HappyModel EPW5 ExpressLRS PWM Receiver. Fly a regular plane on ELRS! Supplied by YourFPV

[@CookeCraft]

Thank you Wayne, for another very enjoyable video. I bought one of these pwm recievers for my Volantex Ranger 600 which came with an all in one board (i managed to burn it out) You have incuded some very good info here on the setup. I have been switching all of my quads from crossfire to ELRS. The binding phrase method is excellent. Take care.

[@CurryKitten]

Thanks :D Since I made this, ELRS have upped support for legacy protocols, so if you have larger planes with loads of channels you can make it work. Have a look at this video kzbin.info/www/bejne/sH-uf5aFbqd4nM0&ab_channel=CurryKitten for an idea of what I mean

[@heyfred]

Really like how you do a lot more than just talk about products and show them in use. You can change what channel is on output #5 of the Rx right next to where you set the failsafe. With some settings in the ELRS lua, you can get channels 6+ to an "adequate?" 7bit output. ELRS dev Bryan Mayland has fun to follow KZbin video showing it. Wouldn't mind hearing your impression of flying on it though.. ;)

[@CurryKitten]

Thanks - and thanks for the tip about changing the channel on output 5. I didn't know that. While 128 position seems inadequate for flying, some have speculated that it's probably ok for Pan/Tilt. Given this new info, and time permitting it might be fun to shove a servo on the top of the wing and see how output 5 works as a Pan controller

[@christopherj3367]

Just got two of these for nitro RC cars, thanks for the tip on updating the firmware. It had me confuse about do I use the HM 2.4 EP RX as with my drones, but you've pointed it out as the DIY builds.

[@iamsoulcandy]

Absolutely fantastic! Thank you much

[@davidlee50]

Your plane reminds me of a balsa ACE Wizard plane I used to fly 30 some years ago

[@CurryKitten]

Luckily, this isn't balsa else it would be a pile of matchsticks by now!

[@LookingForEntertainment112]

Great video, as usual the rush fpv transmitter steals the show!

[@CurryKitten]

They are just so clean :)

[@Top-Jimmy]

Excellent mate! - Bazza, Australia

[@CurryKitten]

Cheers :)

[@robertbobgriffith5292]

Enjoyed the video. I'm looking forward to converting my old Hobby Zone F27-B wing to FPV hopefully I'll be in position to do that this early summer.

[@CurryKitten]

Go for it - always nice to fly different types of models

[@MessingWithCode]

Lovely Flight , Very smooth

[@CurryKitten]

Cheers :)

[@jamesceastep8874]

Wayne: I love your partition of the video display. Great exposure, composure, clear explanations, and commentary. I've got to order several of these receivers so I can try them with my own fixed wing planes. Could you do a little commentary on what is different between the original Express LRS receivers and this one? No one seems to have said what the channel assignment does. Old version intended for flight controllers? Which Foxeer camera were you using to put your battery voltage on the OSD? Are there other camera models that do that? Great job! - Jim

[@CurryKitten]

Hi Jim, When you say the difference between this one and the original ELRS rx's... well it's mainly that the original ones can only talk CRSF and this one can do PWM. Although I've since learnt from other comments to this video that I can reassign Aux1 to another channel, so I would like to make a follow up video about perhaps adding a pan servo to the camera. The camera I was using here was a Falkor 2. You can get quite a few cameras that will give a voltage like that, several RunCam models, Foxeer and others all did this - they'll usually describe themselves as having an OSD with voltage/timer/callsign. Or look for an additional pin on the input which is for reading the voltage.

[@jamesceastep8874]

Nice fly. I like the camera performance into the sun with little glare. Need to know what camera enables you to monitor the plane battery voltage. Please leave in your text description. Thanks. Jim

[@CurryKitten]

The camera I used in this plane was the Foxeer Falkor 2. I've reviewed it before here kzbin.info/www/bejne/eXTIhZlnebp1d6c and I go through some of the OSD options it has such as displaying your battery voltage. This isn't unique to this camera, many FPV cameras have the facility to run their own OSD and display things like (usually) pilot name, battery voltage and timer.

