RadioMaster ER5A/ER5C ELRS PWM RX's. Let's make an FPV car to test them out!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ก.ย. 2022
- So you like the sound of ELRS but you have some sort of older/legacy RC vehicle that doesn't understand CRSF and speak PWM. Now you can have both - the exceptional range and ease of ELRS in a 5-channel receiver from RadioMaster. Put them in planes, boats.... or perhaps an FPV car :-)
These receivers were kindly supplied by RadioMaster for review, so if you'd like to check them out in more detail, please take a look at the following affiliate links -
ER5A (pins at side) www.radiomasterrc.com/product...
ER5C (pins on top) www.radiomasterrc.com/product...
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A small matek flight controller is a great addition to a little RC FPV car, obviously you can't use it to its full ability but the OSD information such as signal strength and distance (if you use a GPS) is pretty useful stuff. I put an F411-WING in a crawler and it's great fun
how did you do it
I did the same with my buggy, now I finally see my current speed 🎉
And I wanted to use a non-PWM receiver and this was the only way to do it for me (with an FC).
I have now GPS, link quality and battery voltage on my OSD. I even added some LED for additional fun 😂
So I have connected the following stuff on the FC:
Steering servo,
ESC (on a servo output),
ELRS receiver,
GPS,
CaddX Turtle V2 for onboard FPV recording,
VTX,
LED strip and an additional fan for the VTX
That did look fun. It was amazing how much terrain it managed to get through. ELRS did very well, it really is progressing nicely.
It was fun, it's interesting quite how disorientating it feels down low... i guess much the same when you are up high first time. I need to find other areas that not quite so blocked with trees and mud to see how much further it will go
Really enjoyed that 😊👍 It’s refreshing to see something completely different rather than Rx’s etc
being checked out on quads and wings
Thanks for the video
Thanks - I find it more fun to experiment and see what else can be done, rather than just using quads all planes all the time. Someone needs to send me a boat to review so I can figure out what's that would be like to FPV :D
That's really great! I first tried it 16 years ago with bulky 1.2ghz video system & security cam which I viewed using video glasses, even recorded some footage from it back then in 2006 with an Archos AV500.
Now you've had a good taste of FPVing with RC cars you've got increase the enjoyment of it:
Put the FPV camera on a 3-axis gimbal. It's amazing, take a gander at "Gimbal stabilised FPV RC car driving"
I remember you gimbal car drive - it worked really well. What I'd like to try and do is keep that car a basic car shape (with it's body shell) which becomes more a a struggle as you add things... especially considering how little space it's got in there. It would be nice if I could find a larger car and then we can do a bit more. It is fun though. I still have a 1.2Ghz system that I intended to use on another car, but had issues with power on it. The penetration on 1.2 still should be way better... if a bit more cumbersome to use.
@@CurryKitten Unfortunately the gimbal I used died, a Zihyun Z1 Tiny2 which was already a little damaged from a bad landing on a GPS quad. I do have another Tiny2 in perfect condition, but not prepared to put it on another RC car until it can be made crash-proof.
Driving the car through goggles with a perfectly steady image was really nice, but there was an issue with yaw lag, programmed into the gimbal to get steady smooth shots with a sportcam it feels quite weird looking through an FPV camera on the gimbal in realtime having it delay when you turn left/right.
One thing I've always wanted to try was an FPV gimbal setup on an RC car with head tracking.
I have a similar setup but with hdzero wanted to upgrade the reciver but wasnt sure this video exactly what I was looking for
HD can only make things cooler. But the whole radio rx/tc should be the same
I have some Frsky and Radiomaster Airplane receivers lying around....
aaaaaaand a bunch of race 1/10th buggy's.. Should have some good range on them too.
It's rain season here, So time to build! Thanks for the video!
Have fun!
that "PWM is old way to control..." hurts a lot :D am I that old?
I mean, before SBUS and then TBS CRSF & Co came, that was the default.. the quick development happened only the past decade.
thanks for the review! I was looking for a way to make a FPV rc-car with my drone-gear :D
In terms of people getting into the hobby now, they don't really have a concept of why servos would ever be used or how you'd ever fly something without a flight controller :). It's pretty easy to use some of your drone stuff to make an FPV car. The only annoyance for me was the single ESC/RX unit, so I needed a new ESC
A PWM capable Rx can be useful even when your using an FC, on my truck i have an Omnibus F4 pro and in Ardupilot i have used BRD_ALT_CONFIG to re purpose the RSSI input and CH5 output pins on the FC as an additional UART but i need 8 pwm outputs as i have a pan/tilt cam mount and a bunch of PWM controlled electronic switches for various lights.
