SunFounder SFX190 User manual

Preface
About SunFounder
SunFounder is a technology company focused on Raspberry Pi and Arduino open source
community development. Committed to the promotion of open source culture, we strive to
bring the fun of electronics making to people all around the world and enable everyone to
be a maker. Our products include learning kits, development boards, robots, sensor modules
and development tools. In addition to high quality products, SunFounder also offers video
tutorials to help your own project. If you have interest in open source or making something
cool, welcome to join us! Visit www.sunfounder.com for more!
About This User Manual
The small outdoor racing drone kit SFX190 applies the SF Racing F3 as the flight controller, thus
it gives you all the features you need for the heart of your aircraft. Whether you’re into FPV
racing, acrobatic flying or aerial photography, it’s perfect. In this manual, instructions are
provided on software debugging for the flight controller.
Notes:
1. If you have a components kit, please follow video tutorials under VIDEO on our website
for assembly.
2. If you purchase an assembled one, the software debugging has been configured on
the flight controller originally, which is mentioned in Chapter 2 and Chapter 3. If you want
to redo it, you can follow those instructions.
Safety Precautions
DO FULLY recharge the battery before use, and please install the buzzer alarm in case of
damages caused by over-discharge.
When you fly the quadcopter for the first time, please go to an open environment and
avoid crashing into hard objects in case of quadcopter especially propeller damages.
Free Support
If you have any TECHNICAL questions, add a topic under FORUM section on our website
and we'll reply as soon as possible.
For NON-TECH questions like order and shipment issues, please send an email to
[e-mail]. You're also welcomed to share your projects on FORUM.
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Contents
1. Introduction .....................................................................................................................................1
1.1 Get to Know the Aircraft - SFX190......................................................................................1
1.2 Hardware ..............................................................................................................................1
1.3 Radio Transmitter Configuration (taking FS-I6X as an example) ...................................2
1.4 Software ................................................................................................................................8
2. Betaflight ..........................................................................................................................................9
2.1 Installing the Betaflight ........................................................................................................9
2.2 Flashing the SF RACING F3 Firmware...............................................................................11
2.3 Configuring the Wizard of SF RACING F3........................................................................16
2.3.1 Calibration................................................................................................................16
2.3.2 Configuration ...........................................................................................................17
2.3.3 Receiver....................................................................................................................18
2.3.4 Configuring Parameter of PID................................................................................20
2.3.5 Configuring the Flight Mode ..................................................................................21
3. Cleanflight .....................................................................................................................................23
3.1 Installing Cleanflight ..........................................................................................................23
3.2 Flashing SF RACING F3 Firmware......................................................................................25
3.3 Configuring the Wizard of SF RACING F3........................................................................29
3.3.1 Calibration................................................................................................................29
3.3.2 Configuration ...........................................................................................................30
3.3.3 Receiver....................................................................................................................31
3.3.4 Configuring Parameter of PID................................................................................34
3.3.5 Configuring Flight Mode.........................................................................................35
Appendix - Basics for Application.....................................................................................................37
Unlocking the Aircraft..................................................................................................................37
Control During the Flight..............................................................................................................37
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1. Introduction
1.1 Get to Know the Aircraft - SFX190
1. If you want to flash the firmware, please follow the instructions in Chapter 2 Betaflight or
Chapter 3 Cleanflight.
2. Its frame is made of carbon fiber, which endows it with high tenacity and anti-collision ability.
3. The aircraft provides wonderful stunt flying movements such as left-right flip, crossing, etc.
1.2 Hardware
The SF Racing F3 flight controller is designed to provide high performance flight experience for
the hobbyists. With verified sensor algorithm, it provides incomparable I/O capabilities. The SF
Racing F3 runs a next-generation 32-bit STM32F303CCT6 processor, an MPU6050 accelerometer
and a gyroscope sensor, all high integrated on a lightweight PCB to improve the flight
performance. In addition, it offers more practical functions to your aircraft. The SF Racing F3 flight
controller is perfect whether you are doing FPV contest or practicing stunt flying and it is suitable
for a variety of aircrafts including tricopters, quadcopters, hexacopters, octocopters, fixed wing
aircrafts, etc.
Features
1. The next-generation processor STM32F3 supports high performance floating-point arithmetic
and faster calculation by the ARM Cortex M4 kernel. The looptime for the flight controller is about
2 times of the previous STM32F1.
