Fixing Channel Map in Betaflight and OpenTX

by Oscar

Channel map is basic but could be confusing for FPV drone beginners. If you get it wrong, the channel outputs in Betaflight will respond to the wrong sticks. Here is how to fix Channel Map configuration, and how to set it up properly.

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What’s Channel Map?

Channel Map is basically the order of the four control channels – Pitch, Roll, Throttle, and Yaw.

These are called differently in OpenTX:

  • Roll = Aileron (AIL)
  • Pitch = Elevator (ELE)
  • Throttle = Throttle (THR)
  • Yaw = Rudder (RUD)

That’s why channel maps are called AETR (aka AETR1234), or TAER (aka TAER1234). These are the two common channel map used in FPV drones.

You can arrange channel map in the radio’s Mixes page if you have an OpenTX radio.

Here I put Aileron on Channel 1, Elevator on Channel 2, Throttle on Channel 3 and Yaw on Channel 4, and we have channel map AETR, or AETR1234. This is the default channel map in Betaflight.

Here is a beginners’ tutorial on how to setup switches in the Mixes page.

Why is Channel Map Important?

You can arrange the order of channel outputs (stick commands) with a channel map. But when the channel outputs arrive at the receiver, it’s just a series of numbers, your flight controller won’t know which number is throttle, and which number is roll. That’s why you have to tell Betaflight explicitly what channel map your are using (what order the channels are in).

If you set the wrong channel map in Betalfight, channel output will respond to the wrong stick. Your quad probably won’t arm because throttle is not at its lowest value, but if you somehow manage to arm it, it will most likely go crazy :D

How to Fix Wrong Channel Map?

Simple, just go to the Receiver tab in Betaflight Configurator, and select a different option in Channel Map:

  • Betaflight’s Default channel map is AETR (or aka AETR1234)
  • The other common channel map TAER (TAER1234) is under the option “Spektrum / Graupner / JR

If none of the channel map in Betaflight works, you might have to check in your transmitter’s channel mixing and see if there is something wrong with the configuration. See instruction in the next section.

How to Change Channel Map in OpenTX?

You can decide which channel map to use in your radio transmitter, here is how you change channel map in OpenTX.

Go to the MIXES page in Model Setup. The first four channels is the channel map, which is TAER.

If I want to change it to AETR, I just need to move the channels around. Select the channel you want to move, and hold down the Enter Button. Click on the Move Option.

Move THR to CH3 (just above ELE).

Then move AIL to CH1, and move ELE to CH2. That’s it :) Now you should confirm if channel map is set correctly in Betaflight.

It doesn’t matter what order the Controls are in Inputs in OpenTX, just leave them. Channel map is determined only by Mixes.

Finally, you should be consistent with your channel map, changing it brings no benefits (AFAIK).

I recommend using AETR1234, because that’s the default in Betaflight. If you use TAER you’d have to change in Betaflight every time you setup a new quad (or flash new firmware), which is pretty pointless.

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43 comments

Bogdan 12th August 2023 - 7:05 pm

Thanks.

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GioMBG 31st July 2023 - 3:41 pm

many thanks You have successfully resolved my Problem !

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Dale Gann 24th December 2022 - 4:34 am

I have the tx16s radio…edgetx 2.7…how would I move my channels in edgetx…my whoop is on RETA…I want it on AETR…not sure how to do that

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JASON EYRE 17th December 2022 - 6:23 pm

Hello. I’ve got everything working except throtle. it works in beta flight on reciever tab and I just matched all channel maps to AETR but when I arm quad it has everything except throtle. i have a QX7 with r9mx reciever. Any help is greatly appreciated

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Mick 6th December 2022 - 7:29 pm

Super helpful. I moved the channel map on Tx12mk2 to AETR and matched BetaFlight. Now my Pavo25 is zipping around. Thanks.

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Gary Lee 2nd December 2022 - 2:27 pm

Mixing reordering to match receiver order differences, Not good at all. A simpler output change of channel 1>>channel 1 default table at the end prevents all the mixing loss of channels with existing mixing. This sounds great and is good at initial setup but bad for taking a complex mixing development to share with new models of the different receivers without wires channel orders.

