I have just switched to OpenTX and can't configure Spirit, confused. Radio channel mapping is where it fails.

My receiver is FrSky X6R connected over SBUS to Spirit Pro. The radio is Horus x10s running latest OpenTx 2.2.2RC5.

I have configured the radio to have Thr, Ail, Ele, Rud and Pitch on channels 1-5 in this order. I can move the sticks and all channels send values between -100..100 which I can see on the radio monitor.

I'm at the step where I need to map channels properly and tune the radio so they are in -100..100% range.
This is possible for most channels, Spirit shows for them values -118%...118% so I can tune it in the radio.

However,
- for Pitch (ch 6 in Spirit) Spirit is showing range of -118..82% and the channel is reversed for some reason
- for Ail (ch 3 in Spirit) Spirit is showing range of 0..118%, where zero is on the left stick position, and 118% is anywhere from middle to right.

And it is not possible to tune it in the radio. I can force radio to send smaller range (so Spirit sees -100..100 instead of -118..118) but I can't extend the range. The radio can't send less than -100 and more than +100 for any channel.

What can I do with that? Is this something with Spirit, receiver, radio, OpenTX? Any idea?

Hello,

you should leave default channel mapping in the unit.

For OpenTX you only have to load profile that has already everything configured.
You can download it from here:
http://manual.spirit-system.com/index.p ... io_Profile

Then everything will be fine.

All the differences are there, because OpenTX implementation of SBUS is different from Futaba. So it is behaving differently.
But by loading the profile it will work well.

_________________
Spirit System developer

I have tried this profile and everything was in wrong channels there It also made my radio speak Ceski, which I have no idea how that could happen if it was only a model. But it was able to use full channel range.

Then I switched back to my complete Sdcard backup and restored my state and now it works. I have no idea if rebinding helped or what... But seems to work now.

I made a test flight and everything runs great. The rescue seems to be really good. I have some tail shaking when using the rescue, but will try to fine tune it later. Not a huge problem comparing to these which made you use rescue in the first place. Cannot wait for the cable to test FrSky integration and telemetry. Thanks for great support and long life Spirit

@ZeXx86 Just to let you know. I was setting up another spirit unit - normal Spirit (red) together with FrSky R-XSR receiver and OpenTX. And I had the same problem. Again the aileron was most extreme (in my case this is channel 2 in the radio, but channel 3 shown in Spirit software). It was only possible to get it in 0-118% range (as shown in Spirit) no matter what was set in the radio and whatever the radio was sending. Negative values not possible at all.

Other channels were better, but I believe there was another one or two which could not reach 100% or -100% end.

This time I didn't load the sample OpenTX configuration but was trying to find what I could change, analyzed tons of open tx settings, went through rebinding process few times, went through the Spirit wizard something like 15 times, until the problem resolved on its own after few restarts of the Spirit unit and Spirit software. Probably there was some "configuration save" made to the unit in between. Suddenly everything started running better, aileron was showing -118..+118% range when radio was untrimmed, and other channels started to show more regular values (most are now also in -118..118 range if untrimmed / unlimited in the radio, before these values were different for each channel).

At the end I didn't have to change enything in OpenTX. So I strongly believe there is some issue with Spirit there..

I think what fixed the problem might be either some number of restarts of the Spirit unit, or storing parameters to it. But I cannot test it now, as everything works. I was running the wizard always, and was always cancelling it at the step where you assign channels and configure trims, because I couldn't configure it properly - so I was not saving parameters for quite some time.

The other options is that maybe Spirit software in wizard mode just displays wrong values in some situations.

The other option is that FrSky receivers have some fault there, but I think it is less likely, it would be a known problem then.

My configuration:
- Spirit (red)
- FrSky R-XSR receiver
- FrSky Horus X10s with OpenTX 2.2.2
- using Futaba S-BUS connection
- latest Spirit downloaded yesterday (2.6.0)
- unit updated to matching latest firmware (also yesterday)

I can't reproduce the problem anymore (could maybe try to reset the unit to factory and see if it happens). But it's my second Spirit setup with second FrSky receiver and same problem, so I assume it happens often.

Hello,

thank you for your message.

I am afraid but during configuration the unit is not saving any hidden values. So probably the only possibility was that it was wrong from the beginning and then it fixed when you saved some values.
Actually I think that there is no issue since then at least hundreds of other pilots would suffer from this issue too.
The most likely option is that it just fixed by some strange mistake in configuration - usually it is just misunderstanding. So when you saved the settings it was finally mapped properly.
But before this channel centers were calibrated improperly (for wrong mapping). But once it was reinitialized with correct mapping centers were correct. Then end-points are usually correct too.

The Spirit units are not storing any hidden values so it is just doing what is programmed and visible.

I think that in your case it was only because of unsaved settings and thus wrong channel calibration. Calibration is done just once during initialization. Not when you are changing channel mapping. So I guess only this was the issue. But actually it did what was programmed.

_________________
Spirit System developer

I'm not sure if I get everything you wrote.. but, is the unit calibrating center points depending on initial stick positions?
Could the problem be related to the fact, that I start with wrong channel mapping, and possibly aileron was mapped to radio throttle initially, which was zero instead of centered?

The channel order in openTX can be different for any radio. In my case it is TAER, but this is configurable when you flash OpenTX. I think I left whatever was selected there, but maybe Taranis has a different default? That would explain why others are not having this problem, maybe they have channels mapped properly from the beginning.

I had the same problem way back when. My silly mistake was thinking that the channel selections on the receiver channel mapping tab had to be mapped to the same Horus channels. That was the way the Futaba CGY750 is set up where all the SBUS channels were mapped to the fbl unit.

What worked for me was AETR in the radio (sort of similar to the OpenTx config file that Spirit supplies), and left all the receiver channel mapping at whatever Spirit chooses, made sure that the throttle was on channel 1 on the receiver channel mapping.

Doesn't make a lick of sense, but it works.

Yes, channel numbers are not matching on my side too, but that's not a big deal. It's probably because of some differences between Futaba and OpenTX, maybe OpenTX sends them over SBus in different order.

I think the solution to calibration problem might be to map channels first, finish the wizard with any settings so it saves data, restart the wizard and then make calibration of end points and trimming.

Or map channels first without the wizard, and the start the wizard.

But I will not mess with heli now, wil test it if I ever gef a new heli... Or maybe it's fixed in Spirit by this time.

Hello,

correct solution is to load the settings which has already correct mapping that is on par with Futaba.
Then you do not have to perform any channel mapping in the Spirit Settings.

By loading our provided settings (EEPE/OTX file) it should normally be in that way.

Then all these problems will actually not occur.

Yes, channel order is different from Futaba and we unfortunately can't do anything about it. But solution is just to make changes in the radio.

_________________
Spirit System developer