assigning your throttle lock/unlock switch on Ch5 is a good practice.
Yes I got the armed disarmed issue sorted. It was a real pain, referring to armed in order to disable the module and armed to activate the throttle. Sheessshhh .@@geoffh7206
My elrs receiver has GH connectors, I don't know how you connected to the toolkitRC. I'm waiting for the pixhawk 6x to bind. I wish I knew how you connected it here.
So I have a ZOHD Kopilot and I'm going to couple it with Radio master's Pwm Elrs Er8gv and a radio master pocket and i need channel 5 as my 3 position switch. I intend on using SBus to connect the receiver to the kopilot. Are you saying that i can remap ch5 to a different channel so that i can use ch5 for my 3 position switch?
You cannot remap channels within a serial stream. Remapping is a PWM feature. If you are going to use a serial protocol (SBUS) with a Kopilot, you have to do what I suggest in the video and be prepared to ignore the arming state. Use 333hz - 16/2 and you'll have 16 fully proportional channels in the SBUS stream to use on Kopilot however you wish (including Channel 5).
@@RCVideoReviews sweet, I purchased goggles l so do want to try fly far. somebody said dynamic will auto go full power from telem if goes too far fingers crossed. i got the new 3 axis gimbal too, new to all this so i bet connecting that will be fun haha. thanks
The question I have I why we use digital channels like analog signals to flip on/off modes. Imagine if you could configure EdgeTX to flip individual bits on a channel and if in BetaFlight you could assign a channel and a bit on that channel to trigger a mode. However many bits on a channel would determine how many modes could be assigned to a single channel.
@@RCVideoReviews This isn’t really an ELRS issue other than it would be important to account for different number of bits on some channels. This would need to first be made to work in EdgeTX and then BetaFlight would need to be updated to allow selecting a channel and bit for mode activation.
There is a chain of custody for the analog inputs to the digital or PWM output on the model. Every calculation from the ADC to the onboard protocol (CRSF) to the OTA protocol to the remote protocolwould have to be made bit specific. If this is something you're interested in, I suggest you get involved and if nothing else, make the suggestion on the EdgeTX github.
iNAV is implementing helicopters and having problems with ELRS ch5. Helis have 5 base channels, collectives pitch and they are not sure how to set it up. lol. My 3 models that use all 16 channels i dont use elrs. On elrs you loose ch5 and ch15/ch16 are for rssi. Next ELRS release you can change ch15/16 pwm to what the tx puts out and not rssi.
That was actually just a bug in 3.3.0 that turned ch15/16 back to signal strength, 3.0-3.2 had (and 3.3.1 will) all 16 channels. If iNav is locking helis into using CH5 then that's a problem though. They gotta have a way to have it use another channel as an input though right? That would be insane knowing all ExpressLRS users would just be screwed.
i have purchaser my elrs yet but this information is really important. Do you have a video for those who have no idea and wanted to start using it? thanks again!
Hi, I fly my plane with RadioMaster TX12, I get after very short fly time battery / Fuel warning and also 120m when crossed. Any chance you know how to solve this problem?
Awesome Vid... extremely helpful. Trying to figure out how to get the Reflex V2 Gyro to jive with Radiomaster tx16s (with Ranger), and a Radiomaster ER8 receiver. could I just plug the wire leaving the V2 channel 5 into the Receiver channel 8 and program channel 8 to switch between the 3 gyro modes?
The v2 doesn't really have a channel 5, it has a mode slot (SBUS PPM MODE). So if you're using PWM (and it sounds like you are, but you're unclear about it) you can provide the PWM signal from whatever PWM port on your receiver you want to use. For further discussion, I suggest joining discord.
Thanks for the video. I'm sadly a little confused on one aspect. So many of my airplanes use an a3s4 hobbyeagle gyro and I'm using the tx16s 4-1 with a ranger micro module. You mentioned a potential fan issue. What are your suggestions for setup in this case? I'm coming from spektrum so elrs has been quite the learning curve.
Any word from ELRS team that they might change the behavior of the other "full res" modes to allow proportional on CH5? Or is that coming against some kind of limitation?