[@AerialWaviator]

Great to see some wing flying. Appreciate the PWM receiver overview. Landing gear and un-mowed grass don't mesh well. You could try installing "tundra" wheels (ie: wheels that are 3-4x the current size). This will however create more drag flying, so will become more of a floater. First world scale model RC problems ... plane can look good in scale, or be practical flyer doing belly and flop landings.

[@CurryKitten]

Very true - I love the idea of landing gear, but flying in random unmowed fields mean I've never landed that thing once without flipping it on the nose :) I did manage to have a short piece of dirst previously where I could at least take off without a hand launch

[@ipranoj]

Great video Curry! Wondering if I could use the rx and tx pads on this receiver to use it for my quad as well?

[@CurryKitten]

You can indeed. It didn't really occur to me that people would as the rx prices are pretty cheap and this one is obviously a bit bigger than the regular ones. But yeah, you flash it with HappyModel_EP_2400_RX (IIRC) and then it's regular tx/rx for CRSF instead of the PWM

[@ipranoj]

@@CurryKitten Got it. Thanks for the reply :) Keep making awesome content!

[@1967friend]

If there is any carbon fiber reinforcement inside the fuselage, that would explain the plane appearing as a wall to the radio signal.

[@ghafoorhussain6677]

Great Stuff, exactly what i needed to see and understand, cheers mate!! :-)

[@CurryKitten]

No problem 👍

[@greatgandalf5233]

The UMX Timber has big wheels for grass. Mine gets in the air in 4 feet. I love these minis when you need a flight fix.

[@CurryKitten]

I might need some monster truck wheels in that field :)

[@marcplatvoet]

Amazing video, it helped me a lot!

[@CurryKitten]

Glad it helped!

[@Mr18031967]

nice video wayne thanks for the upload bro

[@CurryKitten]

No worries :)

[@martr]

Nice video, thanks. Great to see HappyModel now with a PWM RX. It would be good if ELRS could actually free up channel 5 in PWM mode for use with flaps, rather than it being tied into the Arm state (which I understand is needed for ground functions and dynamic power). I dont care too much about those and it would be a nice firmware configuration option to free channel 5 up (despite it being 2 or 3 position) for flaps or landing gear or something.

[@CurryKitten]

Someone else mentioned that I could define output 5 as a different channel, so perhaps I could get one of the 7-bit (128 positions) instead. I wanted to see if that would work well enough for a pan camera

[@matthewallen3375]

Thank you for sharing the new product with us. This video was VERY helpful. Next question is what are ranges testing to on this RX?

[@CurryKitten]

I haven't done any specific range testing, but it should work the same as the other ELRS rx's with this sort of antenna (although my mounting needed to be better) previously I'd stopped at 1.4km as I ran out of field with the LQ at 100 still

[@alexj3709]

Wayne, thank you for this trial run, and this fitted what I am trying to do perfectly. I have lots of little quads, mostly on XM+ receivers. I have bought a couple of converters for that receiver to PWM but that was a while back and I didn't ever get to trying it out. Now I am into elrs, my question is would I be able to hook one of those XM+ to PWM modules up to a basic elrs receiver with the PWM in the same way, thus using it on a model like you showed here?

[@CurryKitten]

If I understand correctly - maybe. I'm guessing the PWM modules you'd use with the XM+ will either work by converting SBUS or PPM to PWM channels. Although ELRS wants to speak CRSF, you can run them in SBUS, but I've never tried it from a "regular" ELRS RX. I think it should work though

[@alexj3709]

@@CurryKitten That's encouraging and I will tinker with it and let you know if there are any breakthroughs :)

[@BigMeanyVids]

Nice. I get a kick out of the scale fpv thread on rcgroups and while this is not exactly scale given it's not from the cockpit it's still in the same spirit. I need to build a small one like this for down at the neighborhood lake. Would be fun to actually land via fpv onto gear which I've yet to try as mostly just fly belly landers fpv.

