So I've been out of the R/C hobby for about 5 or 6 years and trying to get back into it with my 10yo son. I bought the Bardwell beginner drone kit from getfpv, have several unbuilt kits I've picked up within the last year with the intent to get back in (Tiny Trainer, Simple Cub, Tiny Trainer, Simple Cub, FT3D, FT Mini Speedster, FT Mini Corsair, a couple Magnums from Michigan Park Flyers). I've got a Taranis X9D+ which served me well 5 years ago, so I picked up a X9 Lite for my son to use... I also picked up several receivers billed as FrSky compatible (3x XM+'s, Archer R4, 4x RadioMaster R84's) and salvaged some old D4R-II's, X4R's, and X8R's out of my older builds.
So we're most of the way through building the Tiny Trainer together and I've got the Bardwell drone all soldered up, but I can't get the dang XM+ to bind. I've spent the last few hours reading about how FrSky protocols have changed from ACCST v1 to v2 and then again to ACCESS (which is what that X9 Lite uses). I haven't even got into whether ACCESS is backwards compatible with ACCST receivers... but I understand the ACCST radios and receivers need to be on the same version to bind, yet I still can't get this old radio and XM+ to do so. I've tried updating firmware in the X9D+ as well as the receiver, but can't seem to find the right combo that will talk to each other. What's worse is that the XM+ doesn't have a cute little connector to make flashing firmware through the radio easy, so I've got to solder a servo connector to it to flash, then remove the connector and resolder to the FC to see if it worked (I looked into trying to flash through the FC, but passthrough only works with SmartPort enabled... which the XM+ doesn't have...ugh)
I haven't checked yet to see if the radio will bind to any of the old/other receivers, but I'm afraid I'm getting lost in a huge pile of incompatibility and I'm spending an excessive amount of my already precious time just trying to get it to work instead of having fun actually flying. I'm on the verge of scrapping the radio and simply buying into another system... but I know I'll spend a whole lot of time researching other protocols/radios/etc trying to decide which to pull the trigger on and it'll be that much longer before we get something in the air.
If anyone has some advice on how best to use my time to get into a working system, I'm all ears. Is there something I'm missing with what I have? Is there a better approach to testing/flashing/updating the equipment I've got? or would it be worth buying new radios/receivers? If so, which brand/protocol/systems should I be looking at? FWIW, I'm not so much worried about the cost at this point... I want my time back. I feel like I'm spinning my wheels on something that may not work but I just can't recognize it b/c I've been out for so long.
Thanks in advance
So we're most of the way through building the Tiny Trainer together and I've got the Bardwell drone all soldered up, but I can't get the dang XM+ to bind. I've spent the last few hours reading about how FrSky protocols have changed from ACCST v1 to v2 and then again to ACCESS (which is what that X9 Lite uses). I haven't even got into whether ACCESS is backwards compatible with ACCST receivers... but I understand the ACCST radios and receivers need to be on the same version to bind, yet I still can't get this old radio and XM+ to do so. I've tried updating firmware in the X9D+ as well as the receiver, but can't seem to find the right combo that will talk to each other. What's worse is that the XM+ doesn't have a cute little connector to make flashing firmware through the radio easy, so I've got to solder a servo connector to it to flash, then remove the connector and resolder to the FC to see if it worked (I looked into trying to flash through the FC, but passthrough only works with SmartPort enabled... which the XM+ doesn't have...ugh)
I haven't checked yet to see if the radio will bind to any of the old/other receivers, but I'm afraid I'm getting lost in a huge pile of incompatibility and I'm spending an excessive amount of my already precious time just trying to get it to work instead of having fun actually flying. I'm on the verge of scrapping the radio and simply buying into another system... but I know I'll spend a whole lot of time researching other protocols/radios/etc trying to decide which to pull the trigger on and it'll be that much longer before we get something in the air.
If anyone has some advice on how best to use my time to get into a working system, I'm all ears. Is there something I'm missing with what I have? Is there a better approach to testing/flashing/updating the equipment I've got? or would it be worth buying new radios/receivers? If so, which brand/protocol/systems should I be looking at? FWIW, I'm not so much worried about the cost at this point... I want my time back. I feel like I'm spinning my wheels on something that may not work but I just can't recognize it b/c I've been out for so long.
Thanks in advance
