TBS Tracer 2.4GHz R/C System Revision 2020-10-28 High speed drone control system based on TBS Crossfire engine The TBS Tracer (XF) system is a R/C link system made for FPV enthusiasts. It features unheard of latency and performance without any of the clutter of choosing RF modes, link profiles. It just works. Two-way communications includes telemetry functionality and support for 3rd party autopilots.
Table of content Attention Getting ready FAQ Note Updating Hardware overview Micro transmitter module: Nano transmitter module : Nano receiver: Nano receiver pwm version: Why two antennas on the receivers? Radio connection JR-bay radios Antennas Adapter boards FrSky inverter mod Which transmitter is affected by this? How to install the inverter mod Software mod General functions Binding General note on model match When do i need to bind again Binding issue - Double green flashing Binding issue - OpenTx 2.3.
Multi bind How to set it up Failsafe setup General setup Cut Failsafe position Transmission power Transmitter LED status indicator Receiver LED status indicator MyVTX RC over MAVLink Receiver functions Output map CRSF Serial SBUS N.i.
TBS CLOUD Menu Initiate the WiFi module Connection to a WiFi hotspot OTA update of the WiFi Module OpenTX setup for Tracer LQ warning in OpenTX Model-match in OpenTX VTx connection by CRSF Vtx connection by SmartAudio Smart Audio or CRSF for the VTx? VTx button is not working Connection to an FC General wiring CRSF with BetaFlight and similar firmwares CRSF with KISS/ FETTEC BST to Eagletree Vector Mavlink with MAV FC’s Wireless configuration with ArduPilot/ PX4 by WiFi Wireless telemetry WiFi telemetry wit
Racing environment Factory reset Emergency Update 5
Specifications Type: Two-Way Remote Control System Band: 2.4GHz band RF power 25mw - 100mW selectable Modulation: TBS custom Antenna: TX: 1x omnidirectional dipole antenna RX: 2x flexible t-style antenna R/C Channels: up to 12-channel digital stream outputs, standard 2.54mm servo connectors Radio compatibility: Any radio with JR-style bay or Mini-module bay. OpenTX recommended Interface: TX: RGB LED light, push button, configuration via CSRF (TBS TANGO, OpenTX ect.
Attention Please always check your local RF legislation to set the output power according to the regulation. A general rule for RC aircrafts is that they must be controlled always under sight of view, check your RC regulation to keep up to date with regulations.
Getting ready Getting set up and ready to fly is a quick and simple task. In most cases plug&play when using TBS equipment. To bind, place your Tracer Micro or Nano TX into bind mode by pushing the button on the back of the device, then connect power to your receiver. It will enter bind mode automatically the first time. If you see a blue LED, please push the button once to confirm the start of the OTA firmware update and wait about 1 minute.
Hardware overview The following diagram indicates the essential inputs and features of the transmitters and receivers. Micro transmitter module: Nano transmitter module : The Nano transmitter includes the same internals and functions as the Micro Tx. It is designed to fit into the mini-modul bay of newer FrSky radios, Tango 2 modul bay and any other radio with the mini-modul bay.
Nano receiver: Nano receiver pwm version: This Rx is the same as the Nano Rx but with 6 servo connectors installed. This Saves you the need for the PWM adapter board. Why two antennas on the receivers? The Tracer receivers come with two antennas on each receiver. These antennas will give you antenna-based diversity (switching to the best antenna) as it is easy to block the small 2.4GHz antenna with your battery or any part of your drone.
Radio connection JR-bay radios If you use a radio with standard jr-bay style module bay, you can easily plug the Tracer transmitters into them. Potential JR-bay issues When you have set up everything properly in OpenTX but your module still stays off, the radio pins did not slide into the Tracer Tx. In this case you may need to nudge the pins in the JR bay just a little bit to the right or left side and plug the module back in.
Antennas You got a big variety of antennas for your transmitter and receiver. The antennas that come with your devices work fine and don’t need to be replaced in general. Depending on your environment, your drone and your flying style, you may want to customize. Here are the official TBS Tracer antennas, however any 2.4GHz u.
Adapter boards There are many ways of installing the Tracer Rx into a model like these mounting boards. Most mounting boards will be advertised for Crossfire Nano RX, however the Tracer Nano RX are pin-compatible and will therefore work with both! Every adapter board or solder on fc that is designed for the Crossfire Nano Rx will also work with the Tracer receivers! On some of them you can connect a Unify Nano32 with the Tracer receiver and use the CRSF connection to control the VTx.
