Vapor Spektrum DSM2 transmitter calibration

[TheSteve]

I was recently sent a pair of Vapor Spektrum DSM2 transmitters. They were transmitters that had failed for darksiede, he sent them to village_idiot who took a look at them and then sent to me. The intention was to see what good could be done with the DSM2 transmitter module that was inside them. The failure the radios had appeared to be a bad pot.

Long story short I was experimenting them and realized it wasn't a bad pot but was actually a calibration issue. After some poking around I figured there must be a calibration function that could be accessed.

A few minutes of playing with button configs and I determined how to do it.

If your Vapor tx has one or multiple channels that don't move the servos or throttle smoothly but instead move them like a switch with only two positions or they only half work then recalibration is likely all you need to do to fix the problem.

To calibrate do the following:

Turn the radio off, make sure you have fresh batteries.

Power the radio on while holding down both the left rudder and right aileron trim buttons.(mode 2 users the left stick is rudder, right stick is aileron even though the aileron control moves the rudder on a Vapor) See the first picture for details.

If you've entered calibration mode properly you'll hear musical tones go from high to low and repeat. At this point you can let go of the trim buttons.

You now need to move both the left and right sticks through there full range of motion a few times.

Now press the right rudder trim and the left aileron trim at the same time - see the second picture for details.

Calibration is complete and the transmitter will boot as normal.

This fixed both of the transmitters I have here that had control problems.


Now for some further technical details of the transmitter for those interested.

The radio can be swapped between mode 1 and 2 using the recessed slide switch. This isn't overly useful unless you want to also desolder and move the gimbals as there is no way to move a spring around.

After the radio goes through the bind sequence and beeps it will beep twice if in mode 2 and once if in mode 1.

You can reverse the elevator, aileron and rudder channels by holding down one of the trim buttons for the channel you want to reverse at power on until it beeps. You can go the other way by holding down the opposite trim button. The throttle channel doesn't appear to be reversable.

Pushing the right stick in during flight with the Vapor acts as a dual rate function and causes the power LED to blink slowly.
When used with other Spektrum DSM2 receivers pushing the sticks in acts like an on/off switch for channels 5 and 6. The left stick will toggle channel 5, right stick will toggle channel 6.

Internally the radio uses an Atmel Mega88 processor. I believe the radio is assembled by Shanghai Helang Electronics Co., Ltd.(same company that makes the Kyosho Minimum transmitter)

***The calibration data of the radio can be corrupted by repeated power cycling of the radio, a loose battery connection or even static due to the lack of the correct programming options selected at the factory for the Atmel Mega88 processor. There is also a huge oversight in other areas related to the programming of the processor but I will leave that to every ones imagination for now.***

Questions or comments let me know!

[darksiede]

Amazing! I remember those RTF Tx's fondly.. and the anger & misery brought about by their (early deaths) miscalibrations!

Glad to see they've been around, and information is being assimilated into Al Gore's Interweb for the benefit of all people who have/had or will have issues with these Tx's..

Call horizon and tell them how to solve their dieing Tx problem, then ask for a free vapor for saving them a shedload of money :p

~Kev

PS: Are the velcro dots still on them for spare battery storage? lol

[TheSteve]

Yes, velcro dots are still there, I wondered what they were for...

How about it Horizon, send me a free Vapor and I'll tell you about the *real* problem with the transmitter. :) LOL

[MattIliketofly]

mine still don't work, (& I got it to play in the musical program mode)

but thanks for the detailed tx article anyway.

[village_idiot]

Wow, those things must have been way out of whack when you got them, I held down every single button, and some of the combinations when powering them up. Never did note any changes so I'm glad you found a few. Now all they need are to have an LCD hacked into them so that you can see what is happening, maybe that would fill in some of the missing components.

[MattIliketofly]

OH I think I'll let people know www.modelflight.com.au have so far chosen to ignore me when telling them that my vapor was faulty!

[village_idiot]

Post that up in the micro/indoor forum and maybe one of the Horizon employees will read it and put a hurting on them. Or send Horizon USA an email and see what happens, just keep in mind that turnaround on emails is about 2 weeks (no one knows why, and you may have seen the thread up in the indoor forum regarding this). A phone call from half way around the World is probably not worth the lost sleep and long distance charges.

[TheSteve]

For those that may be wondering what I referring to in regards to another "problem" with the Vapor transmitter here ya go.
It seems Horizon forgot to lock the mega88 processor so you can read/write the flash firmware. Normally companies lock the processors so code cannot be read out. In this case the cpu isn't protected so it can be read out quite easily and potentially used by another company or even us end users. Its not the same as having C source but its not that hard to modify the assembly code to add/change a few features and is much easier then writing code from scratch.
I can only assume it was an "oops" on there part.

