RadioMaster TX16S

[badger1]

first off, I am a great fan of OpenTX & the Taranis & I bought my (original, non-Plus) X9D in 2014, which I think is pretty much when they started being sold.

I'm not really bothered by the big colour screen on the TX16S, but my Tx is getting a little long in the tooth, & I believe the original hardware is getting short on resources (flash, etc.) for up-to-date OpenTX releases.

side by side they are extremely similar - the TX16S has all the same switches as the X9D, plus a bit more.

the TX16S sticks are drilled & tapped through & come with a couple of hex-head grub screws to allow for adjustment, which the X9D didn't.  there is also a spare set of (stronger?) gimbal springs provided.

the TX16S is slightly larger, but they both weigh almost exactly 900g.



the TX16S has six trim switches - the usual four plus another two - which is probably quite useful if you need them.  I sometimes have the nosewheel of a tricycle undercarriage model on a separate channel mixed it to the rudder & then trim it on one of the pots, but an additional trim switch would be more convenient.



the six little arrow things that look like lights are, in fact, buttons (which light up when you press them), and act as a six-position switch.



the TX16S sliders aren't quite as nice as the X9D's.  the axis of rotation is perpendicular to the face of the Tx rather than being on the side-to-side axis.



I have flown a couple of FW models on it so far & when you're looking at the model you really wouldn't know the difference from a regular Taranis.

I've moved a 5" quad over & will give that a go the next time I'm out.

I've only flown FrSky models so far - I will move the Crossfire module over at some point.  I may even try binding it to a club Spektrum model & seeing how that goes.   

[badger1]

I moved my 5" quad over to the Tx & took it out yesterday - all fine (aside from a slight configuration error on my part).

I'm setting up a FC for the AR900 wing with an R-XSR using EU-LBT which seems to work fine.  it's too much faff to go back & update all my old Rx's from FCC to EU, but any new stuff I'm going to put on LBT now.

I think I'm going to move the rest of my fleet to the TX16S now rather than take two Tx's to the field.  I may try using OpenTX Companion to copy the configs rather than setting them up from scratch each time on the Tx.

[Hozza]

Rx cloning ftw, no faffing with rebinding all your models 

[badger1]

I've been playing with the TX16S some more & have now moved most of my fleet over to it - the Tx cloning is quite handy.  :)

the JR bay is much higher in the Tx than in an X9D - presumably because of the different orientation of the battery bay.  this makes the Crossfire antenna sit much higher which is kind of a pain for getting it into a case.  the handle makes it sit oddly high when laid down too - I might have a look & see if anyone is doing a flatter or folding handle.

I'm quite interested in the possibilities of the 6-position "switch" - which is the funny 6 button thing really.  presumably since it's buttons rather than a switch, you can just straight to a position rather than sweeping through the positions in between, which would be good for selecting modes.  I currently have several 3-position switches that I have in the centre position by default, & then one mode up, another mode down.

other than that it just works like an X9D really.  the screen's a bit useless in sunlight though.

[Bad Raven]

"the handle makes it sit oddly high when laid down too - I might have a look & see if anyone is doing a flatter or folding handle."

Can't speak for that Tx, but some of the earlier FrSky Tx would not lay down with a USB lead connected without hitting the port conection/lead, leaving them prone to USB Port damage if they fell/were knocked over when connected (like when using a Sim, Updating, etc.)

Just be aware of this if you mod.

[badger1]

my X9D has a mini-USB port straight out of the middle of the back & yes, it isn't ideal if the Tx tips over when plugged in.

the TX16S has a USB-C for charging only in the bottom (which oddly only works with the plug one way up), & another USB-C for data in the top.  quite why they couldn't have done both off one port is a mystery.

I suspect the high handle is for people who have Crossfire/R9 antennas mounted vertically (which I don't).

[badger1]

evidently the new TX16SE does have a folding handle

[badger1]

as if by magic:

[badger1]

which means I could also take a picture of this:

[Bad Raven]

Finally snapped as to the length of time I was wasting with ultra slow unreliable Horus X12S ELRS LUA and ELRS module. Also some of my ELRS is 2.x.x maximum, and models/FC's etc are now arriving from factory loaded with 3.x.x.

So, I have bought a 16S MAX with built in internal ELRS. It's external module bay will carry the Namimno ELRS module on 2.5.2, the last iteration of v2.  The Internal will (is) intended to carry the latest version, as I write 3.3.0. So I can run both versions.

The "will/is" uncertainty is due to the current state of performing updates.  One "feature" of this is that radio sellers are not following the ELRS Dev's method of partition.  The result of that is that to get updates from ELRS for 3.x.x over wifi you have to revert back to 2.5.2 (Smaller), then run a partitioning firmware, then load 3.x.x back into its now correctly sized partitions.

Updating via EdgeTX Passthrough has different issues to overcome, if you are using Win10/11 as the STM driver software was written on stone tablets its so old and that creates risk and issue.

Both can be overcome but its unnecessarily complex, and not something that a new user should have to deal with!

[Bad Raven]

Having been advised to ignore STM 's VCP driver warnings, and to use the Win7 one for Win 11, not the later Win8 one, the transmitter was found by the laptop and written to and read from without issue.

I now have fully working what I intended:-

1. The Namimno Flash external module on 2.5.2 for all older ELRS inc the SPI AIO boards.
2. The Internal ELRS on 3.3.0 (current) for the AIO and receivers that can handle it.

For the record, 4.3.x Betaflight is ELRS 2.x.x, and 4.4.x Betaflight is ELRS 3.x.x