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Support/FAQ for Pro templates

This page contains bug reports, tips and alerts relating to the Pro templates.

Ethos 1.6

It's that time again - another major upgrade for Ethos! BUT... given the issues with early versions of Ethos 1.5, I will not be supporting the templates for use with Ethos 1.6 until it's thoroughly shaken out. In other words, flash 1.6 at your own risk, and make sure you can downgrade if necessary. If it all ends in tears, you're on your own.

Can I migrate my Pro setups to Ethos 1.5?

If you are running Pro templates designed for Ethos 1.4, then you can flash Ethos 1.5.7 or later without problem - your setups will continue to run without modification or reconfiguration. (Avoid Ethos 1.5.0 to 1.5.6 as these had a number of issues affecting the templates.)

Changes to configuration procedure: If you have an old template and then flash Ethos 1.5, then any subsequent configuration must be done via new VARs elements These replace the old var mixes which have been dropped in Ethos 1.5. VARs are accessible from the second page of the model setup screen. Remember to take this into account when following the Setup guide for your template.

Sound missing after flashing Ethos 1.5

Audio has changed in Ethos 1.5. It's now based on 'voices'. Three system-wide voices are available. Each voice has an associated sub-folder (under the \audio folder) to hold the sound files.

The Pro templates use voice1, so the sounds must be copied to the voice1 subfolder. To determine the voice1 subfolder:

1. Open the System>General menu.
2. Scroll to the Audio section
3. Make a note of voice1. Valid examples include 'default', 'gb', 'us'. (If the entry is blank, then change it to a valid subfolder.)
4. Establish a USB connection with your PC
5. Look in the \audio folder, and find the subfolder with voice1 in the name. For example if voice1 = 'gb' then there will be a folder \audio\en\gb (british english)'. Likewise if voice1= 'us' then look for a folder \audio\en\us' (american english).

The folder identified in step 5 is where you should copy the sound files. Note: do not use the 'system' subfolder, these are for system files.

"Lua widget key not found"

Ethos may display a warning with a red triangle if a Lua script is missing or in error. Once triggered, the message may persist even after you select a different model.

To clear the message, make sure the active model is the one which first displayed the message. Then:

1. Go to the Screens menu
2. Click on 'Screen1', and choose a full screen layout.
3. Assign a widget (any widget).
4. Reboot the transmitter

The message should no longer appear. You can now reconfigure the screen to your taste.

Two Things to Avoid in Ethos 1.5

Servo equaliser function

A 'servo equaliser' function is being introduced around Ethos 1.5 16. The templates already provide a equalisation function through their built-in CAL mode, and this is incompatible with Ethos' servo equaliser feature. Please stick to CAL mode for the templates.

Move trims to subtrim - avoid!

Ethos 1.5 sports a new option 'Move trims to subtrim'. Please avoid using this as (a) it's not appropriate for setups with complex mixing and multiple flightmodes, and (b) it'll trash your CAL settings

How are 'left' and 'right' oriented in the setup guides?

'Left' and 'right' are from an observer behind the tail, looking forwards.

Cross trims

Some pilots like to have 'cross' trims (trims on the opposite side to the stick). The Cross trim option is at the bottom of the Trims menu. No other change is needed.

Will the Pro templates work on my X18, X14, XE etc?

The Pro templates are built for the X20. If using a different transmitter, one or two changes may be needed to the control assignments. The setup guide explains how to do this. If you still have issues, please contact me.

How do I change the channel order?

Ethos offers two ways to change the channel order:

Method 1 - swap channels

New in Ethos 1.5 is a smart swap-channels feature, accessible from the Outputs menu. All options including channel name, direction, min/max/subtrim and curves are swapped. In addition, references to swapped channels in mixers, logical switches etc. are updated automatically.

Here's the procedure:

1. Go to the Outputs screen
2. Long press on any output and open the editor
3. Scroll down to the bottom, and choose 'Swap channels'
4. Swap between any two channels.

Repeat steps 3 and 4 to achieve the desired channel order.

Method 2 - remap the rx pins

If you have an Archer receiver, or an RX- or G-RX-series receiver with the latest ACCESS firmware, then you can remap the receiver pins. This can be done OTA (over the air) from your Ethos transmitter.

First, register and bind the receiver. Then in the RF menu of your transmitter, open the RX Settings menu. There you'll see the pin mapping, which you can alter to suit.

I can't see the template in the Model Select menu

There are three possible causes:

1. Check you have the minimum Ethos version installed. The minimum is shown on the template page.
2. Check that you've copied the file to a pre-existing \models folder. On some newer radios, the \models folder is located in internal memory, which should be visible as a virtual drive when connected via USB in bootloader mode.
3. Some early versions of the templates had filenames with special characters which are not recognised. Rename the .bin file, changing upper case characters to lower case, and stripping out any non-alphanumeric characters. Then restart the transmitter.

How should I organise my models?

Use the 'custom folders' feature to organise your models (introduced in Ethos 1.1). For example, templates might go into a 'Templates' folder, unflown models would go in a 'Testing' folder, and so on.

Ethos also associates a model type with each setup, this being 'airplane', 'glider', 'heli', 'multi' or 'other'. The model type should not be changed, as it determines the mixers available for programming.

How do I install Ethos updates?

To download and flash the latest version of Ethos, install the Ethos Suite application, available from GitHub. Ethos Suite handles everything, from determining the firmware on your tx, to downloading and flashing the latest firmware and sound files. A USB cable will be required to connect the tx to your computer.

Contact

If you have a query, I can be contacted here. Please include as much detail as possible including: template name and version, Ethos version, transmitter, and the steps to reproduce the issue.