[Andrew McGregor]

So... you're saying that the code for a DSM2 transmitter is available?

That makes reverse engineering the protocol MUCH easier...

[Ron W3FJW]

A phone call from half way around the World is probably not worth the lost sleep and long distance charges.

I'll put a little plug in here for a gadget I use and am quite happy with for phone calls. It's called Magic Jack. Google it. It may be available in AU and other countries by now. I don't know, but forum members might find it handy.

I have no connection with the company outside of being a satisfied user.

[Chip Geek]

For those that may be wondering what I referring to in regards to another "problem" with the Vapor transmitter here ya go.
It seems Horizon forgot to lock the mega88 processor so you can read/write the flash firmware. Normally companies lock the processors so code cannot be read out. In this case the cpu isn't protected so it can be read out quite easily and potentially used by another company or even us end users. Its not the same as having C source but its not that hard to modify the assembly code to add/change a few features and is much easier then writing code from scratch.
I can only assume it was an "oops" on there part.

Steve,

Have you discovered any other MCUs left unlocked? I'd especially like to know if the Vapor brick CPU is unlocked or not. (Which MCU is that? Mega88? I remember reading it but can't find the forum message...) Being able to reprogram the brick could lead to having a 4th channel - assuming there is a spare pin that could be used.

[TheSteve]

The Vapor brick uses a mega48v, the one I checked was locked. Even though its locked it can still be reprogrammed, there is just no chance of using/modifying the factory code.

[carlosb]

[QUOTE=TheSteve] Long story short I was experimenting them and realized it wasn't a bad pot but was actually a calibration issue. After some poking around I figured there must be a calibration function that could be accessed.

Mate!

thankyou, thankyou, thankyou for posting this find!!! my rudder would deflect all the way to the right with only half right stick. This happend after dropping the tx by accident!

Cheers,
Carlos

[TheSteve]

Glad you got it working! Dropping it will have likely caused a brief power interruption. Due to the poor programming options Horizon selected the radio can lose its settings when this happens.
Its always nice to know the info has helped someone.

[wiredconcepts]

My Vapor I got today is having this issue except I have the bind and fly and a DX7 do any of you guys know anything about fixing this issue?

[lowbubba]

TheSteve,
Thanks!!! I went to a indoor fly tonight, there was a herd, flock or gaggle of Vapors flying and mine was the slowest, barely 1/2 power, even at full power. We bound it to a different transmitter and it flew fine. So I knew it was the transmitter. Found your post and did the calibration. Has plenty of power now. You saved me from buying a new transmitter.
Thanks again,
Randy Hatton

[yfm1]

TheSteve, can you help me with this problem?

It appears I have lost the bind between the Vapor Tx and receiver. But, it may be something else.
I have used the Vapor for about 2 months, many flights and put it away working.
Took it out to fly and the is no response with the TX and receiver turned on.
Symptoms:
When I plug the receiver in the red led comes on for about 5 seconds and then goes off.
When I turn the Tx on it's red led is on bright, but the receiver led does not come on. Tested the Tx batt. and they are at 1.54V.
The receiver led never comes on again.
There is no response from the 2 servos or motor.
Things I tried:
Re-binding several times, no effect.
Read this thread of yours about calibration, tried it to see what would happen. No effect.
I purchased another receiver and some other parts, for another project. Tried binding the second receiver and it works like a champ. This tells me the problem is in the receiver, I think.

Help! Can you give me some things to try, or some Idea what my problem is?

I agree the Vapor is a fantastic aircraft and a fantastic micro RC system. That is why I purchase the Vapor RC parts for another project. I design rubber powered Free Flight aircraft and manufacture the kits for them. The Vapor RC system should work great on them. The aircraft can be seen at fly-m.com

Thanks for the help.

yfm1



I was recently sent a pair of Vapor Spektrum DSM2 transmitters. They were transmitters that had failed for darksiede, he sent them to village_idiot who took a look at them and then sent to me. The intention was to see what good could be done with the DSM2 transmitter module that was inside them. The failure the radios had appeared to be a bad pot.

Long story short I was experimenting them and realized it wasn't a bad pot but was actually a calibration issue. After some poking around I figured there must be a calibration function that could be accessed.

A few minutes of playing with button configs and I determined how to do it.

If your Vapor tx has one or multiple channels that don't move the servos or throttle smoothly but instead move them like a switch with only two positions or they only half work then recalibration is likely all you need to do to fix the problem.

To calibrate do the following:

Turn the radio off, make sure you have fresh batteries.

