How To Connect Receiver To Flight Controller

This is short guide that takes you through the bare essentials of setting up any quadcopter (i.east. whatsoever flight controller) with BetaFlight as quickly every bit possible. To reiterate, we're just going over the basics – that means no fancy PID tuning or optional extras similar setting upwardly LED'southward!

This guide is aimed at beginners and if you accept whatever questions most the guide, please let u.s. know in the comments section at the lesser of the page.

🚨 Warning:
Earlier performing any configuration on your quadcopter brand sure to remove the propellers first. Declining to do so tin can effect in serious injury.

First Things Get-go

The starting time step you should take is in the 'Setup' tab. Hither you will notice a button that says 'Calibrate Accelerometer' – and this is exactly what you should do. To do this right, y'all need to make sure your flight controller is stationary on a very level surface, then click the 'Calibrate Accelerometer' button. Later a few seconds it will complete.

It is also a essential to check that BetaFlight knows the correct orientation of your quad. This could be incorrect at first because the flight controller may be mounted upside downward, back to front, or otherwise misaligned. If you head over to the 'Setup' tab, yous will see a 3D model of your quad in the middle of the screen. This should move correctly in relation how you movement it in real-life. Then if you tilt it down, the 3D model should likewise tilt down.

⚠️Note:
The dark-green arrow on the 3D render should be on top of your quad and indicates the forrard management of your quad in real life – it may not point in the same direction equally your quad, however, equally long as your quad tilts in the correct management relative to these two reference points (you tilt forrard and the green pointer tilts forward) you're okay.

If everything looks correct here you can move onto the next step. If non, y'all will need to tell BetaFlight the right orientation. This is done in the 'Configuration' tab and, more specifically, in the 'Board and Sensor Alignment' box. You will then need to modify the bending (in degrees) until the model moves correctly. The most common correction needed is to add some Yaw offset. So if the model on screen rolls when yous pitch the quad forward, you volition need to change the yaw degree by xc degrees. Yous can right it by trial and error if you don't know the correct degree change instantly. A useful tip is to use the drib downward box to select a preset bending offset. Call back to hit 'Save and Reboot' later on you make the change, otherwise it'll reset to defaults after you move off the tab.

Setting Upwardly Your Receiver

Next, nosotros'll move on to setting upwardly your receiver on your quad. Before following the procedure I'grand about to set out, please make certain that your receiver is bound to your radio transmitter, and correctly continued to your flight controller. Otherwise, none of this will piece of work… If you are unsure how to practise this, check out your receiver and/or radio transmission. We've also created several lilliputian guides that should assistance to accept you through these processes:

How to bind the FlySky i6.
How to bind a Spektrum receiver
How to bind and setup a FrSky receiver

What type of receiver are you using?

So, what receiver are you using? Yous are likely to be using one of the following brands: FrSky, FlySky or Spektrum. If you've got anFrSky receiver, y'all're likely to accept either a PPM or SBUS receiver. ForFlySky, it's likely to be PPM, SBUS or IBUS, and forSpecktrum, y'all will accept either DSM2 or DSMX. Information technology is important to know this, as the settings are specific to each receiver.

📖 If this is similar another linguistic communication to yous, check out our R/C receiver protocols guide!

Once you've established what type of receiver you've got hooked upwards to your quad, you lot can get to the corresponding department below to see how to prepare it upward in betaflight.

PPM Receiver

Configuring a PPM receiver in betaflight is very easy. All you demand to practise is become to the 'Configuration Tab' and scroll down to the 'Receiver' department and select PPM RX every bit the receiver blazon. Assuming that your receiver is continued to the correct PPM in pin on your flight controller, and it is bound to your radio, it should at present work. Don't forget to striking the Salvage button in the lesser right of the screen to apply the settings.

SBUS/IBUS/DSM Receiver (Serial Receiver)

Ports Configuration Screen in Betaflight

If you are using a SBUS, IBUS, DSM. receiver, you will demand to go to the 'Ports Tab' to enable the the'Serial RX' cavalcade. The important affair hither is that yous will have to enable it on the corresponding UART port that your receiver is connected to. You tin can accept a look at your FC manual for the pinout of your board to gain this information.

In this picture shown, we are using a FrSky SBUS receiver (the X4R) and so we take enabled the Serial RX on UART6. Once selected don't forget to salve the settings.

To finalise your receiver setup, you lot so need to go to the 'Configuration Tab'. In curlicue down to the receiver section where y'all will need to tell betaflight what type of receiver you are using.

Start select the Receiver Mode to Series-based Receiver
And then select the Serial Receiver Provider to one of the post-obit (dependant on your receiver type):

Serial Receiver Manufacturer	Betaflight Setting
Frsky	SBUS
FlySky	IBUS
Spektrum (Satellite, DSM, DSMX)	SPEKTRUM1024 or SPEKTRUM2048 depending on your exact receiver model
TBS Crossfire	CRSFDon't pay attending to the accented position of the quad on the screen i.due east. if your quad is pointing 'forwards' and this isn't replicated on screen, don't worry about it.

Select the appropriate receiver settings in Betaflight

Depending on which receiver yous are using, select the advisable options from the 2 dropdown menus. Once done press the salve and reboot button to employ the settings.

⚠️Note:
If you are unsure of the type of receiver yous are using, you lot tin select i and see if this is the correct i – this will not break your FC at all.

