Hopefully its for this "special" panda color one. Maybe the black ones will be cheaper. This price point makes zero sense.

For now I think I'm good with Crossfire lol.

(03-Dec-2021, 04:35 PM)the.ronin Wrote: Hopefully its for this "special" panda color one.  Maybe the black ones will be cheaper.  This price point makes zero sense.

For now I think I'm good with Crossfire lol.

Yeah. Axisflying haven't even bothered trying and make their ELRS module aesthetically pleasing in any way. I think a house brick has a more ergonomic design to it than their THOR module  I could probably knock up a nicer looking 3D printed case in Tinkercad without too much effort. At least the Crossfire Lite module has some curves and a premium look / finish to it, so it feels like you are getting something that is worth it's premium price tag.

(03-Dec-2021, 04:16 PM)the.ronin Wrote: Uh ... is it just me or is that kinda pricey??

They're clearly targeting the Futaba/Spektrum market with this as the TX module doesn't require a JR bay, and that market definitely equates price with quality. Probably a good market for Axis to get into.

Only thing is I galdly spent more for a Futaba for the feel of the radio. In other words I'm getting value back. This lack of a JR bay is just a convenience - not really a high price draw IMO. Heck I could just chop off the back or do something with one of the cheaper modules. Many of us Futaba FPV users have OpenTX standy radios (Tango 2 for me) and we can use that to make changes to micro modules that don't have the gnarly JR bay.

Will there be some rich dudes that won't even bat a fake eyelash at the price? I'm sure there are. But I think generally this was a big misread of the market.

Thanks but no thanks.

What’s the point of paying premium prices for an OpenSource product?

Which goes to show if you try and focus on making quality modules or receivers then you can barely break even with TBS or IRC hardware prices.

Not like we are buying a license for IRC or TBS RC links either.

Quote:What’s the point of paying premium prices for an OpenSource product?

Maybe not premium, but price does matter - i.e. compare Matek RXes with EP2 from HappyModel.

Quote:Which goes to show if you try and focus on making quality modules or receivers then you can barely break even with TBS or IRC hardware prices.
Not like we are buying a license for IRC or TBS RC links either.

And this is the problem - you don't pay for their links technology, since they already seized active development.
In OpenSource land passionate people keep the development going. And funding can go from many different companies - not limiting the income on the single source.
That being said OS has it's own set of problems and challenges. ;-)

...And Not Everything that Shines is Gold. Paying premium does not imply receiving premium service.
But as always there will be people willing to make such shining simplification as their guidance. ;-)

IRC and TBS control links are still in development with updated firmware released every so often. Maybe not at the same release frequency as ELRS but then not many people want to update firmware on all their quads every week.

TBS and IRC will help troubleshoot issues with hardware and eventually offer a replacement (the buyers only pay shipping costs). This is as premium as it gets in the FPV world.

Matek-sys may offer something similar but any other ELRS hardware manufacturer? Hard to say especially since none of the users that complained about ELRS TX issues from HappyModel or BetaFPV received any replacements AFAIK.

By active development I meant changes that make a difference. Things that would make it worth to change firmware (like that in ELRS-2.0).
It is of course easier for new brand to show off with shiny new features. We have yet to see how ELRS will develop when it will shoot out of the already planned features.

ELRS was designed to be cheap and for those who are not scared of getting their hands a bit dirty. It was not planned to be premium. ;-)
ELRS devs are also very helpful in troubleshooting and fixing the software. Hardware side is meant to be cheap, so well you get what you should expect for the money.

P.S.
You are not forced to flash your receivers with latest firmware.
You can choose one version and even for the new receivers that you get, flash that same version as on your other hardware.
This way you are not forced to reflash all you hardware and still get to add new hardware to your fleet (with bind phrase). Same version, even if not the latest.

I still see no shiny features in ELRS 900 that will make me move over from Crossfire.

And I am still waiting to see ELRS implement their own protocol rather than reverse engineering CRSF. Atleast IRC have their own Ghost protocol.

Binding phrase? Seriously? You need a computer to flash the custom firmware with the binding phrase included.

Imagine you crashed in the field and ripped the U.FL off your RX. Now you solder a new one in the field and you don’t have your laptop.

Ideally all a system needs is to solder up the wires, power up the RX, bind to the TX, apply any OTA firmware update (stored on the TX and one version works for all RX modules) if needed to ensure TX and RX are compatible.

