SIM001 › Getting started › Setting up the radio
Setting up the TX15
There are two parts: the radio, and the sim.
In the radio, put it in USB joystick mode: plug it in with the USB cable, and choose USB Joystick (HID) when EdgeTX asks. The sim sees every channel that the model mixes as an axis. A switch is not a channel until the model mixes it into one. The repository has a model that does this, domains/teleoperation/edgetx/MODELS/aero-6pos.yml: copy it to the MODELS folder of the radio's SD card (plug the radio in as USB storage), and choose it in the radio. Its channels are:
Channels 1 to 4 are the sticks (aileron, elevator, throttle, rudder). Channel 5 is SE, the arm switch. Channel 8 is the mode channel: each of the six buttons on the front of the radio (the custom switches SW1 to SW6) sets it to a different value, and the autopilot divides it into six flight modes. Channels 11 and 12 are the two knobs, P1 and P2. The other channels (SA to SD, SF) go to the sim too, but the sim does not use them.
The six buttons, from 1 to 6, are QHOVER, QLOITER, FBWA, CRUISE, AUTO and QRTL. QHOVER and QLOITER hover (QLOITER also holds the position), FBWA and CRUISE fly forward, AUTO flies a mission and QRTL brings the plane home. In the mixer, each button is a line on channel 8 with the source MAX and the weights -65, -39, -13, 13, 39 and 65 percent, and the switch SWn down (SW12, SW22 and so on).
In the sim, press F2 and do the steps on the screen. The sim learns the sticks. It also asks for buttons for its other functions: press Enter to skip them. Then copy controls.cfg.example to controls.cfg in the directory where you run the sim, and check the axis of each channel: press F3, move a switch or a knob, and read the name of the axis that changes. Put that name on the matching line: radio.arm for SE, radio.mode for the buttons, radio.zoom for P1 and radio.view for P2. If a switch works the wrong way round, change its 1.0 to -1.0.
P1 zooms the camera that watches the plane from the pilot box: all the way down is the widest view, all the way up the narrowest, and the automatic zoom is off. P2 picks the view in thirds: the pilot box, the chase camera and the nose camera.
The keys of the keyboard and the buttons of a gamepad work too: they step through the six modes one at a time, and they change the arm signal one press at a time. The other three functions, LAUNCH, RESET and CAMERA, matter only when you fly the plain T1-S from the radio. Give them buttons of your choice, or skip them.
F2 calibrates the radio
The calibration needs the radio. If you do not have a radio, the sim tells you to connect one. The sim saves the calibration when it ends, and you can do it again at any time.
If the radio is not calibrated, press F2 in the sim window, and follow the prompts on the screen. Do each step in order: put the sticks in the middle with the throttle all the way down, and press Enter. Push the aileron stick right, the elevator stick up and the rudder stick right, one at a time, and hold each one until the prompt changes. Push the throttle stick all the way up. Then the sim asks for buttons for its other functions, one at a time: press Enter to skip all of them, because the arm switch, the mode buttons and the camera knobs are channels, and Setting up the TX15 shows how the sim reads them. The sim says Radio calibrated and saved to controls.cfg, and the sticks and switches of the radio work.
How this is tested not supported yet
Given the radio is not calibrated When the pilot calibrates the radio Then the radio is calibrated