Which transmitter is affected by this? The older QX7 & X10(S) radio from FrSky with the S-Port pin at the bottom of the radio. All new radios with “ACCESS” marking and older radios than the QX7 (with bottom S-Port pin) don’t need this hardware mod. How to install the inverter mod There is a detailed how-to available at phillip seidels blog Software mod Instead of installing the hardware mod, you can simply lower the speed on which the radio communicates with your radio.
General functions Binding Binding a receiver to your Tracer is an easy task and does not require 3 hands or any special jumpering. General note on model match You will notice that you can control any r/c model, even if you changed the model in your radio*. This is due to the Tracer not performing a model match the radio model. You have to make sure that you selected the right model in your radio before you power up the receiver.
Binding issue - OpenTx 2.3.10 When you update your radio to OpenTx 2.3.10 you might find all your receivers are now unbound. If this is the case, check the model match number. Due to the way OpenTx handels this feature, it might have set up a model number. In this case just change it back to 00 and your receiver should be bound again. Transmitter First you need to set your transmitter in bind mode.
Receiver Update (OTA) Depending on the firmware on your transmitter and the receiver, a firmware update may be required. With the transmitter and the receiver both in bind mode, you then will get a message on the radio/ Agent X, telling you that the receiver needs to be updated. The firmware will be sent to the receiver over the air (OTA). When the transmission is finished, the receiver and transmitter automatically bind and are ready to be used.
After the update wait for Agent X to synchronize the device with your TBS account. This is done when the dot on the top of the devices turned green Connect your Tracer to the internet via the built-in WiFi module. You can provide access point information from your nearest wifi hotspot, or create a temporary one on your phone. Wait for it to switch to “Online” under XF WIFI/ About After a few seconds you can navigate back to XF Transmitter/ About. Now you should see your user id.
Binding ● ● ● If you’ve got a bound receiver, just bind/ update it with multi-bind turned off and while it’s connected turn multi-bind on. Wait for a few seconds, then the link will come back again. On a new receiver you can just bind it by the button as usual. On the other Tracer Tx, just enable “Multi-Bind”. When the first tx is shut down, you can power up the second transmitter. It should bind to this receiver within a few seconds.
Failsafe setup The TBS Tracer supports two failsafe behaviors: cut and failsafe position. Setting them up correctly is crucial for the safety of your model. General setup The failsafe setting is located in the receivers menu. To change the behavior: 1. Navigate in the receiver menu by your radio/ Lua script/ Agent X 2. Open the General menu 3. Change the FS.
position if you accept the request. Failsafe test When you have set up or changed the failsafe behavior, it’s important to test the correct function on the ground. To test it: 1. Remove the propeller of your aircraft 2. Power up the radio and the model 3. Arm the model (with FC) or move your sticks in to certain position (no FC) 4. Shut down your radio 5.
Transmission power The transmitter’s RF output power is highly configurable and can be selected dynamically via the menu. With 100mW you can achieve 15 km of safe range in rural conditions. It is recommended to use the dynamic power option. This will allow you to fly at very low power and the system will increase the power automatically (faster than you can hit the power switch yourself) if you are about to lose the link.
Dynamic transmission power The system can automatically choose the power level most suitable for the situation at hand. For instance, if you fly close to the transmitter you normally only require minimal TX power and the system will therefore switch to the lowest possible TX power level required to maintain a good up-link. The maximum TX power level the system is allowed to use, can be defined by changing “Max Power” in the configuration menu.
Receiver LED status indicator Receiver LED indicators Description Solid green ▀▀▀ Link is up and running OK Solid red ▀▀▀ No packages received from the transmitter and receiver is in failsafe mode Fast red blinking ■ ■ ■ ■ Receiver needs a update, confirmation on the tx is required Slow green blinking ▀ ▀ ▀ Receiver is in binding mode Fast green blinking ■ ■ ■ ■ Receiver bootloader active or firmware upgrade running Green is flashing █ █ █ Diversity RX is in Find-mode (up to 1 min.
*the available pins for the connection can be found in the output map section for the receiver RC over MAVLink If you use MAVLink to connect to your FC, you can send your RC data over the same connection. Depending on the MAVLink version used in your FC, you can send up to 12 channels by this (MAV V2).