The R9 Slim+ Rx will output ppm/sbus but also output ch 1-8 on the PWM outputs simultaneously so i have recovered the lost ch5 output on the FC by connecting a pwm switch to the output on the Rx :)
That was a real quest for me to find an rc car with separate receiver and pwm wires. But I succeed - and found wltoys 124017 v2 (the v2 has a brushless motir and individual receiver module)
You did well - I've seen that combo ESC/RX in loads of these cheap cars. Yay for WLtoys for being even slightly different!
Fantastic ride, Wayne! Great review of the receiver! 😃
But yeah, there are some VTXs with a fan... But none of them are as good as a Rush Tank, of course. Or you could put a fan in it, one of those used for motors and/or escs. I don't know, it's just something I think about. 😬
Anyway, stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
BTW, you could've set up the radio to read the RSSI for you from time to time. 😉
Yeah - there are some bigger VTX's with either heatsinks or fans, but once you start getting that many trees or mounds of earth inbetween you and the car, there's always going to be a struggle. It's very obvious to put an RSSI shout on a momentary switch or something.... no idea why I didn't think of that at the time :D
Fun video ! I have a similar setup that I use on a 1/10 scale truck and on a Kyosho Blizzard for winter runs. Tons of fun ! You should try it with a DJI Vista unit, the HD video quality makes it even more of a blast... ELRS + DJI video gives you great range !
I haven't invested (yet) in a digital system, but yes it would be a lot nicer
I just ordered walksnail for the same experience.
Although I kind of wish they made an pistol elrs remote. That's not $300
Great fun, and entertaining video. Nice camouflage at 13:24 BTW: 😂
3d-printed fenders might solve the tire debris annoyance.
Since you have more PWM channels, you might try adding a pan servo for the camera. While you doing the mod, could add a little 10-15cm (4-6") mask for the camera (and perhaps antenna), to provide a better view.
Not an on-purpose camo, I was just adjusting to the environment :) I'd like to do a bit more with it, but there's not much room there. It's a question of do I continue to drive as is, or work harder to fit things in... or just find a bigger car which will make fitting things a bit easier.
That's really great results and here I am a grand into trying various analog 5.8 and 1.3 setups unable to get 1/2 of that. I'm going to try MFDLink 433 UHF for the control but I'm still trying to learn this world of protocols and control systems. That feed also looked really good and I suppose it has to do with the location. My 1.3 tends to look way better at times depending on the time of day, but I'd probably need to be in an open field with LOS to go out to 100 yards tops.
I did try a 433 control with 1.3 video a long time ago, but I had all sorts of power issues and the kit was quite large for the 1/10th scale car I was using. That said it was nearly 10 years ago and I'd hope I'd get it going better these days. 1.3 should give you excellent penetration for a ground vehicle... it should wipe the floor with 5.8 in terms of distance and handling obstacles. 433 can be a little finicky to get right, it's easily upset by noise... and of course the dipoles for it a huge! But keep cracking on and Im sure you'll find that sweet spot eventually.
@@CurryKitten I came into it assuming just that.. the 1.3 would wipe the floor with the mediocre results I got with decent 5.8 setups. Several videos out there showing it can be done all analog. I tried to be thorough and basically tried 2 of every transmitter/receivers.. ended up being worth it on the 1.3 receiver because the second one worked much better with clear audio.. but in the end about the most I could do before the signal got too bad was drive around a small area in my neighborhood.
This was trying to be lazy and just using a small ground station though. Receiver just mounted in a box with the screen right there. I'd hoped to at least be able to do something like circle a small building with decent video but I guess that's either asking too much or doing something wrong.
I'm now realizing to get any actual range I need a rather large ground station, at least one elevated higher from the ground and some kind of decent patch antenna.
