Betaflight, vs Cleanflight or butterflight

Tazman

Active member
Maybe I am miss understanding you, are you saying which radio protocol you use makes a difference in which board software you use?
No I am saying that FrSky has their protocol and they make their own boards, and CrossFire, has their own protocol and they make boards, thus betaflight supports FrSky and crossfire FC. ROMS are hardware, every electronic use a ROM, ROM stands for Read Only MEMORY, in fact ROM would be an incorrect term for a flashable module, as ROM is READ ONLY MEMORY, thus you cannot alter the ROM. However the flash upgradable chip like th F4 and the F7 are used by many different protocols, and is the protocols that get upgraded on the chip, now the chips have faster processing times and can contain much more memory depending on the chip, but anyone can use it for their protocols.
 

PsyBorg

Wake up! Time to fly!
@Bricks
Not being a real quad guy I have a question do some boards play better with different Rom`s. As Tazz never mentioned what board he is using, I have 3 250 size quads and one board that will not work with BF or CF it was not designed to work with these ROMs, it is an older board flies fine for what I do, I would have to dig it out to remember what ROM I had to use.

Just to clear up some misinformation and confusion... here is the evolution of clean flight.. It stopped being updated in 2015...
Betaflight and Raceflight are spin offs of Cleanflight which as Cranialrectosis stated started as base flight as you can see in the video.

Betaflight and Raceflight are the two currently supported and regularly updated systems which are most used today.


Now..to answer your question.. The roms on board an fc are named as such because there is no writing or changes made once the eprom (electronically programmable read only memory) has been flashed with the .hex file to match the flight controller used. The .hex files are what get edited and determine how the flight controller does what it does and are specific to each of the various flight controllers out there.

The *.flights are only there as an GUI (graphical user interface) to make changes on the flight controller so its more convenient then the old school method making all the changes thru the command line structure.

As far as receiver protocols yes they are all proprietary and are manufacturer specific as to how the transmitter sends and or receives information to the receiver. Newer tech like the jumper system allows one radio to communicate with all the major systems using the three main chips used by the various big name makers of radio gear.
 

cranialrectosis

Faster than a speeding face plant!
Mentor
Good video Bill.

You gotta hand it to TimeCop. He got us out of Arduino sketches and writing .hex files in notepad with the Naze32 and BaseFlight. Also for being such an @$$ that people dumped him and built CleanFlight just to get away from him.

While I am at it, a quick shout out to Kaptain Kuk for the KK boards.

The KK2 is where David hooked me with the BatBone tri-copter V tail and was probably the real start of the popular multi-rotor hobby as we know it today. I believe Chad credits that episode with getting him into the hobby too.
 

PsyBorg

Wake up! Time to fly!
There is an even longer 44 minute video that shows the COMPLETE evolution from base flight to present.

David brought a LOT of attention to the hobby. That crazy personality of his offsets that whole Im to nerdy for my shirt thing and instantly hooks people with his enthusiasm.

I used to be like that til I learned all anyone around here wants to do is get stoned or talk cows... David and FGA and Charpu got me all fired up on multirotors after coming here from seeing my first few Flight Test videos and wanting to get back try flying things. I bought a sweet Dynam Pitts Python and quickly learned that 3 mistakes high was never gonna happen with my neck being fused. Then I found FPV and have digressed immensely since hehe

Most of the people in the hobby share the enthusiasm but like everything else there are the selfish ones who destroy everything for everyone else only doing what they want to do good bad or other wise.
 

Tazman

Active member
Good video Bill.

You gotta hand it to TimeCop. He got us out of Arduino sketches and writing .hex files in notepad with the Naze32 and BaseFlight. Also for being such an @$$ that people dumped him and built CleanFlight just to get away from him.

While I am at it, a quick shout out to Kaptain Kuk for the KK boards.

The KK2 is where David hooked me with the BatBone tri-copter V tail and was probably the real start of the popular multi-rotor hobby as we know it today. I believe Chad credits that episode with getting him into the hobby too.
Cleanflight is simply more polished and less mistakes, I started using it and am very happy with the results, it is more stable and seems to give more setting authority. There are a number of FanBoys for betaflight, and nothing wrong with being a FanBoy, as long as you do not push your preference, for my I started with betaflight and it was not showing the results that Cleanflight was giving and I soon saw from others that betaflight has had issues with its older devs that went on to polish what they started. Betaflight may have started it, but others will be the ones to polish and finish it. There are many products and programs that started one place and were perfected elsewhere by others. Just cause your first, does not mean you will be last as well. Sometimes fresh eyes and a new perspective is whats need in a hobby and I see clean flight and others adding that.
 