Receiver functions Output map On all receivers you can select what it should output on each pin. The available options for each differ for the receivers: Receiver pin Output type Nano Rx/ 6Ch Nano Pwm Rx Default value 1 PWM Ch1 to 12, PPM, RSSI, LQ, RSSI/LQ, SBUS, n.i. SBUS, CRSF TX, MAVLink TX, SmartAudio, DSMX CRSF TX 2 PWM Ch1 to 12, PPM, RSSI, LQ, RSSI/LQ, CRSF RX, MAVLink RX CRSF RX 3 PWM Ch1 to 12, PPM, RSSI, LQ, RSSI/LQ, CRSF RX, MAVLink RX PWM Ch.
SBUS SBus is the signal that is used by FrSky and other brands. The signal is inverted, which means on a F4 FC you need to use a pad with a built-in signal inverter. Those pads are mostly label with “SBus” on your FC N.i. SBUS Not inverted SBUS is the same as SBUS except that the signal is not inverted. This can be used for FCs that have no signal inverter built in and require SBus as input signal. MAVLink MAVLink is a very lightweight, header-only message marshalling library for air vehicles.
OSDs with only analog rssi input RSSI/LQ Combines the LQ and RSSI and translates them from 0 -100% to a PWM signal from 1000µs to 2000µs. The RSSI/LQ value will always show the worse value of both Smart Audio SmartAudio is a protocol developed by TBS for OSD to VTx communication. SmartAudio is a single-wire UART protocol, running over the (Audio)-wire. All versions of Smart Audio are supported.
Available sensors with OpenTX With a OpenTX based radio you can receive the following sensors, depending on your connected hardware: Datapoint Description Data source 1RSS Uplink - received signal strength antenna 1 (RSSI) TBS Tracer RX 2RSS Uplink - received signal strength antenna 2 (RSSI) TBS Tracer RX RQly Uplink - link quality (valid packets) TBS Tracer RX RSNR Uplink - signal-to-noise ratio TBS Tracer RX TPWR Uplink - transmitting power TBS Tracer TX TRSS Downlink - signal strength
Missing sensors If you got issues finding sensors or only a few appear, make sure you disabled Ignore Instances in the telemetry settings page of your radio In-built Voltage monitoring The Tracer receivers are capable of measuring the voltage of their power supply . This becomes handy when you use a rc glider where space matters. This feature works on up to a 2s LiPo (max. Operation voltage for all receivers!) for almost all receivers, except for the Nano Rx rev 43 and lower.
If you own a Nano Rx, there is no longer the complete BST plug available on it. In this case, just connect SCL to SCL and SDA to SDA on all devices.
Additional information TBS CLOUD All the TBS Tracer transmitters and the Fusion video receiver includes a built-in WiFi module which allows you a connection with all your gear through the TBS Cloud. This allows for features like VTx follow*, dynamic VTx power* and other upcoming features. Note: at the moment all the Cloud features require a hotspot with internet access.
Initiate the WiFi module To use the Cloud functions, you need to initiate the WiFi module first: ● Download and unpack the firmware files for the WiFi module from TBS ● Connect the Tracer Tx to your radio and power it up ● Search for a new WiFi network like “TBS_XF_AP_xxxxxx” ● Connect your pc with this network. On Windows machines this can take up to one minute ● Open your browser and enter ip in the address bar: 192.168.4.
LUA script or the CRSF menu work as well: ● Connect the Tracer Tx to your radio and power it up ● Navigate in the Tracer menu to WiFI/ General ● Hit Scan to search for available networks ● Under SSID you can select the found network ● Insert the password under P assword ● Click on Connect to start the manual connection ● Done OTA update of the WiFi Module When your WiFi module is on FW 1.
LQ warning in OpenTX The setup for the radio is relay simple: The small delay (0.5s) avoids warnings when the signal is only bad for a short moment. With the logical switches the voice alerts will be triggered every time they are active. What they mean: SF1: when L01 is active, plays the selected track ones For the sound files you can create your own by any TTS website.
Model-match in OpenTX Model match enables you to make sure that a specific receiver and drone with it only binds if the correct radio model is selected. In case you switched from a drone to a wing and forgot to change the model, the Rx will simply not bind (unless you start the bind procedure). You need to make sure that you don’t use an id twice in different models. In this case, the Rx will bind to both of them! Note: Model Match with the TBS Tracer is available on OpenTx since V2.3.
VTx connection by CRSF All Unify32 and Evo line VTx from TBS are capable of using CRSF to communicate with the Tracer ecosystem.
