Instruction Manual International edition Rev 1 .
Thank You! The team that designed the Vortex 230 Mojo would like to thank you for purchasing this product. Many hours of development and testing went into the Vortex 230 Mojo, and we’re confident this is reflected in your experience with this exciting new mini-quad, as this Vortex combines all of the greatest features of previous generations.
WARNING Congratulations on your purchase of one of the world’s finest ARF pure-bred freestyle/racing mini-quads. A product designed by FPV pilots, for FPV pilots. Do not expect it to fly like a DJI Phantom™ . It does not have a return-to-home feature, no GPS, and it does not have stabilization features that will allow your little brother to fly it.
Getting Started for Newcomers to Racing Drones This manual focuses on preparing your Vortex 230 Mojo for first flight, and how to maintain it in the future. One step that is highly recommended for newcomers to the world of racing drones is to take the first flight within the safety of a simulator.
Getting Started, ARF Version The separate Quick Start Guide should be used when setting up your Vortex 230 Mojo for the first time. It includes sections on choosing an appropriate battery, and R/C receiver, and also the operation of the setup wizard.
The Anatomy of a Vortex 230 Mojo Connectors and Switches 1) USB connector, pictured on the left, is used to configure the flight controller and upgrade the Vortex firmware. Note that when used with most USB hosts, a separate battery connection is not required when connecting to the USB connector. Please be careful not to put too much strain on this connector.
4) Receiver Connector (All Protocols, CPPM, SBus, DSMX™, etc.) The Vortex 230 Mojo has a single connector for all supported receivers. 5V and 3.3V power supplies are available, to support most of the commonly used receivers on the market today. In most cases, one of the supplied cables will suffice, but if a cable must be built, the pinout is (from left to right) Signal, GND, +3.
Note that a piece of double-sided tape may be used to secure the receiver on top of the metal can beside the connector. Receiver antennas may be routed through any of the four available slots. Two at the back of the quad in the LED diffuser, and two in the side-plates.
Arm Assembly When changing an arm, a soldering iron is required, to remove the ESC + and - battery cables, along with the signal cable. Note: The choice of soldered connections here, instead of the much more convenient connector option may not seem ideal, but this is the best way to transmit the 30+ Amps of battery juice to the ESCs and motors without losses.
Lost Model Alarm The Lost Model Alarm on the Vortex 230 Mojo sounds when the quad is disarmed after landing, or if a receiver failsafe occurs, this alarm can also be assigned to a switch from within the Betaflight Chrome app if desired.
The On Screen Display (OSD) The Welcome Screen Each time the Vortex is powered up, and before sticks are moved, the following welcome screen is displayed. This shows various pieces of status information, including the Flight Controller version number, and Flight Controller API version which is fairly important for OSD compatibility.
The Main Menu For Mode 2’ers, holding the throttle stick down and to the left will enter the main menu. Note that this stick position needs to be held for a few seconds before the menu appears. Note that some menus are multi-page, take a look in the top-right corner of the display to see how many pages in the current menu, and which is selected.
The OSD Setup Menu Various OSD setup parameters are available in this menu. The Landscape, defines the elements that are shown on the main screen in flight, including an EzOSD-type landscape (the default), a clutter-free landscape for hardcore racers, and a gaming mode which is currently in Beta form (documented later in this manual). The Pseudo lets you name your quad.
Alarms may be enabled and disabled in the Alarms Setup menu. It is highly recommended to start flying with all alarms enabled, and disable them if required after getting used to the quad.
The LED Setup Menu The RGB LEDs on the rear of the Vortex are fully programmable, with colors, and various patterns. For Parameter Mode = Intensity, the intensity of the LEDs will reflect the current throttle position. For Parameter Mode = Frequency the blink rate of the LEDs will reflect the current throttle position.
The Flight Controller Menus In-field tweaking of flight-controller menus is possible without a laptop and USB cable. All of the critical parameters, PIDs, Expos, Loop time, etc. are available. General configuration settings should not need changing, except to enable Air Mode (which is highly recommended).
Note that the PID Settings menu is a two page menu, keep moving the caret down to access the second page.
Note that all of the Flight Controller parameters can be preset by loading one of the installed Pro-Tunes.
The Video Tx Menu The Video Tx menu shows, graphically, the 5.8GHz frequency band, from low (left) through high (right) frequency. 5 bands are supported, covering the standard ImmersionRC/FatShark frequency bands, plus all of the ‘Boscam’, Team Black Sheep bands, and also the new ImmersionRC ‘RaceBand’.
The Camera Settings The Camera Settings menu allows the camera settings to be modified using the camera’s built-in OSD. Ideal for tweaking settings to optimize the camera for challenging lighting conditions. A confirmation prompt appears before entering the camera’s OSD menu. When selecting YES, the OSD controls will change slightly from those used in the Vortex OSD.