Tazman

Active member
Not being a real quad guy I have a question do some boards play better with different Rom`s. As Tazz never mentioned what board he is using, I have 3 250 size quads and one board that will not work with BF or CF it was not designed to work with these ROMs, it is an older board flies fine for what I do, I would have to dig it out to remember what ROM I had to use.
Laugh out loud, well yup not sure there was anything mis-info, as I stated and was re-said pretty much exactly as I stated it correctly Roms are the Read Only Memory, and the FC’s are where the Hex and the CLI files are stored for the different FC’s like Fresky, CrossFire, etc. They actually write the firmware that for only the FC, like the F4 and the F7, many company’s use the same chipset and write the firmware that we have access to change via the beta and cleanflight configurators. Now if you actually flash the board with a different version or updated version from a different or higher version of betaflight, well then you can run into issues. However if you just keep the original FC firmware, and alter only the CLI, then you really cannot do much harm unless you start to play with filters and or PIDS. To be sure though, there is no mis-information, well not on my part anyway, perhaps others have a mis-conception, but I got it pretty straight.
 

PsyBorg

Wake up! Time to fly!
The misinformation is you saying Cleanflight is newer then Betaflight and is better when its been unsupported for a few years now.

Clean flight started in 2012 and ended actively being developed in 2017. The only thing it gets now is things developed in Betaflight being merged in like .hex files and some features. Clean flight is old news mate.

Betaflight started in 2014 and didnt really hit main stream popularity until about 2016.

If there is any doubt you can see it all here on the github where all the releases are stored.

Here is the Cleanflight release pages:

https://github.com/cleanflight/cleanflight-configurator/releases

Here is the Betaflight release pages.

https://github.com/betaflight/betaflight/releases

I am glad you are happy with Cleanflight. Everyone in the hobby deserves to be happy. Thats what its all about. Go out and fly just stop telling people Cleanflight is newer and better then Betaflight. Cleanflight compared to Betaflight is like comparing a Tandy Corp COCO II to one of the new Mac Airbooks. Its hard enough for people to understand without getting even more confused being told old stuff is up to date for the new tech coming out.
 

Tazman

Active member
The misinformation is you saying Cleanflight is newer then Betaflight and is better when its been unsupported for a few years now.

Clean flight started in 2012 and ended actively being developed in 2017. The only thing it gets now is things developed in Betaflight being merged in like .hex files and some features. Clean flight is old news mate.

Betaflight started in 2014 and didnt really hit main stream popularity until about 2016.

If there is any doubt you can see it all here on the github where all the releases are stored.

Here is the Cleanflight release pages:

https://github.com/cleanflight/cleanflight-configurator/releases

Here is the Betaflight release pages.

https://github.com/betaflight/betaflight/releases

I am glad you are happy with Cleanflight. Everyone in the hobby deserves to be happy. Thats what its all about. Go out and fly just stop telling people Cleanflight is newer and better then Betaflight. Cleanflight compared to Betaflight is like comparing a Tandy Corp COCO II to one of the new Mac Airbooks. Its hard enough for people to understand without getting even more confused being told old stuff is up to date for the new tech coming out.
Nope never said newer, just better, and more updated and runs cleaner please quote me properly.
 

Tazman

Active member
The misinformation is you saying Cleanflight is newer then Betaflight and is better when its been unsupported for a few years now.

Clean flight started in 2012 and ended actively being developed in 2017. The only thing it gets now is things developed in Betaflight being merged in like .hex files and some features. Clean flight is old news mate.

Betaflight started in 2014 and didnt really hit main stream popularity until about 2016.

If there is any doubt you can see it all here on the github where all the releases are stored.

Here is the Cleanflight release pages:

https://github.com/cleanflight/cleanflight-configurator/releases

Here is the Betaflight release pages.

https://github.com/betaflight/betaflight/releases

I am glad you are happy with Cleanflight. Everyone in the hobby deserves to be happy. Thats what its all about. Go out and fly just stop telling people Cleanflight is newer and better then Betaflight. Cleanflight compared to Betaflight is like comparing a Tandy Corp COCO II to one of the new Mac Airbooks. Its hard enough for people to understand without getting even more confused being told old stuff is up to date for the new tech coming out.
Although, now that you mention it, it would also be newer as it did come after betaflight, and it has differences and runs cleaner, so ya I guess you could even say newer as well, as it did come after betaflight, so ya now I am going to say newer as well, there I just said newer.
 