Great video - thanks. What is the actual power output if you select dynamic 250mW and then don't arm. Does it stay at say 10mW and never increase or does it go to the max 250mW. I did some range tests with my plane armed and disarmed and it didn't seem to make any difference.
I think I have just found out. If you don't arm the model, the Dynamic power still works using link quality but it doesn't raise the power if it misses a telemetry packet from the receiver, which it does do if armed. So in practice the dynamic power works much the same when not armed as it does when armed.
I believe the reason it doesn't work like this is so that your radio doesn't go to full power if you have it on and your receiver off on purpose. Saves battery and rf pollution.
@@rcvg69420 it can be mitigated by only going to high power mode if getting telemetry with armed state and going to low power mode only if actively receiving disarmed telemetry at sufficiently high power to prevent going to low power mode if at longer range.
The setting in the Lua does control if Dynamic Power is on or off. However, without knowing the Armed status, it just jumps to MAX POWER when there's no RX plugged in because it assumes you're flying and failsafed. I'm trying to work around this but Armed status indicates this 100% correctly all the time and any other procedure just sort of guesses which seems unsafe.
Given one of the primary developers wrote this (and I pinned it) "Thanks for covering it all in detail, I can confirm everything I heard here is accurate :)" I guess you're right. You can't fix stupid.
So put undercarriage on CH5 and arms is good go to. So you fly away armed and gear down..then in flight you pull up undercarriage and you disarmed and down it goes ? my poor brain ! I need meds !
CH 5 is a son of bitch lol Your one of my top mentors ! I want to tell you I love you ! SBUS, when some said you can drive unlimited servos on one strand of wire ! I buckled on my desk top! I don,t want to know how lol my OCD ( I think Allesandro once quoted, SBUS should of never been invented. @@RCVideoReviews
Not even close. In EdgeTX there is no hard coded correlation between channel number and function on the model. In fact, a substantial number of flight stabilizers require channel 5 for mode setting which is usually somewhere between 3 and 6 positions. The hard coded linkage between ch# and function is a limitation of other ecosystems. Not this one.
![Radiomaster ExpressLRS PWM Receivers [ELRS] : ER4 • ER6 • ER8 • ER6G • ER8G • ER6GV • ER8GV](/img/n.gif)
Thanks for covering it all in detail, I can confirm everything I heard here is accurate :)
CapnBry, Thanks for the input to the video.
Also, if you're only available switch modes are "hybrid" and "wide", then switch your packet rate from 250Hz hz to 333Hz. It took me looking in detail at your setup to spot the difference. Thanks for the video!
Thanks so much for this video. Had exactly the problem with gyro mode. Eventually just used channel 6 and got my gyro modes working, but it bugged me so much! Spent a day trying to discover what was happening finally solved by this video 😀👍
Glad to help. Makes me smile when I know the work I put into these videos helps get people operational.
Thank you so much for this! I only started using ELRS one week ago and I am so glad I stumbled across this so soon.
I feel like this video was for me I just asked this on the discord and got an answer right away. Thanks for all you guys do.
Happy to help!
Appreciate all your work John👍
You're welcome. Glad to help.
Absolutely GOD SENT ! Great job John! and the Edge team! You guys are the best!
You're welcome. :)
Thanks for this video. I have an Aura 5 lite and I needed this to make the 3 flight modes to work.
Glad I could help.
John, Fantastic video on the most misunderstood part of ExpressLRS.
Thank you Dave.
I ran into this just yesterday as I was switching to ELRS in a big glider.
Thanks for the vid, I'm going to direct people here in future :).
For anything without a flight controller, I just set channel five to a high value (armed) and pretend it doesn't exist. Most of my aircraft are gliders without a motor, but even on stuff with a motor (and therefore a throttle cut switch) I prefer to just leave the TX armed all the time.
The only real downside for my use case is that if the TX is on and the model off, the module will be blasting out at max power. But I cap it at 100mW for LOS use so that's not a big deal, and is in line with what other fixed power protocols would do.
Good strategy.
I'm the one who wrote that "dynamic power is fully enabled" and I feel like I need a bit more description..
TL;DR: You don't need to set it fixed power. Use it. It'll work in LoS almost always.
Dynamic power will work as always even with the arm switch is set off. as long as telemetry packet is incoming.
