I say again, the MAVLINK telemetry is usable with Bluetooth, but WIFI is terrible. I recommend everyone to use it through Bluetooth and Qgroundcontrol if possible.
Thanks for that detailed post. I’ll try updating my TX to 4.11 and see if that helps. I’m already on 4.10. I agree that I’m also feeling mislead by TBS and their documents.
Using Bluetooth and connecting to mission planner on my phone, lands me a 35% link quality. Not sure if it’s a mission planner issue, it looks like it is true 35% link quality due to the sporadic artificial horizon and heading updates, very stuttery. Going to need to pull some mavlink logs next.
By any chance do you know the TX power of the fullsize TBS RX? I can’t find it anywhere in their documentation or website.
I’m inferring from their website 2w. Only because they list the power consumption as “3.2w (@2000mw)”
Looks like I can’t read. From the product page:
Selectable RF power from 10mW to 2W (local restrictions apply)
I emailed the distributor and asked to return the product. Their response was to tell me to file a ticket with TBS first.
Ticket filed. Let’s see what TBS says.
SO the new Beta 4.11 improves drastically the speed but you have to switch manually to wifi ON every time?
Since I am using only Bluetooth maybe I should give it a go. Are you getting errors saying that the full parameter list could not be totally downloaded?
It takes 4:04 with Mavlink 1 VS 3:36 with Mavlink 2 for me.
Don’t connect directly to the TX wifi, create a hotspot with your mobile phone, connect your PC to the hotspot as well as your TX. You’ll get better connection speeds. It’s really spotty directly connecting to TX wifi, it drops, cuts out. I found this works best, about as good as bluetooth, which is to say, you will have a very low link quality with a stuttery connection, just slightly better than if you connected directly.
I’ve had a few back and forth messages with TBS support clarifying the setup and trying various things. Their latest response:
According to our enginner, the application of MAVLink connection is only for the Crossfire to act as a bridge to pass MAVLink frames from the MAVLInk flight controller to QGC and Ardupilot. While the Crossfire have limited bandwidth, it will drop most of the MAVLink frames passing through the Crossfire.
The loss rate you see in the software is due to the dropping process, and it is intended.
The intended use of the MAVLink over WiFI / Bluetooth is to change parameters, update missions and configure the device without having to connect a cable to your drone, in these use cases, the update rate is not as important.
I’m not happy with that. Especially for the price, you’d think it’d work better than this… Clearly this is a RC link, and not intended to be a telemetry radio. Needs to be stated more clearly on the product page. I guess it could work but man… this is pretty bad. I’m not happy with it.
Thanks for sharing the update from TBS. I would be happy if I could just use it to “update missions and configure the device” reliably. I’ve only installed it in one quad, but I’d love to use it in a few of my planes. But until I can get CRSF working reliably I’m not going to mess around with other perfectly good setups.
anyone was able to connect CRSF to board?
I have similar problrm with pixracer.
rc over mavlink works, so wiring is correct, but I need more than 8 channels so I need CRSF.
regardless of protocol (23, 29) there is nothing
Yes, but you need to run AP 4.1.dev.
yeah, true. But I have no idea why 4.0.9 show 29 as available protocol.
Usability of ardupilot is from previous century.
Updated my micro TX v2 to 4.11. I will say it seemed like a marked improvement. The parameters loaded in a reasonable time and the link was quick enough I think I can work with it. Hopefully I can fly it this week to know for sure.
But…
You still need to turn on MAV over Wifi every time you power up the radio.
And you still need to connect the micro TX to a wifi hotspot before it will work.
So close…
Allister I’m noticing you posting about having a RFD900x in another thread. Would you recommend it as a alternative to the TBS system as an RC link + telemetry? Any pointers or points of comparison?
On paper they may seem like alternatives but in practice I think they’re two different animals.
I use the RFD for some of my work projects. It needs a separate power supply because it draws too much for your average telemetry port. The setup of the RFD is more … industrial. They don’t have the pretty LUA scripts that TBS is coming out with.
The failsafe setup for the RFD was frustrating and I ended up having to mess around with trims to get the flight controller to recognize a radio failsafe condition.
I’ve been using it as part of the TX MOD V2 system, so I’m using the radio for MAVLink and RC link. However I’m using the dedicated RC out channel on the RFD to the FC. I guess I could have done RC over Mavlink to the controller so there would be two less wires, but I didn’t. No reason, why I guess. That’s just the way I set it up.