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Matthew 16th November 2022 - 6:03 pm

I have a mobula 7 1s frsky everything is bound and seems to work in betaflight on reciver tab but when i try to spin up the motors i get no thr response but i do get it on yaw and roll all channels appear to be mapped corectly im stumped

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Matthew 16th November 2022 - 6:06 pm

to b clear throttle does nothing but yaw and pitch are responding. motors do not spin at all unless yaw or pitch is used. even if i uncheck the option to not spin motors when armed they still dont move at all.

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Oscar 16th November 2022 - 7:01 pm

Does the throttle channel respond to the stick in the receiver tab when you test it?
Do the motors spin up fine when you test them in the motors tab?
It might sound stupid but make sure your have a fully charged battery.

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Matthew 16th November 2022 - 8:23 pm

Yeah battery is full. Same result in motors tab i have directional control of motors but no main throttle input. It is responding to input in the transmitter tab.

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Oscar 16th November 2022 - 8:44 pm

Sorry, do you mean the motors are all spinning fine using the motors tab?
When you arm the quad, do the motors spin?
Have you tried a configuration reset? (Backup first, then flash the original firmware with setting erase, then load the original settings. If anything goes wrong you can always go back to your old settings)

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Matthew 16th November 2022 - 8:53 pm

My motors dont idle spin at all when armed. also there is no throttle. however there is motor spin for pitch yaw and roll. result is the same in motor tab.

Matthew 16th November 2022 - 10:28 pm

I got it it was a channel mixup problem thx for your help

Matthew 16th November 2022 - 8:40 pm

Yes thr responds in in betaflight. Same result in motor tab Pitch yaw and roll react to input and spin up properly but no main thr response. meaning all motors will NOT spin at the same time only for yaw pitch roll. Battery is full. thank you for your response. my other response vanished sry if i answer twice.

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Tai 13th September 2022 - 11:54 pm

Trying to get my channels mapped so I can FINALLY get this thing in the air (been fighting with one thing or another for at least two weeks).

Desired outcome: (mode 2)
Left up/down: throttle
Left R/L: yaw
Right up/down: pitch
Right R/L: roll

I can get the left stick working just fine but the right stick reverses pitch and roll. When I try to manually switch the roll/pitch channel assignments, the left stick changes U/D to pitch, throttle moves to L/R on the right stick – in other words the world seems to explode.

Please help me before I fix the problem with a hammer!

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Tai 14th September 2022 - 12:23 am

Full weird mapping after trying to swap pitch and roll:

Left U/D = pitch
Left R/L = yaw
Right U/D = roll
Right R/L = throttle

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Oscar 14th September 2022 - 4:56 pm

What channel map did you select in Betaflight Receiver tab?
What’s the order of your Mixes in the radio?

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Tai 14th September 2022 - 9:29 pm

Thanks for replying!

Betaflight is set to AERT1234, though I tried all of them at some point.

The order of mixes is AETR on the radio

I did find a weird workaround – in the inputs page I changed IEle to [stick]Thr, and IThr to [stick]Ele. I did this so I could figure out which stick was controlling which input, and then mapped it so they did what I wanted. I left Mixes alone as AETR, and finally things worked “properly”.

I tried it on the drone and it seemed to work fine, but I feel like I’m opening myself up to some bizarre catastrophic issues if I leave it weird like this.

