Ethos v1.0.1 - on an X10S

[Bob Cotsford]

Just for giggles I've loaded Ethos on my upgraded X10S.  Loading was a simple affair, after first making backups of my X10S SDcard, firmware, models and settings.  First step, download the X10S version of Ethos complete with SD card contents from GitHub and copying the SD card contents to a freshly formatted FAT32 card.  I also copied my Amber user sounds and my custom images to SOUNDS/EN and IMAGES respectively.  Next copy the downloaded x10 'Firmware.bin' to the root of the SD card.  '.jpg' images seem to work ok, as do the Amber sound pack.  Next fire up Companion and hook up the transmitter (switched off).  Select Write Firmware and select the Ethos 'Bootloader.bin' extracted from the download.  It will throw up an 'incompatible hardware' message but that can be ignored.  Once it finishes writing eject the STM Bootloader and disconnect the transmitter.  Now switch on while holding down Enter and the bootloader writes the firmware from the SD card then deletes the file.  When the display returns to Bootloader then it's just a matter of restarting the tx. 

Ignore the 'cannot read SD card' as it's looking for the Models folder which hasn't been created yet.  Now you will see the model wizard so it's easy to build a first basic model.

I've got to say that Ethos is generally pleasant to use, though editing names using the scroll wheel gets tedious as upper and lower case are selected by scrolling until you get to the case you want, unlike OpenTX where you can change case by long pressing enter.  Forget 'Inputs', it's all in 'Mixers'.

Moving from OpenTX to Ethos and creating two models took me a couple of hours, but that includes time spent looking for things with my OpenTX head on.  For instance, I use the rotary switch for motor disarm so I spent some time setting this up with a mix using replace (after looking for Override Channel in special functions and not finding it) when all along Throttle Cut is a setting on the Throttle mix line.  Similarly instead of Volume being set as a global function it can be set as a control on the  System/Sounds page.

Once a PC application similar to Companion appears I think Ethos will be a real contender but it's early days at present.

[GrumpyGnome]

Cheers Bob, good info.

[Ron Gray]

Thanks Bob, sounds like you need to have your FrSky OS head on rather than OpenTx head when you start to use ETHOS. Still think that I’ll wait a bit longer before (maybe) taking the plunge.

[GrumpyGnome]

I'll probably stick to OTX until there is a compelling reason not to........ OTX is capable of far more than I need/understand.......

 

GG

[Bob Cotsford]

Hard to say as I've been using nothing but OpenTX since 2014 but I suspect newcomers to FrSky would find Ethos far easier to work through than OpenTX, which sometimes has too many ways of working leaving you wondering which is the 'right' way to do something.  Lots of neat touches that I've come across so far, for instance selecting a switch, stick or trim as a control by toggling it (like OTX so far) but then select NOT(eg not switch n^) by long pressing Enter and ticking the negative box, no scrolling through long lists of switches, trims, channels to find eg !SA^.  Throttle cut and throttle hold are built in in the throttle parameters where they belong, no need for replace mixes or overrides there.

edit - sounds are much clearer on my X10S than they ever were using OTX, and I'm talking about the same sound files, eg 'Armed' and 'Disarmed' so it must be a better device driver used in Ethos.  If only there was support for 4 in 1 MPM modules!  Still, I have my Taranis for that use as it will have to stay on OpenTX.

Edited April 11, 2021 by Bob Cotsford

[MattyB]

13 hours ago, GrumpyGnome said:

I'll probably stick to OTX until there is a compelling reason not to........ OTX is capable of far more than I need/understand.......

 

GG

If you are already well accustomed to OpenTX and are happy with your current TX hardware I can’t see any reason to change. The problem comes if you fancy an X20 TX - they are ETHOS only, so at that point you have no option. My concerns are a) it could take a looooong time for ETHOS to reach OTX levels of capability (for instance I understand there are no GVARs at this point), and b) I have way less trust in Frsky at this point than OTX to squish bugs and respond to customer requests.
 

Time will tell, but if I was going for a proprietary based system Frsky would not be too of my list, and that is coming as a 9 year user of their kit...

Edited April 11, 2021 by MattyB

[Bob Cotsford]

Matty, I can understand your lack of confidence after the ACCST v2 debacle.  On the other hand, prior to this with the exception of the EU/LBT changes which were outside FrSky's control, my D16 system has just chugged along quite happily since 2014 and D8 since 2012ish?  OpenTX on the other hand has seen a continuous stream of releases, some enhancements but a great many bug fixes too.  Too many cooks trying to satisfy too many diverse requirements?

