The aim: very, very easy
Rotorflight is a superb flight controller. Setting it up is not easy. We are determined to make it very, very easy. Easy enough that an experienced flyer can set up and tune a Rotorflight helicopter without first learning Rotorflight's vocabulary, without a laptop, and without a configurator.
The new LockDown Radio Control receiver (RXV2) connects to a Nexus X, or any other Rotorflight flight controller, with one cable. That single lead carries the control link (CRSF) one way and full telemetry the other: volts, current, head speed, ESC temperature and the flight controller's own status. Nothing else to wire up.
The free phone app connects to the receiver by Bluetooth and sets up Rotorflight in the field, in the kitchen, or wherever the helicopter happens to be. The pages speak plain English, and the firmware term is there in brackets for anyone who wants it.
What makes it easier
- One cable, everything. Receiver to flight controller is a single lead: control in, full telemetry out, and the phone talks to the flight controller through it. No USB, no extra wires, no telemetry adapters.
- Find a setting. Type a word or two, in your words or Rotorflight's, and every matching setting is listed with the page it lives on. Tap it and the page opens with that setting lit up.
- Plain-English screens. "How hard should it start?" rather than gov_startup_time. Every underlined term explains itself when you press and hold it.
- Sliders where the numbers used to be. How hard it starts, how agile it is, how the sticks feel, softer or sharper. One slider moves the right set of numbers together, and the numbers stay visible underneath for those who like to see them.
- Every write is read back and verified. The page tells you what was written and that the flight controller agrees, byte for byte.
- Banks that behave. Tune one bank, then copy it to the others with the gains adjusted for each bank's head speed. After a phone session the flight controller goes back to whatever bank your transmitter's switch has selected.
- The whole setup backed up to the phone, restorable to the same model or a new one, and taken with you to a new phone.
- The full toolbox: PIDs, rates, governor, rescue, servos, travel extents with the pitch gauge, switches and modes, the flight recorder, and ESC settings for Scorpion ESCs, all from the phone.
- Telemetry on the transmitter: volts, head speed, ESC temperature and more, straight from the flight controller, with a guard against the Rotorflight 4.6 fault that can silently switch telemetry off after a save.
- An express wizard, in the works. Pick your helicopter, motor and ESC from lists; the sizes, gear ratio and telemetry protocol come free; then a handful of physical steps, each confirmed by the flight controller's own reading. The target is a new helicopter flying in ten minutes.
What it looks like
Screens from the iPhone app. The Android app shows the same pages.
The Rotorflight menu
Find a setting: type a word, tap the result
Easy tuning: the sliders in one place
PIDs, with softer and sharper
Governor: how hard should it start?
Copy a bank, adjusted for head speed
Backup and restore on the phone
Switches: what each one does
Pick a receiver by name, and photograph
Flight simulators
The same receiver flies your simulator. Plug it into the computer by USB, switch it to simulator mode from the phone, and it appears as a joystick and a keyboard. You fly RealFlight or neXt with your own transmitter, exactly as you fly the helicopter, on Windows or Mac.
- Simulator buttons from the phone or the transmitter. RealFlight's menu (select, up, down, cancel, reset) and its camera views; neXt's keys (new model, engine, pause, self-level, trainer, piro trainer and the rest). Every key is editable on the phone, and transmitter switches can press them too.
- Realistic spool-up in neXt. Most simulators snap a helicopter's motor straight to full speed. The receiver ramps it like a governor, so the model spools up like the real thing and an autorotation bail-out recovers head speed at an honest rate.
- Channels remapped in seconds. Any receiver channel to any simulator output, reversed if you like, with live bars showing what the simulator sees.
- For any transmitter: the small LDRC2SIM dongle does the same job from a CRSF, SBUS, IBUS or PPM receiver, so a friend with a different radio can use it too. It updates over the air from this website, like the receiver.
RealFlight: menu and camera views
neXt: every key on the phone
Channels to simulator outputs
Windows and Mac too
The same setup pages already run in any web browser over the receiver's WiFi, and a Windows and a Mac version of the setup app will follow for those who prefer a large screen at the bench. Phone, tablet, computer: one set of pages, one way of working.
Updates over the air
The receiver updates itself
New receiver firmware is published on this website. The app announces it, and one tap installs it over the air, web pages and all, while your settings and backups are kept.
The new transmitter will too
The V2 transmitter is being built now. When it is done it will update the same way, straight from the phone, with no cables and no computer.
Where to get it
The Android app is on the Phone Apps page and keeps itself up to date. The iPhone app will follow. LockDown Radio Control is open source under the GPL; the V2 receiver, transmitter and app join the LockDown Radio Control repository as they are released.
If you fly Rotorflight and would like to try it, get in touch. Receivers are inexpensive to build and I am happy to help.