What does the bind jumper on the brushed Alien board do?

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Cereal_Killer
Posts: 221
Joined: Fri Mar 06, 2015 5:44 am

What does the bind jumper on the brushed Alien board do?

Post by Cereal_Killer »

After taking a break from 8-bit FC's for a while I'm back. I have a FC built with an arduino pro micro (32U4) and I use a spektrum satellite receiver (sat ONLY). So far I've just been using a full RX to bind the sat to my TX but I'd like to free up the full receiver so I dont have to carry it around in my kit anymore (I'd also like to gain a few more channels, right now I'm using a 6ch receiver to bind, even tho the sat is capable of up to 12 over the serial line it's limited to run at the arbitrary number of channels the full RX has at bind time).
To do this I need to make the 32U4 be able to bind the sat on it's own. I know the process how ever since I have an FC built from an arduino, and not a real FC I dont have pins to easily do the usual method of unplugging the SAT and moving it to D4,5 6. I solder all my connections (plus this is a 150mm micro build and there's no access to be plugging / unplugging a bunch of stuff).

I'm trying to figure out how the AlienWii board does it with it's bind plug. My guess is that the bind plug is simply a jumper from D4 for RX0 and when not jumped there's no connection. Is this correct? What exactly happens during the bind process? Are the bind pulses sent only on the signal pin or are the 3V3 and GND pin's pulsed in a specific order too? How can I setup this thing to need only one jumper (two pins) like the alienwii does?

Another on-topic question, when you go to bind with the alien board are you required to still go threw the MW config bind process (hooking to the GUI and pressing the bind button) or is simply closing the jumper all it takes and it's automatically in bind mode at power up? Anyone here run an alienwii brushed 32U4 board?

Ok had a look at the bind code. I'm going to give it a try later (after my mail with my new soldering iron tips gets here later today) with the 3V3 and GND pin's left constant and the signal line moved to a pin it can control. It definitely pulses both + and GND but I'm not sure why / if it's required...

Code: Select all

#if defined(SPEK_BIND)  // Bind Support
void spekBind() {
  pinMode(SPEK_BIND_DATA, INPUT);     // Data line from sat
  digitalWrite(SPEK_BIND_DATA,LOW);   // Turn off internal Pull Up resistor

  pinMode(SPEK_BIND_GROUND, INPUT);
  digitalWrite(SPEK_BIND_GROUND,LOW);
  pinMode(SPEK_BIND_GROUND, OUTPUT);
  digitalWrite(SPEK_BIND_GROUND,LOW);

  pinMode(SPEK_BIND_POWER, INPUT);
  digitalWrite(SPEK_BIND_POWER,LOW);
  pinMode(SPEK_BIND_POWER,OUTPUT);
 
  while(1) {  //Do not return.  User presses reset button to return to normal.
    blinkLED(4,255,1);
    digitalWrite(SPEK_BIND_POWER,LOW); // Power off sat
    pinMode(SPEK_BIND_DATA, OUTPUT);
    digitalWrite(SPEK_BIND_DATA,LOW);
    delay(1000);
    blinkLED(4,255,1);
   
    digitalWrite(SPEK_BIND_POWER,HIGH); // Power on sat
    delay(10);
    digitalWrite(SPEK_BIND_DATA,HIGH);
    delay(60);                 // Keep data pin steady for 20 to 120ms after power up
 
    noInterrupts();   
    for (byte i = 0; i < SPEK_BIND_PULSES; i++) {
      digitalWrite(SPEK_BIND_DATA,LOW);
        delayMicroseconds(118);
      digitalWrite(SPEK_BIND_DATA,HIGH);
        delayMicroseconds(122);
    }
    interrupts();
    delay(60000);         //Allow one full minute to bind, then try again.
  }
}

MototechRyan
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Sep 17, 2015 2:00 am

Re: What does the bind jumper on the brushed Alien board do?

Post by MototechRyan »

Another on-topic question, when you go to bind with the alien board are you required to still go threw the MW config bind process (hooking to the GUI and pressing the bind button) or is simply closing the jumper all it takes and it's automatically in bind mode at power up? Anyone here run an alienwii brushed 32U4 board?


I run three, two in 120mm builds and one in a latrax alias build. They're pretty sweet and make it easy for newbies like me...if you can get one. They sell out fast.

The bind plug on the alienwii boards is a 2 pin jumper that automatically puts it into bind mode on power up. No multiwii binding steps needed.

From the alienwii website:

Brief History: The Classic Alienwii Flight Controller was initially designed for myself (originally for use on LadyBird style Frames). My goal was to design a MultiWii compatible, stand alone, plug and play, easy to use Flight Controller that could power brushed motors. I also created the integrated “hardware RX bind feature” to make DSM2/DSMX Satellite RX binding, easy.


Wish i could help further but I'm pretty new to multirotors. Maybe it's coded into the Alienwii firmware sketch...and if so, you could download the sketch from the alienwii site and open in arduino and find the code. Then add that code to your sketch.

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