Discussions

Pixhawk + Taranis X9D + FrSky X8R

Posted by Stone1295 on March 30, 2014 at 12:15am

Hello All,

I have a Pixhawk, a Taranis X9D, and a FrSky X8R and my question is has anyone made this combination work?

My second question would be that if you have made this combination work on your Pixhawk, how did you make it work specifically?

I have a 3DR Y6 and I've been flying it with an APM and a Futaba Tx/Rx combination but decided to upgrade and have nothing but trouble with this setup.

I have installed all of the hardware and have connected the Pixhawk to the Rx using either the regular method and via the SBUS/RC slot input but haven't gotten it to work yet. The Tx/Rx binds successfully but when I got to do a radio calibration either all of the inputs are blank (no green bars) or there are green bars but they don't move when I attempt to calibrate.

Can somebody please explain to me exactly what I need to do to make this combination of parts work?

Thanks!

-Mike

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Replies

Peter King October 18, 2014 at 3:51am

I have got the X8R working with Pixhawk via SBUS to RC in when in Mode 5 (ch1 to 8) but NOT in Mode 4 (ch 9 to 16).

Is it possible to get 16 channels out of a SINGLE X8R so that you have channels 1 to 8 in the Pixhawk then ch9 to 16 on the PWM pins of the X8R?

I set the Taranis so that channel range is 1 to 16 and D16.
- John Hamilothoris > Peter King October 20, 2014 at 10:09am
  
  Yes, you would need a Y cable and 2 Frsky sBus to CPPM.
  
  Here's a YouTube link showing the setup
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T00Z1aQ6GM
  
  Hope this helps
  - Peter King > John Hamilothoris October 20, 2014 at 10:26am
    
    Worked it out in the end. I found the default Taranis firmware is faulty so I made a video showing how to fix it if others have the same issue. This does not require any SBUS convertors and only one X8R receiver needed.
    
    Watch my video to see how to do it: http://youtu.be/AnDQGFhsHjs?list=UUQ...IzZPBBDHC50O2w
    Shows how to get all 16 channels from a single X8R receiver bound to your Taranis. PWM ports of the receiver will then give you channels 9 through 16. It involves a fix to the firmware which is detailed how to do in the video. I have covered the APM, Pixhawk and Naza flight controllers in the video.
    Hope that helps some others. See our shop http://www.droneshop.biz for more information.
    - William C Bonner > Peter King October 20, 2014 at 11:24am
      
      I watched you video and liked it. You presented what you had in a clear mode, and I got to see how the binding process worked. I've always put my radio into bind mode first and then fiddled with the receiver, so I didn't see the blinking lights in the receiver the way the manual suggests I should. Your method makes things completely clear.
      
      The one thing I'd like to know is what version firmware you had in your transmitter initially, and what you had after updating?
      
      I'm currently running the OpenTX firmware 2.0.11 that was released last month, so I'm assuming that it's already got the fixes you mention.
      - Peter King > William C Bonner October 21, 2014 at 4:12am
        
        I think it had version 2.0.9 already and the new version I loaded was also 2.0.9 so I guess the version that is pre-loaded is just corrupted some how.
        
        John Hamilothoris > Peter King October 21, 2014 at 6:11am
        
        Peter ,
        
        I must misunderstood what you wanted to accomplish, the setup you described in your video is what I have with my Naza M and X8R (now with Pixhawk and X8R) and I had that setup since I had my Taranis which had the original factory FW v1.1.0, and I had no problems in the setup.
        
        Iin fact when I first switched to open TX the FW installed was 2.0.9 and it still worked flawlessly, I have since upgraded to the newest FW 2.0.12 and luckily no issues . I'm wondering if the issue was primarily going from an older version of Open TX to the one in question, ie 2.0.8 to 2.0.9. In any case glad you got yours working and good video I'm sure it will help a lot of people.
Gary Balliet September 10, 2014 at 8:41pm

I had to power the pixhawk by more than just the usb
MR60

Hugues September 10, 2014 at 12:03pm

Pixhawk+Taranis+X8R is a plug and play combo.

Stone, you must do something wrong in your config and/or cabling and/or Taranis (r u sure you selected the right internal RF and not the external one?).

Can you post pictures of your cabling, your taranis setup screen ?
Developer

Marco Robustini September 10, 2014 at 5:06am

I use three X8R with all my Pixhawk without single issue.
Developer

Craig Elder May 27, 2014 at 3:23pm

All of the S.BUS variations should be working in plane 3.03. There are some S.BUS setups that are not supported in copter 3.1.x but they are in the current Copter beta

Also the SBUS label on the Pixhawk is a bit confusing. The signal on that pin is S.BUS OUTPUT not INPUT and we don't have S.BUS output code written yet. Make sure you connect the S.BUS from your receiver to the RC input pin.