Blade 350QX with ST10

h-elsner · Aug 3, 2019

Inspired by Chroma I tried to connect the Blade 350QX to a ST10. To get this working you need to replace the receiver by an SR24 receiver from Yuneec Q500 or from Chroma. It is compatible and offers a downlink channel for telemetry. This makes it possible to display telemetry on the ST10 and record Flight Log data on SD card.

Nice to see that Blade 350QX is able to reach 20m/s top speed in Stability mode.

br HE

Dom · Feb 7, 2020

hello sir,
I have a blade 350QX3 I use a ST 10+ it work well
I have 2 problem with it
I can't move pitch I have added a pic to drive the camera
battery voltage right but always write in red
I like this drone

h-elsner · May 26, 2020

Sorry for the late answer.
fsk_rssi is the received signal strenght indicator and tas is true air speed.

All columns are described in the user manual for Q500log2kml, chapter 3.

Dom · Oct 4, 2020

hello I work about use ST 10+ with my 350QX3.
I still have a problem about camera pitch.
Have you work about frames ?
what do you know about it?
I already uses a PIC 16F628 to move pitch before take off
Can you help me ?

h-elsner · Oct 5, 2020

What camera/gimbal do you use? What makes the PIC?

I know only the solution with microprocessor that gives the initial puls for the gimbal for CGO2 (I think this works also for CGO3).

Coding a gimbal

I am working on something that might help us all with our broken cgo3 and even the cgo2. I am trying to get around Yuneec's need for calibration of the boards. Here is some code I am working on for a controller. I do this in my spare time, so updates will follow as I have time for them. / *...

yuneecpilots.com

I do not use a camera. The 350QX is only for fun. My latest frame is this:

br HE

Dom · Oct 6, 2020

hello
I have a CGO2+ and CGO3(for my Q500 4K)
I uses pic to make a PWM signal for pitch setting before take off .
I fly like that 1 year ago.
now, i thin it is possible to use usart between receiver and flight controller
I dit it with a software i find frames
i try to hunderstand how doses it work
I give a example of frames captured
now i don't now how to progress

h-elsner · Oct 6, 2020

The 350QX delivers only PWM signal to tilt camera, nothing else (as the Q500 also do). There is no UART connection between flight controller (at mainboard) and the gimbal/camera. Only from Typhoon H (hexa copter) on there is a serial connection between flight controller and camera to control the gimbal for automated flights like POI, CCC, Jouney). The Q500 and 350QX do not have that.
The complete control of the camera itself is done via WiFi by CGI commands sent by ST10+.

I do not understand what you want to do with the data between receiver and mainboard.
However, this has nothing to do with gimbal/camera at all. Neither ST10+ nor 350QX firmware is able to handle extra data on ZigBee 2.4GHz connection (like add new channels to do something extra).
I guess the frames in the text file are from serial between receiver and mainboard or between mainboard an USB to serial converter to GUI?

To understand that traffic you should use a ZigBee sniffer and Wireshark. Ihave both here but I have not done it yet.

br HE

Dom · Oct 7, 2020

thank you for your reply.
sorry I am french and it is difficult to explain in english for me
my slider K1 does not control camera tilt on 350QX therefore i look for solution.
my pic allows me to set my camera before takeoff.
i want move my camera in flight.
(for me to film the sky has no interest)

my strategy is:
read K1 in the frames (the only problem for me )
change pwm value to tilt camera (with my pic )

h-elsner · Oct 7, 2020

Dom said:
my strategy is:
read K1 in the frames (the only problem for me )
change pwm value to tilt camera (with my pic )

This will be very challenging. But the PWM signal will be alredy provided by the 350QX. The only missing (and the difference to Q500) is the initial pulse. This is described in the link I sent above.
Do you have the possibility to check the PWM signal on the related pins? On the Signal pin it should look like this:

Maybe one of of the output pins is defect. Usually the other can be used. The connector is in the left bottom corner:

I would start to check the pins if and which one is working. If so the next step should be to generate the initializing pulse at the beginning.

br HE

PS: Google translator may help...

h-elsner · Oct 7, 2020

Now I found the original thread for the start-puls change:

Anmelden

www.kopterforum.de

Google translator says:
Le CGO2 ne peut pas être contrôlé par un récepteur normal qui envoie un signal dans la plage 1000us - 2000us.
Voici une petite solution à faire soi-même.