Ethos development is being led by Bertrand Songis, previously at the core of the OpenTX team so I have every hope that a fully functional  and resilient system will be released before too long as long as  The Management don't interfere too much?.  I read that Gvars are in the pipeline and should be in the 'production' release version.  For a beta test release I'm already impressed with the usability of Ethos.  It may not yet have ALL the more esoteric features of OpenTX and I doubt that it ever will but it should still be a step above other proprietary systems.

Edited April 12, 2021 by Bob Cotsford

[Bob Cotsford]

One drawback revealed - Neuron esc telemetry isn't indexed correctly so you see stuff like SBECV as 50v and the inclusion of an RB field or two even though I'm not using a redundancy board.  Other than that it registers and binds ok, throttle cut cuts the  throttle, it's easy to set rates and end points and the audio is nice and clear.

I'll try it with FAS40 and Unisens current sensors on a vanilla HK esc later today with a bit of luck.

[Chris Bott - Moderator]

Looking good Bob. I'm sure those issues are simply 'cos it's way days. 

 

I'm having a play with Access protocol on my X12 and today found that my home brew (openXsensor) telemetry sensors don't work with the Access Rx I've bought. Well one does and 4 others don't, go-figure. Let's not take this thread away from Ethos though. I'll post my issue in another thread. 

[Tim Ballinger]

Bob, interesting re the neuron parameters . On the Horus OS it only ever recorded ESC values( correctly) and never the BEC values . (They were there because I know you got them ok on OpenTx).

Plus none of the neuron TM values appeared in the TM log which was very annoying. 
Are they there now ?

 

Tim

 

[Bob Cotsford]

Ah well Tim, I had used a global setting for starting logs on Otx for so long that I'd forgotten to set up a trigger in  Ethos where it appears to need a trigger switch for each model.  I've not tried it again - yet - but Bertrand has replicated the error and is working on a fix.

[Tim Ballinger]

Indeed Horus OS always required a trigger for each model. I always use Rx volts as a trigger.

Tim

[Bob Cotsford]

Neuron telemetry fixed, at least in a test version Bertrand sent me, so it should be included in the next release.  Calculated values may take a little longer to appear as he is being kept on his toes.

[Mike Blandford]

Out of interest I flashed my Jumper T16 with the X10 ETHOS file. It does run with only a couple of problems. One is the rotary encoder that is incorrectly wired on the T16 so is a bit unreliable but can be used. The other is the right pot and both sliders don't work. This is a bit of a surprise as the openTx hal.h file indicates these are on the same processor pins as the X10/X10S. I just wondered if these work OK on your X10S and if anyone has tried ETHOS on a X10 (non-S).

It is just possible there is a bug and these don't work if the sticks are using normal analog inputs instead of the hall PWM inputs.

 

It was very easy for me to flash ETHOS since I use erskyTx normally, all I had to do was flash the ETHOS file using eepskye, and revert to erskyTx by flashing that. No need to use the special bootloader.

 

Mike

[Bob Cotsford]

Everything works on my X10S Mike, volume on RS, gain on right pot.  Everything moved in calibration too.

Flashing was surprisingly easy, bootloader using Companion and firmware using enter+power.  I found it a simple task to put an update on, I put the new firmware.bin on an old 2GB card, popped the card into the transmitter, enter+power, put the SD card with sounds and models back in and job's a good'un.

One BIG difference for SxR users is that when I ran the built in SXR tools the settings populated immediately even with the tx within a foot of the model, no waiting for yellow lights, moving the tx to the next room etc. that you needed to go through with OpenTX.

That was with an Access SR6, I'll try the same with an ACCST S6R if I get time later.

 

edit - it will be interesting to see if flashing OTX back on using the Ethos bootloader works cleanly.  In theory I should just need to put the otx file in the OTX SD card root and rename it to 'firmware', but we all know how well theory can go in practise!

Edited April 15, 2021 by Bob Cotsford

[Mike Blandford]

My current guess is there is a problem between radios having analog sticks and hall sensor giving PWM sticks. The number of analog signals to read changes by four, and the T16 is missing four values!

If using an ISRM module, then the sending of the SPort requests to the Rx is more positive. The older, SPort method requires waiting for the module to poll for a request. If you respond to a poll, it then polls more frequently for a while, but if you don't respond the polling rate drops. In the script I use with erskyTx I keep responding to the polls, with a null response if necessary, so the module keeps polling at a high rate. Combined with retries for anything missing, I get everything populated within about a second. The LUA script for openTx could be modified to do the same. I believe someone did do that, but it is not in the "official" LUA script.

