Yay!

- Tim

“We only sold a few thousands EVO and Profi upgrades, so its not a very big market compared to the other brands”

So sad; what a unfortunate response. You have simply turned a lot of us off of your system. We wait for this kind of response? Jeez.

I expect more from you guy’s

Excuse me? What is so jerk about it? He is stating a fact. The Evo's and Profi's only sold at a small fraction of what the other tx's have. And not all of us who did buy one have purchased an XPS module for it. Did you even notice that he stated that he updated to firmware 3.41 and now his Evo does not work with his module? It sounds as if he is interested in making this work and I hope he does. I like my Evo and I am interested in purchasing the XPS module and many rx's if he can get it to work with firmware 3.xx.

Originally Posted by JimDrew

So, I have created a fake MLINK module in software. The new firmware upgrade will require that you attach two wires from our telemetry port on the transmitter module to the EVO's module port.

Excellent!
I have an old evo and firmware from may 2009 v3.1 or something and would be delighted if I could have telemetry into my display! Been waiting for this for three years....Are there sensors available for voltage and current?

Where can I buy?

Stian

Originally Posted by Buran

“We only sold a few thousands EVO and Profi upgrades, so its not a very big market compared to the other brands”

So sad; what a unfortunate response. You have simply turned a lot of us off of your system. We wait for this kind of response? Jeez.

I expect more from you guy’s

I think you missed the point of my response. It may be that we have to make brand new hardware just to support the EVO with v3.30/v3.41 firmware. The reality is that we did not sell very many of these systems, compared to Futaba, JR, Graupner, and even Airtronics. So, will the return be worth the expense? How many people at this point would be willing to purchase a brand new board just to get the support for v3.30/v3.41 firmware? Especially since you can downgrade back to v2.x without any additional costs.

I hope to figure out a way to make it work with existing boards, but even that would require a fine pitch (1.25mm) connector be soldered into existing boards, and that is something that not everyone can do. So, there is no easy solution for this.

Telemetry support would require full M-Link emulation, and that would be an incredible amount of work to support. We have a thread here on building sensors for our system.

Originally Posted by JimDrew

I think you missed the point of my response. It may be that we have to make brand new hardware just to support the EVO with v3.30/v3.41 firmware. The reality is that we did not sell very many of these systems, compared to Futaba, JR, Graupner, and even Airtronics. So, will the return be worth the expense? How many people at this point would be willing to purchase a brand new board just to get the support for v3.30/v3.41 firmware? Especially since you can downgrade back to v2.x without any additional costs.

I hope to figure out a way to make it work with existing boards, but even that would require a fine pitch (1.25mm) connector be soldered into existing boards, and that is something that not everyone can do. So, there is no easy solution for this.

Yeah, I guess I was a bit rash. You’re the businessman, not me. I thought a couple thousand Evo units was pretty good.

I consider the Evo software superior to the Asian radio’s I’ve been exposed to over the years. My understanding is the Evo Pro offers dedicated mixing per model which in my mind is a huge improvement over global mixers. It sure would be nice if you guy’s supported the Evo Pro.

I am working on it.

Well, I have figured out a way to emulate the 72MHz synth module so that it generates the PPM pulse to our module. The new code allows v1.x/2.x/3.3-3.41 EVO firmware to now work with our module.

I may spend some more time in the future to do the M-Link support so that we can get back at least our Rx battery voltage and RSSI (Multiplex calls this LQI) information in the EVO's display.

What is required to make this work is the removal of the jumper between pins 2 and 5 on the module connector. In fact, what works the best is to remove the pin 2 connector from the plastic housing and clip the wire at the connector. This leaves a wire connected just to pin 5 of the connector. That wire is attached to one pin on our module's telemetry interface bus. We will have a nicer solution as an upgrade harness (shown below with the yellow wire). Again, this setup works with any version of the EVO firmware, so it is safe to do this as long as you are updating the firmware on our module.

You will need a flashable CPU and our XDP or Telemetry Station to support this upgrade. There will also be an option for you to send in your board to get re-flashed here and returned along with the harness already attached and tested. This would be the only way to get the harness as it requires soldering a 1.25mm connector, which requires special tools.

There is no release date for the M-Link support, if it even occurs at all. That is some major work to take their data and convert it to our format on the fly, add telemetry, etc. This upgrade at least lets you use your EVO with the v3.3 and 3.41 firmware.

Please note that putting the board into binding/programming/XDP mode is a little different than before. You will see a brief flash of "orange" before the LED turns green (while holding the button). Once the button turns green you can release it to start the binding mode. If you keep holding the button until it turns red, releasing it would go into push button programming mode. Further holding the button until the LED changes to orange puts it in XDP mode.

I am working on the updater right now.

Please note that ALL of your models will need to be re-bound after upgrading our board and/or the EVO firmware.

Wow! Color me impressed! I didn't think it would be that hard, considering the groundwork I had pointed to, but the timeline on this is amazing!

Jim, I am well and truly impressed! You now also have a capability for the Multiplex line that I don't think exists anywhere else but with native MLink!

Hitec should be very ashamed . . . . .

- Tim

The 'ground work' was something that I already had. I just didn't know if the RF enable was going to be a hang-up. At least for the 72MHz synth module, it will never be. But they could require some version of the module that changes the firmware in the M-Link module (if that is even possible).

I am looking at the M-Link support a little more today. It would be nice to have a direct connect instead of the PPM capture. That would cut latency by about 12ms and offer faster frames as well.

This is great news. I will have to wait until August before I have the funds to purchase the module and several rx's. Will the module I buy already have the latest firmware required?

Yes, we always ship the latest. We are going to offer a complete kit that consists of a the top mount adapter, long heavy-duty pigtail, board flash w/connector installed and new wiring harness. All new units being sold will include these items, and the price will slightly change.

Jim....Couldn't the wire from pin 5 be soldered INTO the hole at one or the other end of the trace,rather than scraping the solder mask and sticking it to the surface of the trace? Not a big difference,But it would be a bit nicer and not require heating the trace to solder it.