THANK YOU for jumper T16 support - can I help test

[antlerhanger]

So can Jumper T16 and/or Frsky x9d+ 2019 have ERSKYTX that supports multi protocol modules ? I would like to upgrade to one of these but I use erskyTX only with muliprotocol modules

Thanks
Allen

[MikeB]

T16 version is in "ersky9xProvR222d5.zip" on the test versions page. At present some FrSky protocols are disabled (even on the multi-protocol module).

I don't have a X9D+ 2019 radio so I can't port erskyTx to that (yet).

Mike

[antlerhanger]

I suppose the d16 protocols are disabled . I understand why

Allen

[Wingspinner]

Apparently most of you have forgotten or have not been in the hobby long enough to know that FrSky got their start by copying Futaba, JR, and Spectrum technology (some may say “ripped off” since there were some patent violations apparently) with very little added engineering and selling the resulting products at the super low end of the market. Therefore, it’s more that a bit hypocritical of FrSky to claim that Jumper copied one of their products.

With regards to the issue that FrSky claims Jumper copied one of their products, it is easily debunked in two ways. The first is to simply take the cover off the Jumper T16 and it’s easy to see that it’s clearly a unique design and bears absolutely no similarity to any of the FrSky transmitters in either either physical design or electronic PCB design. If anything, the T16 bears greater similarity to the Futaba 18MZ in both external physical design and internal layout. The second and most obvious evidence that the T16 is not a copy of a FrSky design is that if it were, it would not require any special version of OpenTX and one could simply load the firmware version for the FrSKy on the T16 and it would work fine. This is not the case. None of the OpenTX versions intended for FrSky transmitters will work on the T16 which is why users have been lobbying for support. Of course there is some commonality as Opentx itself requires certain baseline electronic hardware for a transmitter to be compatible with it and all transmitters must conform to those requirements. That’s the way open source software works.

As far as I can tell Jumper has done nothing wrong. They simply designed a new rc transmitter to be compatible with OpenTX as was intended for OpenTX as open source software.

The problem that has occurred is that because FrSky “apparently” (in quotes because I’m only repeating what has been written on various forums) contributed to OpenTX and because one of the OpenTX devs apparently is compensated by FrSKy to push FrSKys agenda, they have come to believe that only they have the right to implement hardware supporting OpenTX especially if another company actually has a pretty good product that may impact FrSKy sales. Again, that isn’t how open source software works. Many people contribute to any given open source project and when they do, their contribution becomes part of the project and available to anyone. That’s how it works.

At issue, along with the apparent influence FrSky had on the Opentx Dev team causing them to initially refuse to support Jumper and forcing Jumper to do their own fork (hence the JumperTX fork), FrSky has resorted to strong arming dealers by terminating them as a dealer if they also sell the Jumper products.

Regardless of what one thinks of the Jumper product, FrSkys behavior lacks integrity, is no way for a responsible company to behave, and in fact, is termed “anti-competitive” and illegal in the U.S. and the E.U. under their antitrust laws. Of, course, the RC transmitter market is relatively small and affects a relatively small number of consumers so it’s unlikely either the US or the EU will investigate and prosecute simply because they have limited budgets and bigger fish to fry.

I suggest that if FrSky is concerned about the T16 as a competitive product that they invest in making their products better and more competitively priced than the competition. The customers will ultimately determine their fate. Their behavior hints that they have concerns about their ability to do so and therefore have resorted to anticompetitive efforts to deprive consumers of having a choice by strong arming their dealers.

[jhsa]

You say Frsky is not legal? Why? As far as I know they comply to the FCC and the European law..
And Jumper is legal? Is the Multiprotocol module legal? Where? Show us the certificates..

I am not taking sides when I ask this, as I don't really care about either. I build my radios and receivers..
But I find this part of your comment not accurate..

João

EDIT: Also I don't understand the Frsky copied Spektrum part.. Both equipments are like night and day, nothing in common.. Even the old equipment..
And they didn't copy the futaba equipment, they made compatible receivers, like Jumper is doing.. Pretty bad ones as far as I been reading. Telemetry doesn't seem to work right. Oh, and Frsky protocol?? Is that legal??