[@CurryKitten]

I tried to get a proper landing on this, but I could never quite do it :D I'd get it down onto the wheels, but I always had a very bumpy piece of grass to come down on, so I didn't have a single instance of it not tipping over on it's nose. I'm sure if you have a lovely smooth runway, you'd be good. I don't have wheels on any of my other planes, and I do appreciate being able to sit down and just take off without any throwing :)

[@MCsCreations]

Fantastic flying, Wayne! 😃 Really sweet little airplane! Flies great!!! Thanks for the review!!! Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

[@CurryKitten]

It's a little underpowered, but it does ok. One day I'll make it land on it's damned wheels :)

[@nikotttin]

I'd love to do something like this with a Kopilot and a vista. No idea how to get the voltage on screen and I guess it's not possible.

[@heyfred]

Some FPV cameras have a pin (Vsen)to hook up to Batt +, it then shows the flight battery voltage in the image. Off the top of my head, the Foxeer arrow and some of their others have it. I have been having really good luck with it.

[@surjitsinghdeo6533]

Hi, did you programmed anything in inputs and mixes page or it was plug and play?

[@CurryKitten]

Nothing special in the inputs/mixes. I think I would have setup expo and dual rates, but that's about it

[@hspeed8080]

Good afternoon. Another great video. Have you tried using a Matek CRFS to SBUS at all? I've been using several Matek and Happy model rx with my TX16s with a BetaFPB Micro 2.4 in the back.(Love it) I been using a Kopilot with them connected through different Matek CRFS to PWM conversion boards (8 and 10 channel PWM) and one of Matek ELRS 6 Channel PWM rx's, all work well. I am able to set it up so channel 6 is my mode switch since channel 5 is only 2 position. When I tried the Matek CRFS to SBUS connected to any of my RX's to Kopilot I am unable to get it to work with 3 position modes. It only will do Stabilized to Returned to home no Manual. Any ideas or any chance you would consider doing a video on this type of setup. If there is a work around for this board and Kopilot that would be awesome. Thanks for any suggestions. Jeff

[@EnglishTurbines]

Great video matey, very thorough...I've actually used the Matek Decoder PCB and a CRSF Nano on my Glider. Its got a VBATT pin so I can keep an eye on the Flight battery. It can get high and far fast, so the standard FRSKY rxs are a bit iffy range wise. You really must do Maiden flights LOS to allow you to trim the plane out. You simply cant do it FPV with no FC or AHI.....I know you hate LOS but its a much better way to trim...and land.

[@CurryKitten]

So the VBAT pin passes the voltage back as telemetry? Handy. To be fair, I'd flown this model before - mainly in LOS!! So I didn't think I was doing anything new, but of course the trims were going to be all out with the new rx and radio.

[@EnglishTurbines]

@@CurryKitten Yes, vbatt on Amber vocal, very handy on a long Glider flight in Summer..I'm ordering a Radiomaster Zorro...for my undercover quad flying...🤔😳

[@CyclingMikey]

@@EnglishTurbines Interesting! I have a Yoda DLG, a Shinto Electric, and I'm about to get an Eternity F5J. All three are running FrSky.

[@TheLostSquadron]

I'm experimenting with the Wide mode in ELRS for a Volantex Ranger with head tracking right now. I'm using a the regular HappyModel EP1 routed through a Matek FC, but appears this mode may be smooth enough for head tracking to work.

[@CurryKitten]

That's good news - I couldn't decide whether 128 positions had enough resolution for smooth camera movements or not

[@hazes22]

"LED flash fast means in WIFI hotspot mode" , but how do you put this receiver in that mode ?

[@CurryKitten]

Wait 30 seconds without having a radio bind to it. It's what you can also set in the flasher under AUTO_WIFI_ON_INTERVAL - which is normally 30 seconds

[@hazes22]

@@CurryKitten Mine just shows a steady green led whatever I do or how long I wait.

[@chrissorlie5291]

Very excited to see this! I'm considering making the ELRS jump. I would like to fly small school yard. Would the receiver work if you just attached say 8 inches of wire which i would do a vertical loop with the wire - receiver to tail, looping up, then continuing loop back to front of model? Would any wire work? I'm sure a "normal" radio / receiver would be easier but it's a challenge. Thanks for your help!

[@CurryKitten]

You've slightly lost me in your description there - could you rephrase your question. When you say "any wire", usually we're talking about connecting the receiver to servos to move the control surfaces - are you talking about this?

