Starting Again.

[DonHo]

I have a couple of Vortex 250's that I did fly off and on a few years back.. Thought I wanted to go racing.
Packed them away for a few years. I would like to get them back out.

I dont want to race, but try to modify these to allow for leisurely flying and maybe program a flight from point a to point b and back, etc.
Can someone point me a direction that would help me start on this idea?

Not sure Immersion is still in business as I have not received any response from my emails.

Thanks for the help

Don Ho.

 

[wafflejock]

Hello Don,

Far as I know Immersion is still in business and putting out rapid fire modules and other things:

ImmersionRC Limited – Pioneers in FPV Electronics

www.immersionrc.com

That said not sure how long they offer support for products or what the support is like in general as I haven't bought products from them. From looking at the current Vortex 250 option it looks like it's using a STM32F3 based board, the newer flight controllers will use at least a F4 process or maybe an F7 processor. F4 and F7 are both higher clock rate/faster than the F3 so can do more in each second also the F7 has more dedicated hardware serial pins so can connect more peripherals with RX/TX like a GPS module, and can support I2C protocol with SDA/SCL lines for magnometer/compass.

Long story short you'll want a newer FC in there most likely which isn't trivial but isn't impossible either just takes some time/soldering. Would look for FCs that are compatible with both iNav and Betaflight if you are looking to hook up a GPS/magnometer since Betaflight use of that hardware is limited to return to home. Some FCs will also have a barometer built in which I imagine can't hurt with regard to getting altitude data but imagine once it has GPS lock the altitude is known too. Full disclosure I fly betaflight acro mode most of the time just dipping my toes into GPS control.

 

[DonHo]

Thank you sir. I will give them another shout and see if I can get a response.. Is it easy enough to pick up a new FC? I will see if I can find the schematic of the quad. I have never had good success with betaflight connecting with the quads I have. Could it be the fact that I do have the older FC?

 

[wafflejock]

Hey yah the FC is basically one of two standard sizes it's almost definitely a 30x30mm hole spacing for the mounting screws. They actually use 30.5mm between holes but will be labelled as 30x30 lots of places, check out racedayquads.com or getfpv.com for some reviews and starting points, immersion can maybe point you towards drop in replacements too so less custom wiring to fix. If you buy a "flight stack" then just need to hook up motor wires to the 4 in 1 ESC so might be easier if you don't do a lot of soldering.


For smaller quads there are 20x20 format boards too. However likely not applicable here.

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Regarding hooking up to betaflight there is the "impulserc driver fixer" that will fix most issues with getting into firmware flashing mode but for the most part just getting serial connection things have worked okay for me but I do have more experience with the newer boards and know they have some features that make it easier to configure some things using betaflight CLI, mostly the boosted performance of newer processors helps with dealing with high speed reading of gyro data and running pid loop and some osd features and other things can add to cpu time.

In general the uart to usb chip that sits between the stm32 chip and the USB port itself is responsible for communication to the computer it could be made by FTDI or SiliconLabs on windows or Mac you may need drivers to get connections to work but otherwise would just try different usb cable or port (on the computer) they get worn down and break over time too.