Workaround for Betaflight, VTX or SmartAudio

6 minute read

Since I learned that my Tinyhawk’s upgraded Rushfpv Tank Ultimate mini VTX supports different power levels, I started switching it to 800mW most of the flights. But I was doing it with the key, as the button on the pcb was almost hidden, because of the original orientation of the vtx board. I turned it 90º last time and it became possible to push with the finger. And last Saturday I saw a video from Josha Bardwell on how to setup it on radio.

In short, you supply vtx 1 6 0 0 2 1100 1300 commands in CLI and that’s it. In short.

Parameters are:

  1. Line index (from 0), to see all lines there is a vtx command
  2. Receiver AUX number (from 0)
  3. Band to switch to (0 means no change)
  4. Channel to switch to (0 means no change)
  5. Power value index (from 1) to switch to
  6. AUX range min
  7. AUX range max

In short all this worked well for Mobula6 (messed up min max ranges at the beginning), where I had this: VTX page on Mobula6

And I set 6 position buttons on Boxer like this:

vtx 0 6 0 0 1 900 1100
vtx 1 6 0 0 3 1100 1300
vtx 2 6 0 0 4 1300 1500
vtx 3 6 0 0 5 1500 1700
vtx 4 6 0 0 5 1700 1900
vtx 5 6 0 0 5 1900 2100
save

Skipping power level labeled RCE because it was changing the channel or band so the picture on the screen was partially off.

BTW, power level values are mW converted to dBm (at least for SmartAudio 2.1 as I heard here).

Then in Tinyhawk it did not work for the last power value. I had this for Tinyhawk: VTX page on Tinyhawk

That’s exactly 4 values that this VTX supports and I applied commands in cli:

vtx 0 6 0 0 1 900 1100
vtx 1 6 0 0 2 1100 1300
vtx 2 6 0 0 3 1300 1500
vtx 3 6 0 0 4 1500 1700

###ERROR: PARSE ERROR###

vtx 4 6 0 0 4 1700 1900

###ERROR: PARSE ERROR###

vtx 5 6 0 0 4 1900 2100

###ERROR: PARSE ERROR###

And all with power value index 4 were failing!

Trying to search the Internet I didn’t find any answer or clue. I tried changing to 0-1-2-3 values as JB mentioned for 2.0 SmartAudio, but that did not work.

Then I thought if that’s a border bug with the array len, when you compare index to array len and miss the start-from-zero. I added one more power value, dubbed it…

vtxtable powerlevels 5
vtxtable powervalues 14 23 27 29 29
vtxtable powerlabels 25 200 500 800 MAX
save

and it worked!

vtx 0 6 0 0 1 900 1100
vtx 1 6 0 0 2 1100 1300
vtx 2 6 0 0 3 1300 1500
vtx 3 6 0 0 4 1500 1700
vtx 4 6 0 0 4 1700 1900
vtx 5 6 0 0 4 1900 2100

Maybe if I upgrade the BF on the FC that issue will be gone, but I’ll check it some other day.

Here is the BF logs, just in case:

2024-09-02 @09:57:24 -- OS: **macOS**
2024-09-02 @09:57:24 -- Configurator: **10.10.0 (c97deaf)**
2024-09-02 @10:01:26 -- Serial port successfully opened with ID: 1
2024-09-02 @10:01:26 -- MultiWii API version: **1.42.0**
2024-09-02 @10:01:26 -- Flight controller info, identifier: **BTFL**, version: **4.1.0**
2024-09-02 @10:01:26 -- Running firmware released on: **Oct 16 2019 11:57:34**
2024-09-02 @10:01:26 -- Board: **MTKS/MATEKF411RX(STM32F411)**, version: **0**
2024-09-02 @10:01:26 -- Unique device ID: **0x2300444247500f20303634**
2024-09-02 @10:01:26 -- Craft name: **TH**
2024-09-02 @10:01:26 -- **Arming Disabled**
2024-09-02 @10:01:44 -- CLI mode detected
2024-09-02 @10:02:04 -- Serial port successfully closed
2024-09-02 @10:02:19 -- Serial port successfully opened with ID: 2
2024-09-02 @10:02:19 -- MultiWii API version: **1.42.0**
2024-09-02 @10:02:19 -- Flight controller info, identifier: **BTFL**, version: **4.1.0**
2024-09-02 @10:02:19 -- Running firmware released on: **Oct 16 2019 11:57:34**
2024-09-02 @10:02:19 -- Board: **MTKS/MATEKF411RX(STM32F411)**, version: **0**
2024-09-02 @10:02:19 -- Unique device ID: **0x2300444247500f20303634**
2024-09-02 @10:02:19 -- Craft name: **TH**
2024-09-02 @10:02:19 -- **Arming Disabled**
2024-09-02 @10:02:51 -- CLI mode detected
2024-09-02 @10:02:53 -- Device - Rebooting
2024-09-02 @10:02:53 -- Serial port successfully closed
2024-09-02 @10:02:57 -- Serial port successfully opened with ID: 3
2024-09-02 @10:02:57 -- MultiWii API version: **1.42.0**
2024-09-02 @10:02:57 -- Flight controller info, identifier: **BTFL**, version: **4.1.0**
2024-09-02 @10:02:57 -- Running firmware released on: **Oct 16 2019 11:57:34**
2024-09-02 @10:02:57 -- Board: **MTKS/MATEKF411RX(STM32F411)**, version: **0**
2024-09-02 @10:02:57 -- Unique device ID: **0x2300444247500f20303634**
2024-09-02 @10:02:57 -- Craft name: **TH**
2024-09-02 @10:02:57 -- **Arming Disabled**
2024-09-02 @10:02:57 -- Device - Ready
2024-09-02 @10:03:06 -- CLI mode detected
2024-09-02 @10:03:14 -- Serial port successfully closed
2024-09-02 @10:04:08 -- Serial port successfully opened with ID: 4
2024-09-02 @10:04:08 -- MultiWii API version: **1.42.0**
2024-09-02 @10:04:08 -- Flight controller info, identifier: **BTFL**, version: **4.1.0**
2024-09-02 @10:04:08 -- Running firmware released on: **Oct 16 2019 11:57:34**
2024-09-02 @10:04:08 -- Board: **MTKS/MATEKF411RX(STM32F411)**, version: **0**
2024-09-02 @10:04:08 -- Unique device ID: **0x2300444247500f20303634**
2024-09-02 @10:04:08 -- Craft name: **TH**
2024-09-02 @10:04:08 -- **Arming Disabled**
2024-09-02 @10:04:10 -- CLI mode detected
2024-09-02 @10:04:15 -- Serial port successfully closed
2024-09-02 @10:04:26 -- Serial port successfully opened with ID: 5
2024-09-02 @10:04:26 -- MultiWii API version: **1.42.0**
2024-09-02 @10:04:26 -- Flight controller info, identifier: **BTFL**, version: **4.1.0**
2024-09-02 @10:04:26 -- Running firmware released on: **Oct 16 2019 11:57:34**
2024-09-02 @10:04:26 -- Board: **MTKS/MATEKF411RX(STM32F411)**, version: **0**
2024-09-02 @10:04:27 -- Unique device ID: **0x2300444247500f20303634**
2024-09-02 @10:04:27 -- Craft name: **TH**
2024-09-02 @10:04:27 -- **Arming Disabled**
2024-09-02 @10:04:28 -- CLI mode detected
2024-09-02 @10:05:30 -- Serial port successfully closed
2024-09-02 @10:05:37 -- Serial port successfully opened with ID: 6
2024-09-02 @10:05:37 -- MultiWii API version: **1.42.0**
2024-09-02 @10:05:37 -- Flight controller info, identifier: **BTFL**, version: **4.1.0**
2024-09-02 @10:05:37 -- Running firmware released on: **Oct 16 2019 11:57:34**
2024-09-02 @10:05:37 -- Board: **MTKS/MATEKF411RX(STM32F411)**, version: **0**
2024-09-02 @10:05:37 -- Unique device ID: **0x2300444247500f20303634**
2024-09-02 @10:05:37 -- Craft name: **TH**
2024-09-02 @10:05:37 -- **Arming Disabled**
2024-09-02 @10:05:43 -- CLI mode detected
2024-09-02 @10:05:57 -- Serial port successfully closed
2024-09-02 @10:06:04 -- Serial port successfully opened with ID: 7
2024-09-02 @10:06:04 -- MultiWii API version: **1.42.0**
2024-09-02 @10:06:04 -- Flight controller info, identifier: **BTFL**, version: **4.1.0**