Pour installer l'Horizon CGO2 sur un hélicoptère normal et pouvoir le faire pivoter, vous auriez besoin d'un récepteur qui transmet un signal de 500ns après l'initialisation.
Pour rendre cela possible, vous pouvez créer vous-même votre propre solution relativement peu coûteuse.
Vous devez avoir une certaine expérience des microcontrôleurs et de leur programmation.

Pour cela, vous avez besoin
- Un fer à souder
- Une puce ATTiny45
- 2x optocoupleur
- Une planche standard
- et un fer à souder.

Marquage dans le schéma électrique:
IS = signal d'entrée du récepteur
IP = entrée Plus du récepteur
IG = entrée moins du récepteur
OS = signal de sortie pour le CGO2
OP = sortie plus, mais n'est pas obligatoire sur le CGO.
OG = motif de sortie, également non requis au CGO.

Pour programmer l'ATTiny45, j'utilise un Arduino Uno avec l'environnement de développement Arduino.

Nous devons d'abord souder le circuit
Voici un schéma de la base SMD. Le circuit est toujours le même.

Schéma.png

Le plus important, cependant, est la programmation de l'ATTiny45
Une boucle d'attente de 5s est installée ici.
Pendant ce temps, il n'y a pas de signal au CGO2.
Après 5s, un signal de 500us est envoyé pendant 1s.
La puce échange ensuite le circuit de ligne du CGO2 vers le
Take SW code and pictures from the original source.

br HE

Dom · Oct 8, 2020

Hello sir,
thank you for your replies
the problem has become since i use st10+
with my old DX4 it worked well

this part work already
i use a relay driven by my pic about 5 sec to let 350QX initialize camera
after the pic make my pwm
you can see the picture "montage camera.jpg" there is the relay with the wires
white and green:
- comes from 350QX controller
- to camera CGO2+
two buttons
- up
- down
to change pulse width
this part work well
the last problem is read frames to know pulse width

Ludagad · Nov 14, 2021

h-elsner said:
Inspired by Chroma I tried to connect the Blade 350QX to a ST10. To get this working you need to replace the receiver by an SR24 receiver from Yuneec Q500 or from Chroma. It is compatible and offers a downlink channel for telemetry. This makes it possible to display telemetry on the ST10 and record Flight Log data on SD card.

Nice to see that Blade 350QX is able to reach 20m/s top speed in Stability mode.
View attachment 34

br HE

I have a couple of QX3 drones, a ST10+ and got a SR24 off eBay. Could you please post some photos and a diagram how you wired these? instructions at least?
On the QX there is no connector matching either the cable or board connector of the SR24. Haven't opened the QX3 yet, but I think the parts inside are mostly the same.

h-elsner · Nov 25, 2021

Sorry for late answer. I saw this today.
First we need to check which version (old, new) of SR24 you got. Unfortunately there are different wire colors. Color codes are very strange at Yuneec HW.

The SR24 replaces the Spectrum receiver. It uses all 4 wires insted of only 3 as Spectrum does. Spectrum reveiver:

Also the wire colors are different. Here is an overwiew of all used colors:

Unfortunately the connectors are also different. Eighter you solder the wires directly together or you try to find matching connectors to create an adapter cable (as I did). The best idea is to use the connector that is also used to connect the USB adapter BLH7840.

Please note that the wire colors are mixed between main board cable and receiver cable. But however, it need to be connected to mactch GND, 3.3V, Tx, Rx.

br HE

Ludagad · Nov 25, 2021

Thanks for looking into this. It will be a nice tutorial thread once done.

It does start to become interesting though... I found one QX that is already disassembled and I don't see a "spektrum receiver". I see a thin wire sticking out that looks like an antena.

Also quite interesting is your accelerometer is MPU-4050 on a board that seems newer revision of QX3, yet mine has MPU-6050:

(Ironically this QX has issues with that IC hence still being open)

The connector that I see on your board does exist on the QX3s. I think it is the one for PC link and I think there is something connected to it for normal operation. Looks like I will have to open a QX3

As for the receiver here is the one I bought:

Let me know if I should buy a different one and what to look for.