2. The functions of the I/O ports in the flight controller can be greatly extended and these ports
can be used simultaneously for connecting various devices such as OSD, Smartport, SBUS, GPS,
LED light strip, battery monitor, buzzer, and eight motors.
3. The sixteen PWM I/O cables serve for ESCs, servos and traditional receivers, among which eight
cables work with standard pin headers and the others are distributed in the connectors of the
flight controller.
4. It supports SBUS, SFektrum1024/2048, PPM, PWM and XBus receivers and needs no external
inverter with one already built in.
5. It fully supports the OneShot ESCs for easy PID tuning.
6. The dedicated programmable LED light strip provides a variety of signal lights for the aircraft
heading, racing and night flight.
7. It includes a specific I2C port to connect an OLED display, needless of extra batteries.
8. It provides a battery monitoring port for voltage and current.
9. The buzzer raises the alarm and sends out notification so you can search for the lost aircraft.
10. You can choose from serial wire debug (SWD) and boot mode, so the bootloader will not be
locked.
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11. It uses pin headers, JST-SH sockets or solder pads to wire up. Both angled and straight pin
headers are available.
12. It works with a variety of aircrafts like tricopters, quadcopters, hexacopters, octocopters,
planes, etc.
13. Configuration of the flight controller can be done via a cross-platform GUI
(Windows/OSX/Linux).
Software
The SF Racing F3 runs the open-source Cleanflight flight control software which has an ever-
growing community of friendly developers and users. Being open-source means that you can
contribute to the system.
1.3 Radio Transmitter Configuration (taking FS-I6X as an example)
1. Radio Transmitter Overview:
2. Button Functions
To enter the main menu, press and hold the OK button. Use the UP and DOWN button to select
the section and press OK. Then, use the UP and DOWN button to select the submenu and press
again OK. Most of the following screens work similarly:
1) Press OK to select the parameter to modify.
2) Press UP and DOWN to modify the value of the selected parameter.
3) Press and hold CANCEL to exit and save the new parameters.
4) Press CANCEL to exit without saving the new parameters.
To return to the previous screen, press CANCEL. Repeat until it goes back to the main screen.
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3. Set the radio transmitter to open SWA, SWC auxiliary channel:
The four aux channels SWA, SWB, SWC, and SWD are not used in initial state, and we need to
apply SWA to arm the aircraft and SWC to shift flight mode on the debugged flight controller.
Thus, we need to open the aux channels first.
1) Turn on the transmitter, follow the user manual of the transmitter to operate.
2) Press and hold OK to enter the main menu, and press OK again to select the system setup as
shown below:
Press DOWN, and select AUX switches, and press OK to get into the interface below. Press and
hold OK, and the AUX switches will restore the default setting.
Press OK to select the aux channel, and UP or DOWN to turn it ON or OFF. Here we open two AUX
channels –SWA and SWC, and set Ch as 6(The transmitter can be set to 6-10 channels; here 6 is
enough). Then press and hold CANCEL to exit and save the setting.
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3) Press CANCEL again to go back to the main menu, and UP or DOWN to select Functions setup,
then press OK. Press DOWN to select AUX. channels as shown below:
4) Press OK to get into AUX. channels, and OK to select the channel to be set, then UP or DOWN
to select the corresponding channel. Here we set CH5: SWC; CH6: SWA, then press and hold
CANCEL to exit and save the setting.
5) Press Cancel twice to exit the setting. Now the transmitter configuration is done.
Structure Specification
Dimensions: Board sizing 36 x 36 mm with 3.5mm mounting holes.
Weight: 5.8g
The front:
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1. SWD debugging connector: To debug the port.
Used for software development or flashing via SWD. It cannot be run when USART2 is in use.
SWD Dedugging
1
GND
2
NRST
3
SWDIO
4
SWDCLK
2. USART2 connector: Used for the 5V I/O ports (GPS, etc.). It cannot be run when SWD port is in
use.
USART2 Connector
1
GND
2
VCC
3
TXD/SWDCLK
4
RXD
3. USART3 headers: Used for the 3.3 V I/O ports.
It MUST NOT be used when PWM RX is in use or when it's IO_2 CH3/4.
USART3 Headers
1
GND
2
VCC
3
TXD
4
RXD
4. USART1 headers: Used for the 5V I/O ports (OSD, etc.). DO NOT use it when the USB port is
connected.
