Smart Port protocol

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tilmanb
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Smart Port protocol

Post by tilmanb »

Is there already any information public on the new Smart Port protocol?
I'd love to play around with that...

Looks like there is no specific code for that yet in open9x. ./x9d/sport_driver.cpp hands it off to processSerialData() in ./frsky.cpp which seems unchanged.

But really, I'd rather read some documentation about it than reverse engineering it from code.

I have two main interests. First is to use it for telemetry downlink in UAV systems. Like the existing Ardupilot support or in my case more likely paparazzi protocol support.

And, I noticed there is no airspeed field in the sensor hub protocol. I was pretty sure there was one speced out, but I I was apparently wrong with that.
There is only a ground speed field for GPS,

I have a differential pressure sensor and a pitot tube here. I'm thinking of hooking that up to OpenXvario...

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Rob Thomson
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Re: Smart Port protocol

Post by Rob Thomson »

Yes. But all under nda.

You will have to wait for the product to launch before it is publicly available
:-)

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tilmanb
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Re: Smart Port protocol

Post by tilmanb »

Well, I have other problems right now anyway.
I tend to get ahead of myself. When I actually get to work on this idea those specs will probably be old news already.
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rainer
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Re: Smart Port protocol

Post by rainer »

Rob Thomson wrote:Yes. But all under nda.
You will have to wait for the product to launch before it is publicly available
:-)
Any news on this? i thought frsky wanted to release the documentation for the smart port protocol together with the release of the taranis.
i got my taranis on my desk now... so anybody found some documents decsribing the smart port / protocoll ?
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Rob Thomson
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Re: Smart Port protocol

Post by Rob Thomson »

Guess for now you could read the source code for opentx?

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rainer
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Re: Smart Port protocol

Post by rainer »

sure , but that does probably does not give me the hardware details of the actual transmission protocol on the smart port side.
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Re: Smart Port protocol

Post by fireball »

Rainer, are you thinking about some kind of micro protocol translator between old telemetry and sPort? :-)
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Re: Smart Port protocol

Post by rainer »

No actually i was thinking the protocol would be open and it obviously is not. The source of the great openTX is open, but the actual new telemetry seems to be a locked down closed standard. This leaves a bad taste somehow.
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Rob Thomson
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Re: Smart Port protocol

Post by Rob Thomson »

I believe that it is available on signing an NDA with them - but don't quote me on that.

Why don't you contact Eva and find out the facts?

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Re: Smart Port protocol

Post by rainer »

Why should an open source developer sign an NDA putting himself under a financial risk without the goal of making money out of it? Just for the fun of it?
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Re: Smart Port protocol

Post by bertrand35 »

Rob, would you sign this NDA? I would not. I perfectly understand Rainer here.
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tilmanb
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Re: Smart Port protocol

Post by tilmanb »

I rather buy a logic analyzer
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Rob Thomson
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Re: Smart Port protocol

Post by Rob Thomson »

As I said - find out the facts. Without knowing the facts about it - everything is just hear say.

So... my point being. (Rainer)

You have asked on the forum - and had no answer.
You then have made a leap of speculation that it is not open source. I may well simply not be published yet. I honesty do not know.

So.. why not contact Eva and ask her?

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Re: Smart Port protocol

Post by Rob Thomson »

I have just emailed her and asked for clarification.

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rainer
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Re: Smart Port protocol

Post by rainer »

ok, i just send her a mail asking for the required documentation.
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Re: Smart Port protocol

Post by rainer »

got a reply from eva, she asked me to contact somebody else, which i did.

"My colleague Allen is taking care of the developing union requests and please send him an e-mail with your project and request details to [email protected] for the information and documentation."

so i am waiting for the next reply.
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rainer
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Re: Smart Port protocol

Post by rainer »

got another reply after asking again... this time from allan.