Tazman

Active member
The misinformation is you saying Cleanflight is newer then Betaflight and is better when its been unsupported for a few years now.

Clean flight started in 2012 and ended actively being developed in 2017. The only thing it gets now is things developed in Betaflight being merged in like .hex files and some features. Clean flight is old news mate.

Betaflight started in 2014 and didnt really hit main stream popularity until about 2016.

If there is any doubt you can see it all here on the github where all the releases are stored.

Here is the Cleanflight release pages:

https://github.com/cleanflight/cleanflight-configurator/releases

Here is the Betaflight release pages.

https://github.com/betaflight/betaflight/releases

I am glad you are happy with Cleanflight. Everyone in the hobby deserves to be happy. Thats what its all about. Go out and fly just stop telling people Cleanflight is newer and better then Betaflight. Cleanflight compared to Betaflight is like comparing a Tandy Corp COCO II to one of the new Mac Airbooks. Its hard enough for people to understand without getting even more confused being told old stuff is up to date for the new tech coming out.
It sure does run better, not near as many issues, and glitches. Settings actually have meaning and well the proof is in the pudding, the quad runs better, than on betaflight, so ya I would say that makes it better.
 

Tazman

Active member
The misinformation is you saying Cleanflight is newer then Betaflight and is better when its been unsupported for a few years now.

Clean flight started in 2012 and ended actively being developed in 2017. The only thing it gets now is things developed in Betaflight being merged in like .hex files and some features. Clean flight is old news mate.

Betaflight started in 2014 and didnt really hit main stream popularity until about 2016.

If there is any doubt you can see it all here on the github where all the releases are stored.

Here is the Cleanflight release pages:

https://github.com/cleanflight/cleanflight-configurator/releases

Here is the Betaflight release pages.

https://github.com/betaflight/betaflight/releases

I am glad you are happy with Cleanflight. Everyone in the hobby deserves to be happy. Thats what its all about. Go out and fly just stop telling people Cleanflight is newer and better then Betaflight. Cleanflight compared to Betaflight is like comparing a Tandy Corp COCO II to one of the new Mac Airbooks. Its hard enough for people to understand without getting even more confused being told old stuff is up to date for the new tech coming out.
Oh one more thing, I am pretty sure we had a conversation where you told me kiss was better than betaflight, and you really had nothing really good to say betaflight. In fact you actually said it was trash compared to kiss, have you now since then changed your mind????
 

sprzout

Knower of useless information
Mentor
Taz, looks like this is starting to get ugly and you're arguing just to try and rattle cages. Let it go. You're arguing something that is not being supported anymore; the Githubs show it. That doesn't mean you can't use it, it's just not updated like Betaflight, which it seems to be an arguing point. If it works for you, fine, use it. But when you want to argue just for the sake of arguing, it's not helpful to anyone.
 

Tazman

Active member
Hey just a shout out to all interested, been running CLeanflight now for about 3 weeks now, what an improvement, much more looked after than betaflight, should you switch you will have a much more up to date quad and flies better and smoother than betaflight. I cannot believe the difference in performance. Anyone wanting to bet the most up to date and working quad should switch to cleanflight ASAP. I see a few fanboys, and we all now what a fanboy sounds like, the old school wacko’s that cling to old school ideals. I mean betaflight is fine starting out, but then you grow-up and advance to the real deal. Right.
 

Tazman

Active member
Taz, looks like this is starting to get ugly and you're arguing just to try and rattle cages. Let it go. You're arguing something that is not being supported anymore; the Githubs show it. That doesn't mean you can't use it, it's just not updated like Betaflight, which it seems to be an arguing point. If it works for you, fine, use it. But when you want to argue just for the sake of arguing, it's not helpful to anyone.
Na, not at all, I think its a free place to share what one has learned to help others, now I never asked anyone to post on a thread I started, but I also have the right to state what I have seen in my own quads and that is simply cleanflight is much better. I never told anyone they had to switch, only should they want to try and see if its works for them, again I did start the thread and if one has a serious disagreement they are welcome to not post or start a thread of their own.
 