I love coming back to this video, The setup is near perfect for analogue... Throw on a tall Foxeer high gain lollipop and that will go anywhere. CK - Have you seen the Traxxas TRX-4 Scale and Trail Crawler 82056-4
1/10 Scale? The Land Rover Defender is crazy good. It's got a two speed gearbox and you won't get stuck on anything!! Its quite quick as well. But to me it's the ultimate allrounder Crawler / Basher..Check it out!! Take care mate... MQ4. Ohh, Thats right Can now confirm that those ELRS Receivers are an absolute must have!! LOS 2km easily ...In the bush ( flat ground ) 900m. A good idea is to fit a small GPS and pair it with your phone, You can then watch its movement in real time and if you need to hunt for it you will never lose it. I would really like you to review the Traxxas TRX-4 , 1/10 Scale as I KNOW that will be your everyday go to once you drive one. 🙂
In my initial experiments with the RusshFPV Cherry antennas, they outperformed the lollipop by quite some margin. I've always lusted after a Traxxis. The Summit was always the goto build for LR FPV cars, but the Land Rover really looks the business. It's the perfect scale. The problem with Traxxis is price - eeek, not cheap are they!
@@CurryKitten Yeah mate exactly... I just bought one! What an incredible car! Wish I could send it to you for a play... But the state of the world atm its not worth the risk from AU to UK otherwise I wouldn't hesitate mate. Fitting it out with the 03 Air unit and Goggles 2 with head tracking. That will be a blast when we finally have them in stock.
The camera is mounted to far back. Place it above the windshield just behind the windshield line. It will give you a more immersive view. Like you're sitting in it. I have to post some of my videos. Great video by the way👍
I didn't want to mount to the body shell of the car as it's liable to a bit of wobble when driving around. My intention in this build was to make quite a non-invasive build, but as that car is probably going to stay and FPV car, what I'll probably do is cut a hole in the top of the roof and have the camera there, or go through the windscreen. In both case, I'll be mounting on the chassis so there's no potential of wobbling from the plastic shell.
Great Rx review video. Lots of fun exploring by fpv rc car. I have a wltoys 12427 4x4 that put an fpv camera on. Great fun, terrible rc range. This video gave me an idea. 🏎️😎
Cool - yes, that's always the problem with these little cars, you can easily stick an FPV system on them, but the rx would give out very quickly. The only slight pain is losing the nice wheel/trigger style of controller
Hey, how did you set up the FPV part. How do you get power to the vtx/camera?
@@ryanjones6837 I used an akk aio vtx camera. Got a 5v regulator powered from the balance lead to power the camera / vtx. And got a 3d printed mount to glue in the RC car.
@John Larson legend. Thankyou! Could you explain about the 5V regulator or send a link. my VTX will run from 7V upwards, will I need a bigger regulator from the balance lead?
@@ryanjones6837 what is the voltage range of your vtx and camera? If your battery voltage is in between the low and high of the voltage range you don't need a regulator. 🤓
That's so cool
Cheers!
Полезная работа.
Awesome video , long time sub. So happy i found this, i'm an fpv pilot and my next project is gonna be an fpv 4x4 with elrs. Do you have a video on how to connect everything since there is no FC. I'm already using elrs on 14 quads and thought i try something new with an fpv car.
I didn't go into great detail as there wasn't much to it. The RX has a connection to the ESC for throttle, and a steering servo (and in my case a beeper on another channel as well) I was using a camera with it's own OSD, so just fed the battery voltage into one of those pins. It's pretty basic - I will be coming back to make a larger car in - hopefully - 2 different FPV configs. One of which I will use an FC for
@@CurryKitten Ok, thank you.
hey man love your video❤
btw what is your using fpv setup for ur rc car?
It's pretty basic. A RushFPV VTX and a camera that has it's own OSD to show voltage. Do you think a full tutorial on FPVing up a car is something that would be useful to many people?
This looks fun. So I've bought an rc car similar to this and will use pwm crossfire but not sure how to wire my cam and vtx. My cam will go to the vtx but what do I wire that do? Is it possible to run it with a servo cable straight to the PWM receiver?
It will depend a little on the VTX. Odd on your VTX will take battery voltage (usually something like 7-20v but please check) and power a 5v camera from it. So in my case I'm powering the VTX from the balance lead of the battery.