[@chrissorlie5291]

@@CurryKitten My apologies Curry! if you unsoldered or cut the "T" antenna off from the part that connects it to the receiver and soldered 8" of small diameter wire would that work as an antenna? I was wanting to run this "antenna" to the rudder and back to the wing inside the fuselage for a cleaner installation and, hopefully, a more effective reception. Thanks for bearing with me!

[@CurryKitten]

Ahh, now I understand. The quick answer is that i don't know, the longer answer though is that this is 2.4Ghz at the end of the day, so if you used regular antenna wire and had the active element of the correct 1/4 or 1/2 wave, then it should work ok. If I was thinking about this I'd get onto the ELRS Discord server and ask the question to the "Help and Support" room where they are extremely helpful at this sort of stuff.

[@chrissorlie5291]

Thank you Curry!

[@macieks.5959]

What is 5th channel for? I tried to attach flaps to it but it does work as 0/1 channel only.

[@CurryKitten]

If you connect the rx to wifi then you should be able to redefine what the 5th channel is for and get more resolution from it. Going to ELRS v3 will also give you more again

[@macieks.5959]

@@CurryKitten have you tried that? I have elrs 3.0 already and I was not able to see that option while connected to wifi of the Rx.

[@mrityunjay1234]

Appreciate your video. Maybe a noob question, does this operate standalone where I need to add servos directly to it or can this also be used with a flight controller in inav?

[@CurryKitten]

The docs on this are a little sparse, but you can use this as a regular CRSF rx as well. I think you'd need to flash it with different firmware and then PWM2 becomes TX and PWM3 becomes RX.. it which point you can't use the other pins for PWM any longer.

[@mrityunjay1234]

@@CurryKitten thanks for the reply. Just bought one, will try it with the first plane I am buying for learning to fly fpv planes (zohd drift). I am assuming I can go for miles on it similar to the other elrs receiver with T antennas.

[@aerialcombat]

I was hoping you'd do a more specific setup example, like how is it powered? I've yet to so a good video on the pwm elrs receivers

[@MCsCreations]

Esc's bec. He just plugged everything in.

[@CurryKitten]

Yep, what MC said. This should be pretty obvious for anyone who's flown a regular RC plane before (and who the video is really for) the ESC has a 5v BEC which supplies the RX and the other servos with the power they need.

[@aerialcombat]

@@CurryKitten alright, thank you. Indeed, I appreciate how you're making these for folks already familiar with the hobby. I'm just getting into fixed wings having been flying FPV quads for a short while now. I'm still a student, if a terrible one but I'm trying!

[@CurryKitten]

Ah - well no worries. If you go without a flight controller it's very very simply. Connect your Battery to the ESC (which will have the motor attached) the servo plug goes into the RX and supplies 5v and the servos also connect direct to the receiver. That's it for a basic plane - it's pretty easy :)

[@MCsCreations]

@@aerialcombat Search for "FliteTest Tiny Trainer". I believe they showed it near the end of the video. Well, at least they (FliteTest) always do. 😊

[@JakeBullit123]

Looks interesting, don't know how it's going to benefit me over regular 2.4? Could you not get the radio to call out RSSI every few seconds rather than peep out from under neath the goggles?

[@CurryKitten]

No benefit really - more of a case of convenience if you want to fly everything on one setup - although you should have more range... but that's often not the worry. Yeah, having a peek at the radio was a quick afterthought as I was flying around. It would be easy to configure something to speak it, or set alarms to warn me about if the LQ or dBm got too low. As it stands, Edge TX and OpenTX both use the regular RSSI value of 45 (warn) 42(critical) to warn you, which doesn't fit in so well with ELRS

[@JakeBullit123]

@@CurryKitten thanks Wayne

[@staydown.normal5323]

i put inav in my aero scout and i used crossfire

[@grim-upnorth]

Wayne, nice video 😀 Can it be configured to output the CRSF protocol from one pin, and then have the other pins output PWM? An example for this might be for use with an FC that can accept the CRSF but doesn't have enough PWM outputs to support a pan/tilt setup, or to use a standalone PWM based camera switcher. Thanks

[@CurryKitten]

You can do CRSF via TX/RX pins on the RX, but these are shared with PWM, so it's one or the other. ELRS can only have 4 full range channels whatever the case, so I'm not sure it would help even if you could redefine which channels were CRSF and which were PWM

[@grim-upnorth]

@@CurryKitten Thanks Wayne 👍

[@nucleo1772]

I am curious if this receiver has the same range as this tiny SBUS ELRS receiver. I like to fly without a flight controller for about 2 km. Will this PWM receiver have this range ??

