General Radio Settings

Your Instructor: Roger McClurg (maguro on RC Groups)

Introduction

If you have been following the lessons in order, you should have completed the Beginning Radio Setup class and are ready to find out what’s on the remaining Radio Settings screens.

Lesson Goals

The goal for this lesson is to develop an understanding of the remaining screens in the Radio Setup group and how to use them.

Prerequisites

To complete this lesson, you should:

Have a charged battery in your Transmitter
Have OpenTX flashed to your Transmitter with OpenTX version 2.0x
Read the Taranis Quick Start Guide and understand basic menu navigation.
In addition we recommend that you complete the Checking Out Taranis and Beginning Radio Setup classes before moving on to this class.

Background

Now that you finished the Beginning Radio Setup class, I’ll bet you are eager to find out what’s on the other screens in the Radio Setup group. You may even have taken a look. Great! I’ll wager a couple of the screens look familiar. That’s because as part of Checking Out Taranis class you will have visited the Analog Inputs and Calibration screens. You did do the class didn’t you? If so, you are finished with Calibration, but the Analog Inputs has more to offer as we shall see.

For a copy of this lesson, click General Radio Settings

NOTE: Menu navigation is performed by pressing the menu keys. Some actions require a long press (LP) of the menu key others a short press (SP) of a menu key. In this and the lessons that follow menu key actions will be in the form of LP or SP and the key name MENU, PAGE, EXIT, “+”, “-”, or ENT.

SD CARD

From the Radio Setup menu SP PAGE and you will find yourself on the SD CARD screen. From this screen you can access the sounds, images, text files, and binaries stored on the SD card that comes installed in your Taranis. The names encased in square brackets [ ] are directories. The square brackets with 2 dots [..] take you up to the previous directory.

NOTE: Normally you will not see [..] on the main SD CARD page, but the image above was made from Companion and an image of the SD card on my computer where there is a directory above this one. Because the images come from a computer and not directly from the Taranis, they may occasionally have “artifacts” from my computer on them. Where this is the case, I’ll point them out.

NOTE: Please ignore the .DS_Store file it’s one of those artifacts from my computer.

BMP

The BMP directory contains pictures of models for use in the Model Setup menus. The pictures are in BMP file format hence the folder name.

Scroll up and down through this directory to see all the models available on your Taranis.

NOTE: If you don’t have the model you need in your BMP folder, go to the Hints & Tips section in the OpenTX University Library for a link to the Model Artwork for Taranis section of OpenRC forums. There you can find hundreds of models for you to download and install.

Press EXIT to go to [..] then press ENT to go to the main SD Card screen.

FIRMWARES

The FIRMWARES directory is where you should put the firmware binary files downloaded from Companion. Firmware names are limited to 28 characters plus the .bin extension.

NOTE: Please ignore the .DS_Store file it’s one of those artifacts from my computer.

If you select a file in the FIRMWARES folder and then press ENT you will be presented with a pop-up menu like the one below.

Flash Bootloader
Delete

If you click on Flash Bootloader the Taranis will immediately load the new bootloader. You can not update the Taranis firmware from this screen. You can only see what is available, update the bootloader or delete a file.

Press EXIT to go to [..] then press ENT to go to the main SD Card screen.

LOGS

The LOGS folder contains the telemetry log files stored in Comma Separated Values (CSV) format, with file naming using model name and date. Telemetry data logging is enabled through the Special Functions menu, using the Start Logs function. Selecting a log file gives you the option of deleting the file. There is nothing else you can do with a log file within the Taranis.

Press EXIT to go to [..] then press ENT to go to the main SD Card screen.

MODELS

The MODELS folder holds the binary copies of models that have been backed up using the Backup Model function in the Model Selection menu, and text (.txt) files that provide model specific information such as switch setup or a preflight checklist. Binary files of “backed up” models can be used as templates for new models, and even shared. When creating a new model in the transmitter you have the options of CREATE MODEL or RESTORE MODEL. Creating a model creates a blank model. RESTORE MODEL gives you a menu of the contents of the MODELS folder, and you can choose any of the .bin files to restore as a template.

In the MODELS folder selecting a text file and pressing enter gives the following options:

View Text
Delete

Selecting a binary file and pressing enter gives the following options:

Flash Bootloader
Delete

NOTE: The Flash Bootloader option is a bug in version 2.08. Ignore it. It appears, presumably, because the model files end in .bin. Delete is the only working option in this menu.

Press EXIT to go to [..] then press ENT to go to the main SD Card screen.

SOUNDS

The SOUNDS folder contains all the sounds played by the Taranis.

The en folder contains all the English language sounds. The .txt files list the sound files available.

English is the default language, and the only one installed on the SD Card as it comes from FrSky.

The following additional language files are available for download via Companion.

