IMPRESSIVE! Trying out Rotorflight on the M4 MAX | The After Spring Fling

Hey friends! Long time no video. This was recorded back at the beginning of May after Spring Fling was over, before I headed to Joe Nall in SC. I was out of town for almost 3 weeks during this three-trips-in-one road trip to the East Coast, and I wasn't sure if I'd bother posting it because I've been so busy and it'd be a month after recording that it'd end up being posted, but decided today that I'd post it anyway just so ya'll can know what I've been up to.
This is not my first foray into Rotorflight, as I've been flying with it on my OMPHOBBY M2 EVO for a while and quite liking it, but it is my first time using it on something bigger than a micro: my M4 MAX. Rather happy with my experience so far and I can definitely see myself adding Rotorflight to more and more helis as the year progresses - the M7 is next.
Look out for more content coming up soon, and certainly a follow up or two on my Rotorflight adventure.
Some of the links below are affiliate links.
KC3D
kc3dprint.com
FrSky
frsky-rc.com
KST Servos
kstservos.com/?sca_ref=315108...
BuddyRC
www.buddyrc.com/?ref=hqxope2o
OMPHobby
omphobby.com
Please leave a comment and a like!
00:00 Intro
01:57 Why are the antennas like that lol
02:43 Flight #1
06:41 Early Integration Showcase (Thanks Rob T!)
07:43 I need to change a setting?
08:35 Flight #2 - Testing New Setting
11:58 I need to change a setting? (Round 2: Fight)
12:39 Flight #3 - Testing New Settings... Round 2: Fight
17:37 Flight #4 - Last of the Day

[@beenflying1]

Excellent flying skills! I'll be trying the RadioMaster Nexus soon...

[@BladeScraper]

Thanks!
I ordered one for my M7!

[@zmanphx]

@@BladeScraper What is the feature difference between this FC and Nexus?

[@BladeScraper]

@@zmanphx I don't really know much about the Nexus, other than it, unlike the Flydragon, does not have a built in ELRS receiver.

[@LevelCapGamingFan]

Beautiful flights man you're one hell of a pilot. I'm tempted to give rotorflight a go due to the price but Ikon 2 is just so simple lol. Seems like RotorFlight is way more complex

[@BladeScraper]

I appreciate that :)
It's definitely not for the faint of heart, currently. Much more similar to setting up and tuning a FPV quad than most FBL systems out there. However I will say - in reality, I had to do very little tuning. Mostly, all I did was copy someone else's settings for a similar helicopter, and it was already 95% there. At this point (a month after this recording), I'm thinking my tail issues may be mechanical or tail servo related for the most part anyway.
I've flown most FBL systems on the market over the years and I can say with confidence that Rotorflight is very likely the future of RC helicopters. It will not be for everyone, don't get me wrong. But for those willing to put in a little bit of effort, the performance is impressive and promising. And as the Rotorflight crew figures out the best default values, it will only get easier to get a decent flying heli with little effort... leave the super fine tuning for the super fine folk :)
Rotorflight is more advanced, and certainly more configurable... but it isn't out of reach if you're willing to put some time into learning. You don't have to dig too deep if you don't want to and you can get a good result with just the basics.

[@scrc511]

I have the Nexus setup on my Goblin 420 Raw. Do you have any PIDS that I can try since the OMP M4 is somewhat close in size with the 420 Raw. Thank you so much.

[@shahram677]

This video is not helpful for me
Since I have nexus on m4 max
But just wanted leave comments and say thank you for sharing all details without censoring
I saw you responded to all questions you received
Definitely these information would be helpful for many pilots
There are many video on TH-cam or facebook and they don’t share any information with other people
Good luck!

[@BladeScraper]

I don't see how it might be any less helpful to you... The Nexus is a Rotorflight FC just like this one, the software is identical :)
Anyway, glad you liked it.

[@scrc511]

Nice. Would love to try this one on my 420 Raw Build. Should work with Futaba Sbus?

[@BladeScraper]

Yup

[@jeanrochat]

Hi!! How RF2 compare to Brain 2 in your tests, regarding flight performance and 3D feeling? Do you prefer one of them?

[@BladeScraper]

Honestly it's perhaps too early to say one way or the other. But I am leaning towards preferring Rotorflight. Setup is not as simple, but if you can put in the time and effort, it flies incredible... I will say the cyclic feels better on this heli with Rotorflight than I managed to get it to feel on Brain, and the RF governor is much better.

[@jeanrochat]

@@BladeScraper Wow if you can say that after flying Brain 2 that long that means a lot!! I’ve just discovered Brain 2 on my RAW 420 one month ago after years on Beastx on various machines. It’s so much better in flight. But I need to try RF2 with the Nexus too, certainly on my new RAW 580 or with 420. I use TX16S with 4in1 ACCST/DSMX, and the ELRS low latency thing via module upgrade coupled with RF2 performance reported by Jonas is also appealing.