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Tai 14th September 2022 - 9:30 pm

*I meant AETR1234 in the betaflight settings

Oscar 15th September 2022 - 11:04 am

That makes me wonder if you selected the correct input in each of the entries in Mixes? doesn’t make much sense if you have to change the sources in input to make it work.
Maybe try creating a new model from scratch? (not duplicating existing profile)

Tai 15th September 2022 - 9:56 pm

I tried that once with no success, but for good measure (and for documentation sake) I just did it again. My whole process on the radio (not OTX) is as follows:
1. New model – Multi
2. Assign CH3: Thr, CH4: Roll, CH2: Pitch, CH1: Yaw (the default settings)
3. Assign AUX1: Arm, AUX3: Mode, AUX2: Beeper
4. Gives me a screen confirming all the previous settings
5: In SETUP page for that new model, I leave Internal RF off and set External RF to CRSF
6. Check the INPUTS screen to confirm the input values all match (they are listed as RETA)
7. Check MIXES screen and find channel mappings are in the same order as #6 (RETA)
8. Betaflight result: L U/D: Pitch, L R/L: Roll, R U/D: Thrott, R R/L: Yaw

Note 1: If I change the order on the mixes screen so that CH1: Ail, CH2: Ele, CH3: Thr, CH4: Roll, the betaflight result is the same as before. Again, Channel map setting on betaflight has zero effect on it.
Note 2: If I change the order on the mixes screen to TAER, Thr and Yaw are correct but roll and pitch are reversed – and of course changing channel map setting in betaflight has no effect. When swapping places between roll and pitch in mixes, the betaflight result is the same as the first attempt with all default settings (L U/D: Pitch, L R/L: Roll, R U/D: Thrott, R R/L: Yaw)
I may be a noob but I can’t imagine a universe where this makes any sense, unless I forgot to check the box for “make drone fly like normal” 🤣

Tai 19th September 2022 - 3:00 pm

I humbly request to be demoted to “extremely annoying noob with stoopid questions and problems.”

Change to mode 2 on TX. Done. 100% perfect now.

In my defense, I had looked for how to do exactly that several times and couldn’t really find it, then stumbled across how to change modes when trying to get rid of the “throttle not idle” warning on startup. Two birds, one stone. Apologies for taking up your time, but thanks for trying to help me!

Oscar 19th September 2022 - 9:21 pm

Glad you figured it out!

Matthew blowes 9th July 2022 - 10:43 am

Hey mate
I use a crossfire nano rx on my 5 inch
Not sure wats happened some of my quads r good but 2 of them have a problem!
Everything is ok n working in betaflight, but wen I try to fly it everything is ok, except the roll is inverted! I roll left n it rolls right!!!!
I’m stumped
I have the one model setup for crossfire in my transmitter, n I use that with all my quad’s! So everything is the same in the transmitter!
And I am running the lastest edge TX firmware 2.7.1-RADIOMASTER TX16s max
Cheers legands for any help

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Oscar 9th July 2022 - 12:02 pm

1. there’s a 3D model in Betaflight, when you move your sticks it reacts to that, is roll reacting correctly?
2. channels in the receiver tab are responding to your roll stick correctly?
3. motors are spinning correctly? not reversed?

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Ray 28th May 2022 - 1:24 pm

Have a TX16s with Edge TX and a Mobula 7. Betaflight channel map is set at AETR1234 and the radio is AETR but the mapping in BF ETRA1234. I can remix the channels in the radio but this doesn’t make sense to me. Any explanation would be appreciated.

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James 21st May 2022 - 2:53 am

How come when I connect my transmitter to my quad hooked to Betaflight the receivers tab all the stick commands are going nuts when I’m not touching the transmitter.

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noname 23rd March 2022 - 11:55 pm

Thank You very much for this awesome tutorial. I have already get into the hobby and was trying to bind TBS Mambo with Cwtus Pro. After 5 days of tshoot it turned out that Cetus Pro is not working with Betaflight but with BetaVPF where You can not change TX settings. Your tutorial helped me with setting TBS Mambo with Cetus Pro which my LHS was not able to sort out. THANK YOU

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Tim 23rd January 2022 - 9:00 am

Life Saver thx

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dave edmonds 21st December 2021 - 3:32 am

This doesn’t help at all when your receiver uses Channel 5 for throttle and ch4 for aux1

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FPVic 3rd November 2021 - 11:25 am

Hi nice article. For completeness, maybe mentioning that certain transmitters (crsf) can remap channels as well in their settings would be nice ?

