9Xtreme Iris+ next steps?

[thcmm]

Dear Community,
I now have the 9Xtreme upgrade board installed in the modded version of the FS-TH9X TX that came with my 3D Robotics Iris+ the LCD lights, sticks, pots, switches seem to work in the diag screen, and Voltage was spot on when checked against a multi-meter.

Now what?

Warning: I am a Newbie to the er9X world of tweaks and apologise if I am asking seemingly mundane questions that may or may not have already been asked or are simply assumed to be known.

Before I get into my main concern….”have a broken the stock functionality of my Iris+?”

For starters, I read through the new manual. Its awesome, advanced and well written but I still have questions relating more so the 9Xtreme upgrade board that are not directly addressed in the manual.

The SD card for example. Should it be formatted with a particular file system or is the usual Fat32 FS just the assumed norm? I saw the little light-bulb pop-up on the SmartieParts website - so I assume any capacity size, speed SD will do?

VoicePack:
I have read several posts about the voice pack files but I remain uncertain about how / when / where to copy the contents of the zip file to the SD card. Should they be copied to the SD prior to installing it in the slot on the 9Xtreme board? Which of the 2 partitions should they be installed onto (ok the first is too small - but an explanation would still be nice) Why are there 2 partitions and when is the second created?

Iris+ stock functionality:
There are several threads on the forum that begin asking questions about which firmware to use with the Iris+, they mainly refer to OpenTX - the discussions then dive into lengthy GPL infraction issues and there is no clear answer about which firmware to use. The consensus seems to be that 3DR modified the original open-source code, did not acknowledge, got nasty community feedback and later posted a version on GIT.

So...what firmware do I use with the 9Xtreme? 3DR's, vanilla OpenTX, or erSky9x?
Did converting to erSky9x destroy built in stock functionality such as the telemetry system?

What would happed if I tried to load 3DR’s version back onto my TX with the 9Xtreme installed?
There are 2 hex files in the 3drtx-mater repository:
IRIS+_firmware_9X_M64.hex
Setup_eeprom.hex : Is this the Model configuration? if so how is it viewed, neither of the eePee or eePskye will not open it.

Thanks in advance to anybody who can help me understand these questions.
Cheers,
Thomas

[MikeB]

SD card - FAT32 is required.
In bootloader mode, there are two drives visible, one is the SD card, the other is a 'pretend' drive, the two files on it are 'mapped' to the flash memory and the EEPROM.
I'm not familiar with the Iris system. If it has a specific telemetry system then installing the 9Xtreme will, indeed, have removed this.
The code on the 9Xtreme flashes the original board with new firmware that makes the original processor operate as an I/O processor (LCD, buttons etc.) to the 9Xtreme.
To load the original IRIS firmware back on, you would need to remove the 9Xtreme as it uses a completely different processor.

Mike.

[Kilrah]

I believe the software they loaded is based on OpenTX, so you might be able to open the settings file with OpenTX companion. They may or may not have done modifications that could have broken compatibility, I'm not sure given they never properly coordinated their wishes and changes with OpenTX.

If you can open the settings file then that will give you the original setup from which you can manually recreate an equivalent in ersky9x at least for the control side of things. Telemetry as said is not guaranteed, we don't know what existing protocol they used or modified to get that working.

[thcmm]

I certainly do not want to pull the 9Xtreme board, its too cool to give up on. I'll give Kilrah's suggestion a go and see what I can find via Companion. To my understanding, 3DR does not use any proprietary hardware so there must be a way to get everything working. They changed or posted a new repository for their version of OpenTX on the Iris+ : https://github.com/3drobotics/3drtx
Perhaps there are answers there...I see several frsky related files under the Telemetry directory such as frsky.h and frsky.cpp files.

Thanks for the advice so far!

[MikeB]

What Tx module (and receiver) do they use? This may help see how they are getting the telemetry data to the Tx.

It looks like they are using MavLink, and I'm working on adding support for that, in ersky9x, at present.

Mike.

[thcmm]

Hi Mike,

TX: FrSky DJT
RX: FrSky D4R-II

I attached photos of the components under the top shell. The bottom of the Iris+ fits an integrated 4 in 1 ESC only.

Cheers,
/Thomas

TX

RX

GPS

MavLink?

Overview

[MikeB]

So that looks like raw MavLink data carried over FrSky telemetry. I'll investigate a bit further. I'm adding some support for those who use either an Arduino, or a Teensy to process MavLink data into FrSky hub protocol at present, then I'll see about handling the raw MavLink data. This may all take a week or three.

Mike.

[thcmm]

Thanks Mike, I look forward to knowing what you are able to come up with!