[@ThePlanefixr]

Keith, What did yo do in the first couple of flights? To get it where you started to like it? Gains? Speeds?

[@BladeScraper]

I didn't do much... Just stole settings from a known decent config that my friend has been using. Then I just tuned the rates and expo to my preferred feel. Really not a ton of tuning to get cyclic to an excellent state, and tail mostly good.

[@HuevosAzules]

I just ordered a x18se. Very excited for it but I'm not quite sure what the difference is between s port, sbus, fport, or fbus. Or inverted s port. Could you please link a forum page or anything that describes it because I can find anything

[@BladeScraper]

Check out this article - I wrote it for them a while back:
www.airbossrc.com/post/sbus-vs-fbus
Regarding "Inverted" - you probably don't need to worry about that. In short, it's a 1:1 mirror of the corresponding signal, with 0 flipped to 1 and 1 flipped to 0. It's only needed for certain flight controllers that use F4 processors that cannot handle the standard S.Port/F.Port/F.BUS signal. Most modern FCs, including most recently released Rotorflight boards, use F7 processors, which can handle the regular S.Port/F.Port/F.BUS signal just fine.

[@HuevosAzules]

@@BladeScraper awesome thanks man. It is a hell of a learning curve. I figured inverted was gonna be a drone thing mostly. New transmitter gets in today and I can't wait to play around with all the features

[@alwaysflying6540]

I'm using the Radiomaster 16s running edgetx. Do i need anything else to get it to work with my radio? Do you use beta flight to set it up or is rotorflight different? Sorry i dont know much about it but i heard it feels awesome in the air.

[@BladeScraper]

If your TX16 is MPM then just grab a FrSky Archer Plus RS or similar. If your TX16 is the ELRS version the FD F722 has a ELRS rx built in, but getting that all set up will be a bit more involved. Rotorflight has its own configurator and its own Lua scripts.

[@alwaysflying6540]

@BladeScraper Sooo separate reciever is needed and all the setup screens will be available on my radio via Lua scripts. Correct?

[@BladeScraper]

@@alwaysflying6540 should be... Integration is a work in progress but it is available

[@yodecaf]

So is the Rotorflight the same FBL thats stock on the M2? I ordered 2 of these...for the price why not!

[@BladeScraper]

Rotorflight is an open source helicopter flight control software based on Betaflight (the most common software for FPV quads). Nothing to do with OMP at all :)

[@yodecaf]

@@BladeScraper got it. Its a bit confusing because of how its marketed, I had assumed it was OMP

[@lachlangreen8389]

@@yodecaf it's literally RadioMaster? Not OMP?

[@atomicskull6405]

@@lachlangreen8389 The Rotorflight firmware is open source, there are several FBL units that run it now, the Nexux from Radiomaster, Flydragon from Steam, G474-HELI from Matek and a few others. The differences between them are what CPU and gyro chip they use and a few more or less ports. You can also build a DIY unit using a servo breakout PCB and multirotor flight controller, Rotorflight can use Betaflight targets to allow any Betaflight compatible FC to run Rotorflight. There are a couple breakout PCB designs around you can upload to JLCPCB or PCBway or whoever and have a small run of them made at a reasonable price.

[@ATVHOLICS]

I tried the V1 405 on a 380 but went back to MSH because I cba with all the droney stuff. Can’t understand given all the brains around this stuff why not make a decent configurator? Same with Ethos - the Suite is diabolical. As always your flying is next level ..almost goes without saying.. 😊

[@BladeScraper]

The configurator is definitely on the todo list. RF has gained a lot of support lately, but things like *completely revamping the entire configurator* will take time.
What issues are you having with Ethos Suite? Seems to work quite well for me. It's certainly a much better experience than Edge/OpenTX IME.

[@ATVHOLICS]

@@BladeScraper the Mac update link gives you a Windows file, the model edit function is non-functional, photo manager is a mess, RF module manager just shuts Suite down, and generally it looks like student came up with it in his break. But that’s only my opinion lol.

[@BladeScraper]

@@ATVHOLICS Have you reported these issues on GitHub? I use the Mac version as well and have not had any issues (though I do not use the image editor). Used it multiple times over this month to update other peoples' radios (including RF) at events and it went fine. Of course one person can have issues and another have none, so if you have issues, you should report them so they're made aware.
Side note, the model edit buttons are just placeholders for the future, the feature is not implemented yet. So of course it's not functional :)

[@alwaysflying6540]

@@BladeScraper Ethos is basically the same as Edgetx. Is it not?

[@BladeScraper]

@@alwaysflying6540 Similar, I suppose. Different OS though, a lot cleaner and more refined while still offering similar flexibility.