Vtx connection by SmartAudio If you own any Unify or any other VTx with SmartAudio capability, you can connect it to your Tracer receiver as well. ● Select a free output pin capable for SA (check the output map section for available outputs) ● Connect them (Tracer Tx to VTx Rx/ SmartAudio pad) Smart Audio or CRSF for the VTx? Both protocols had their advantages and disadvantages: ● SmartAudio ○ ● Single wire connection.
the VTx to CRSF or SA, you can unsolder the wire or force your Tracer rx to not output any signal.
CRSF with BetaFlight and similar firmwares In the BetaFlight configurator, navigate to the C onfiguration tab and select Serial-based receiver and C RSF In the Ports tab, enable Serial Rx for the UART where your receiver is connected 40
CRSF with KISS/ FETTEC Depending on the KISS Fc you are using, connect the Tracer by CRSF to the Fc’s RC input port.
BST to Eagletree Vector If you use an EagleTree vector Fc, you can connect the ET bus to the BST bus to get LQ and RSSI in the osd as well as telemetry from the FC back into the Tracer. To wire it up, just connect SCL to SCL and S DA to SDA. A common ground should already exist by the RC connection to the FC. Mavlink with MAV FC’s If you use a FC with MAVLink like ArduPilot/ PX4, you can use the MAVLink capabilities of the Tracer. Connect a MAVLink capable output to the Telemetry port of your FC.
If you use MAVLink, you can also use the RC over MAVlink option to save the extra wiring. The details can be found in this section. If you use the PX4 firmware, you don’t need to configure the telemetry port to get it running. Wireless configuration with ArduPilot/ PX4 by WiFi Over the built-in WiFi module you can get MAVLink data to your pc or mobile device for live telemetry as well as full MAVLink data transmission (as with the bluetooth module).
With WiFi FW 1.17 you can enable or disable the MAVLink data. To change this, navigate to and set MAVLink to o n. Note: in 1.17 there is a bug which turns the Mavlink option off everytime time you shut your transmitter down Wiring diagram Wireless telemetry Getting real-time telemetry data from your Tracer by WiFi works almost the same as with Bluetooth. You can find the WiFI details here.
WiFi telemetry with BetaFlight/ INav For the WiFi telemetry, you need to wire up your FC with a extra MAVLink connection, as the MAVLink emulation is not (yet) supported by the WiFi firmware: Settings in BetaFlight/ INav On the port where you got your extra MAVLink connection installed, enable MAVLink with 57600Baud in the PORTS tab for that UART. Note: You need to cancel the “loading parameter” dialog in MissionPlanner etc, as it will not get past this dialog.
Signal strength in Betaflight - BF < 4.1 and DJI OSD If you use an older BetaFlight version or a new one but with a DJI HD system, you need to assign the LQ sensor to a channel. In the Tracer receiver channel mapping, assign LQ to an unused channel. If you set it up by LUA, you can assign it to channel 1, even when you use the 8 channel mode of the Tracer.
For the OSD tab, set it up like this: Signal strength in Betaflight - BF 4.1 and later Since version 4.1 BetaFlight can read the link information from the CRSf stream. This will give you the RSSI reading in dBm (0 - -130) and the LQ reading similar to the TBS OSD (300 - 0 %). To use this new method, you need to disable the RSSI channel setting in the receiver tab and activate the following elements in the O SD tab.
CLI commands set osd_link_quality_alarm = 50 Signal strength in INav In INAV it’s almost the same as with the old BetaFlight methode, except that you don’t need to assign LQ to a channel in the channel map menu. INav reads the LQ from the CRSf stream and outputs it automatically on Channel 17 (from INav). Link States LQ - Link quality The number of packages that arrive correctly. If the number starts to drop, more packages are lost. On the TBS Tracer, it scales from 0 to 100% linearly.
SNR - Signal-to-Noise ratio It shows you the ratio between the noise floor and your Tracer signal. To judge RSSI properly you need to know the SNR and compare it with your RSSI value. The Tracer can receive signals in the noise down to 0dB, as the SNR is already scaled to offset the modulation requirement of 6dB. Example: A RSSI of -80dBm is fine. But with a SNR of 2dBm it’s really bad.
Racing environment When racing try to unify the power output across your peers. Recommended settings: ● Max output power: 100mW ● Dynamic power: off Factory reset If you experience a strange behavior with your Tracer, a factory reset can help solve them.
Emergency Update If an OTA update for the receiver fails, it will no longer work.
