Receiver doesn't work in betaflight receiver tab

[Jeremy T]

Hi guys! I'm having a bit of trouble getting my drone to work. This is the first drone I have made and I am having trouble getting the receiver to work in the receiver tab in betaflight. I've read many forums but I still can't work out the problem.
Parts I'm using:

FlySky FS-i6 transmitter
FlySky FS-R6B receiver
Racerstar StarF4S 30A Blheli_S Dshot 4 in 1 ESC AIO F4 OSD Flight Controller w/ BEC Current Sensor

The transmitter and receiver are bound (the red light stays solid when the transmitter is on).
I have connected the receiver to the G, 5V and SBUS tabs on the Racerstar FC at the front right-hand corner.
In betaflight I have tried all the serial RX ports (none of them work) and the receiver is set to a serial based receiver on the SBUS setting (I have also tried IBUS with no difference).

With everything set up the receiver still doesn't work in the receiver tab in betaflight. I have no clue what is wrong. Is there a setting I need to change in the transmitter or in betaflight or are the parts just not compatible? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Primoz_Horvath]

I had same issues when building my tyro89. I have the same transmitter and it works now fine with IBUS. I suggest you check youtube for some Racerstar build videos, maybe you will find some information overthere.

 

[HighTechPauper]

Welcome to the forum @Jeremy T, I don't run Flysky so I don't know much about it but hopefully someone here can help. One thing that may be an issue is that SBUS is an inverted protocol (means logic is reversed) but IBUS is a non-inverted protocol, so you may need to move the wire from the SBUS pad to some other RX input.

 

[Jeremy T]

Welcome to the forum @Jeremy T, I don't run Flysky so I don't know much about it but hopefully someone here can help. One thing that may be an issue is that SBUS is an inverted protocol (means logic is reversed) but IBUS is a non-inverted protocol, so you may need to move the wire from the SBUS pad to some other RX input.

Thanks for your help!
Would the RX input be the one labeled RX6 on the flight controller? Would the betaflight settings remain as SBUS or should I try IBUS?

 

[HighTechPauper]

First let me say, you may need to use PPM instead of IBUS since the Racerstar doesn't have many inputs available to you (but RX6 may work if it is free), that is one reason I hate this board.

This isn't an easy thing to figure out, it is a Racerstar board that was designed (poorly) to be built in a certain way, in this case they expected an SBUS RX or for you to use PPM. If there is an RX6 that is not being used for ANYTHING else you may want to try and wire the RX signal to that since it is likely and un-inverted RX port and may very well work. I hate to tell you but that AIO FC/ESC will be an expensive route once any of the built in pieces fails since EVERYTHING is on one board, once something fails the whole board is pretty much useless, but you can cross that bridge if you get there (this is the second reason I hate this board).

Keep in mind that SBUS and IBUS are not interchangeable in the BF configuration, so once you have it wired to the other port (RX6, hopefully an un-inverted RX), you will then need it to be set to IBUS in BF, and have the correct port configured for Serial RX, or it won't work.

If everything is working properly all you need to worry about is finding a free RX that isn't labeled SBUS, wiring the RX signal to that spot, configuring the correct port in the Ports tab and proper IBUS config in the Configuration tab, and it should work.

There is really quite a bit to know in this hobby, that is one reason it is a hobby for tinkerer type people. I hope this makes some sense, I know when we are new to the hobby much of it doesn't make sense because we don't know enough yet. When I start a build I think about what I am going to use, and exactly where it will get wired and exactly what I expect the configuration to be when it's done, it makes the build a whole lot easier.

 

[Jeremy T]

First let me say, you may need to use PPM instead of IBUS since the Racerstar doesn't have many inputs available to you (but RX6 may work if it is free), that is one reason I hate this board.

This isn't an easy thing to figure out, it is a Racerstar board that was designed (poorly) to be built in a certain way, in this case they expected an SBUS RX or for you to use PPM. If there is an RX6 that is not being used for ANYTHING else you may want to try and wire the RX signal to that since it is likely and un-inverted RX port and may very well work. I hate to tell you but that AIO FC/ESC will be an expensive route once any of the built in pieces fails since EVERYTHING is on one board, once something fails the whole board is pretty much useless, but you can cross that bridge if you get there (this is the second reason I hate this board).

Keep in mind that SBUS and IBUS are not interchangeable in the BF configuration, so once you have it wired to the other port (RX6, hopefully an un-inverted RX), you will then need it to be set to IBUS in BF, and have the correct port configured for Serial RX, or it won't work.