Video Transmitter The Vortex 230 Mojo flight controller/OSD board contains an embedded ‘Tramp’ 5.8GHz Video Transmitter.
DSMX Mode For the DSMX mode, several of the more recent Spektrum™ radios (see table below) can set the video transmitter channel using the LCD directly on the radio. An example of the settings from the DX9 are shown below. Set the channel, band, and power level from the LCD, and select ‘Send’ to send the settings to the Vortex.
Flight Controller R/C Transmitter Control Modes Mode 1 - Common in Europe Pitch Throttle Yaw Roll Mode 2 - Common in the USA Throttle Pitch Yaw Roll Mode 3 Pitch Throttle Roll Yaw Mode 4 Throttle Pitch Roll Yaw 23
Flight Modes Three flight modes are configured by the Vortex Wizard, and are mapped by default to channel 5 of the R/C Tx. These modes are as follows: Acro This mode is the preferred mode for the more advanced mini-quad pilot. In many ways it is the simplest mode, but also the hardest mode to learn. In Acro mode, the accelerometer part of the IMU is not used, only the Gyro.
Betaflight Open-Source The development of the Vortex would not have been possible without the effort of a large team of individuals who invested in the open source flight controller software that’s running on the Vortex. The variant of the open source flight controller firmware that we chose to power the Vortex is Betaflight, mainly due to it’s solid support and active development.
Flight Controller Stick Commands Enter Menu/Disarm Flight Controller: Mode 2: Mode 1: Throttle stick left, and down (normal flight controller disarm control) Yaw left, Throttle stick down Arm Flight Controller: Mode 2: Mode 1: Throttle stick right, and down Yaw right, Throttle stick down Reset vTx Channel: Mode 2: Mode 1: Throttle Down, Rudder Left + Elevator Up, Aileron Left Throttle Down, Rudder Left + Ele
ESCs - The 30A Vortex 230 Mojo ESC Overview The ESCs used in the Vortex 230 Mojo are a full-custom design, which uses a potent 32-bit ARM processor. They are small enough to be enclosed completely in the plastic ESC covers of the Vortex 230 Mojo, where they are well protected against the elements, and from physical damage from passing tree-branches.
Pro-Tuning During the development of the Vortex, a team of pro-quad pilots spent countless hours, tweaking the tuning (PIDs) of the flight controller, using various ‘PID Controllers’ supported by the Cleanflight firmware Each pilot fed back this data to the ImmersionRC team, and we incorporated it into the OSD firmware.
R/C (Uplink) Receiver Selection The Vortex 230 Mojo is shipped with three receiver interface cables, supporting 4 commonly used interfaces. a) b) c) 3-Pin 0.1” Servo Cable, for S-Bus, and CPPM (5V) 5-pin Picoblade for FrSky XSR receivers (5V) 3-pin JST-ZH for Spektrum DSMX receivers (3V) Receivers may be mounted externally on the tail-end of the quad, or internally.
Notes on Receiver Selection One critical parameter to keep to a minimum in a race quad setup is latency. Latency from what the camera sees to the display device, and also from the control stick to the flight controller. For minimum latency, with reasonable range, the Spektrum™ radios and satellite receivers are a great choice.
Diagnostics - Motor Test The Vortex 230 Mojo has a built-in diagnostic motor test. It can be useful to diagnose problems with ESC and\or Motors. It’s located in Vortex Menu>Diagnostics>Motor Test WARNING: This test can be extremely dangerous, great care is required. The Vortex should be securely anchored to an immovable object, ideally one which doesn’t block the airflow under the props.
Motors will be tested independently in sequence, and then all together.
To exit the test move the Roll stick to the left. Appendix A: Firmware Upgrades Both the OSD, and the Flight Controller, are updated using the USB port on the rear of the Vortex. Prior to any upgrade, please remove all Props!. If for any reason the props spin up during a firmware upgrade, serious damage to persons and/or property is very likely.
Upgrade procedure 1) Remove props, connect a Lipo. 2) Attach the Vortex to a Windows PC or a Mac using a standard Micro-USB cable ( ensure that this is a full USB cable, and not a power-only cable shipped with some products) 3) Start Vortex-configurator from chrome://apps/ 4) Make sure the right COM port is selected and press the Flash Firmware button. 5) Point to the update file (OSD_vX.X.X.X.