USART1 Headers
1
GND
2
VCC
3
TXD
4
RXD
5. IO_1 connector: To connect the PWM RX or PPM RX remote signal mode as well as set the LED
and GPIO.
When using the PWM receiver, connect its CH1, CH2, CH5, and CH6 to pin 3-6 (PWM RX) of the
IO_1 connector respectively.
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Connect it to pin 3 of the IO_1 connector when using a PPM receiver.
The LED light can be set for battery warning, status indication, flight mode display, etc.
LED Strip data signal can be used to change the color of each LED independently on a strip of
WS2812 RGB LEDs, making it perfect for battery warning lights, orientation lights, indicators, failsafe,
flight mode display, etc.
CH1/2/5/6 can be used as a general purpose I/O if not for PPM/PWM RX.
A 3.3V output is also available.
IO_1 connector
1
GND
2
VCC
3
CH1/PPM
4
CH2/GPIO
5
CH5/GPIO
6
CH6/GPIO
7
LED_STRIP
8
3.3V
6. IO_2 connector: Serial RX/PWM RX/GPIO/USART3.
When using a PWM receiver, connect CH3/4/7/8 to PWM RX.
When using a 3.3V serial RX receiver (S.Bus, SUMD/H, etc.), use GND/VCC/CH3 (USART3 RX).
CH3/4/7/8 can be used as general purpose I/O if not for serial/PWM RX.
CH7/8 can be used for a 3.3V sonar sensor when it's not used for PWM RX.
ADC_1/2 can be used to connect the battery current monitoring and RSSI signals (3.3V MAX).
IO_2 connector
1
GND
2
VCC
3
CH3/RXD
4
CH4/TXD
5
CH7/SONAR
TRIGGER
6
CH8/SONAR ECHO
7
ADC_1/Battery
Current Monitoring
8
ADC_2/RSSI
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7. Battery voltage monitoring header: To connect the flight controller for battery voltage
monitoring and alarm raising.
Battery voltage monitoring
header
1
-/ Negative pole of
the battery
2
+/ Positive pole of
the battery
8. Buzzer header: To connect the buzzer for alarm and information.
A 50mA 5.0V low-power-consumption buzzer is used for the alarm of low voltage and searching
for lost aircraft in the Cleanflight software.
9. ESC/Servo output headers: To connect eight motors or servos.
It currently supports PWM ESCs (400Hz by default), Oneshot 125 ESCs and PWM servos (50Hz by
default).
10. Boot headers: To recover the firmware.
It runs the STM32 loading program if the soldering pads are bridged; if not, it works normally then.
The back:
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11. USART1 connector: Used for 5.0V I/O ports (OSD, etc.)
DO NOT use it when the USB port is connected.
DO NOT use it when the USART1 headers are in use.
USART1 connector
1
GND
2
VCC
3
TXD
4
RXD
12. I2C1 connector: To connect to external sensors and OLED display. SCL and SDA are the signal
ports of the 3.3V.
I2C1 connector
1
GND
2
5.0V
3
SCL
4
SDA
1.4 Software
The SF Racing F3 runs the Cleanflight and Betaflight flight control software which has a community
with a growing number of friendly developers and users. Being open-source means that you can
also contribute to the system.
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2. Betaflight
2.1 Installing the Betaflight
Step 1: Run the Google Chrome
You will see the interface as shown below:
Step 2: Click on the Customize and Control Google Chrome button at the top right of the window,
then on the drop-down list select More Tools -> Extensions:
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Step 3: On the window, click browse the Chrome Web Store.
And you'll see the shop page as below:
Step 4: Type in Betaflight in the search bar, select Apps and press Enter. You will see the Betaflight
app.
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Step 5: Click + ADD TO CHROME, and a prompt Add "Betaflight - Configurator" will pop up asking
you whether to add the extension or not. Just click Add app.
Step 6: The software installation may take a little time. When it is done, you will see the Betaflight
app in Chrome Extensions.
2.2 Flashing the SF RACING F3 Firmware
Step 1: Click Betaflight to run the ground control software (GCS).
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Step 2: Connect the SF RACING F3 to the computer with a USB cable. Go to Computer
Management -> Device Manager -> Ports (COM & LPT) to check whether the SF RACING F3 is
recognized by the computer or not.
Step 3: If YES, choose the corresponding COM port at the top right corner on the software.
Do not connect now.