Tazman

Active member
To all concerned, I see some Fan Boys piping out for Betaflight and to be frank I am not telling anyone to switch to Cleanflight, only stating that cleanflight is running my quads far better than betaflight, now does that make it better, well it does for me, and it does not hurt to test it like I did, and should you find the same results than post them here. If all you want to do is be a Fan Boy, no worries either, but I have physical evidence in the form of my quads flying better, cleaner and the glitches of betaflight are not on cleanflight, the reason some more experienced pilots encouraged me to switch, and they to were not wrong. At no time have I stated anything but my own experience with Cleanflight, it seems to better run, more up to date and works better than betaflight.
 

Tazman

Active member
Hey guys also wanted to address a comment made that cleanflight is not updated as much as betaflight, well if it ain’t broken dont fix it, meaning betaflight breaks more than they fix, everyone here can agree, before you go to the next best version of betaflight you let it update a few times so they can fix the bugs and issues with the newest version, Cleanflight simply does not need that level of fixing, they improved it and made it great, try it out, find out for yourself how much better it can work for you, if it does not you can easily revert back.
 

Tazman

Active member
Taz, looks like this is starting to get ugly and you're arguing just to try and rattle cages. Let it go. You're arguing something that is not being supported anymore; the Githubs show it. That doesn't mean you can't use it, it's just not updated like Betaflight, which it seems to be an arguing point. If it works for you, fine, use it. But when you want to argue just for the sake of arguing, it's not helpful to anyone.
I also never argued that it is updated like Betaflight, please show me where I ever posted that Cleanflight is updated near as much as betaflight, that has never been any point of any argument for me. I state that it is better and does not need to be updated as much as betaflight as they do not break as much as they do in betaflight. The Devs of betaflight are very bad, and they are not responsive to suggestion, I have spoken to many guys that are at TBS and other places that have tried to reason with the Devs and have been threatened by the devs not to ever ask again. The fact is the devs of betaflight are not good at all, and the devs of cleanflight an butterflight have the act together. If you run betaflight and like it fine, please stop putting down my actual finds and experiences. Have you even tried cleanflight or butterflight? What are your experiences with them and how long have you tested them for. I have almost a month with both on 2 different quads and both quads have extreme performance improvements. I am not sure what you class as better, but to me anything that makes a vast improvement is better, and that us what is happening. I am not arguing, no point, these are my experiences, its pretty hard to argue over a personal experience. I am arguing over the fact I never said some things you state and another person stated, they were not spoken by me so why say that I said them, that makes no sense. That is all I am saying.
 

cranialrectosis

Faster than a speeding face plant!
Mentor
is like comparing a Tandy Corp COCO II to one of the new Mac Airbooks. Its hard enough for people to understand without getting even more confused being told old stuff is up to date for the new tech coming out.

An old Tandy Corp TRS80 COCO II IS better than a new Mac Airbook...

If someone wanted to steal your data from the TRS80, they had to come into the house and physically steal the cassette tape. :p
 

PsyBorg

Wake up! Time to fly!
You could store more information on a single piece of college ruled notebook paper then those things could. My brother got one for Christmas the year they came out 5.25 floppy drive and the cassette deck. He gave up on it after a week. I spent a few weeks on it learning q basic before I went in the Navy. That floppy drive was soooo noisy and slow. But the green monochrome monitor was cool!!
 

sprzout

Knower of useless information
Mentor
You could store more information on a single piece of college ruled notebook paper then those things could. My brother got one for Christmas the year they came out 5.25 floppy drive and the cassette deck. He gave up on it after a week. I spent a few weeks on it learning q basic before I went in the Navy. That floppy drive was soooo noisy and slow. But the green monochrome monitor was cool!!

Hey, there's a lot to be said for those old 5.25" disk drives and tape programming. My dad had a Commodore 64 which used both of those, and it was wildly popular in the 80's. I learned a little bit of BASIC, enough to write a text game. :)

Ahh, nostalgia...I saw that they'd had a Commodore 64 Mini a while back that you could connect up to your TV using an HDMI cable; came with games and the ability to actually program in BASIC!!! I was actually tempted to pick one up, but being that it's essentially a Raspberry Pi in a cool case, I'm kinda having a hard time spending more money for something I don't need. LOL