Using my own RadioMaster TX16S Mark II transmitter as a controller...I'm so close, but...

[stevefoobar]

I hope someone with more experience with RF than I can help me. I'm using my own transmitter (RadioMaster TX16S Mark II) as a controller. I do not want to use any software controls or mixing if I don't need to. I want to use all the mixes and rates I have configured in the transmitter. I'm using a slightly modified E3D plane as this is the closest to my model (Volantex Saber 920 EPO foam). The elevator, rudder, throttle, and right aileron are all working. All my mixes and rates, much to my delight, are working as expected. But for some reason, I cannot configure the left aileron to work. RF seems to only allow me to configure only one aileron (either Ch. 1 or Ch. 5 but not both) on the right aileron stick (Y axis). I don't understand why. You can see in the screen capture I attached that the left aileron is just drooping for some reason. The E3D model does indeed have a servo for the right wing (Ch. 1) and a servo for the left wing (Ch. 5) exactly how my real Saber 920 is configured as well. I did notice something I don't understand in the Profile (screen capture attached). For the Ch. 1 aileron, I noticed that Input in the Profile says "Y Rotation" instead of what I would have expected which is "Y Axis". That seems odd to me.

I assume I must be doing something wrong. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Thanks a lot!

 

[Flapper]

Two parts:
The "Axis" and "Rotation" names come from Windows - IT is translating your radio channels into those items in the Game Controller setup in Windows. Then RF is taking that from Windows for its configuration. Windows won't let you assign the same control to two different channels, so neither will RF.
Assuming you are already working with a copy of the plane in RF, you will have to edit the left servo there to also respond to Ch 1 (instead of 5), and perhaps reverse it. In your radio, then, only Ch 1 uses the Ail source in mixing.
While cool to be able to use all the fancy features on the radio, it quickly becomes a chore. For every model you want to fly, not only do you have to have a separate model set up in the radio, but you then usually end up with a custom tuned copy of the model in Real Flight. Most of us just dumb down the radio and make it a very basic 8 channel (sticks, sliders, switches) to match the default Interlink setup in RF. Then we use that one model in the radio to control all the different models in RF without any edits.
It is just like some buddy dropped 100 airplanes at your house, all setup differently, and now you have to go through and configure the radio and perhaps change things in each plane, to get it all working.
There are a bunch of threads for older versions about using an OpenTX based radio with RF - many by me. Search for "Taranis" or "OpenTX". It will all be the same, even if your radio has Edge installed.

 

[stevefoobar]

Thank you so much. You've helped already just with the tip about setting both of the plane's servos to the same channel (1). Now I've got a couple of other quirks to figure out. The mixes that were working now have one of the aileron's reversed. I'll play around with this tomorrow. And yes, I'm on EdgeTX but I'll search for the articles on OpenTX and Taranis as you suggested.

I realize this is a custom setup for just one plane, however, for now I only want to use this transmitter and RF for this one particular plane to get better at 3D flying using the same mixes and switch positions that I'll use on my real Saber 920. I presume this is the only way to do this. I have low, medium, and high rates switches, flaps (with elevator mixing), spoilers (with elevator mixing), a Harrier mix (spoilers go up with up elevator and flaps go down with down elevator), Inverse Harrier (this is a really crazy one). And I'm not done with all my mixes yet. I'll be adding a knife edge mix as well, I'm sure. So as you can see, I need this E3D to respond as closely as possible to my real plane using my real transmitter.

Thanks so much!

 

[Flapper]

I did some back reading, and went through this LONG thread again: https://forums.realflight.com/index.php?threads/tx16s-with-usb-connection-as-controller.53453/
And then went even further down the rabbit hole, and bought Evolution. A bit of buyer's remorse, no substantial change at all since my prior version 8. Just the terrible menu access, and the revived really old planes and flying sites. But now I have it.

But...some notes from my resetting things again in the new version:

Referencing your screen shot of the controller setup - The items on the left column are the nominal default things that are controlled using the dedicated RF Interlink for all stock models. On the right is the remapping from your TX via Windows - so whatever radio channel in the Mixer you have using the Ail stick as the source is seen by Windows as the "Y Rotation". Ditto for the other channels. If you used a different channel for Ail, it might come through as "X_Axis" or something else. As we have seen, you can't have the same thing map through to control two different RF channels. But you can fool it!

Pick an unused channel in your radio, and use an otherwise unused variable source (knob, slider or even a 3-pos switch - anything that has a high/neutral/low) as its source. Let's say you picked Ch6 using LS as the source. Go to RF, and pick one of it's high channels that isn't pre-named - it's Ch12, for example, is unused. Define it as a "proportional" control. Use your LS on the TX to link to 12 in RF. Save it all. Back in your radio, change the Source for CH6 to be Ail instead of LS. Now you have your radio using one control for two channels.
Back in RF, go into the model and redefine the second Aileron servo to respond to RF CH 12. If it needs reversing, do that in your radio.
Now you can mix to your hearts content in the radio, using two aileron outputs.

And a side note - in RF 8, and I assume still (but haven't tested in Evolution) one must use centering controls (stick, knob, slider, 3-pos switch) linked to RF Ch5 and CH6. And one must always have something linked to CH6. Or, as that horribly long thread I started this post about discusses, really bad things happen with all the other channels....

 

[stevefoobar]

I'm not sure I understand all this but I'm going to try it when I have a chance and I'll report back. Thank you!

 

[stevefoobar]

I'm very excited to say that I finally figured out how to make it work with the help you provided, which pointed me in the right direction. It still took me hours to understand and experiment with before I figured it out. I don't know if I used the most elegant solution but it's working. In my RadioMaster TX16S Mark II (which uses the open source EdgeTX operating system), I have the right aileron set to channel 1 and the left aileron set to channel 5. But for some still unknown reason, Windows wouldn't ever allow channel 1 and channel 5 to map to the aileron stick at the same time. So in the transmitter (which is configured for my real Saber 920 plane of course), I ended up copying all the aileron mixes and settings from channel 5 to a new channel I created, which was channel 8. My real plane uses only 5 of the 6 channels the receiver has, so sending my real plane's receiver an extra channel 8 signal doesn't matter and won't cause any problems. Having this additional channel 8 though, seemed to allow the Windows joystick calibration to now see the aileron stick as sending two independent signals--channel 1 (right aileron) and channel 8 (a copy of the real channel 5 left aileron). So now when I calibrate I see both channel 1 and channel 8 in Windows joystick calibratoin moving correctly when I move the aileron joystick on the transmitter. Then when I went into RealFlight, it also saw both channels. Then when I went into my modified E3D plane, I simply set the right aileron servo to channel 1 and the left aileron servo to channel 8 and it worked!

I created a short video showing my modified E3D being controlled with my TX16S transmitter.

RealFlight with TX16S.mp4

MP4 File

1drv.ms

Thanks so much for the help Flapper!