 

eepskye should recognise the openTx bootloader as well as the erskyTx one, so if you have the openTx bootloader on your radio, you should be able to flash either openTx or ETHOS directly over USB from eepskye.

 

I've run a disassembly of the ETHOS firmware and I'm looking to see what it does for reading the analog inputs. I've already found the bit of code that does it. If I'm really lucky I'll be able to patch it to make it work!

 

Mike

[Andy48]

2 hours ago, Bob Cotsford said:

Everything works on my X10S Mike, volume on RS, gain on right pot.  Everything moved in calibration too.

Flashing was surprisingly easy, bootloader using Companion and firmware using enter+power.  I found it a simple task to put an update on, I put the new firmware.bin on an old 2GB card, popped the card into the transmitter, enter+power, put the SD card with sounds and models back in and job's a good'un.

One BIG difference for SxR users is that when I ran the built in SXR tools the settings populated immediately even with the tx within a foot of the model, no waiting for yellow lights, moving the tx to the next room etc. that you needed to go through with OpenTX.

That was with an Access SR6, I'll try the same with an ACCST S6R if I get time later.

 

edit - it will be interesting to see if flashing OTX back on using the Ethos bootloader works cleanly.  In theory I should just need to put the otx file in the OTX SD card root and rename it to 'firmware', but we all know how well theory can go in practise!

Another one I eventually discovered, is that after updating the firmware on the ACCST SxR, you can no longer use the bind button on the receiver to perform the self check, you have to use the CH12 procedure.

[Bob Cotsford]

I've not noticed as I use ch12 after the receiver is installed.  I think I tried the button once or twice when I got my first S6R but not since updating to ACCST v2.10.  Is the ch12 timing different to ACCST v1?

[Chris Bott - Moderator]

Beware that the Archer/ACCESS stabilisers appear to have a very slightly different self check procedure.

Handbook(leaflet) says, for this step, "Different from the SXR/R9 Stab OTA/RB series".

So is this different?

 

For these, self check is still initiated with a few switches of Ch12.
Stab goes into 8-9 seconds of checking it's attitude and centres, servos won't move during this period but you shouldn't move the sticks Blue LED stays steady ON. 

Then there's a similar period with Blue LED flashing where you need to hit the gimbal extremes on highest rates for A,E &R.
Finally the surfaces do the waggle dance to signify self check complete.

 

PS It's not ideal if you can't see the blue LED, which is likely in the majority of models. You just have to guess the timings.

[Bob Cotsford]

Yes, I guessed the timing on my WotsWot to save taking the bottom wing off (again !) and it seems to have worked out ok.

[Chris Bott - Moderator]

Haha, spookily my first one is in a WotsWot and I've had the bottom wing off numerous times in the last couple of days.

Mainly due to telemetry issues but the last time 'cos I hadn't mounted the stab firmly enough ?.

[Bob Cotsford]

It's a shame that they didn't think to put the LED on a flylead seeing as it's a useful indicator of what's going on normally besides being pretty essential for calibration.

[Andy J]

Bob about to take the plunge and change over to ETHOS on my X10S. Do you still recommend the SW over the FRSky OS?

 

Finding the FRSky system far to complex at times and almost impossible to improve the vario settings, so it time to try something new.

 

One query I would have is it possible to keep existing model settings by retaining the files on the SD card?  Starting point would be to copy across all the content of the SD card to my PC just as a back up anyway.

[MattyB]

53 minutes ago, Andy Joyce said:

Bob about to take the plunge and change over to ETHOS on my X10S. Do you still recommend the SW over the FRSky OS?

 

Finding the FRSky system far to complex at times and almost impossible to improve the vario settings, so it time to try something new.

 

One query I would have is it possible to keep existing model settings by retaining the files on the SD card?  Starting point would be to copy across all the content of the SD card to my PC just as a back up anyway.

 

You can download all your FrOS model settings if you wish as a backup in case you want to flash your X10 back to FrOS, but there is no automated conversion from FrOS model files to ETHOS as far as I am aware. You will have to face the fact that Frsky have abondoned FrOS fully as almost no-one was using it, so you will have to programme your models from scratch in ETHOS if you go that route.

[Andy J]

That's a  shame Matty. Still tempted to make the change as probably have only about 6 or 7 models on the X10S.

 

Bottom line is do those that use it on X10S think it better than OpenTx as have avoided that system as understood the User Interface was just as poor although it allows a lot more flexibility.