Some good news for those who are looking for a cheap micro brushed FC, and only want to run Frsky TX. I managed to connect a PPM receiver to the Micro Scisky board (aka Quanum Pico).
The Scisky flight controller is an affordable board for micro brushed quadcopters. It allows you to run Cleanflight and Betaflight on it. Unfortunately it only comes with an integrated Spektrum DSM2 receiver, and there seemed to be no way of connecting a Frsky PPM receiver.
Many people including myself runs a Taranis, or other transmitters with Frsky TX module. Therefore we were unable to use this built-in RX without paying extra for an additional Orange TX module.
Fear no more! :) Here is how you can “hack” into the Scisky board, and enable PPM!
Find the PPM Receiver Pin
We can attach an external PPM receiver to the flight controller.
The PPM (CH1) pin’s location is shown below in the picture, and it’s covered in insulation material. You need to scrape off the solder mask to reveal the pin.
Use whatever tool you think sensible. I used a small pointy-ended file for the job. Be really careful and gentle, only work on the pin, and do not touch the traces/pins around it. Otherwise it would make soldering a lot harder and messier later on.
After you have scraped off the mask, apply some solder paste on the pin, and put a bit of solder on the pin with your soldering iron.
Connecting your favourite PPM Receiver
Depends on your choice of PPM receiver, choose whichever power suitable for it (5V or 3.3V).
I am using the SRP8 8CH PPM receiver, which requires 5V. If you use one of the Micro Frsky RX, then you might need 3.3V for it.
Here is a close up of the wire soldering (PPM, 5V and GND). Make sure you check the voltages with multimeter before connecting your receiver!
After that, Change Receiver Type to PPM in Cleanflight (originally Serial receiver), and you should now see the bars move with your sticks in the receiver tab :)
Lastly I think it would be a good idea to secure the wires/solder joints with hot glue. Especially the PPM pin is pretty weak.
Let me know if you have any comment, or know any other tricks with using the Pico FC.
17 comments
I have the new board too. Has anyone figured out where to solder the SRP8 8CH PPM receiver to yet?
can i do this with a flysky receiver?
Any advice on the spr f3 evo with built in flysky rx? I just got it and found it wont work with the the TGY i6s because the rx is on the old afhds. If the above method would work, I’ll try it once I can identify the ppm.
I just wanna thank you for all informations I find every day on this blog. You are doing a great job for the coomunity.
Which is better way to stay update with your posts? This blog, fb, youtube… You have a newsletter too?
Tons of good karma on you.
G.
you can follow me on FB :) I post my new posts there regularly :)
https://www.facebook.com/intofpv
Has anyone found a way to hack the ‘new’ scisky board layout for PPM? Can’t find a manual anywhere..!
Someone please help!! Cheers
Hi Oscar. Banggood came out with a new version of the scisky and we were following your directions that shows the now outdated model. So we unfortunately were shipped the new board. Are you familiar at all with it? Any direction as to how to hack this new board? They haven’t updated all the pics yet on banggood…there’s only one of the new board down by the clean flight config screenshot. Any help would be much appreciated.
new version? sorry i can’t seem to find the difference? do you have the link?
It looks like the new version had come up on hobby king new items page, amd linked from the old version now discontinued.
There appears to be be a single port now and two rows of pins.
There is also mention of dsmx, and a button on the board, but no real useful into in manual.
hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__110344__Quanum_Pico_32bit_Brushed_Flight_Control_Board_DSM2_DSMX_Compatible.html
i think the old version is still available at BG.. sorry i don’t have this FC and can’t provide much support on it…
Hi Oscar,
Thanks for this tutorial! I also have the new version. How did you find the trace that was needed for the ppm? Is there a pin on the microcontroller that we can solder directly to? Or that I can trace to a via or pad to solder to?
Jeremy
trace it back to the MCU :) do you have the “new version” too? any picture of the top of the board?
Now that we have available Micro sp racing F3 brushed with PPM and sbus inputs for only 18$, scisky flight controller becomes irrellevant and a thing from the past.
banggood.com/Micro-32bits-Brushed-Flight-Control-Board-Based-On-SP-RACING-F3-EVO-Brush-For-Micro-FPV-Frame-p-1070068.html
Great post for people that already have this laying around.
But if you know your going for FrSky TX why not simple buy a brushed controller that dont have dms2 already connected?
Like this F3 based controller:
http://intofpv.com/t-evo-f3-micro-brushed-fc
1. this board wasn’t available at the time i wrote this post.
2. a lot of people already own the Scisky
Nice!! I might build a brushed setup in a little while and I was already looking at that FC, but was also a bit unhappy about the DSM2 protocol receiver… this might do the trick for me!!
One question:
Why exactly that receiver??
Could this be an alternative?? (I would unsolder the pins myself…)
banggood.com/DIY-FRSKY-8CH-Receiver-RX-PPM-Output-For-X9DPLUS-XJT-DJT-DFT-DHT-p-987247.html
Or could I use a normal XSR
banggood.com/FrSky-XSR-2_4GHz-16CH-ACCST-Receiver-S-Bus-CPPM-Output-Support-X9D-X9E-X9DP-X12S-X-Series-p-1031481.html
Maybe we could even use Smart Port Telemtry?? For VBAT??
Weight, the SRP8 is only 1.5g