French- fr
German – de
Swedish – se
Czechoslovakian – cz
Slovak – sk
Polish – pl
Portuguese – pt
Spanish – es
Hungarian – hu

When you highlight a wav file and SP ENTyou are given the option to play the file or delete it. Go ahead, give it a try. Play some sounds, an hear what they sound like. There are a lot of sounds to choose from. The one selected below says “Bombs Away!”.

In addition to sound files, the en folder also contains the system folder.

The system folder contains all the system sounds including numbers, alerts (such as “Telemetry Lost”), and one special sound: tada.wav. Tada is the sound you hear when you turn on the Taranis.

NOTE: You can rename tada.wav to some other name (oldtada.wav for example) and replace it with a sound file of your choice. I replaced mine with Hal from “2001 a Space Odyssey” saying “I’m completely operational, and all my circuits are functioning perfectly”. It just seemed right for the Taranis.

From the SD CARD menu SP PAGE and you will find yourself on the TRAINER menu.

TRAINER

This menu shows the mode settings for the Master transmitter in a “Buddy Box” setup. Trainer mode is activated by setting Trainer Mode to Master in the MODEL SETUP menu. Configuring the Taranis as both Master and Slave transmitter is covered in detail in the Buddy Boxing course.

From the TRAINER menu SP PAGE and you will find yourself on the VERSION screen.

VERSION

The VERSION screen shows you the firmware version number, release date and time, and the firmware version number stored in the EEPROM. LP ENT to backup the entire EEPROM to the SD card. The bootloader version is not displayed on the VERSION screen.

NOTE: The bootloader version is shown at the top of the bootloader screen. To get to the bootloader screen turn on the Taranis while simultaneously pressing both horizontal trims inward toward each other.

NOTE: As it comes from the factory, the Taranis SD card is about 99% empty. There is plenty of room to make backups of your EEPROM. Backing up every once in a while is a good practice.

From the VERSION menu SP PAGE and you will find yourself on the SWITCH TEST screen.

SWITCH TEST

Switch-Test

The SWITCH TEST screen allows you to test the six menu navigation buttons and the four trim switches on the Taranis. When a button or switch is pressed the corresponding entry on the screen will change from 0 to 1. When the switch is released the value will return to 0.

When the PAGE button is pressed the highlighted entry will change to 1 and then the screen will quickly change to the ANALOG INPUTS screen. LP PAGE to return to SWITCH TEST. Correspondingly pressing EXIT will cause the Exit entry to change to 1 then quickly take you back to the model screen you were at before you entered RADIO SETUP. LP MENU then SP PAGE 4 times to return to SWITCH TEST.

From the SWITCH TEST menu SP PAGE and you will find yourself on the
ANALOG INPUTS screen.

ANALOG INPUTS

If you completed the Checking Out Taranis course, then you will have seen the ANALOG INPUTS screen before. It is where you entered your battery calibration value. This screen is also where you can see the value of the raw data the Taranis outputs as a result of moving one of it’s analog devices: gimbals, sliders, and pots. A1 – A4 are the gimbals, A5 & A6 are the pots, and A8 & A9 are the sliders. The entry on the left is the raw data, and on the right is the value -100 to 100 of the analog input. Do not fret that the raw value varies by 1 or 2 units. The variance you see is way to little to be of any consequence.

NOTE: As of version 2.08, moving the right pot causes both A6 and A7 to vary, but not equally. A6 is the correct value for the right hand pot. A7 is for an additional analog input available on the back board of the Taranis Plus. Why it varies when the right pot is moved, we don’t know.

From the ANALOG INPUTS menu SP PAGE and you will find yourself on the
HARDWARE screen.

HARDWARE

The HARDWARE screen shows the installed pots, and the status of the serial port (located in the battery compartment). There is no third pot on the Taranis. The Taranis Plus has a third pot connector on the back board. Is this the mysterious A7 analog input? We believe so.

From the HARDWARE menu SP PAGE and you will find yourself on the CALIBRATION screen.

CALIBRATION

You should already know what this screen does. If you don’t, then you didn’t complete the Checking Out Taranis course and your transmitter is not calibrated. Performing calibration is necessary so that the Taranis knows exactly where the center and limits of each gimbal, pot, and slider is.

Press ENT to start the calibration process.

Now center both sliders, both pots. Now move the throttle stick to the CENTER of it’s range, and make sure the other sticks are centered as well. Then press ENT, and you are done. The Taranis is now calibrated.

CONGRATULATIONS!

That’s every screen in the Radio Setup group of screens. You should now know how to configure the global radio settings, navigate the SD card, view model images, play sounds, backup the EEPROM, calibrate the gimbals, sliders and pots, test the menu buttons and trim switches, find out what version of firmware is running on your Taranis, and a whole lot more.

What do you think? Are you ready to learn how to setup a model? If so, go on to the next series of lessons: Basic Airplane Setup with Taranis. Here you will learn how to configure a basic 5 channel airplane.