Thanks again for supporting!

h-elsner · Nov 26, 2021

You 350QX mainboard is the QX HW version V1. It has a poor receiver on the mainboard (reduced range). The little copper wire is the antenna. It has also the serial connection to plug in the USB adapter for FW updates. The FW version is not able to connect to GUI but you can update to FW V2 or V3 and then you have the possibilty to make diagnosis by Blade GUI.

To do FW updates without GUI you need "BladeMultiRotorUpdateUtility". Once you have updated to V2 or 3 you don't need it anymore, all can be done with GUI then.

Regarding the mainboard HW version 1 I do not know if one can add an external receiver to "overwrite" the internal receiver but it is worth to try.
Your SR24 is one of the newer HW but has the same behaviour as the older one. No problem at all except other wire colors:
black - ground
white - +3.3V
gray - Rx
yellow - Tx

For the V1 HW I have no reference how the serial connection is represented to a cable or connector. You need to check what is what. Maybe it helps how the USB adapter is connected:

You can follow the wires. The remaining pin should be 3.3V. Check with voltmeter (carefully).
br HE

Ludagad · Sep 4, 2022

It was a while since I thought or did anything about it, but as a stroke of luck I got off eBay a pair of QX3 drones and a new-in-box ST10+ station. I remembered I never finished this, so I did and it worked. Here are my notes though:

1. The wiring in H. Elsner's table is a bit off. Here is the wiring that worked for me:
(#Pin) QX3 Main Board wire <-> SR24 Receiver wire:
(#1) Yellow <-> Black (Ground)
(#2) Orange <-> White (Vcc)
(#3) Red <-> Gray
(#4) Brown <-> Yellow

2. As said by Elsner, the connectors don't match. I ended up soldering a new cable with a JST SH 1.0 connector that matches the QX3 board. These are the most common cables used in FPV drones. This requires cutting the clear shrink-wrap.

3. I ended up leaving the Spektrum receiver and adding the SR24 as well. Since the shrink-wrap was off, I took the long antenna off from the IPEX U.FL board connector, put it through the same hole where the Spektrum antenna goes out to the landing skid, reconnected it to the board and wrapped the receiver in clear thermal tape (the one used for LiPo battery packs). The cable is the same diameter length as the Spektrum antenna so they go along the same clips verry well. Since they can't both be turned on at the same time interference between the antennas is not an issue.

4. I left the Spektrum receiver on purpose: With the ST10+ I couldn't (so far at least) trigger all the flight modes. The QX3 latest firmware has 5 modes, including a fan-made "Stagility" one that will let you flip the quad. Good luck doing that with the Yuneec ST10+ radio. So when I feel like it I reconnect the Spektrum receiver, disconnect the gimbal camera, put a old CGO1 and do some Line-Of-Sight flying for the old time's sake.

5. I can't connect the CGO1 cam to the ST10+ station. It does connect and show video for ~1 sec and then goes into a boot loop. Any help will be greatly appreciated

6. Binding was a disaster. Until I figured out the 2 data wires were swapped, I couldn't force the SR24 to bind (understandably). I ended up opening a Blade Chroma drone, putting this receiver to bind and then moving it back to the 350 QX3. When it did not bind there I figured the wiring was bad, fixed it and it worked as a charm. This however prevented me from figuring out how to use the QX3 or the super-old QX to bind. I assume the same bind procedure (holding it upside down at start for 5 sec) would have worked.

Anyway, huuuuge thanks to H. Elstner for the idea and ..... I need to figure out how to read the SD Card data

If anyone can help with that - would appreciate it!

h-elsner · Sep 5, 2022

Sorry for exchanged Rx/Tx wires. I have tested it only with old receiver. Old to new I have compared with the existing connection in Typhoon H. Maybe there are different versions in wiring. There are also shielded SR24 out there (H520?).

To read the flight logs please use q500log2kml. As far as I know it is the only one that covers Blade 350QX3 too, based on my tests with SR24 on 350QX. 350QX send unique vehicle type 3.
Windows64bit: http://h-elsner.mooo.com/downloads/q500log2kml_en.zip
LINUX 64bit: http://h-elsner.mooo.com/downloads/q500log2kml_en.tar.gz
User manual: http://h-elsner.mooo.com/pdf/Q500log2kml_en.pdf
Or more and source code here: https://github.com/h-elsner/Q500log2kml

Remark: It's hard to fly Acro if throttle stick is centered. That's why I use Spectrum for that. But it is possible to remove the spring in the ST10 and Install latching spring :