[@CurryKitten]

What SBUS ELRS receiver... ELRS can't talk SBUS - do you mean there's something that converts CRSF to SBUS or something similar? This should easily do 2km without too much of a problem. Better antenna placement than my example though

[@typxxilps]

can not agree more to have 8 channel receivers with higher latency cause those 6th channel is missing for at least all those using a gimbal and maybe some simple switches to turn on / off the camera. I had been fooled when I bought a new radio master with elrs assuming I would get all those channels the radio has supported. But that is wrong or would only be right if I would have bought a different version like the 4 in 1 but not elrs. I still have not found where in the description they had burried the 4 or 5 channel limitation cause in the zorro description even of the elrs starter set they had not mention anything that a lot of the switches are not really useable. Hope to see some 8 channel receivers arriving soon cause I had not been aware that elrs is more or less a quadcopter thing at least till the arrival of the 5 pwm receiver which still is missing the 6th channel for gimbal use.

[@P8FPV]

So could I use this for a 5ch rc plane or just a 4ch?

[@CurryKitten]

I've since found out that I could reassign ch5 as a regular channel instead of just an arm/disarm switch. In ELRS 2.x this isn't a full range channel, but (IIRC) up to 128 positions - so probably ok for a pan control or flap positions

[@P8FPV]

Humm ok thanks I needed the 5ch I have 4 servos and throttle mehh

[@RCinginSC]

Looks great. I guess we could use it for ground vehicles too 🤔

[@CurryKitten]

Yeah - or boats. Not sure what sort of range you get on the ground.... less, obviously - but I would suspect more than "regular" 2.4

[@jimmchewy]

Are you able to show us how to use kopilot with this rx? TIA!!!

[@CurryKitten]

I don't have the Kopilot (were talking about the Zohd one yes?) But essentially, you'd plug in as per a regular PWM receiver (not SBUS)

[@madforit9661]

The video on Friday was helpful, Thanks I would appreciate Is there any chance you would know why on my New Jumper T Pro 1000mw internal unit. It says battery low and not enough power to keep it on, showing 6.4 volts on the screen. But when i test each batt with a volt metre, they are each 4.3 volts Appreciate your help

[@CurryKitten]

I don't have a T Pro, but my T12 Pro recently started showing power issues where new decent 18650 cells would be showing around 4v on the screen. I don't know what happened (but mine was at least over a year old) sounds like a fault, but I didn't spot anything obvious taking it apart, and I did attempt to get in touch with Jumper, but my email was unanswered

[@madforit9661]

@@CurryKitten I found the answer, You go to hardware and then calibrate the batt voltage. Cheers for getting back to me

[@CurryKitten]

@@madforit9661 Glad it's a simple fix - mine is buggered. I can calibrate the voltage, but the screen is flickering off from the lack of power and everything!

[@madforit9661]

@@CurryKitten Lol I was having the same thing. So get it on charge and after a few hours Straight into hardware . It is where the stick calibration is and scroll down . It will be set on 6 volts and the bloody thing starts flickering, she starts saying Battery lo!, Change it asap . I put mine ,about 8.8volt as I had tested the 2 lipos on volt metre . Let us know how you get on. You fix that and you can help me bind mine. Having A NIGHTMARE TRYING TO BIND MY ELRS NANO and yet I have crsf in internal and got the bin for the tx I click bind and nothing.

[@adlers8345]

I ordered 3 of these receivers as well. What range do you expect on 100mW ?

[@CurryKitten]

These should work the same as the other ELRS RX's I've tested on quads, where I run out of space to fly after 1.4km and still with a 100 LQ signal

[@philthayer4087]

Is there a pin for VBatt?

[@CurryKitten]

Not on that RX. If you want RX's with vbat to pass back as telemetry, their newer RX's all have them. Check this video kzbin.info/www/bejne/fqbci2iPo85prZI&ab_channel=CurryKitten

[@k4x4map46]

good stuff!

