Keeping devices firmware updated is always important, especially when awesome new features are out. This is the case of Betaflight quadcopter firmware, which has introduced incredible improvements in 4.2 version allowing to better control drone movements and trace smoother trajectories due to improved noise handling through the use of advanced control algorithms.

Moreover Betaflight Configurator interface has gone through some changes since the last configuration article on this blog, so it is a nice opportunity to take a look at the updated version.
This is why in this article we are going to take a look at Betaflight 4.2, in particular version 4.2.8 (which at the time of this writing is the latest available), and how to setup and configure it.

Mamba F405 FC Item name: F405 Betaflight Flight Controller Input power: 12.6-25V (3-6S) BEC: 5V/1.5A MCU: STM32F405 Gyro: MPU6000 Flash: 16MB OSD: AT7456 Mounting hole: 30.5.30.5mm Weight: 6g Mamba F40 ESC Item name: Mamba F40HV ESC Input voltage: 3-6S (12.6V25V) Continue current: 40AA×4 Burst current: 40/50A (6S) BEC: NO Mounting: 30mm / φM3 Weight: 10g.
This involves holding down the boot button on your flight controller when pluggin it in to enter bootloader mode, and selecting the DFU mode within cleanflight or betaflight GUI. Blob.jpg 1025×550 174 KB.

Betaflight Configurator

Betaflight app uses your system's WebKit rendering engine instead of Chrome, consuming way less memory. Betaflight is flight control l er software (firmware) used to fly multi-rotor and fixed wing craft. It is forked from Baseflight and Cleanflight and focuses on flight performance, leading-edge feature additions, and wide target support. As of version 4.x, Cleanflight was forked back from Betaflight, so at this time they are effectively the same.

As seen in some previous articles, Betaflight Configurator is a really popular application that allows to configure aircrafts loaded with Betaflight firmware via GUI.

Latest application version is available for download at this link for free. If you are using Windows, choose betaflight-configurator-installer_10.7.0_win32.exe, where 10.7.0 indicates the current Betaflight Configurator version: downloading this specific version (or above) is important in order to flash Betaflight firmware version 4.2 or above.

Once the application is correctly installed, it is possible to launch it. Then, it is just a matter of connecting the quadcopter to the PC using a micro USB (Flight Controller) to USB (PC) cable and clicking on “Connect” to establish the connection.

If you do not know how to install drivers to properly connect your drone to the PC in order to use DFU (Driver Firmware Update) mode, you can take a look at the “Drivers installation” section of this article.

Here is the Welcome screen of Betaflight:

Before proceeding, it is a good idea to click on Settings icon on the top right and enable permanently Expert Mode: in this way we can see all possible menus and options available in Betaflight Configurator, otherwise some of them are hidden. Another good move is to enable dark theme, since it reduces eyes strain.

In the bottom right corner of the window it is possible to verify Betaflight Configurator current version.

Betaflight Firmware Flashing

Before starting this process, remember to always backup your configuration. Betaflight 4.x PIDs configuration is completely reworked with respect to version 3.x, so it is not recommended to reuse old set up for PIDS parameters; however, having a backup is useful in case the quad is going to have issues with new version and we want to go back to the previous one. Moreover, LED strip or OSD configurations can be reapplied, so remember to launch a “diff” command in CLI tab and copy the output to a .txt file for eventual later use.

In order to install Betaflight latest firmware we need to know which flight controller board is mounted on our quad. If you do not know, you can simply navigate to the CLI tab, which is the Command Line Interface on the Betaflight Configurator and launch the “version” command (“Current firmware version check” section of this article).

In this article, the quad we are working on is the Eachine Wizard X220S (of course same following steps can be applied to every quad, just be careful selecting the correct hardware), which is equipped with OMNIBUSF4SD control board (F405), so we are going to select this board from the drop down menu combined with latest firmware version available:

Then we can click on the “Load Firmware [Online]” button to load the firmware. Once operation is completed, Betaflight firmware is ready to be flashed on the board, so we can click on “Flash Firmware”. The quad will go automatically on DFU mode and flashing procedure starts.

If the procedure ends correctly we can “Exit DFU Mode” and start navigating through Betaflight Configurator tabs.

Betaflight 4.2.8 installed

Once Betaflight firmware is installed, when connecting the drone with the new firmware for the first time we could get the following message:

Just click on “Apply Custom Defaults” to start with the suggested default configuration for the board.

Moreover some warnings could pop up:

The most common is the one presented in the previous image, which tells us to calibrate the accelerometer.

Betaflight Setup Tab

Accelerometer, like magnetometer, can be calibrated in the Setup tab by just clicking on the related button:

In Setup tab we can also reset settings to default, backup/restore configuration (even if CLI settings are not included, for that we must use “diff” command) and reboot the board into bootloader / DFU mode.
Moreover drone current attitude (roll, pitch and yaw) is shown in real time through a 3D image.

In all the tabs we are going to review, changes are applied only after Save button at the end of the page is clicked.

If you do not plan to use Angle mode (stable / auto level) it is a good idea to disable accelerometer since this saves a good amount of resources reducing CPU Load, which should stay as low as possible. CPU Load should not go over 11-12% when the quad is sitting at the bench considering that during flight this value increases dramatically.

Betaflight Ports Tab

In Ports tab we set ports to be used by the board. In this case we have enabled USB port and UART6 serial port for receiver connection:

On OMNIBUSF4SD board UART6 is configured for SBUS, which is the protocol used by FrSky transmission systems: this is the configuration we have to use since on this X220S there is an XM+ receiver installed communicating with FrSky Taranis X9D Plus SE 2019 transmitter.

Betaflight Configuration Tab

In Configuration tab, in Mixer section it is possible to set quad type and reverse motor rotation direction. System configuration allows to set Gyro update frequency and PID loop frequency. Generally this is related to ESC/motor protocol chosen in ESC/Motor features section: if we set DSHOT600 we should go for 8KHz update frequency, while DSHOT300 is more suitable for 4KHz. Higher values are preferred, but this is a good choice only if CPU Load does not go over 11-12%. This is why at every configuration change comporting an increase in computational workload on the CPU, we have always to keep an eye on the bottom of the page where CPU Load value is reported: in this case it is at 9%.

Remember also to disable MOTOR_STOP because we want motors to spin when armed; even if this is a security option, we are going to address this issue by setting up a prearm switch in Modes tab, so motors do not start spinning if we inadvertently flip the arm switch.

Bidirectional DSHOT is not enabled by default, but it is a very nice feature. Basically it enables the capability to receive telemetry from the ESCs, so the flight controller can use the information received to better control the PID loop. This is why enabling bidirectional DSHOT allows RPM filtering settings (configuration is made on PID Tuning tab -> Filter Settings -> Gyro RPM Filter). Be careful to set the correct number of motor poles, i.e. the number of magnets on the motor bell (generally motors on 5 inch quads have 14 magnets). Bidirection