Power the radio on while holding down both the left rudder and right aileron trim buttons.(mode 2 users the left stick is rudder, right stick is aileron even though the aileron control moves the rudder on a Vapor) See the first picture for details.

If you've entered calibration mode properly you'll hear musical tones go from high to low and repeat. At this point you can let go of the trim buttons.

You now need to move both the left and right sticks through there full range of motion a few times.

Now press the right rudder trim and the left aileron trim at the same time - see the second picture for details.

Calibration is complete and the transmitter will boot as normal.

This fixed both of the transmitters I have here that had control problems.


Now for some further technical details of the transmitter for those interested.

The radio can be swapped between mode 1 and 2 using the recessed slide switch. This isn't overly useful unless you want to also desolder and move the gimbals as there is no way to move a spring around.

After the radio goes through the bind sequence and beeps it will beep twice if in mode 2 and once if in mode 1.

You can reverse the elevator, aileron and rudder channels by holding down one of the trim buttons for the channel you want to reverse at power on until it beeps. You can go the other way by holding down the opposite trim button. The throttle channel doesn't appear to be reversable.

Pushing the right stick in during flight with the Vapor acts as a dual rate function and causes the power LED to blink slowly.
When used with other Spektrum DSM2 receivers pushing the sticks in acts like an on/off switch for channels 5 and 6. The left stick will toggle channel 5, right stick will toggle channel 6.

Internally the radio uses an Atmel Mega88 processor. I believe the radio is assembled by Shanghai Helang Electronics Co., Ltd.(same company that makes the Kyosho Minimum transmitter)

***The calibration data of the radio can be corrupted by repeated power cycling of the radio, a loose battery connection or even static due to the lack of the correct programming options selected at the factory for the Atmel Mega88 processor. There is also a huge oversight in other areas related to the programming of the processor but I will leave that to every ones imagination for now.***

Questions or comments let me know!

[TheSteve]

If the transmitter works with one receiver and not another I'd have to say there is something wrong with the receiver. Do double check the binding procedure as there has been a change to the bricks software, binding a newer brick is not the same process as an original.

[Robster]

THANK YOU STEVE!

This fixed my Vapor transmitter that went wacko on me. I went as far as to tear it apart, clean and swap gimbal pots. Was ready to throw it away. As a last effort I did a Google search and found this thread.

Your effort is very much appreciated! Thanks again,

Rob

[cstratton]

Cool find. I would assume this applies to the mCX helicopter which uses apparently the same transmitter?

[telos81]

this fix worked for me!

i thought i was going to have to replace the tx or the rx!

[Vogon]

Hi Steve,

Can you suggest a fix for some Kyosho gear? I had a smashed up Cessna and put the gear into a home build which bound and flew great.

Now I have bought a trashed Vapor minus the gear...... I have put the Cessna gear into that. Unfortunately I cannot get it to bind to any of my three Kyosho Tx's.



I have bound my other Cessna, Citabria and Fly Baby on numerous occasions to each of the different Transmitters, but stumped by this (after all of the work to repair the 2nd hand trashed Vapor).:(


Any Clues?

[TheSteve]

The Kyosho and Vapor gear are not interchangeable. The Kyosho uses one protocol, the Vapor uses Spektrum DSM2.

[Vogon]

Hi,

Yes I know that........ It is a Kyosho Rx and a Kyosho Tx that wont bind. Just wondered if you knew anything about binding issues with them?

[TheSteve]

Sorry, no I can't help. I don't have any of the Kyosho gear.

[Vogon]

Cheers for the reply......... :)

Anyone else got any clues, or threads to go to? :confused:

[flying-llama]

...***The calibration data of the radio can be corrupted by repeated power cycling of the radio, ...
A related possibility: I once corrupted the memory settings for a model on a Hitec Flash 5
by turning it on after it had been sitting in the sun for a little while.
Many of the settings were corrupted to illegal values that the system would not have let me entered,
so I knew that I could not have accidentally programmed them.

So turning on a radio when it is hot (like being in the sun) is one possible way
to scramble its memory.

[TheSteve]

Temperature likely isn't an issue with the Vapor tx. There is a specific design flaw in the transmitter that causes the loss of data.

[Vogon]

Thanks for the tip about heat and Tx's.......... but the equipment has not been warm.

The radio I am talking about is KYOSHO, not Vapor. There seems to be a good deal of expertise with the Vapor stuff, but I am struggling with my Kyosho. :mad:

I have three Tx's now, and they all bind with every model I have, except one...... so it must be the Rx side that is at fault.

Cheers for any help ;)

[chevypower1930]

wowww thank you!! I COULDN'T FIGURE OUT MY TX ISSUE! fixed it!