How to Use SmartPort Telemetry on an F4MINI flight controller

Due to the SmartPort protocol being an inverted protocol, and F4 main controllers not being able to directly read inverted signals,

F4 flight controllers need to use a soft serial port to connect to the receiver when using the S.Port protocol.

You can map the CC pad or LED pad on the flight controller to a soft serial port.

However, once you map it as a softserial, the Camera Control functionality or LED functionality will become unavailable.

Method 1: Map the LED pad to a softserial (without using LED functionality)

（1）Please refer to the wiring diagram below and connect the S.Port signal wire to the LED pad on the flight controller.

（2）If you are using Betaflight firmware version 4.4.0 or above, please reflash the flight controller firmware, and during the firmware flashing process, select the "SmartPort" telemetry data transmission protocol (it is not enabled by default under the default options).

 

（3）Open the CLI  page of the flight controller and enter the following command:

feature SOFTSERIAL
feature TELEMETRY
resource LED_STRIP 1 none
resource SERIAL_TX 11 A08
serial 30 32 115200 57600 0 115200
set tlm_inverted =off
set tlm_halfduplex = ON

save

Once you have completed the above steps, you should be able to use SmartPort telemetry.

Method 2: Map the CC pad to a softserial (without using Camera Control functionality)

（1）Please refer to the wiring diagram below and connect the S.Port signal wire to the CC pad on the flight controller.

 

（2） If you are using Betaflight firmware version 4.4.0 or above, please reflash the flight controller firmware, and during the firmware flashing process, selet the "SmartPort" in the telemetry protocol dropdown (it is not enabled by default under the default options).

（3）Open the CLI page of the flight controller and enter the following command:

feature SOFTSERIAL
feature TELEMETRY
resource CAMERA_CONTROL 1 none
resource SERIAL_TX 11 B14
serial 30 32 115200 57600 0 115200
set tlm_inverted =off
set tlm_halfduplex = ON

save

After completing the above steps, you can now use SmartPort telemetry for data transmission.

 

Notice:

1. Please use the regular S.Port output to connect to the flight controller, and do not use the "Inverted SmartPort" signal to connect to the flight controller.

 

2. When using "Method 2" to map the CC pad as a soft serial port,

you enter the command "resource CAMERA_CONTROL 1 none,"

and an error occurs.

This is because the Camera Control function was not enabled during firmware flashing, and it is a normal phenomenon that you do not need to worry about.