There's the important keyword: "as long as telemetry is incoming"
Dynamic power behaviour on telemetry lost situation is changing from the arm state (=ch5 low/high).
As quad guys ourselves who flies long range, we have to think about what's the situation when telemetry is lost while we're arming... that means the quad is having hard time for sending the telemetry, which means we need to kick up the TX to the full power to send any command with the highest chance. That's what's the meaning behind the "dynamic power is fully enabled".
When arming is off and telmetry is lost, it's probably you cut the power off the quad. The dynamic power will set the TX power to the minimum.
OH! Thanks for the clarification. Yes, that would be very very helpful to see in the documentation. Thank you so much for the time and effort you've put into it. Very good work.
Here is CapnBry’s explanation of how the armed/disarmed state affects dynamic power when telemetry packets are lost:
“Dynamic Power uses the ARM state to determine what to do when telemetry packets are missed. If armed, then each missed telemetry packet after the first raise the power one level. If the connection is lost entirely, it will raise the power all the way up. If CH5 is always high, your TX will always run full power when no receiver is connected (when there is no telemetry received technically). If CH5 is always low, your TX will never raise power due to missing telemetry but will still raise power when the telemetry reports the signal is low.”
So perhaps there may still be some wisdom in turning off dynamic power if using Ch5 as a fully proportional channel.
Wait so for my rc ground vehicles with no FC I have to flip arm switch /ch5 anyway so dynamic power works?
@@divingfalconfpv4602 Dyn power will still work when you have telemetry turned on. Only on "telemetry lost" situation will matter w.r.t. Ch5 "arming".
@@SunjunKim ok thank u
Fantastic info brother! Thanks
John, very good explanatory lesson. Thank you for explaining CH5 ARMING.
You're welcome. Thanks for the comment.
Thank you. That was very helpful to a new ELRS user like myself.
Glad to help!
The way i configured arming channel 5 was by use of a logical switch. If the tx voltage is above the minimum i.e. 3.2v for 1s and 6.5v for 2s it automatically arms when the tx is turned on. Saves on using a switch.
Another thing you can do is because all of this is configurable, if you have a PWM reciever you just go and set your reciever to output channels 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7 instead of 123456, and then in your TX set 5 to always be high, or link it to your throttle safety switch.
Now I know why my Reflex V2 has only 2 functional modes... after spending hours trying to make it work 😅. Thanks for the video!!
Yeah, that's gotten me more than one time. Glad to help.
Just watched and good work it helps a lot as I only fly fixed wing
As a fixed wing flier i think the option to put it on the throttle switch makes sense. ie throttle active it goes disarmed.
Usually for fixed wing configurations, we don't broadcast the throttle lock state though. That said, if you can give up ch5 and not affect the other controls of your model, assigning your throttle lock/unlock switch on Ch5 is a good practice.
Just to be clear, throttle active should set armed state, not disarmed, if you choose this option.
Yes I got the armed disarmed issue sorted. It was a real pain, referring to armed in order to disable the module and armed to activate the throttle. Sheessshhh .@@geoffh7206
Very informative, thank you.
Glad it was helpful!
very informative video. The ELRS documentation is a littttttttle sparse on the actual hardcore details like this.
Very helpful. Thanks!
You're welcome.
Thanks you sir for a great informative on this subject.
You're very welcome.
I needed this video to fully understand ch5 as I migrate everything to ELRS except my helis no rpm, temps. and 16 channel airplanes.
Awesome. Glad to help.
My elrs receiver has GH connectors, I don't know how you connected to the toolkitRC. I'm waiting for the pixhawk 6x to bind. I wish I knew how you connected it here.
So I have a ZOHD Kopilot and I'm going to couple it with Radio master's Pwm Elrs Er8gv and a radio master pocket and i need channel 5 as my 3 position switch. I intend on using SBus to connect the receiver to the kopilot. Are you saying that i can remap ch5 to a different channel so that i can use ch5 for my 3 position switch?
You cannot remap channels within a serial stream. Remapping is a PWM feature. If you are going to use a serial protocol (SBUS) with a Kopilot, you have to do what I suggest in the video and be prepared to ignore the arming state. Use 333hz - 16/2 and you'll have 16 fully proportional channels in the SBUS stream to use on Kopilot however you wish (including Channel 5).