"Thanks for your mail and supporting, yes, we are very interesting your project. I have forward to our developer, we are study it, and we will back to you quite soon, including the documents your required. thanks your time and patience.
If you need we do other thing just free to let me know"

but no documents or further information yet.
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Rob Thomson
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Re: Smart Port protocol

Post by Rob Thomson »

The guys bag Frsky seem to be a bit swamped at the moment.

Give them some breathing space. Pretty sure they will get back to you soon.

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rainer
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Re: Smart Port protocol

Post by rainer »

one more week, nothing new to report by now....
I'll be on holiday for about 3 weeks, so that should be enough breathing space.
hopefully i will get an answer ...
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Re: Smart Port protocol

Post by hari »

I did not get any information from FrSky either.. Eva did just refer me to that email address. I've sent a mail weeks ago, but no reply.
What attracted me to FrSky in the first place was the open telemetry protocol. And now, all of a sudden, they wanna hide the s.port details?
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Re: Smart Port protocol

Post by Kilrah »

Did you resend them something? The best ones to ask are them, tell Eva you got no news from the other address...
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Re: Smart Port protocol

Post by hari »

I did receive a reply from Allen that I shall describe my application and that FrSky will do an "evaluation". I did so, but got no further notice. All I want to do is sending live data like amps, RPM and temp from my Jeti BLC downstream.
Frankly, one of the reasons why I bought a lot of FrSky equipment - dozens of FrSky receivers, three D hack modules, a DHT-U, a Taranis (plus 50.- EUR opentx donation) and other things like FLVS, FAS, the new varios, etc. - was the open the telemetry. And now I have to fill application forms and just hope that FrSky likes my application for s.port? Will rainer even get specs as his vario might be seen as competition? I appreciate FrSky's decision to use open source software for the Taranis, but I really can't understand their position regarding s.port in this context. This ain't rocket science, they're not the first using a single wire for rs232 comms with some kind of arbitration to request a few bytes of data from multiple nodes. So yes, go ahead and make our lives harder by forcing us to reverse engineer s.port, but then please rename Fr(ee)Sky to something like Li(mited)Sky.
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Rob Thomson
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Re: Smart Port protocol

Post by Rob Thomson »

Give them time. From my understanding they are 100% swamped at the moment. Getting you guys sport details is probably quote low priority.

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Re: Smart Port protocol

Post by hari »

while I have no issue with them being busy - we all understand that FrSky staff has a lot on their desks at the moment - I really dislike the "we judge if your project is allowed" and "protocol description under NDA" policy. Hiding the sensor side protocol details is a worrisome move. The old hub based protocol was open. And nowadays even companies like Jeti provide telemetry specs as download from their support pages: http://www.jetimodel.com/en/Telemetry-P ... -Protocol/
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Re: Smart Port protocol

Post by WendoNZ »

Can someone clarify what can/is actually on the Smart Port bus?

My understanding is it has all the telemetry but also all of the channels, is that correct? If so then I also have a project currently that could use the specs. Although I can probably reverse engineer from the opentx source, assuming it even looks at the channels....
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Re: Smart Port protocol

Post by MikeB »

The SPort only handles telemetry data. The channels are on the SBus output.
The openTx source only handles the SPort data sent fom the XJT module, it does not include the full protocol used by the receiver to get the data.
In theory, the SPort is bi-directional and it should be possible to send any data from the Tx to a sensor on the receiver. I'm not sure FrSky have fully implemented this yet though.

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Re: Smart Port protocol

Post by WendoNZ »

So, the Sbus protocol is the same sbus that Futaba use? Tell me they haven't called it the same thing and use a different protocol?
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Re: Smart Port protocol

Post by MikeB »

I assume it is the same, I don't actually know.

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Re: Smart Port protocol

Post by algo »

Wayne from Aloft says they are compatible.
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showpost ... count=6606

I hope FrSky releases the details (and not under NDA) on the smart port because I'm interested in hooking in to it for more complex purposes than FrSky can come up with.
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Peter
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Re: Smart Port protocol

Post by Peter »

Then this could be a starting point, arduino code to control a sbus servo:
http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php/topic,99708.0.html

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