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Discussion Taranis Discussion Thread

Bartman

Defender of the Noob!
Personally I say go straight to openTX.

That's what I'm leaning towards. FWIW, the radio is really nice! I'm kind of regretting not just getting the standard Taranis transmitter since it's capable of everything that the other radios can do but it's done so I'm soldiering on. My Hitec Aurora 9 radio and receivers sold so there's no going back! lol
 

BalsaDust

Moderator
Sick looking Q7 here
638BFBC9-8D66-4B6C-93F3-0211B2E5BF03.jpeg
 

TonyHallo

150cc
I have been using the FrSky Taranis system since 2014, I was recently running version 1.52 firmware, they are on version 2.2.3 right now! A friend bought a radio back in 2014 and never used it, his kind wife was nice enough to give him a new Futaba 10 something or other for Christmas so he gave me his unused transmitter, X8R Receiver, and case.
I decided to upgrade the new transmitter to OpenTX 2.0 and see how things go then upgrade my transmitter over the winter. My transmitter has many upgrades that I don't want to loose.
- M9 Hall Effect gimbals
- Futaba Switches
- 2 Watt Speaker
- Larger spreaker grill
- 2000MA Internal Charger
- Six Position switch on S1
Two mods had I wanted to do were the RF Buzz mod and the no click mod. These upgrades were found at the RC Groups Radio Forum. With the speaker upgraded the buzz and click become more apparent. I was reluctant to do these upgrades since it required soldering small surface mount capacitors. With this spare transmitter in hand I decided to take the plunge.
IMG_2530.JPG

The upgrade to 2.2.3 was easy and I was sorry I waited so long to do it. I was even able to copy the models over from the previous version. Once I seen how easy it was I went ahead and upgraded my current radio.
Next I decided to attempt the No Click and RF Buzz mods.
Step one, bought a 10-600 power electronic microscope with 1080 hd display on Banggood, cost about $35 delivered, works great, truly amazing to be honest.
The No Click mod required a 0402 SMD 1uf capacitor, these things are tiny, .040" x .020". I bought 10 of these from Digikey, maybe $.20 each. It took awhile but finally on the 9th capacitor I was able to complete the modification. I got better with each failure. The mod has eliminated the clicking sound while changing the volume setting.
The RF Buzz mod requires 2 0603 SMD 100 pf capacitors, these are soldered across the speaker leads and to ground. I incorrectly ordered 0402 caps for this, way too small. I ended up using 0805 caps and this size worked just fine, much easier to work with, .080" x .050". This mod has eliminated the audio buzz at higher volume settings. The circuit shown below was posted by Barry2020 on the RC Groups Radio forum and was a great help.
I completed both mods and tested the board, everything worked as expected so this board was installed in transmitter I'm currently using, the sliders on newer radio were much smoother than mine so I went ahead and swapped those into my radio as well.

TaranisAudioAmp3.jpg
 
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If you haven't ever heard of these radios and their features here are the highlights as to why they're so popular.

They aren't super expensive
The receivers aren't super expensive
They can run software called OpenTx which controls the radio and allows you to program channels and switches however you'd like. Chances are if you can imagine a certain control scheme for your aircraft, you can program the switches and channels to do it. It isn't super easy but there are a lot of people out there that have figured it out. The Horus radios don't come with OpenTx installed but they can be switched over to OpenTx if you'd like.
There are a lot of sensors available for telemetry back to you on the ground for things like battery voltage, altitude, GPS position, temperature, RSSI strength which is a measure of how strong the transimitter signal is being received at the aircraft, etc., etc., etc.
RSSI strength alone is very desirable since it lets you know when you're receiver is losing signal with the transmitter so you can either land or turn back towards the transmitter
Receivers are generally expandable to use the full number of channels, sometimes as many as 32
Transmitter modules are available that will make your Taranis compatible with your Futaba, JR, Spektrum receivers



Anyone already using one of these radios?

I've had one for 2 years (open tx software) and I love it. The best part is the fact that there are no set output channels, meaning that you have to connect a control to a channel, which is the hardest to learn. Once you figure it out, though, it's super handy. You can mix anything with anything. I'm currently using it to mix flaperons on a plane that was landing way too hot. Since my building was VERY slightly off, activating them caused a slight roll. Change the mix on one side and no more roll.

You can also do things like create phantom channels. You can create your own curves so that you can do things like program the gear doors to open, wait, then close again, all off of the retracts channel. You can delay the retracts, so that they give the doors a chance to open.

It's an extremely versatile Operating System, in other words.
 

TonyHallo

150cc
[QUOTE="

It's an extremely versatile Operating System, in other words.[/QUOTE]

Amen to that. Whatever you can think of you can do with OpenTX
 

TonyHallo

150cc
Went ahead and did the RF Buzz and No Click mods to the second main board. This went much smoother than first one, no rework required! Don't know if it will ever be used but I have a spare, with 64 model capability there's no need for another radio.
 
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