@@RCVideoReviews sweet, I purchased goggles l so do want to try fly far. somebody said dynamic will auto go full power from telem if goes too far fingers crossed. i got the new 3 axis gimbal too, new to all this so i bet connecting that will be fun haha. thanks
Aura does use channel 5 for modes by default, but you can just change it.
Good to know. Thanks for the note.
The question I have I why we use digital channels like analog signals to flip on/off modes. Imagine if you could configure EdgeTX to flip individual bits on a channel and if in BetaFlight you could assign a channel and a bit on that channel to trigger a mode. However many bits on a channel would determine how many modes could be assigned to a single channel.
ELRS is opensource. If you have the aptitude for it, you can fork the code and experiment. We need bright thinking like this in the hobby.
@@RCVideoReviews This isn’t really an ELRS issue other than it would be important to account for different number of bits on some channels. This would need to first be made to work in EdgeTX and then BetaFlight would need to be updated to allow selecting a channel and bit for mode activation.
There is a chain of custody for the analog inputs to the digital or PWM output on the model. Every calculation from the ADC to the onboard protocol (CRSF) to the OTA protocol to the remote protocolwould have to be made bit specific. If this is something you're interested in, I suggest you get involved and if nothing else, make the suggestion on the EdgeTX github.
iNAV is implementing helicopters and having problems with ELRS ch5. Helis have 5 base channels, collectives pitch and they are not sure how to set it up. lol. My 3 models that use all 16 channels i dont use elrs. On elrs you loose ch5 and ch15/ch16 are for rssi. Next ELRS release you can change ch15/16 pwm to what the tx puts out and not rssi.
That was actually just a bug in 3.3.0 that turned ch15/16 back to signal strength, 3.0-3.2 had (and 3.3.1 will) all 16 channels. If iNav is locking helis into using CH5 then that's a problem though. They gotta have a way to have it use another channel as an input though right? That would be insane knowing all ExpressLRS users would just be screwed.
Great 👍 Explanation
Thank you.
i have purchaser my elrs yet but this information is really important.
Do you have a video for those who have no idea and wanted to start using it?
thanks again!
I do: th-cam.com/users/liveAdgBoYJNI0M
I think they changed channel 5 for those wanting to use this in aircraft and have full proportional option on all channels.
On ELRS, Ch5 is binary unless using 16/2 mode, then it's proportional.
Thank you so much for this cause I know I asked.
Glad to help. Hope this clears things up.
Sir you just save my mental health I was about to go back to spektrum 😂 thanks for all you do.
Well!!! I'm glad we saved you from that.
Hi, I fly my plane with RadioMaster TX12, I get after very short fly time battery / Fuel warning and also 120m when crossed. Any chance you know how to solve this problem?
Awesome Vid... extremely helpful. Trying to figure out how to get the Reflex V2 Gyro to jive with Radiomaster tx16s (with Ranger), and a Radiomaster ER8 receiver. could I just plug the wire leaving the V2 channel 5 into the Receiver channel 8 and program channel 8 to switch between the 3 gyro modes?
The v2 doesn't really have a channel 5, it has a mode slot (SBUS PPM MODE). So if you're using PWM (and it sounds like you are, but you're unclear about it) you can provide the PWM signal from whatever PWM port on your receiver you want to use.
For further discussion, I suggest joining discord.
@@RCVideoReviews Thanks for getting back to me. Yes Discord sounds like a good idea.... I have a lot of learning to do!
Our discord is a great platform where you can get lots of interactive help. See you there.
Hasn't this issue been fixed now with the latest version.?
What kind of widget is that at 17:12?
Thanks for the video. I'm sadly a little confused on one aspect. So many of my airplanes use an a3s4 hobbyeagle gyro and I'm using the tx16s 4-1 with a ranger micro module. You mentioned a potential fan issue. What are your suggestions for setup in this case? I'm coming from spektrum so elrs has been quite the learning curve.
Please get on discord and ask there.
Can you tell my why my power led turned to green on my boxer?