The RFD has its own issues. There’s a new firmware update and I haven’t done the update or flown it since that happened (winter here, and things are just staring to get going again). I would say the RFD is finicky to setup (not better or worse than TBS, but different). It seems the manuals are written by electronics engineers, not people who use the radios. So they’re incredibly detailed but don’t tell you anything you need to know.
The RFD radios do work with Yaapu telemetry however there have been issues with false warnings. The RFD radios (TXMODV2) do have a built in wifi for GCS telemetry and it works well. Once you have them setup, the RFD radios are solid. They connect, they stay connected. For a plane that stays in the air for over an hour with some expensive kit hanging off it, I’m comfortable with the RFD. I haven’t pushed the range of it yet beyond 1km, but I’m confident it will perform well when the time comes.
I like the RFD radios for my larger work projects, but I won’t use them in my personal builds. Simple math, the RFD are 2-3 times the price and way too big for smaller projects. I was hoping that the TBS would turn out to be a hobby version of the RFD. Maybe in an update or two.
Thanks for the reply Allister. Very helpful.
Regarding failsafes… I saw how you set it up in the other post, basically the same way I had to do mine on my previous RC system. Not ideal but eh if it works reliably…
I’ve read both manuals cover to cover and doesn’t seem too intimidating. That being said it always appears that way, until something that should work, doesn’t, and there isn’t a lot to go off beyond that. Regardless so far looks like a system I want to switch to. Pretty in depth. I like it. I wish more manufacturers did their documentation to such detail or even further.
Interesting. I probably spent about as much money on the TBS full size TX and nano diversity RX as the RFD TXMODv2 system costs. They’ve said I can return the product, so I’ll be switching over. Doing a quick range test with my TBS system I noticed about 700m out I was unable to change any VTX settings via crossfire. I think this indicates the crossfire/datalink was pretty much gone at this range.
I guess it really does come down to what each of us wants out of a system. I get the impression you’re doing this for some hobby fun and don’t want to spend many evenings setting things up. I’m okay with doing that, if it means I can build a solid platform to build future projects on.
There certainly is a size difference! Not entirely sure how I’ll fit a RFD900ux into my build but I’ll make it happen.
I flew the TBS today connected to my laptop today as GCS. Such a letdown. Doesn’t come close to the RFD900. The data link with TBS was lagging and it didn’t download the waypoints stored on the drone. And I was never more than 100m away. RFD for the win in that column.
I only went with the MicroTXv2 kit. (plus a couple extra Nano RX…) So maybe that’s why I’m not as disappointed as you. I’m only into it for the price of two RDF900Xs. I think if I had got the full module I’d be looking for a refund as well.
My wife may question that. 
This is both hobby and work. I’ve probably spent more time fighting with TBS than I did with the RFD. At least the time on the RFD system was on the clock. RFD will be the go-to for work related projects where distance and performance is critical. For my personal FPV/hobby projects, meh… One of the carrots for me with TBS is setting up SmartAudio to my VTX, but then I’ve been sidetracked with getting Yaapu and Mavlink working, so I haven’t even put the crossfire RX into my FPV planes and quads yet. I had big hopes that Crossfire could be all things but that was probably naive.
Funny to read everyone hits the same wall and frustrations about the Crossfire system.
I finally now, after a year of using it, have a reasonably decent sytem with firmware 4.11 that fixes the Mavlink load times significantly, but still frustraded about the need of a hotspot to get the Mavlink Wifi bridge to work, and every damn time to enable the Mavlink over UDP, but also only 8 channels when using Mavlink instead of the 12 you get with CRSF.
So now with Ardupilot 4.1 dev you can configure the CRSF protocol by setting the SERIALx_POTOCOL to 23 instead of 2 Mavlink2.
But when using CRSF you can’t get Mavlink data anymore over the XF Wifi module, so I again opened another case at TBS, hopefully they get to work soon 
They sell a product that promises a lot, but does not deliver
This was their reply to my complaint:
Me 21-10-2020: The idea behind the Crossfire system is great, but unfortunately it needs a lot more work to get it to work properly on PX4 and Ardupilot. Right now Mavlink on PX4 isn’t working either very great, also the Mavlink to WIFI bridge is not working correctly. It’s definitely not an Apple or DJI product…
TBS 22-10-2020: this is a hobbyist DIY setup its not going to be something like a dji or apple product because those products are complete packages at much higher costs, these types of setups do require some tinkering to get working the way you want.
Best regards,
Mike Chin
Customer Service Representative
TBS Avionics Co Ltd.
So basically because they don’t charge a lot more money for it they can sell a product that does not work as promised, this is just crazy!!!
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