Could these be used on a modern say inav fpv quad as a way to add servos without having to connwct to the fc say if you didnt have enough pads or amp rating to run from the fc ? Or would that also involve voltage regulators and stuff direct from lipo ,im on 6s
Well, the power input to the RX can only go up to 8.4v, so on 6S you'd be looking at some sort of UBEC to power things nicely... and as soon as you add the bec, the idea of the PWM RX becomes a bit redundant as you'd then probably just want to take an control signal from your FC and the 5v/gnd from the BEC
So I fly quads and want to try this but how did you configure your controller to steer and throttle. I get the elrs part but in quads I have betaflight to configure things. I have the radiomaster zorro with internal elrs
In a word... Backwards. So I put the throttle on the pitch/roll stick (right if you are mode 2) and steered with yaw (which kind of makes sense) If it seems a bit weird, it's because a car with a reverse option benefits from having the throttle that springs to centre - so it's much easier to hit the brakes and go into reverse. In previous cars I've also use purely the right stick for throttle and steering and the left stick for pan/tilt... this time using the advantage of not a sprung stick so that the pitch of the camera stays where I want it to. When you say you have betaflight to configure things.... not so much in a car, there's no control scheme for it. You could use iNav Rover option, but you'll also need a GPS/Compass. This is controlled using simple servo outputs (hence the RX option) and a camera with it's own OSD to display the voltage
Do you have tutorial on how to configure the elrs transmitter?
Hello my friend! What was the total distance you got from the receiver. I believe I heard u say 2-3m but wasn't sure. I'm hoping that you can do a step by step video how u put all the electrical components together. Thank you so kindly for sharing.
I said 200-300 metres. Which was about right - around the park, the longest distance was about 215m in the woods, the bridge was 280m away. If I could find somewhere without trees, hills or other obstructions then the VTX wouldn't give out so quickly! I wasn't intending on any step-by-step, as the FPV setup in the car was a case of connecting the balance lead from the battery to the VTX and then the VTX running the camera... all pretty basic.
I noticed the only difference between the two was the case & pin config (straights vs 90s), it's the exact same board & ant. I'm curious what the power consumption / output power is. Is this the same RF output (for telem) as their RP1 ELRS?
That's an interesting question, and I noticed it's not specified anywhere. Usually the telemetry output power is pretty low with vendors only calling it out if they've significantly upped the output. I expect it's the same as the RP1, but I'll attempt to find out
@@CurryKitten on my betafpv nano rx i can set the telemetry output pwr in elrs lua on my tx. & everything is on elrs 3. Those go up to 100mw. You might be able to see there.
Im undecided on if 500mW ELRS in the TX12 MII would get me a couple of km's across the bay on a large RC Sailboat using these PWM Receivers?
As far as Visuals go, I'd like to utilise a GoPro 8 but its USB C etc so not as easy as just wacking on a 1W Rush vtx etc.. So my question is would the TX 12 mark 2 ELRS and these PWM receivers cut it? and How to get the GoPro 8 running FPV? Cheers CK - Bazz
That's an interesting question. While 2km in the air is nothing, ground range is very different and those pesky ground reflections can be an issue. The answer is that I don't know - I've been unable to find a large open area so I can see how far I could take my setup. That said, anything that could elevate you up higher than the water would definitely help. I'd think I'd approach as I normally would with the unknown - try it, and check signals on little milestones. Can I get to 500m? How strong is the signal? Can I get to 1km etc etc. I'd be evaluating to see if I needing to address any issue along the way...i.e what effect do the antenna placements make, what about changing my packet/telemetry rate. I can't answer the question on the GoPro though, I haven't tried video out since the GoPro 4. Even if it is possible, I wouldn't recommend it over a regular FPV camera. Keep the GoPro for you HD recording, but they are still very bad at handling light when it's face on to the lens. A half decent FPV camera will really help you there. I'd be interested to see your results - one thing about being down at the water level (or ground level in general) is it can be quite difficult to navigate and tell where you are
@@CurryKitten Excellent advice all round CK.. Thanks mate, Will keep you posted. Take care bud.👍
heat shrink might be easier than conformal coating
Hi can you help me to figure out how to use smart audio with these receivers. (without a flight controller). I want to be able to change the vtx channel on transmitter.
I have watched similar video from painless360 using crossfire, but elrs script does not show same options.
Don't know if that s what the CRSF mode is for? but I assumed it will remove the 6 channel function if you change the mode. Not sure if I understood that correctly??
You can't - at least, as far as I know - with Crossfire, you can assign a channel output to SmartAudio and then control it via a LUA script. We don't (currently) have that option with ELRS. Even when using a backpack, the module communicates and changes Smartaudio stuff via the flight controller. This may change in the future - but for now, I don't know of a way. CRSF mode - in this receiver (If I understand what you are getting at) turns this into a regular CRSF based RX, so using the TX/RX/5V/GNS pins instead of regular PWM
@@CurryKitten Okay thanks, I understand the crossfire function better now
Hi again, im curious that rush max solo could run with 6s lipo, is there any advantages to run it with more voltage?
Also how do i get at least signal strength on screen display without a flight control ?
