Hello,

I'm building a racing drone and I connected the TBS unified pro 32 (it works well in one channel only). As soon as I connect the Smart audio wire it stops showing the image and I can't change the channel from betaflight. In betaflight it shows device ready 'Yes'. I have tried different vtx tables SA (1.0, 2.0, 2.1) and I also connected it to crossfire to change the channel from the radio but that did not work either. It just remains frozen to the same channel and I lose the video feed. I only get it back when I remove the SA wire. 

Any suggestion would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Thomas.

Give me the exact link to the Unify vtx you have so I can be sure which model/version you have.

Give me a snap shot of your VTX tables in Betaflight or a full CLI dump.

https://fpvscape.com/en/fpv-video-transm...no-5g8-v11

You VTX table should be:

Quote:# vtxtable
vtxtable bands 5
vtxtable channels 8
vtxtable band 1 BOSCAM_A A FACTORY 5865 5845 5825 5805 5785 5765 5745 5725
vtxtable band 2 BOSCAM_B B FACTORY 5733 5752 5771 5790 5809 5828 5847 5866
vtxtable band 3 BOSCAM_E E FACTORY 5705 5685 5665 5645 5885 5905 5925 5945
vtxtable band 4 FATSHARK F FACTORY 5740 5760 5780 5800 5820 5840 5860 5880
vtxtable band 5 RACEBAND R FACTORY 5658 5695 5732 5769 5806 5843 5880 5917
vtxtable powerlevels 4
vtxtable powervalues 14 20 26 36
vtxtable powerlabels 25 100 400 MAX

You are missing the Max power level of 36db. If the VTX table is incomplete or wrong then in some cases Betaflight reverts back to the lowest possible power value.
Also try switching off the low power disarm function. We usually keep this till first arm but switch if off for now.
Do you have Pitmode configured in the Betaflight modes tab? I hope pitmode is not being triggered somehow causing the vtx to go into a lower power state.

Hello,
I have done that like in the picture above (as per TBS recommendations). I believe that this is what you send me. I have also turned off the low power disarm and still nothing. I connected the SA from TBS to UR3 is that correct?

Thanks,
Thomas.

That is the same VTX table on my quad that has the TBS Pro32 Nano.

So you connected the SA sires to a UART 3 TX? And setup the Betaflight ports tab to enable TBS Smart Audio on UART 3?

Did you check the Betaflight Modes tab to confirm its not in pitmode?

Another question in my mind at this point is whether you have unlocked the VTX? The sequence of flashing red and blue leds on the VTX will indicate its current locked/unlocked state. Try and follow these instructions to ensure the VTX is unlocked: https://icantfly.xyz/how-to-unlock-tbs-u...-nano/amp/

Hello,

I'm not sure if it's in pitmode but I can't find it in my modes. It is open as I have solid blue and orange light. Could this have something to do with the soft serial? Should I do something there?

Thanks,
Thomas.

SA should work over softserial but the question is what have you softserial’d? Try a normal uart.

Surprised you don’t have pitmode in the modes tab unless you have hidden unused modes with the toggle on the top of that page.

Thank you for your advice. I appreciate you taking the time to help me troubleshoot. I have tried a different UART but still nothing. I will keep on trying to solve this issue. If you think of anything else let me know.

it looks like you wired the vtx to the crsf receiver? am i wrong?

there are two ways to use smartaudio protocol, you can control the vtx over smart audio by your module or transmitter if you wire it to a tbs receiver or you can control your vtx over smartaudio by your flight controller over betaflight osd. both ways have its benefits.

wire to a free uart to a tx pad for control over the fc or wire to the smartaudio pad on your tbs receiver if you like to controll over your tbs module.

if you like to control the vtx directli over the tbs module, you would need to wire smartaudio from the vtx to ch4 on your nanorx

or the other way; oscars tutorial for control the vtx over betaflight osd: https://oscarliang.com/vtx-control/

I have already tried both ways but nothing worked. On betaflight it says device ready Yes so in theory it should work but it doesn't. From the radio nothing changes either when I connect it to channel 4 on CRSF. When I remove the wire from both FC and CRSF I have constant reception from channel L3. If I connect the wire to either I lose reception.
Thanks again

Did you try SA on Ch4 of the Crossfire?

I am still not sure if the VTX is unlocked as you never confirmed this.

Can you make a note of all the leds and count their flashes on startup so we can know what the setup is currently?

I tried to attach a video but I can't. Two of the lamps blue and orange are steady. Is not enough proof that it is unlocked.?

its unlocked than.

do you remember the configuration where "device ready" was displayed? that would be a matching option. its the best indicator to check smartaudio comunication over betaflight.

you wired the sa cable from the vtx to the tx pad on the crossfire in the picture above? these tx would be for receiver data, rx and tx to connect to the fc. it takes one uart. if you wire the sa to a tx pad flightcontroller to another free uart, you can enable smartaudio on that particular uart. as example uart 4 seems empty actual on your picture above.
i would suggest to disable "lowpower until disarm" for now.

did you checked smartaudio comunication directly by the osd, battery pluged in without connection to betaflight configurator?

Right now it's connected from vtx to tx on the FC. I enabled the sa to that configuration and device ready says 'yes'. Shouldn't it work? Should I go back to CRSF? When I connect sa in either CRSF or FC I don't have an image to allow me to check from osd.