(04-Dec-2021, 02:57 PM)kafie1980 Wrote: And I am still waiting to see ELRS implement their own protocol rather than reverse engineering CRSF. Atleast IRC have their own Ghost protocol.

Binding phrase? Seriously? You need a computer to flash the custom firmware with the binding phrase included.

Imagine you crashed in the field and ripped the U.FL off your RX. Now you solder a new one in the field and you don’t have your laptop.

This is a common misconception. ELRS uses it's own OTA protocol, and uses the open source Crossfire wire protocol to communicate between the TX module and handset.

ELRS also supports traditional binding by putting the RX into bind mode and selecting Bind on the TX LUA. However, if you were carrying spare receivers with you, I'd assume you'd already have them flashed to whatever ELRS version the rest of your stuff was using (including binding phrase).

I agree ELRS has its own OTA protocol "now" after they heavily tweaked it. But did they write everything from scratch? They understood what needed to be done with the packets to make the system efficient.

TBS has never officially declared Crossfire as OpenSource. Just because bits of it are available oe "opened" in Radio firmware or Flight controller firmware does not mean it is OpenSource.

Take for example SmartAudio: "TBS has opened the SmartAudio standard but requests a license fee if you plan to make money with it.". https://www.team-blacksheep.com/tbs_smar..._rev08.pdf

Anyone interested in reverse engineering the Crossfire OTA to understand the packet structure:



Make your own CRSFSniffer: https://github.com/g3gg0/ESP32_CRSFSniffer

A quick tutorial on CRSFSniffer: https://www.g3gg0.de/wordpress/fpv/fpv-a...crossfire/

Why would anyone pre-flash RX's that they have no idea when they will be put to use. So now we have to keep updating RX's already in our quads/planes/builds and "spare RX's" that we have not even soldered everytime we update our TX? Why is this even acceptable?

ELRS has always had their own OTA protocol, and it has nothing to do with Crossfire. AFAIK, the Crossfire OTA protocol was only reverse engineered a few months ago, while the ELRS protocol has existed for ~3 years. It was written from scratch to make extremely efficient use of small packet sizes to allow operation over a low-bandwidth LoRa link. This results in a packet ~1/3 the size of Crossfire, which allows for increased sensitivity and packet rate as discussed here: https://intofpv.com/t-are-tbs-about-to-r...#pid158265

The CRSF wire protocol is completely open-source: https://github.com/betaflight/betaflight.../rx/crsf.c

It is certainly possible ELRS adds OTA updates in the future, but with how easy WiFi updates are I don't think it's a priority.

ExpressLRS 2.0.0 Release Candidate 4 is now available. Relevant details have been added to the first post.

(05-Dec-2021, 01:05 AM)V-22 Wrote: ELRS has always had their own OTA protocol, and it has nothing to do with Crossfire. AFAIK, the Crossfire OTA protocol was only reverse engineered a few months ago, while the ELRS protocol has existed for ~3 years. It was written from scratch to make extremely efficient use of small packet sizes to allow operation over a low-bandwidth LoRa link. This results in a packet ~1/3 the size of Crossfire, which allows for increased sensitivity and packet rate as discussed here: https://intofpv.com/t-are-tbs-about-to-r...#pid158265

The CRSF wire protocol is completely open-source: https://github.com/betaflight/betaflight.../rx/crsf.c

It is certainly possible ELRS adds OTA updates in the future, but with how easy WiFi updates are I don't think it's a priority.

Then why does ELRS not write their version of CRSF wire protocol if they can write the entire OTA from scratch?

Here are a Betaflight developers words: “The CRSF support that is in Betaflight at the moment is for RX / telemetry support only, and it is for a proprietary version of the protocol without a publicly available specification.” Source: https://github.com/betaflight/betaflight/issues/9030

The same ELRS team released OpenVTX and they did not seek consent from TBS or IRC for the SA or Tramp protocols. No OpenVTX compatible vtx’s on the market are certified SA or Tramp devices.

The time, money and effort put forward by TBS or IRC to develop these systems and finally comes ELRS the “Robin Hood” of the RC world who can just take and do what ELRS wants with their protocols.

OTA firmware updates are not a priority or too hard to implement or have hit the limit of the OTA or just don’t know how to do it? Should be easy for someone who can write their own OTA protocol and can take giant leaps ahead of existing protocols in no time?

(05-Dec-2021, 01:24 AM)SnowLeopardFPV Wrote: ExpressLRS 2.0.0 Release Candidate 4 is now available. Relevant details have been added to the first post.

I’m about to do some updating, glad I caught this before i did. Thanks!