Step 4: If there is NO driver software on your computer, please install the driver first.
Note: If the flight controller is recognized by the computer, please skip this step.
1) The SF RACING F3 flight controller applies STM32 Virtual COM Port (VCP). You can download
this driver in Betaflight.
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2) After download the driver, double-click VCP_V1.4.0_Setup.exe to install it. After it's
completed (click Close), please CONTINUE the installation below.
3) Get into C:\Program Files (x86)\STMicroelectronics\Software\Virtual comport
driver\Win8\ - Here type in Win7 or Win8 for your computer’s operating system. You can see
there are two files. If your system is 64-bit, please click dpinst_amd64 to install; if it is 32-bit,
click dpinst_x86. Wait until the installation is completed.
4) Replug in the USB cable, and then you can see the flight controller is recognized by the
computer in the Device Manager.
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Step 5: Click Firmware Flasher (you can see the icon’s name on the left by amplifying the
Betaflight) to upgrade and flash the firmware. Choose a board: SPRACINGF3; Choose a latest
firmware version: XXXXX; Enable the “Manual baud rate” and select the baud rate 256000.
Step 6: There are two Load Firmware options: Load Firmware[Online] and Load Firmware[Local] -
you are recommended to select Load Firmware[Online].
Step 7: After loading, click Flash Firmware to start flashing. Wait for Flash Firmware completed.
Note: DO NOT pull out the USB cable during the firmware flashing, or you will get an error “USB
Device Not Recognized” when you replug in the USB cable.
1) Thus, you need to pull out the USB cable, and use the tip of a tweezer or a screw driver to
connect the two BOOT pads (as shown below) for a while.
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2) Then insert the USB cable, and reopen the Betaflight. Click Flash Firmware again, and it
should be flashed successfully after a while.
Note: If the flash goes wrong, the following page will appear:
Solution: Disconnect the USB cable from the computer. Connect the two soldering pans beside
BOOT on the board with a wire, then plug back the USB cable, and take away the wire. In the
software, decrease the baud rate. And click Flash Firmware again.
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If the flash goes successfully, the following page will be shown:
2.3 Configuring the Wizard of SF RACING F3
2.3.1 Calibration
1) Calibrating the Accelerometer
Click Connect at the top right of the software.
Place the SF RACING F3 on a level surface, click Calibrate Accelerometer for calibrating
horizontally. There is no need to calibrate the compass. If the arrow in the software does not face
the front of the aircraft, just replug the USB cable to try.
2) Calibrating the ESCs
Click Motors on the left, then click switch in frame “1” to activate Enable motor control. Next,
slide the Master switch in frame “2” to the max, and connect the battery to the plane (REMOVE
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the propellers before connecting it to power.). When a beeping from low to high is heard, slide
the Mater switch to the Min; then a beeping from high to low, slide the Master switch slowly to
adjust. When the motors spin, the calibrating is completed.
After the ESC’s calibrating is done, slide Master to the lowest, and inactivate "1" to disconnect
the battery from the aircraft.
2.3.2 Configuration
Click Configuration on the left to set Quad-X as default mode in Mixer, and select ONESHORT125
and click to activate MOTOR_STOP in ESC/Motor Features; Activate VBAT in Battery Voltage part,
then remember to click Save and Reboot after setting.
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Under Board and Sensor Alignment, you can set the orientation of the arrow of the flight
control SF RACING F3. The arrow of our board points to 90 degrees clockwise from the plane
head orientation, or if you take the front of the plane, it points to your right. Therefore, set –90
for Yaw Degrees. Place the flight control with the arrow at the position of 90 degrees anti-
clockwise from the aircraft head, and set 90 for Yaw Degrees; place it with the arrow right at
the head, set it as 0.
After setting, click Save and Reboot to save it.
2.3.3 Receiver
The SF RACING F3 supports PPM, SBUS, and DSM/DSMX; thus you can set your receiver to these
modes.
PPM Signal Mode
The receiver is set under the PPM signal mode originally. Under this mode, the least serial ports are
occupied and the LED indicator can be set. Here PPM is set as the default RX signal input in
Betaflight. So if your receiver is in the PPM signal mode, there is no need to change the setting of
Receiver Mode in Betaflight.
SBUS Signal Mode
1) If your receiver is in the SBUS signal mode, click Ports on the left and activate Serial RX
in UART3, and then click Save and Reboot.
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