[Kilrah]

The second and most obvious evidence that the T16 is not a copy of a FrSky design is that if it were, it would not require any special version of OpenTX and one could simply load the firmware version for the FrSKy on the T16 and it would work fine

It does, with the exception of the rotary encoder that's a different type that causes some annoying behavior. Heck you can even run the FrSky OS on the T16 with a little trick, and beyond that finicky encoder it works. So that is evidence to the contrary of what you portray.

Anyway your speech is 6 months out of date now (and sounds suspiciously similar to previous posts), lots of things have changed since and little of it still makes sense.

[MikeB]

Apparently most of you have forgotten or have not been in the hobby long enough to know that FrSky got their start by copying Futaba, JR, and Spectrum technology (some may say “ripped off” since there were some patent violations apparently) with very little added engineering and selling the resulting products at the super low end of the market. Therefore, it’s more that a bit hypocritical of FrSky to claim that Jumper copied one of their products.

As I recall FrSky started with 2.4GHz upgrade modules (V series) that plugged in to either Futaba or Jr module bays and used the CPPM protocol to the radio and their own protocol over the air. I don't see any copying involved there!

With regards to the issue that FrSky claims Jumper copied one of their products, it is easily debunked in two ways. The first is to simply take the cover off the Jumper T16 and it’s easy to see that it’s clearly a unique design and bears absolutely no similarity to any of the FrSky transmitters in either either physical design or electronic PCB design. If anything, the T16 bears greater similarity to the Futaba 18MZ in both external physical design and internal layout. The second and most obvious evidence that the T16 is not a copy of a FrSky design is that if it were, it would not require any special version of OpenTX and one could simply load the firmware version for the FrSKy on the T16 and it would work fine. This is not the case. None of the OpenTX versions intended for FrSky transmitters will work on the T16 which is why users have been lobbying for support. Of course there is some commonality as Opentx itself requires certain baseline electronic hardware for a transmitter to be compatible with it and all transmitters must conform to those requirements. That’s the way open source software works.

Incorrect, I just flashed openTx 2.2.4 for the X10 to a T16 and it works perfectly OK.

As far as I can tell Jumper has done nothing wrong. They simply designed a new rc transmitter to be compatible with OpenTX as was intended for OpenTX as open source software.

The problem that has occurred is that because FrSky “apparently” (in quotes because I’m only repeating what has been written on various forums) contributed to OpenTX and because one of the OpenTX devs apparently is compensated by FrSKy to push FrSKys agenda, they have come to believe that only they have the right to implement hardware supporting OpenTX especially if another company actually has a pretty good product that may impact FrSKy sales. Again, that isn’t how open source software works. Many people contribute to any given open source project and when they do, their contribution becomes part of the project and available to anyone. That’s how it works.

At issue, along with the apparent influence FrSky had on the Opentx Dev team causing them to initially refuse to support Jumper and forcing Jumper to do their own fork (hence the JumperTX fork), FrSky has resorted to strong arming dealers by terminating them as a dealer if they also sell the Jumper products.

The openTx Dev team did not have time to add the T16, they did NOT refuse to support it.

One important point you are missing is all FrSky modules (internal and external) have a unique ID. The T16 is (mainly) using the multiprotocol module. This has no guarantee the unique ID used is distinct from FrSky IDs. For FrSky protocols, I believe it uses an ID obtained from the STM processor, which should, at least, be distinct between multi-modules, but I also understand that there are "rogue" STM processors around that means this cannot be fully relied on either.

Mike

[jhsa]

Mike, Kilrah, we were much happier when no money and big(ish) companies were involved with the people that were happily working on the 9x radio. We could have continued to use the frsky modules without any involvement with them.
We would have gotten to the same place where we are today, The multi module and the very nice upgrade boards sold by forum members would have brought us to the same level of development.
But now, even the MultiProtocol module thread on RCG seems to have turned into a Jumper thread. That is one of the reasons that I kinda stopped following it. It is not the very nice DIYers thread and project that I once known and liked.
Even the openRCforums looks like a customer service most of the times.
Now what I see is only wars between the fellow modelers caused by the greed and hate of some companies.. It makes me sad.
I do miss what we were doing a few years ago before Frsky started to make radios I wish they haven't done it, and kept on making the modules only

João

[Kilrah]

Mike, Kilrah, we were much happier

Maybe you were, but many of us weren't. The collaboration with FrSky (when it was still a collaboration, input was considered and we could design good products together) allowed us to get and work on the things we wanted there to be available both for ourselves and others.

