If you are using the BetaFPV F4 AIO 12A/20A/35A FC, and can’t find UART6 (TX6, RX6) in the ports tab, here is why. I had a tough time figuring this out, thought I should share to save people’s time.
Product Page
- BetaFPV F4 AIO 12A FC: https://amzn.to/31Aw6Kb
- BetaFPV F4 AIO 20A FC: https://bit.ly/3dSEtmG
- BetaFPV F4 AIO 35A: https://oscarliang.com/product-g0hi
Missing UART 6?
Well, there is no UART6 on this board, simply never existed.
The labelled TX6 and RX6 in the pinout diagram are actually Softserial 1! I think this might have “tricked” some people into getting this FC and thought it had 3 hardware serial ports, but in fact it only has 2.
Further Reading: What’s a UART?
That’s why you don’t see UART6 in the ports tab in Betaflight, but there is Softserial 1, which they already set up for you. You need to connect your device to TX6 and RX6 to use Softserial 1.
This is annoying, but not the end of the world. You can still use softserial for a lot of things that aren’t “timing critical”, basically almost everything apart from RC links.
To put it simply, you can use Softserial for SmartAudio, SmartPort Telemetry, GPS, Camera Control, DJI UART, and so on, but you SHOULD NOT use it for SBUS, Crossfire etc.
Further Reading: What’s Softserial?
Wrong Softserial Config
The “fun” doesn’t stop there, they even configured Softserial wrong, so it’s not going to work properly :D
If you type Resource in CLI, you might find the pin B03 is assigned to both SERIAL_RX 11 and SERIAL_TX 11. If you need to use both TX and RX pin, you should assign B10 to SERIAL_RX 11.
Enter this in CLI:
resource SERIAL_RX 11 B10
save
SBUS and UART Conflicts
Finally, if you use the SBUS pin, don’t use RX1, or you might get jittering in RC signal (your quad doing random things).
The SBUS pin is basically RX1 with an inverter.
22 comments
On the Pavo20 F4 2-3S 20A AIO FC V1 Sbus pad inverted?
If it’s labelled SBUS, then chances are it’s inverted. However don’t take my words for it and check with the manufacturer, most people (me included) no longer use SBus. I only use ExpressLRS now.
Hallo, großes Problem. Habe diesen Controller (F4 2-4S AIO 12A V2 BLHeli_S) ordnungs gemäß mit einen Flysky FS-A8S verkabelt. Einstellungen im Beta Flight sind auch korrekt. Der Empfänger ist mit meiner Flysky i6 gebunden.Trotz allem werden im Beta flight keine Fernsteuerungs Signale angezeigt. Kann mir geholfen werden ? Im Vor raus vielen Dank
Hey Oscar, nice Post!
I have a GEP RC F411 35A AIO FC and this one has T11/R11 Pads. Soft Serial is already setup in the Ports tab. Resource shows this:
resource SERIAL_TX 11 A00
resource SERIAL_RX 11 B10
When i set up GPS in the Ports tab and connect my GPS Betaflight doesnt detect GPS. (GPS enabled in Betaflight aswell). Do you have any idea whats wrong here?
Marcel, were you able to resolve this issue?
Hi Oscar, I always thought F4 fc’s are limited to two real UART’s (except for Softserial). But Bardwell’s F4 seems to have 4 real UARTs (1,2,4,6) – copterfarm.de/media/pdf/3d/bb/f7/RDQ-Bardwell-F4-FC-Manual-v2-1.pdf . Does this mean I could solder tiny wires to specific (unused) MCU legs and get another UART on something like a Tinyhawk fc?
some F4 FC even has 6 UART. It’s really up to the design of the board and if there’s space allowed for extra pins.
Recently pickedup a betafpv 75x with the vista, but one i got came with a frsky rx. I removed the frsky rx and connected the vista sbus and and gnd. to the sbus pad and gnd pad on the FC. But I can’t get the dji remote to works with this board. on the config tab on betaflight, its set to sbus. Do i need to set one of the UARTs on the ports tab to serial?
Can you please help me on how to connect gps on this board?
You can connect it to one of the UART’s.
you’re a life saver. How can I send you money?
I can’t get osd to come up as I have my caddx vista wired to the soft serial “ie. Uart6” Now, if I go into cli and enter those commands Oscar, will my battery voltage and other osd info come up being that I freed that uart up after said commands? Its really annoying flying and not having my info where I can see it.
Regards, Chris.
Wow.. that’s some serious marketing bullshit from BetaFPV. I wasn’t going to be using 3 UARTs for the current build, but when I saw free UART pads, of course I just soldered my crossfire to those pins assuming that I’ll just configure my crossfire to that UART, lol.
Only after the whole thing was built I went to the Betaflight to try to configure this thing and yeah… surprise surprise, there is no UART 6.
They should market those as GPIO pins rather than UARTs. Very misleading.
Oscar,
Interesting, I just purchased this board only because the site it clearly says 3 FULL UARTs
betafpv.com/collections/brushless-flight-controller/products/f4-2-4s-aio-brushless-flight-controller-12a-blheli_s
I wanted the full TX/RX PINs since INAV does not support PIN re-mapping.
I am happy now enabling Softserial and hooking up the GPS should work (from your post)
But assume under the hood it is a hardware UART (judging by the webiste listing 3 x FULL UARTS)
I logged support ticket and will let this page know the response. If its really soft Serial, then this is false advertising.
You have no idea how much your posts have helped me (and I guess many others) getting into this hobby – so well done.
Getting F.port working and understanding Inverted was a fantastic for me. All from you other posts.
When find myself on your pages again, I need to subscribe to your Patreon.
CHEERS!!
Jaybode
Hey Oscar, you saved me today and thousand other times.
Many many many thanks to you for your precious work!
Bye
Vincenzo
Excellent. Looking forward to seeing if the betafpv 20A board with 1.25mm motor pins can support SBUS-RX + SmartAudio + RunCam-Device-Control.
Ability to start/stop runcam or caddx HD cameras from a switch makes it much easier to upload a video as we don’t have to cut the video down afterwards. Alternatively it opens up the option of running a GPS unit. Basically anything that requires a full TX/RX pair is difficult to implement on these boards currently.
Thanks for the great info! I have the BetaFPV 20A 2.0 with the 1.25mm pin connectors and can see “S5” which I guess is pin B03 but do you know where pin B10 is on this board?
This is the model: betafpv.com/collections/brushless-flight-controller/products/f4-20a-aio-1-4s-brushless-flight-controllerblheli_s
Also it seems like RX2 is inverted to use for SBUS on this one?
I just received this board as well, I will check it out in the next few days and make a review on it.
Motor beeper is set. I like the old school buzzer beeps, also comes in handy for low voltage warning. Thanks :)
I actually got a response from their tech support on this issue. Here is what they said:
…” As the FC is updated, this UART6 is Softserial. Please map TX 11 to B03 and RX 11 to B10.”…
Jeff
I have the very same board 12 A version. The issue I faced was that there are no buzzer pads, the ones shown as Bz+ and Bz- in the image in the post are +5v on my board. I could not figure out how to connect a buzzer to this one. Please let me know if any one has been able to do that successfully.
If it doesn’t have buzzer pads, chances are you can’t use a buzzer. You can DIY, but you will need some additional hardware like transistor and resistor, not the easiest thing to do.
Alternatively you can setup motor beeper.