How to Setup Radiomaster Zorro Radio First Time

Did you just buy the Radiomaster Zorro radio transmitter, and have no idea how to set it up? In this tutorial I will show you the important settings and configurations you should change when you get your Zorro.

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Check out my review of the Radiomaster Zorro.

Install Battery

18350 Li-ion batteries are not included and needs to be purchased separately, you need two of them:

• GetFPV: https://oscarliang.com/product-wa1t
• Banggood: https://oscarliang.com/product-bhyu
• Amazon: https://amzn.to/3sdAjiA
• Radiomaster: https://oscarliang.com/product-xgm0

Potential Start-up Warning Explained

Brand new radios shouldn’t give you any warning when you first turn it on, but in case you do, here’s a list of possible warnings and how to fix them.

• Throttle Warning – your throttle stick is not at the lowest position when the radio is turned on. Simply move the throttle stick (left one) all the way down will get rid of this warning
• Switch Warning (aka Control Warning) – some of the switches are not in their default positions. Simply put all the switches to their UP position (push away from you) to remove this warning
• Failsafe Not Set – Go to “Model Setup” (press MDL button), scroll down and find “Failsafe”, set it to No Pulse
• Alarms Warning – This warning will appear if Sound mode is set to mute
• SD Card Warning – SD card content version does not match the firmware version. If you get this warning, follow this guide to fix it

If everything goes well, you should get to the default home page, which should look something like this.

Zorro Radio Settings

Turn on the radio, hold down the SYS key will take you to the TOOLS page.

Press the PAGE> key twice to scroll to Radio Setup page, and update the following items:

Set Date and time

Date and time might randomly reset, it’s a bug in EdgeTX which will hopefully get fixed in the near future. For now maybe just leave Date and Time unchanged.

Batt range: 6.0 – 8.4

Alarm -> Battery low: 6.6V

Why? A li-ion cell working voltage range is between 3V to 4.2V, with two cells connected in series in the Zorro, that’s 6V to 8.4V. But I set the voltage warning quite a bit higher than min voltage because the voltage drops quicker towards the end of the battery, this should minimize the chance of over-discharging the battery and results in unexpected radio shutdown

Backlight -> Mode: Keys

Why? By default both sticks and buttons will trigger the backlight and it wastes battery. When you are flying you are not really watching the screen so allowing only the keys (menu buttons) to trigger backlight is more sensible

Contrast: 17

Why? I found higher contrast than this leaves “black ink” on the background when screen changes

Finally, scroll to the Hardware page by pressing the PAGE>, scroll down to Int. Module. If you have internal ELRS module, set this to CRSF. If you have the internal multiprotocol module, set this to Multi. This is usually set correctly out of the box, but just in case…

Gimbal Calibration

If the sticks are too stiff or too loose, you can adjust the gimbal spring tension. You probably want to do this first before calibrating the gimbals.

Hold down the SYS key then press “PAGE>” button a few times to go to “HARDWARE” page, select “Calibration” option to calibrate the sticks and sliders. Just follow the instruction, it’s pretty straightforward.

Make sure you only move the sticks as shown in the following image. For best result, avoid moving the sticks in circle. Be as gentle as possible when pushing the sticks, this allows the radio to read the end points correctly.

Don’t forget to calibrate the sliders too.

Battery Voltage Calibration

Measure the voltage of the Li-ion battery inside the radio, because they are connected in series, it should read somewhere between 6V to 8.4V. The goal is to make sure the voltage is the same between the measurement and the value that is shown on the radio.

Take a multimeter, and measure these two points:

If the Zorro is not giving you the same value, you can calibrate it by going to the HARDWARE page, Batt. calib, and set the value to the multimeter measurement.

It’s best to measure the voltage with your radio powered on, it’s more accurate because it takes into account the voltage drop when the radio is running. It’s quite a big difference, when your radio is turned on, voltage can drop up to 0.5V or more.

Model Profiles

The Zorro has 4 model profiles created for you, you can just use one of them depending on what type of model you fly. You can get there by holding down the MDL button.

For FPV drones, i recommend just use the “Zorro” profile, it already picked the internal RF module for you, and assigned all the switches to the channels in MIXES. There’s almost nothing you need to change to start flying apart from binding the receiver.

If you have the multiprotocol version (i.e. 4in1 or CC2500), you can follow this section on how to setup the internal module for your desired protocol.

If you are getting the ELRS version, you don’t need to do anything else, just follow my ELRS tutorial to bind to your model.

Create Profile for FPV Sims

Copy the Zorro profile, and make a duplicate profile. Then set both internal RF and external RF to off in model settings. This will save your battery because you don’t need to use RF module when flying FPV simulators via USB cable.

Backup and Restore of Radio Settings

I recommend backing up your radio settings regularly (e.g. before firmware updates and whenever you make big changes)

Radio settings are stored in a file (radio.yml) in the RADIO folder on the SD card. To back it up, simply copy it (hold down ENTER key and select COPY) to the “BACKUP” folder on the SD card, and paste it there (hold down ENTER key and select PASTE).

You might also want to add a date to the end of the filename to keep things organized.

To restore radio settings, simply copy the backed up file to the radio folder, and replace the existing file.

Backup and Restore of Model Profiles

I recommend backing up your model profiles regularly (e.g. before firmware updates and whenever you make big changes)

To back up Models, simply go to the model select screen (hold down MDL key).

Select the model you want to back up and hold down the ENTER key, select Backup Model. A copy of the model profile will be added to the BACKUP folder in the SD card.

To restore, simply copy the backed up model profile to the MODELS folder and replace the existing model.

Firmware Updates

• Update EdgeTX firmware: https://oscarliang.com/flash-edgetx/
• Internal ELRS module Update (for ELRS version): https://oscarliang.com/update-zorro-elrs/

Tips and Tricks

Custom Sound Pack

You can download custom sound pack and replace the original one. My favourite is Amber sound pack, the sound quality is better than the original.

Download here: http://open-txu.org/home/version-2/v2-2-resources-2/

Unzip and replace the files in the SOUND/en folder on the SD card.

Playing Custom Sounds

You can play custom sound files on your TX16S. I have a tutorial on how to create custom sound file for OpenTX radios.  You can even play your favourite songs.

Make sure the filename doesn’t exceed 6 characters, and the file extension doesn’t exceed 3 characters, or the file won’t show. And it doesn’t like symbols in the filename either.

File format: 32000khz Mono Wav

Replacing Internal Button Cell Battery

If your radio stops saving settings such as date and time, you probably need to replace the button cell battery inside the radio (or it’s missing). You can buy this quite cheaply online.

Lithium 3V CR1220, Amazon (affiliate link): https://amzn.to/3yDyDBe