Technical Reference

Internals for people working on the firmware, the Blackbox tools or the Configurator. Most users will not need these pages.

How the firmware is built and stored

• Parameter Groups -- how settings are grouped, and the rules for changing them safely.
• Configuration Format -- how the configuration is laid out in flash and on the wire.
• Atomic Barrier -- how the atomic-block macros keep the compiler from reordering accesses.
• Customizing the Build -- building with different features enabled.
• Custom Board Configuration -- mapping pins on a custom board with the CLI.

Logs and estimators

• Blackbox Log Format -- the frame types, predictors and encodings of the log.
• SmartFuel Internals -- how the charge estimator works, and its MSP interface.
• Tune Advisor Internals -- what the Tune Advisor measures, its advice rules, and exactly which settings it writes.

Debugging

• Hardware Debugging -- debug adapters and how to use them.
• Hardware Debugging with VS Code and J-Link

Flight control and wiring design

• Flight Dynamics -- the flight-control signal chain, sign conventions, the rationale behind each stage, and a review of known defects with a test plan. Read it before changing flight-control code.
• RX serial wiring auto-detect and ESC telemetry signalling auto-detect -- the design of the live trial that finds the right inversion, half-duplex and pin-swap settings.