SBus on Starling 2 Max

[wetherbeej]

We have been informed the Orqa handheld controller is not acceptable as an "NDAA-compliant" controller due to components inside of the remote. What options are there for modifying the Starling 2 Max drone to take in an SBus input from some other handheld controller? We are comfortable disassembling the Starling 2 Max, replacing boards, soldering, etc.

[Alex Kushleyev]

@wetherbeej ,

VOXL2 does not have ability to un-invert the SBUS signal, so you cannot plug in a standard SBUS receiver directly into VOXL2. However, we offer VOXL2_IO board, which supports standard SBUS input and will send the SBUS data to PX4 using standard UART.

VOXL 2 IO User Guide

ModalAI technical documentation for VOXL and VOXL 2 Companion Computers for PX4 and ArduPilot Obstacle Avoidance and GPS-denied navigation, assembled in the USA

ModalAI Technical Docs (docs.modalai.com)

If you don't want to add another board and if you find a receiver that is capable of outputting "inverted SBUS", which is actually using standard UART levels, you may be able to use the PX4 standard sbus driver. However the PX4 sbus driver is not currently built for VOXL2 because it is requires some support of UART port, which VOXL2 does not support (specifically inverted signal level and maybe some other options).

Long story short, if you want a solution that will just work, it is better to use our VOXL2 IO board, but if you absolutely do not want to add another board to the drone, then you will need a rx with inverted SBUS + modify PX4 sbus rc driver to work on VOXL2.

Alex