[@CurryKitten]

Appreciate it!

[@stevefox3763]

There is another category who fly without an FC, those who like the element of risk ha ha! I've lost count how many times ive been above the clouds or a few miles out with nothing but a 2.4ghz Rx and standalone voltage OSD on the plane and amped up Tx :)

[@CurryKitten]

In the olden days I remember the pleasure of getting the FrSky DJT module in my (x and having the amazing telemetry beeps to tell me when I needed to turn around :)

[@stevefox3763]

@@CurryKitten I've not had a signal warning in years, I used to get one now and then before I amped up and a failsafe if I pushed much further but failsafes are a thing of the past as my control outruns my video. I still have a failsafe set but it will probably never kick in, I have mine set to reduce throttle to 40% and go onto a very gentle right bank with a very small amount of up elevator to slow decent, eventually getting control back long enough to turn direct to home at full throttle :)

[@mauricio-nn4rc]

to use with drone the firmware is the same?

[@CurryKitten]

In which case you are talking about connecting RX/TX up to a flight controller? Yes, but why go to the hassle of getting a PWM cable rx when you can get a regular ELRS rx which will be smaller and not have loads of pins sticking out

[@meulaso3660]

what fpv setup?

[@CurryKitten]

I think I mention the type of VTX and camera in this one.

[@meulaso3660]

@@CurryKitten I will watch it again then. I must not have noticed.(I'm learning English)

[@MatthewRayFlicks]

You should update your ELRS Configurator before you flash anything. Also, in the section where you adjust your failsafe you can change what channel each PWM output is. This way you can use channel 6 instead of channel 5 and skip the one bit Aux 1 problem.

[@CurryKitten]

Yes - good practice to do so. i thought it was updated, but another day and another release came along! Someone else mentioned being able to use a different channel so I might go back and try a pan camera mount

[@MatthewRayFlicks]

@@CurryKitten In the video at the top of the ELRS configurator you have a notification that a new version is available. That’s the only reason I mentioned.

[@CurryKitten]

Oh yeah - I saw it, and I thought I'll update that next time. But I was already in the middle of things at the time.

[@lungomaburfpv1425]

ELRS...? One transmitter for one and more receiver drones flying togeter. Like as Radiolink AT-9, AT-10

[@spiroskatsikas]

Cool use 3s

[@CurryKitten]

I don't find magic smoke that much fun

[@davidtskhakaya280]

I'm sorry but you omitted (time counter - 4.36) probably the most important step how to put EPW5 in a wifi updating mode; did not explain what different different led flash sequences mean, or where to find this... I got this Rx motivated by you, demonstrating simple setup and use, but the reality seem to be quite different...

[@CurryKitten]

There's a certain amount of elements that are common to most ELRS receivers so I sometimes don't explicitly mention them. But one of them is the auto wifi on interval that you'll see in the ELRS configurator. This is normally set to 30 or 60 seconds, so if you power the receiver and it doesn't get connected to a radio within that time it'll go into wifi mode (which you'll recognise from the rapidly flashing LED) Other than that it's generally a slwo flashing LED = no bound and a solid led = bound

[@davidtskhakaya280]

@@CurryKitten thank you very much for the response. I had to go through a quite long learning curve: how to put Rx in wifi updating mode, then how to identify and solve the "model mismatch". I'm still learning elrx but absolutely agree with you this is a future oriented RC system :)

[@CurryKitten]

Yes - there's most definitely a learning curve and can look quite intimidating to begin with - but you'll be surprised how quickly it becomes a quick and easy process when you pick up a new rx or module. The plus side with ELRS as well is just how helpful and friendly the Discord group is. If you ever get something that's acting weird on unexplainable - hit those guys up.

[@davidtskhakaya280]

@@CurryKitten yes but I do have very limited time and my hobby is not learning of ELRS, my hobby is flying. Each time if I want to update settings, or firmware I get a new surprise and forced either to give up, or to dig up in KZbin, or ELRS gitlab. Shortly saying, during my more than 40 year RC carrier the biggest mistake I made was when I moved to ELRS, although I agree that Discord Group is very responsive and software is FUTURE oriented.