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a_marmot 3rd September 2021 - 7:08 pm

Hey Oscar. Thanks for the great tutorial. But I am wondering if Betaflight can go one step further and do channel mixing. I have a project in which I’d like to be able to mix roll and yaw in prescribed ways based on a third channel. It would involve calculating sin, cos of one input, and then use the calculated values to blend combos of the roll and yaw inputs to create new yaw and roll outputs.

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Frank Gossett 19th October 2021 - 9:28 pm

Really helpful information I used to change the controls of my sticks.

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ROBERT TOTH 29th June 2021 - 4:14 pm

THE JUMPER R8 RECEIVER BINDS TO MY RADIOMASTERT16S Tx , THE FLIGHT SURFACES MOVE BUT THE MOTOR DOES NOT RECOGNIZE THE Rx AND JUST BEEPS LIKE THERE IS NO SIGNAL. I PUCHASED TWO AND THE BOTH HAVE THEY SAME PROBLEM. WHEN I SUBSTITUTE A HITEC OPTIMA Rx, THE MOTOR IMMEDIATELY LOCKS ON AND EVERYTHING WORKS, BUT NO SBUS OR TELEMETRY.ARE AVAILABLE WITH HITEC. ARE THESE NEW Rx’s MADE FOR FLIGHT CONTROLLERS ONLY? I USE AETR SET UP AND I PLUG THROTTLE INTO CHANNEL 3 IN Rx. CAN YOU GIVE ME SUGGESTIONS TO FIX THIS PROBLEM.

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oermens 22nd May 2021 - 6:49 pm

What has always bugged me is how the graphical order in betaflight is neither AETR nor TEAR but AERT. I guess its an artifact from the past with different mode setups and no ability to map channels when receivers basically where the flight controllers.

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Gunner 1st March 2021 - 8:19 pm

Did anybody ever fix this problem? I am having this happen to me

Ed Snyder
15th November 2020 at 3:11 am
Recently purchased the flywoo xbot65 with the frsky xm receiver. Once bound had to change the channel mapping to TAER. now the sticks are correct but once armed and throttle applied then returned to the lowest position the motors continue increase speed and rev out. The only way to shut off the motors is to disarm. Any thoughts on correction?

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AngryPepper 5th September 2021 - 9:21 pm

If your arming on the bench with no props, that is completely normal.

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Ed Snyder 15th November 2020 - 3:11 am

Recently purchased the flywoo xbot65 with the frsky xm receiver. Once bound had to change the channel mapping to TAER. now the sticks are correct but once armed and throttle applied then returned to the lowest position the motors continue increase speed and rev out. The only way to shut off the motors is to disarm. Any thoughts on correction?

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AngryPepper 5th September 2021 - 9:29 pm

If you’re arming without props, it’s totally normal.

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Nino 10th November 2020 - 5:40 pm

I have the radiomaster tx16s and bought two Frsky r-xsr receivers. I bound one to my radio, connected it to my dys f4 pro v2 fc on sbus, connected it to betaflight and everything worked perfectly. Did the same exact thing to my other drone with the exact same setup and betaflight does not see my sticks or switches. I’ve changed channel mapping on both radio and betaflight, flashed firmware on my fc and still nothing. Help!!

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Adam zakkour 7th November 2020 - 11:57 pm

Hey, my sticks on my radiotransmitter tx16 work on the transmitter, but they don’t work in beta flight. But the switches both work on transmitter and beta flight. Please help.what I’m doing wrong

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k4win 5th July 2020 - 1:20 am

If the Betaflight chanel map is not the right one for you, create one. Go into the selection field and type what chanel map your transmitter is transmitting. For example my tbs tango 2 is per default on RETA1234. Instead of changing all chanels on the radio for all models I changed the chanel map in Betaflight. That took 3 seconds and you can copy that information per cli. In case you flash a new firmware.

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Oscar 8th July 2020 - 11:04 pm

Personally I’d just change it in the Tango :) saves from entering that CLI line on every quad you setup, or after every BF update.

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