Jumper was initially seen badly because of that and the thought it could compromise that, but on the other hand it helped reveal a bit sooner what FrSky's new plans were now that they want to be "big guys" and that would certainly have happened with or without Jumper, and that's changed the situation significantly.

[jhsa]

Exactly my point. Where there is money and profit involved, there is hate.
A good example is the post above.
And then people just read stuff that other people wrote somewhere, and continue to spread that hate on other places. It is not the first time, and it won't be the last.

And I can't see why you couldn't develop your stuff without Frsky.
Let Jumper get a bit more known, they will do exactly the sme as Frsky. You use them, and they want profit.

João

[Kilrah]

Even if this happens I have no doubt there will always be someone else to see manufacturers depart that market segment and want to fill it back in.

And no we don't have the resources necessary to develop a whole radio including the mechanics.

[jhsa]

I was saying that at least I, as well as many others were very happy modding existing radios.
That is what I still do, and my radios aren't any worse than the commercial ones. Actually they have much more hardware capability than any of the so called "open Source" radios. Thanks to Mike of course.
OpenTX, as far as I understand ( I could be wrong of course ) never bothered exploring the hardware capabilities, or developing their own, at least not as much as ErskyTX. That is why you guys normally rely on hardware that frsky and Jumper produce?

I and many others, We just didn't build the gimbals or the TX case. Actually, I did build my own hall sensor gimbals and they still work good until today
You might say, you didn't build the radio's mainboard. Well, that is about to change as well, 9xtreme board, which in my opinion is better than any taranis went open source, and I am amazed the amount of people that are ordering PCBs and will solder them Some minor fixes also to the original design, so it will be expected to be even better..
And I changed the processor on a few 9x mainboards too.. Does that count?

So, as you see, yes, we have the tools to build our own radio You guys just chose to step away from DIY and rely on products. That would be fine if you didn't interact with the companies that produce them.
We never interacted with flysky because of the 9x radio, and that is why we have never seen so much hate like we do now.

Just my humble opinion of course.. I really miss when we were all in the same boat, if you know what I mean

João

[Kilrah]

OpenTX, as far as I understand ( I could be wrong of course ) never bothered exploring the hardware capabilities, or developing their own, at least not as much as ErskyTX.

No, becasue the whole point is that at the beginning we collaborated with FrSky to make sure that what we wanted, and what we thought most people wanted was built in.

Anyone who would have wanted to add something more could have done so, that's the whole point of open source. Nobody did, which means it indeed was sufficient for nobody to find the need to bother. It'd be trivial to add an IO expander to the Taranis and connect it to the serial port in the same way as most of the 9x upgrades work if people wanted, but nobody felt the need.

I and many others, We just didn't build the gimbals or the TX case.

And I changed the processor on a few 9x mainboards too.. Does that count?
So, as you see, yes, we have the tools to build our own radio

Can you make 100 of those for your friends and other club members?
We wanted a good product that we could not only use but also recommend to people around us who are not going to DIY their radio.

We also wanted something that could be widespread and would attract other developers to join the effort. Open source is not about relying on one person doing all the work alone.

You guys just chose to step away from DIY

What? We've been DIYing software for 7 years now. DIY is not only hardware. We're more interested in the software, and so be it. We initially DIYed hardware out of necessity, but it was never what we were looking for.

You guys just chose to step away from DIY and rely on products.

We concentrate on software and let people deal with the hardware just in the same way as you DIY hardware and rely on Mike to do all the software for you. Same thing, except that unlike software which costs nothing but time hardware produced in quantity requires real, significant financial investments, and thus some kind of business to make things work.

[jhsa]

Produce produce produce.. did you realize how many you.times you said it? And also product produc.product? That is the problem I was talking about..
And ooen source product lol

João