Check Your Receiver Is Working

Now that you have configured the settings, it is worth checking that is is working properly at this point. Depending on your flight controller you volition likely need to plug in your Lipo battery to provide power to your R/C receiver.

To test the reciever go to the 'Reciever Tab' in betaflight. On this screen you should encounter the bars moving as you motility the sticks and switches on your R/C transmitter. If not, double check your receiver has ability, and is bound to your radio. If it notwithstanding does not work,double check the port and receiver settings in betaflight (every bit discussed in the previous section).

If yous notice that your channels are non mapped correctly (e.g. the roll bar on screen moves when you toggle the pitch stick on your radio), then y'all need to map the channels. Nosotros have a video on how to map the channels for guidance.

You may also find that the end points of your channels are not the correct values. Every aqueduct should showtime at 1000 and stop at 2000 (or as close as possible). Every channel should also have a mid-point of 1500. If this is not the case, check out our Radio Receiver Range Calibration for BetaFlight video.

Failsafe Setup

Setting upwardly your fail-safe is disquisitional to avoid you loosing your drone due to a fly away. This it mainly something you actually attack your R/C radio. Basically you demand to set your throttle channel to output a value beneath 885 in order for the failsafe to activate. This is the default failsafe setup in Betaflight so you practise non need to change anything inside the software if your radio have been configured. Your R/C transmitter transmission should provide details on how to do this.

Organisation Configuration

Now that the receiver has been setup, we tin can now move onto the fine tuning of some settings within betaflight. To start we will check the system configuration box in the 'Configuration Tab'

Hither, you can select your gyro update frequency and PID loop frequency. For almost F4 flying controllers I suggest setting both to 8kHz. Once you do this you will demand to save and reboot your flight controller. Still, you must as well really unplug your flight controller for the gyro update to be applied. Once you accept reconnected double check your CPU load along the bottom bar, as y'all exercise not want information technology running much higher than 20-30% at this point.

Other Features

Nosotros tin can move on to 'Other Features' now which comprises of…other features. Here you can select extra features you want to enable on your quadcopter. Every bit a beginner you don't need to do much here, and equally y'all get more than confident you can read up about what each feature does to examination it out. But there are a few you should make sure are enabled.

BlackBox: Logs your flight data and is generally something you should always enable if your flight controller supports information technology (99% of boards do). This will let you (or someone else) diagnose any issues if you crash or your quad is not flight quite right.
SDcard: If your FC has a SD card slot, enable this function to record the blackbox data onto a SD card which has more memory than a congenital in blackbox.
Other features to revisit at a later stage are Anti Gravity and Dynamic Filtering, both of which tin can amend your quadcopters flight performance if setup correctly. But as a beginner I advise you stay away from this until you have read upward about it first.

Call up to hit save and reboot to utilize your new settings.

ESC and Motor Configuration

The next thing to check is your motors and ESC settings. Showtime nosotros need to tell betaflight what blazon of ESC you are using 'ESC/Motors Feature' box in the'Configuration Tab'.

Hither you need to specify what protocol your ESC's are using. This will obviously depend on what specific ESC y'all are using (see the ESC specifications about which protocol they apply). Yous tin can choose from Oneshot, Multishot, Dshot, and Proshot. Pretty much all BLheli_S ESC nowadays run on Dshot600, so I suggest you showtime with this value if y'all are non certain. If you lot are using a BLheli32 ESC, so select Dshot1200.

Again if you cant find any information nearly your ESC, you can attempt a protocol to see if it works or not. This is discussed in the adjacent section.

Check motors and orientation

At present that you lot have selected an ESC protocol, information technology is a expert idea to actualy test if your motors are working correctly, and spinning the correct mode around. To do this you lot go to the 'Motors tab'

On the motors tab there is a superlative view of a quadcopter. This indicates the motor order (with a number) and the spin management (with the yellow circumvolve). On this screen you are testing that the motors piece of work, simply also the gild and spin direction.

You lot can use the mast slider to quickly examination that all the motors are working, this confirms you have selected the correct motor protocol. The adjacent thing to exam is to make sure that all the motors offset spinning at the aforementioned fourth dimension. If not you lot demand to calibrate your ESC.

If that all works, now yous should turn on each motor on its own using the individual motor sliders. Here you are testing that when yous motility the motor 1 slider upward in betaflight, the motor one on your quadcopter starts spinning (bottom right motor), and spins in the correct rotation (clockwise). If something is not correct you will need to fix that before yous can fly your quadcopter.

Setup Flight Modes

Before yous become out and fly, you should setup the flight modes for your quadcopter. Assuming you lot are reading this section you are a beginner so I suggest y'all configure your flight modes according to our beginner flying modes article.

Go Wing

That covers the basics of what you need to configure to go your quadcopter in a flyable land. Still there are a lot more than settings to tweak and features you lot can enable to get fifty-fifty more out of your FPV quadcopter drone. This includes fine tuning your PID's to go your quadcopter to fly more than precisely, or enable advanced features like notch filters. Yous can even add together bling past setting up some colour LED's.

I exercise suggest you first endeavor to read upward on each topic before playing around with the settings, nosotros take a bunch of guides here on dronetrest, only in that location are loads around the net. It ultimately depends how far down the rabbit hole yous want to get.

If you have any questions be sure to ask over on our friendly drone forums. And I hope this article helped out. Also if you lot accept any suggestions or tips, please let me know on the forums.