Continuing from my previous FrSky X4R-SB hack (read for some context), I really wanted Smart Port telemetry to work with Naze32. I forked the original baseflight firmware and added two key new functionalities:

• implemented the Smart Port telemetry protocol
• GPS can be assigned to any serial port (as opposed to only one port)
  • this is important because we are running out of ports
  • I made it possible for GPS to be connected to software/bitbang serial, to free up a hardware UART

please read my fork’s wiki, at this time, I can only test with my limited hardware, more help testing/coding would be appreciated.

Update 10/26/2014: I was asked to make the same contribution to Cleanflight, which I have done today.

The new forked firmware requires a circuit modification on both the X4R-SB and Naze32, see pictures: Continue reading →

I am building a quadcopter using a FrSky Taranis X9D radio. It came with a FrSky X8R receiver. I wanted to keep my wiring clean by using the S.BUS feature on the FrSky receivers, I purchased a smaller FrSky X4R-SB receiver. The X8R has 8 PWM channel pins and the X4R-SB has 3 PWM channel pins, but if I use S.BUS (which is serial, not PWM), I can access 16 channels using only 1 pin, on both X8R and X4R-SB. The X4R-SB is much smaller, making it more ideal. (do not confuse the X4R-SB with the D4R-II, this is important, D4R-II uses CPPM, not S.BUS)

(update 10/25/2014: a follow up hack for Smart Port)

I want to use a Naze32 flight controller, which is open source and does have code to interpret S.BUS protocol. S.BUS is UART communication but it is inverted and the Naze32’s UART cannot accept inverted input. Continue reading →