Good morning, the firmware that you put here is valid for the Eachine ex4? and my question if it is worth what improvements do you have? I contacted the C-fly company to find out if there is firmware for improvements and no one answers … everything happens
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It’s for JJRC X12 a new board but not compatible with my drone I need another firmware to work with my existed parts like camera gimbals. I succesfully make it work by flashing fw_JJRC_X9P-v2.3_rev but downgraded to X9 which don’t have the sam gimbals and other things also it’s parameters. It work but can’t fly somethinf to do with it’s parameters, propellers not stabilized for X12. Hope one day some one can share their X12 firmwares.
There may be some duplicate information there since you can connect from the C-FLY app either to the drone wifi or to the controller wifi so there may be different ports for how you connect, either directly to the drone or via the wifi repeater from the controller.
As far as I know MAVLink aren’t encrypted so there must be something custom or something else not related to the MAVLink comms.
Did anyone take a look at the Listener logs created by the C-FLY app? These seem to be a reduces text version of the tlog telemetry files produced by regular ArduCopter+MAVLink+Mission Planner.
From looking at the extend of mods required to get a USB connector to the drone I honestly don’t think it’s worth the trouble since the only parameter I’d change is the RTL_ALT from 30 meters to 0 (i.e. keep the current altitude) and maybe some of the other failsafe like geo-fence geometry.
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Once the USB is accessible, a Raspberry Pi Zero W becomes an excellent companion computer. This means the full range of functionality, including proper mission planning and saving (by itself, the drone will not save any missions), full telemetry logs (also not saved by the drone), and both Wi-Fi and telemetry radio connectivity (e.g. 915 Mhz). And of course full parameters and operational controls from QGC, Mission Planner, etc. The Pi can be powered from the drone itself.
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Absolutely, access to the USB port enables full control over the board but it does carry over the risk of damaging the board while mounting the USB plug adapter. For those with precise fingers, the right tools this might not be a big deal but for the majority of owners of the X12/EX4 the skill to mount the MOLEX plug with its wires in place then securing the USB socket on the outside of the body without compromising the battery compartment’s proper tight fit may not be so easy to do. Particularly when the thing you’re after isn’t to experiment with the X12’s ArduCopter settings or firmware, although I do get an itch thinking about it 
Since I saw the app is putting out what looks like stripped down MAVLink output I’ll see if the wifi connectivity to the drone doesn’t already allow that. After all the telemetry data and all the other MAVLink info that gets displayed and the settings as well are sent via the wifi so I’ll see if any of the ports that the drone listens to are accepting or putting out Mission Planner or MAVLink data. Maybe we get lucky and won’t have to drill holes in the body of the quad.
Still from an experimental point of view having the USB plug is definitely a must.
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Hi Viktor,
The UDP 10005 seems to be status/telemetry output from the drone. The TCP 4646 seems to be regular MAVLink output. Did you happen to try Mission Planner connecting to the TCP or UDP ports to see if it can make out what the drone is saying?
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I definitely would not assert that installation of the USB interface connector and plug was trivial, especially given that it wasn’t even certain that the interface was USB or how it was wired until it could be accessed and measured. So there was much delicate experimentation starting from scratch. But given that the app’s mission creation tool is so rudimentary – and as far as I know missions cannot be saved either in the app or on the drone – being able to use a proper ground station for planning and uploading missions is pretty much obligatory. Frankly, the app is so crude, and given that its various versions have a habit of suddenly vanishing from the Play Store, being able to control entirely from the main controller and/or Mission Planner/QGC via an RPI companion computer is reassuring.
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Oh, by the way, a good point to grab 5v (well, more like 4.75-4.8 but good enough) for powering an RPI, telemetry radio, etc. is from the connector that powers the GPS module that is mounted to the quad’s top cover. Warning: Don’t trust the wire color codes in there – explicitly check polarities!
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Definitely, having MP as a backup is more than reassuring, for me frankly it would mean the drone is manageable.
And true, the mission planning in the C-FLY app is not something I’d trust for a real life survey, my plan with this quad is for vacation photography, dronies and selfies with the family, perhaps some tracking although when I tried activating the track in Altitude mode that it said I’m not in GPS so no joy. Until I’ll be able to go to a more open area to test properly the GPS mode and play with the active tracking option in Altitude I’ll leave it to just control it manually.