If everything is working properly all you need to worry about is finding a free RX that isn't labeled SBUS, wiring the RX signal to that spot, configuring the correct port in the Ports tab and proper IBUS config in the Configuration tab, and it should work.

There is really quite a bit to know in this hobby, that is one reason it is a hobby for tinkerer type people. I hope this makes some sense, I know when we are new to the hobby much of it doesn't make sense because we don't know enough yet. When I start a build I think about what I am going to use, and exactly where it will get wired and exactly what I expect the configuration to be when it's done, it makes the build a whole lot easier.

Thanks for the tips!
I tried wiring the signal wire to the RX6 pad and used the IBUS settings but it didn't make a difference in BF. Do you think I should try flashing the firmware or will that make no difference?
Also, do you think I should just swap out the Racerstar FS/ESC combo for a different, separate FC and ESCs? If so, which ones do you recommend?

 

[HighTechPauper]

I really wish I knew more about Flysky stuff so I could be more certain what needs to happen to help you, but unfortunately I don't. I wouldn't swap that stuff out since these parts are expensive and it will eventually break anyway so you might as well get some use out of it before that happens. I have seen in posts a number of times lately where it is the BF rev that is the culprit for the RX not being seen by the FC, but I am not sure of what revs or which FC's might show the issue, what rev of BF is on your FC?

 

[Jeremy T]

I really wish I knew more about Flysky stuff so I could be more certain what needs to happen to help you, but unfortunately I don't. I wouldn't swap that stuff out since these parts are expensive and it will eventually break anyway so you might as well get some use out of it before that happens. I have seen in posts a number of times lately where it is the BF rev that is the culprit for the RX not being seen by the FC, but I am not sure of what revs or which FC's might show the issue, what rev of BF is on your FC?

How do you find out which rev is on it?

 

[HighTechPauper]

How do you find out which rev is on it?

There are a number of ways to find it, you can go to the CLI tab in Betaflight and do a version command or maybe dump command and it will be in the first few lines of output, or if you hit the button near the top right side of the main interface (just below the port setting and connect button) to "Show Log" you can scroll back through the connection log to find it.

 

[Jeremy T]

There are a number of ways to find it, you can go to the CLI tab in Betaflight and do a version command or maybe dump command and it will be in the first few lines of output, or if you hit the button near the top right side of the main interface (just below the port setting and connect button) to "Show Log" you can scroll back through the connection log to find it.

Here it is from the dump:

# version
# Betaflight / LUXF4OSD (LUX4) 4.1.5 Mar 16 2020 / 05:12:24 (d4e74e39c) MSP API: 1.42

 

[HighTechPauper]

OK, so you are running BF rev 4.1.5 on a Lux F4 FC with OSD built in, unfortunately that doesn't tell us what is going on, and we don't know if it is an issue, but with you being new to the hobby it is not a wise idea to be flashing the FC so I wouldn't yet. Have you watched the Youtube videos by Joshua Bardwell's "How To" series or anything to learn kind of the basics? The Flysky stuff is going to be a little different since so few people use it that you will have trouble finding videos to help you figure things out, but there are some out there if you search enough. And come to think of it, the first thing you may want to search for is "configuring Flysky radio for IBus" since I don't think the radio is set like that from the factory, it could be why it isn't working (if I remember correctly).

 

[Jeremy T]

OK, so you are running BF rev 4.1.5 on a Lux F4 FC with OSD built in, unfortunately that doesn't tell us what is going on, and we don't know if it is an issue, but with you being new to the hobby it is not a wise idea to be flashing the FC so I wouldn't yet. Have you watched the Youtube videos by Joshua Bardwell's "How To" series or anything to learn kind of the basics? The Flysky stuff is going to be a little different since so few people use it that you will have trouble finding videos to help you figure things out, but there are some out there if you search enough. And come to think of it, the first thing you may want to search for is "configuring Flysky radio for IBus" since I don't think the radio is set like that from the factory, it could be why it isn't working (if I remember correctly).

Thanks so much for your help!
I'll do some research and see what I come up with.

 

[Jeremy T]

Ok!
I got it working finally! I hadn't connected the receiver up properly, the signal wire was in the wrong spot on the actual receiver, not on the FC. Thanks so much for all your help! I'm going to go and fly my first drone now!

 

[Pruthviraj Dongare]

Hey I also having same issue my receiver is not giving any input to transmitter. What should I do about it.