Nice breakdown
Thank you.
if you bind the mpm to a spektrum rx, can you take advantage of as3x and safe that is in that rx
Sorry. I don’t know the first thing about Spektrum. Guys in my discord do though.
Any word from ELRS team that they might change the behavior of the other "full res" modes to allow proportional on CH5? Or is that coming against some kind of limitation?
There are some ideas floating around, I know that. The final implementation--that I don't know. So we'll have to wait and see.
Great video - thanks. What is the actual power output if you select dynamic 250mW and then don't arm. Does it stay at say 10mW and never increase or does it go to the max 250mW. I did some range tests with my plane armed and disarmed and it didn't seem to make any difference.
I think I have just found out. If you don't arm the model, the Dynamic power still works using link quality but it doesn't raise the power if it misses a telemetry packet from the receiver, which it does do if armed. So in practice the dynamic power works much the same when not armed as it does when armed.
One of the developers just offered that clarification in comments as well. Thanks for coming back and sharing your findings.
once ch 5 has been assigned . how can i use switch SC FOR ARM DISARM.
SC has to be the source for Ch5 to send 1000us and 2000us.
IMHO the responsible way to track arming state would be to use FC telemetry and asume armed if receiver gets no telemetry data.
I believe the reason it doesn't work like this is so that your radio doesn't go to full power if you have it on and your receiver off on purpose. Saves battery and rf pollution.
@@rcvg69420 it can be mitigated by only going to high power mode if getting telemetry with armed state and going to low power mode only if actively receiving disarmed telemetry at sufficiently high power to prevent going to low power mode if at longer range.
The one thing I learned from this was the effect of D16/2. Now, what is that, 8 channels?
16/2 refers to the packet rate. So if you start with 333hz and use 16/2 you get an effective rate of 166hz.
@@RCVideoReviews thank you
ELRS is going to have to rethink this whole channel 5 is arming thing. I understand why they've done it, but it's a hack.
What can't they make it so you can just pick dynamic power in the Lua. Either on or off.
The setting in the Lua does control if Dynamic Power is on or off. However, without knowing the Armed status, it just jumps to MAX POWER when there's no RX plugged in because it assumes you're flying and failsafed. I'm trying to work around this but Armed status indicates this 100% correctly all the time and any other procedure just sort of guesses which seems unsafe.
Thanks for jumping in Bryan.
So i can just straight use ch 5 on retracts and not remap the rx
Using 333 and 16ch
Sure. And since you're using retracts which are binary, you could use any switch mode because gear are either up or down. Arm is either on or off.
@@RCVideoReviewsAwesome, thanks for all you do for us
You're welcome.
Funny as people ask about Ch 5 Arming on Facebook I post this video, and people say your wrong . But I guess you can't fix stupid lol
Given one of the primary developers wrote this (and I pinned it) "Thanks for covering it all in detail, I can confirm everything I heard here is accurate :)" I guess you're right. You can't fix stupid.
500 milliwatt not 500 Watt 😉
OR IS IT? Why can't I cook my frozen burrito with my ELRS module? Where is that switch mode?
Yes, thank you for the catch-- 500mW!!! :)
So put undercarriage on CH5 and arms is good go to. So you fly away armed and gear down..then in flight you pull up undercarriage and you disarmed and down it goes ? my poor brain ! I need meds !
People with undercarriages do that. The issues remains for Ch5 in SBUS stream which is usually reserved for mode on gyros. It's a real problem.
CH 5 is a son of bitch lol Your one of my top mentors ! I want to tell you I love you ! SBUS, when some said you can drive unlimited servos on one strand of wire ! I buckled on my desk top! I don,t want to know how lol my OCD ( I think Allesandro once quoted, SBUS should of never been invented. @@RCVideoReviews
“Arming” what?
In aircraft it shouldn't matter because ch5 is gear
Not even close. In EdgeTX there is no hard coded correlation between channel number and function on the model. In fact, a substantial number of flight stabilizers require channel 5 for mode setting which is usually somewhere between 3 and 6 positions. The hard coded linkage between ch# and function is a limitation of other ecosystems. Not this one.
i am now offering 150 per hour in colorado for anyone willing to set it up .
Join our discord and ask for help.