Still the fact that there is a way to hook it to Mission Planner is comforting.
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I am angry these companies that have this success selling this type of drones and that do not have a minimum respect for customers to be supporting in updating the drone … they do not even answer my questions by mail …Now I have a question for you gentlemen … who is the one that manufactures the camera of this drone? what company is it?
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Great discussion guys keep it up’ till we break this thing. As my drone is degraded to X9 all is functioning beside the 3-axis gimbals and it wont take off as the parameters maybe different also the gps hardware was not recognized again hope somebody will share their JJRC X12 Cfly or ex4 firmware.
not to be the devil’s advocate but did you try contacting the C-FLY company? their website seems to be up and available here: http://www.cfly-cn.com/en/App/index.html and even have contact details:
http://www.cfly-cn.com/en/Contact/index.html
might be worth a shot to ask for the firmware and the procedure to upload it. who knows, on FB they are pretty responsive - here: https://www.facebook.com/CFLYAI/
I still think it would be way easier if we get the makers to open up a bit, not give away all just add some extra features which we would use for backing up.
Obviously if we start messing with their proprietary stuff we’re losing warranty so this goes without saying. But from how quickly the FB responds they seem to be fairly open to suggestions and willing to help. To what extend, well I haven’t had yet any urgent need like a non-working firmware so can’t vouch how this is going to end. Still it’s better than no support contact at all, the manual that comes with the quad isn’t any help either.
good night, if the company gives you information about firmware or other things, let me know here thanks
Hallo, just bought this drone and would add my two cents to the discussion.
I have verified that the controller exposes ports 22 for SSH interface and port 80 for http interface.
On both, root/admin gives access to a stripped-down linux system. It look like an OpenWRT distribution with minimal interface (LuCI on http port).
Nothing can be done trough http, while the SSH console provides direct access to the Linux filesystem, but I’ve had no time to investigate much more than this:
system type : Atheros AR9342 rev 3
machine : LEDE AR9342P board
processor : 0
cpu model : MIPS 74Kc V4.12
BogoMIPS : 278.93
wait instruction : yes
microsecond timers : yes
tlb_entries : 32
extra interrupt vector : yes
hardware watchpoint : yes, count: 4, address/irw mask: [0x0ffc, 0x0ffc, 0x0ffb, 0x0ffb]
isa : mips1 mips2 mips32r1 mips32r2
ASEs implemented : mips16 dsp dsp2
shadow register sets : 1
kscratch registers : 0
package : 0
core : 0
VCED exceptions : not available
VCEI exceptions : not available
Linux version 4.4.163 (frankzhimin@ubuntu) (gcc version 5.4.0 (LEDE GCC 5.4.0 1.2.0) ) #0 Fri Mar 1 12:37:10 2019
Daniele
apparently there is a way to update the firmware. there’s a Facebook page where a guy shared some info about updating the firmware based on instructions he received from the C-FLY staff. Here’s the link to some docs and steps to do that:
Hops this link doesn’t get removed or anything. The file there is an archive with steps to do the firmware upgrade and a fw image. It seems to be rather old, compared to mine anyway. My drone has 2019.11.19 as date so I wouldn’t mess with it. I just thought to share here what I found so far
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Hello, I tried that firmware and it was correct everything changed the numbering of the camera but the firmware of the drone does not … it continues with the same numbering … I do not understand I think that this drone to change firmware you must buy a new board … with a new firmware
Maybe the file itself just changes the camera firmware. I did not use it as the version was older than what I already have on my X12. I just posted this here if someone bricked theirs and needs an image and process of re-flashing.
Supposedly there’s an email address you can subscribe to to get notifications and ask about f/w issues but there was no response yet to my message. The email is group.31@yahoo.com
My understanding is:
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to change the PX4 board firmware you need to flash the RD_FR_STLINK_X1000000.bin file on STM32 through JTAG.
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The bootable SD firmware will only update the Wif-Fi and Camera part
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I got in touch with the c-fly company through Facebook and AliExpress … they don’t even answer anything they don’t listen to customers … they just want to sell and that’s it
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How do you connect to the SSH port, what user and password do you use?