2024-09-02 @10:06:04 -- Running firmware released on: **Oct 16 2019 11:57:34**
2024-09-02 @10:06:04 -- Board: **MTKS/MATEKF411RX(STM32F411)**, version: **0**
2024-09-02 @10:06:04 -- Unique device ID: **0x2300444247500f20303634**
2024-09-02 @10:06:04 -- Craft name: **TH**
2024-09-02 @10:06:04 -- **Arming Disabled**
2024-09-02 @10:06:17 -- EEPROM saved
2024-09-02 @10:06:29 -- CLI mode detected
2024-09-02 @10:06:51 -- Serial port successfully closed
2024-09-02 @10:06:51 -- Device - Rebooting
2024-09-02 @10:07:01 -- Failed to open serial port
2024-09-02 @10:14:55 -- Serial port successfully opened with ID: 8
2024-09-02 @10:14:55 -- MultiWii API version: **1.42.0**
2024-09-02 @10:14:55 -- Flight controller info, identifier: **BTFL**, version: **4.1.0**
2024-09-02 @10:14:55 -- Running firmware released on: **Oct 16 2019 11:57:34**
2024-09-02 @10:14:55 -- Board: **MTKS/MATEKF411RX(STM32F411)**, version: **0**
2024-09-02 @10:14:55 -- Unique device ID: **0x2300444247500f20303634**
2024-09-02 @10:14:55 -- Craft name: **TH**
2024-09-02 @10:14:55 -- **Arming Disabled**
2024-09-02 @10:15:00 -- CLI mode detected
2024-09-02 @10:15:12 -- Serial port successfully closed
2024-09-02 @10:15:18 -- Serial port successfully opened with ID: 9
2024-09-02 @10:15:18 -- MultiWii API version: **1.42.0**
2024-09-02 @10:15:18 -- Flight controller info, identifier: **BTFL**, version: **4.1.0**
2024-09-02 @10:15:18 -- Running firmware released on: **Oct 16 2019 11:57:34**
2024-09-02 @10:15:18 -- Board: **MTKS/MATEKF411RX(STM32F411)**, version: **0**
2024-09-02 @10:15:18 -- Unique device ID: **0x2300444247500f20303634**
2024-09-02 @10:15:18 -- Craft name: **TH**
2024-09-02 @10:15:18 -- **Arming Disabled**
2024-09-02 @10:15:33 -- CLI mode detected
2024-09-02 @10:17:15 -- Serial port successfully closed
2024-09-02 @10:17:20 -- Serial port successfully opened with ID: 10
2024-09-02 @10:17:20 -- MultiWii API version: **1.42.0**
2024-09-02 @10:17:20 -- Flight controller info, identifier: **BTFL**, version: **4.1.0**
2024-09-02 @10:17:20 -- Running firmware released on: **Oct 16 2019 11:57:34**
2024-09-02 @10:17:20 -- Board: **MTKS/MATEKF411RX(STM32F411)**, version: **0**
2024-09-02 @10:17:20 -- Unique device ID: **0x2300444247500f20303634**
2024-09-02 @10:17:20 -- Craft name: **TH**
2024-09-02 @10:17:20 -- **Arming Disabled**
2024-09-02 @10:17:36 -- CLI mode detected
2024-09-02 @10:17:50 -- Device - Rebooting
2024-09-02 @10:17:51 -- Serial port successfully closed
2024-09-02 @10:18:01 -- Failed to open serial port
2024-09-02 @10:18:14 -- Serial port successfully opened with ID: 11
2024-09-02 @10:18:14 -- MultiWii API version: **1.42.0**
2024-09-02 @10:18:14 -- Flight controller info, identifier: **BTFL**, version: **4.1.0**
2024-09-02 @10:18:14 -- Running firmware released on: **Oct 16 2019 11:57:34**
2024-09-02 @10:18:14 -- Board: **MTKS/MATEKF411RX(STM32F411)**, version: **0**
2024-09-02 @10:18:14 -- Unique device ID: **0x2300444247500f20303634**
2024-09-02 @10:18:14 -- Craft name: **TH**
2024-09-02 @10:18:14 -- **Arming Disabled**
2024-09-02 @10:18:22 -- EEPROM saved
2024-09-02 @10:18:39 -- EEPROM saved
2024-09-02 @10:18:50 -- **Arming Enabled**
2024-09-02 @10:18:50 -- **Runaway Takeoff Prevention Enabled**
2024-09-02 @10:18:50 -- Serial port successfully closed
2024-09-02 @10:19:38 -- Serial port successfully opened with ID: 12
2024-09-02 @10:19:39 -- MultiWii API version: **1.42.0**
2024-09-02 @10:19:39 -- Flight controller info, identifier: **BTFL**, version: **4.1.0**
2024-09-02 @10:19:39 -- Running firmware released on: **Oct 16 2019 11:57:34**
2024-09-02 @10:19:39 -- Board: **MTKS/MATEKF411RX(STM32F411)**, version: **0**
2024-09-02 @10:19:39 -- Unique device ID: **0x2300444247500f20303634**
2024-09-02 @10:19:39 -- Craft name: **TH**
2024-09-02 @10:19:39 -- **Arming Disabled**
2024-09-02 @10:19:48 -- EEPROM saved
2024-09-02 @10:19:56 -- CLI mode detected
2024-09-02 @10:20:17 -- Serial port successfully closed
2024-09-02 @10:20:17 -- Device - Rebooting
2024-09-02 @10:20:27 -- Failed to open serial port

Updated:

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