Appendix B: The Wizard - What else does it setup? On startup the wizard will reset Betaflight configuration to its default state.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 5740 5760 5780 5800 5820 5840 5860 5880 IRC/FS 2 5658 5695 5732 5769 5806 5843 5880 5917 RaceBand 3 5705 5685 5665 5645 5885 5905 5925 5945 Band E 4 5733 5752 5771 5790 5809 5828 5847 5866 Band B 5 5865 5845 5825 5805 5785 5765 5745 5725 Band A With the FCC power limit for analog transmissions being so low for license-free use, it is not very interesting for race quad use.
ITU Region 1: Europe, Africa, Middle East, Iraq, Soviet Union Without a license, only the 25mW Tx module may be used, and then only in the ISM band from 5725 MHz thru 5875 MHz.
Appendix D: LED Board - Status report The RGB LEDs on the rear of the Vortex 150/180/230 are used by the OSD during the startup phase to report flight controller sensor status, FC API compatibility, and video link status information. From left to right the bottom led board will turn green ( or red if a problem is detected) one after another as follows: 1. 2. 3. 4.
Note that even if the Vortex survives a salt-water bath, long term corrosive effects of the salt on any exposed copper surfaces may result in the product failing at some point in the future. The Sun The camera use in the Vortex (or any camera for that matter) does not appreciate being left staring at the sun for long periods of time.
Specifications Flight Controller IMU CPU Firmware Invensense SPI Gyro/Accelerometer, 8kHz loop speeds STM32F303 32-bit ARM processor Betaflight compatible (with API version matching that of the OSD) OSD CPU Resolution Style Output Video Tx Features STM32F373 32-bit ARM processor 440H x 280V White, with black surround around all pixels Programmable Black/White levels Transmitter Module Custom, integrated into the FC/OSD boar
ESC Type Rating Features Processor R/C Receiver ImmersionRC EzESC 30A continuous, 40A peak Dshot600, Multishot, OneShot125, OneShot42, MultiShot, rotorSENSE, Motor Braking 32-bit ARM Channels Required Absolute minimum four. Five recommended to support mode switch. Receiver Power +5V, or +3.3V @ 200mA max.
Spare parts and Upgrades Several crash kits, and upgrades, are available for the Vortex 150/180 Mini, including the following: Part Numbers V23ESC30 Replacement ESC, 30A V15MSYN Replacement Synergy (which includes the vTx) V23PDB V23CK2 V23CK3 V23CK4 V23CAB V23220623 V23CK1WT V23CK1BK V23CK1BL V23CK1RD V23CK1OR V23CK1YL V23CK1GN V23CK5 Replacement PDB - Vortex 230 Mojo Crash Kit 2, top plate + battery pad Crash Kit 3,
Send an email to repairs@immersionrc.com to open a support ticket. Frequently Asked Questions Q. How do I calibrate my ESCs? DO NOT CALIBRATE THEM! ImmersionRC ESCs use quality components with accurate timing and never require calibration! Q.
Note that if the ESC gets wet, it can cause it to believe that an overvoltage condition exists. Q. My Vortex emits 2 long beeps followed by a short beep on startup (--·) This sequence is played on startup when the vortex was not able to detect a camera. In that case you should check the camera is correctly plugged on both side. Q.
Social Networks Like Us We would like thank you for purchasing this ImmersionRC product. Like ImmersionRC’s Facebook page and be kept up-to-date with news, product releases, firmware updates, tips and tricks, and other information relevant to the FPV hobbyist. http://www.facebook.com/ImmersionRC You can also follow us on Google Plus google.
Index Thank You! Getting Started for Newcomers to Race Drones Getting Started, ARF Version The Anatomy of a Vortex 150/180 Mini Connectors and Switches Connector Part Numbers and Sources Arm Assembly Camera Mounting Flight Camera Lost Model Alarm The Touch’n’Race (TNR) Tag The On Screen Display (OSD) The Welcome Screen The Main Menu The LED Setup Menu The Flight Controller Menus The Video Tx Menu The Camera Set
Betaflight Open-Source Betaflight Configurator Connection Flight Controller Stick Commands Overview RotorSENSE Pro-Tuning R/C (Uplink) Receiver Selection Notes on Receiver Selection Receiver Auto-Detection Race Guidelines - Flying with Friends Diagnostics - Motor Test Hardware Upgrades Appendix A: Firmware Upgrades OSD Firmware Upgrades Upgrade procedure Upgrade procedure for bricked OSD Flight Controller Firmware Upgrades Appendix B:
Specifications Spare parts and Upgrades Support Frequently Asked Questions Q. How do I calibrate my 150/180 Mini ESCs? Q. Can I fly in the rain? Q. I dunked my 150/180 Mini in the ocean/lake/pond, what do I do? Q. My motors are ‘stuttering’, and the quad falls out of the sky under full throttle Q. My R/C Receiver isn’t auto-detected by the wizard Q.