There's no advantage to running in 6S. Signal strength you'll struggle with to get on a camera. What I would do is use an RX with telemetry (like ELRS) and then set alarms if link quality, or RSSI falls below a certain threashold
@@CurryKitten so my vtx can produce maximum wattage using minimal voltage? i.e can it still produce 2.5watts using 7volts?
Does it bind with happymodel tx module? Cause I can't bind even with the right binding phrase
I don't have a HappyModel TX to try that out, sorry - but obviously, all ELRS modules should be able to bind to all ELRS rx's... with a few caveats. Firstly, aside from the binding phrase, make sure you are on the same major version of the firmware on both ends, i.e all on 3.x.x. Double check to make sure model match isn't on (unless you want it on - in which case make sure it's correct) Check the LED on the rx, sometimes if it's doing something a bit weird it's a useful clue into what's going on
Does the Er5a receiver carry the FPV signal? I guess not. If the video can get through, I'm not impressed by the fact that ELRS is getting through.
Video and control signals are very different beasts. The RX just handles the control signal, there's a VTX that handles the video
How does your 2s balance lead only have 2 cables coming out?
The battery has the regular 3 wires coming out. What I did was make up a balance connector to take to the VTX where I just make a connection for GND and cell 2 (the outer one) this gives me the full voltage through I need
Hey, I have a radiomaster tx12 radio and planning to use it on my rc also, can you teach me how you setup your radio? I've been thinking the exact same way the way you configure the controls. Also is it possible to bind radiomaster tx12 radio to radiomaster er5c-i pwm reciever? Can't find any info online. Thanks a lot! this video gives me hope that i can do this mini project 😂😂
For now, I've got a playlist on setting up OpenTX (While it's not EdgeTX, the experience is close to identical) that should give you a good start in setting up the radio... I might revisit and update the series this year though. As for the RX, the answer is yes - if you have the ELRS version of the radio (as opposed to the 4-in-1 version)
@@CurryKitten Gotcha! Will definitely check out your playlist and see which part I can implement on my case. Alrighty time to check out the RX then 🤣 Thanks a lot! Hope to see your new vids on the playlist
How do u setup throttle and steering on the controller?
I used the right stick as throttle as it's sprung to the centre - which is much better for doing braking/reversing. I then ended up using the left yaw stick for turning just because it was on two different sticks. In the past I've used the throttle stick completely for pan/tilt (with the applicable setup) and used right stick for both throttle/steering. Obviously you can assign whatever channels you want to sticks via the radio
I come from drones and would like to implement it in RC car. Can I pass on the telemetry from the receiver (which I'll connect to external gyro) on to a walksnail VTX? (The VTX has TX/RX pins for telemetry). If so, how?
You can't - at least in any way I'm aware of. The easiest way of accomplishing this is to simply add a flight controller in there and treat it as an OSD. I'm just doing this at the moment (for an analog setup) I'm using betaflight on a car, with a single arm switch and the only thing I needed to do extra was set runaway_takeoff_prevention=off
@@CurryKitten how does the FC connects to the ESC? I don't understand as it seems the design is direct PWM receiver->ESC. How the FC will operate the PWM ESC? Is the gyro on the FC used for traction control in such configuration instead of a gyro module?
I wish I could see a connection diagram 😢
It doesn't - I was actually using a 14 channel BetaFPV ELRS PWM RX for this, but in doing so I was able to connect to the FC via CRSF and then to the cars servos/esc directly from PWM. The FC in this case is doing nothing other than acting as a dumb OSD
@@CurryKitten I think that a FC can operate a PWM motor like a servo. You should do a resource mapping and some definitions and it supposed to work.
I think I'll try out a drone like configuration.
Yeah - you can run an ESC on PWM to use the motors in that way - but it's not going to help in terms of the telemetry, which was your initial question. In terms of using an RC bar and an FC, the reason I'm directly connecting the servo outputs and ESC to the RX is that Betaflight doesn't know how to mix motors for a car, and if you go the iNav route - it does, but you'll need a GPS/Compass as well
Why didn't you mention the brand and or model of the RC car?
When I first talked about the car, you should have seen a link appear to the video it was reviewed in at the top right of the screen. Not sure if that always works on mobile, but you can see it here th-cam.com/video/adjVRt3RzZU/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=CurryKitten
Doesn't look very waterproof for a surface receiver.
I don't think it is - it was never rmy intention to get it wet, I wasn't quite expecting the amount of grass, mud and other stuff to cover it