Jeti DC/DS-16 FW 4.00 review

Jetimodel is active!

I have to say Jetimodel is active regarding updates. What I really like they are actually listening what happens out on the fields with their equipment and add functions accordingly. This is once again something that really keeps me with my DS-16 and protects me from looking at (for example) Futaba 18MZ/SZ, Spektrum DX18, JR28X or whatever.

Well, that was the “way-to-go-boys”-speech. Let’s see what’s up with firmware 4.00.

Equipment used in this write-up:

• Jeti DS-16 fw 4.00
• Sandisk Class 10 SD-card 16Gb
• R6 fw 3.24
• REX6 fw 1.00 and fw 1.01
• REX7 fw 1.00 and fw 1.01

Installation

As usual, installation is easy. In a nutshell:

• Backup your SD-cards content.
• Copy all new files from the extracted update-package to their corresponding folders
• Shut down transmitter
• On startup transmitter ask’s “Do you want to restart and update?”, answer yes, transmitter shut’s down.
• Start up transmitter, let it sit and do the update.

Some precautions as always!

• Make sure you are either on DC-power or you have sufficient power in your battery
• Do not stop the update-process for any reason!
• Before flying any models always make sure all flight-surfaces and functions work as they should!

Happy flying!

What’s new?

As usual some improvements. some fixes and some totally new functions. Let’s look what’s new, that was quite a lot:

• 24 channels. Rumoured, and now it’s here.
• New font, proportional. Takes a few seconds to get used to. I do however have some comments on this.
• New model-type, user now has easier to do a multicopter. (Now Plane, Heli, Multi and general)
• Inactivity alarm (Wanna make your transmitter scream “DON’T LEAVE ME!”? :)
• Signal quality warnings both from low A1/A2 and Q-value
• “Pilot voice caller”, you can queue audio tracks, great for practising acrobatic-to-music
• Preflight-check now can use telemetry alarms. Great and almost great, we’ll look into this later.
• Voice outputs have evolved. More on this later.
• Internal text editor is improved with diacritical marks, also the size of labels is improved where possible.
• Wider EX-bus support (MAlti EX, MBar EX, REX, CB400 and Spirit FBL) TO be honest some of these have been available for a while.
• Screenshots saved as 1-bit .bmp to save space. (This was a good one)
• Units converter for pressure, volume and flow.
• F3K launch recognition based on accelerometer in transmitter. Tried it, works great :)
• Menu position is remembered, pressing twice on the menu-button takes you to the last place you were in the menu. Convenience, I like it.
• Servo balancer adjustment is made easier, we now can lock the position. No more adjusting the stick to exact position.
• Portuguese language

What’s been modified?

As usual, no firmware-release without modifications:

• French voice announcements have now corrected announcement of hundreds and thousands. Oh l’amour!
• Heli wizard now longer reboot’s the system when opening throttle curve editor if there is no throttle function
• Audio and log-files now shown in KB if they are under 1MB.
• Fixed the issue with 3-times repeated alarm messing with function of other alarms
• Flight-mode trims have now a ±125% numeric range. (Interesting forums writing regarding this :))

There you have it. Quite a lot, let’s dissect some of these a bit more.

24 Channels

Yes, it is true. DC/DS-16 now has true 24 channels, all proportional and programmable channels. How this works is that you now can install multiple central boxes or receivers into a model and use all the 24 channels independently just as before with 16. There is however two really important notes on this:

• Servo balancer work only on 16 first channels
• Satellite receivers and central boxes needs to be updated

I really do not see the latter to be a problem. Every Jeti user has a J-USBA adapter, right?

By default the function is off, activates automatically when a servo is activated to channels 17-24 or if you activate it from Advanced properties -> Wireless modes/trainer.

New font

Well. It is proportional, what this means is more different font-sizes.  Check out the old and new screens:

I have to admit this is better but it is not all glory here. When we are talking about visual things we do have to remember it is always in the watchers eyes. So here’s my rambling:

Menu font is WAY TOO BIG. I’m not twenty anymore and have glasses but seriously?

How about making this editable by user? ;)

Multicopter

This is done (in my non-multi eyes) pretty good and versatile. In the wizard you can choose between no camera gimbal, 2-axis gimbal and 3-axis gimbal. Also up to 3 functions for different gyro or stabilization functions and amount of gear servos.

Inactivity alarm

How cool would it be to make transmitter point out with a voice of Marilyn Monroe that “PLease baby, don’t leave me alone” when not used for like ten minutes… :) Now it’s possible.

The usefulness of this is of course debatable, some want or need it, some do not. Personally I do not, I have the 5200mAh LiIon battery in the radio and never shut down radio while on the field. This would just annoy me. I did love the function in my DX9 back in the days so I do see the benefit.

Low-Q alarm

There’s been quite a lot debate on radio-link quality in U.S. with Jeti. To summarize it it looks like there is a place where there is a lot of “signal pollution” in 2.4Ghz range and for some reason Jeti is affected more than some other brands. I’m sure people flying in that area like this function. It is now possible to make a voice-alarm when Q-value drops to pre-chosen value. Very good for all of us, a function that actually might save a model! Safety first, as always!

Pilot Voice caller

Now this is interesting. We can assign (for example) a 3-way momentary switch (usually in the middle, momentary up or down) to make a complete and controllable “fly to music”-scenario.

How it works:

• Select a folder and start track
• Assign a switch to “Play next”
• Assign a switch to “Play previous”
• Choose if You want the whole folder to be played sequentially

Now. Example on usage:

Let’s say you want  to practise a program with heli-acrobatic to music on the field. We would make a folder to SD-card with name of “Routine”. In this folder we would name the files like

• 001_routine1_announcement.wav (Recording saying “Rainbow”)
• 002_routine1_music.wav (Some music to do the routine to)
• 003_routine2_announcement.wav (Recording saying “Funnel-right-tail-up”)
• 004_routine2_music.wav (Some music to do the routine to)

Of course this is an example. When you have flown the routine 1 you could flip the switch to next routine, transmitter would call out the routine by saying “Funnel right, tail up” and play the music. And so on.

What’s important is the naming of audio-files, I’d suggest you to use naming them with leading numbers so order of files is kept organized.

Definitely something I need to play with :)

Pre-fligt check now with telemetry alarms

This is a great add-on, there is a catch tho. Let’s say you have a normal dementia like I do, you sometimes try to take off with a model with already used batteries. Happened to me quite often so I did my own pre-flight check to prevent this. (Read more here)

Now Jeti have added a warning just to prevent this, using the function is simple, make a new alarm and tick the box “Use only during preflight check”.

Simple? Well, yes and no. The problem still lies in the fact that preflight check only occurs when a) model is changed or b) transmitter is powered on. So for guys like me who usually a) often does several flight with same model and b) never turns off the transmitter this just do not work. So I’m not giving up “my own” flat-battery alarm just yet.

Nevertheless, great and really useful function once again from Jeti.

Extended voice outputs

This is quite interesting. Let’s say on a flip of a switch you want several telemetry-values be spoken out loud to you. Now you can do exactly that, flip a switch and hear for example “Speed one hundred miles per hour, battery capacity two thousand milliamphours, signal quality ninetynine percent” or what ever you want to be spoken. Almost.

What you actually can use are:

• All sensor values (Except GPS-coordinates)
• Timers
• Receiver status (Includes Voltage, Antenna level and signal quality)

Important notes about upgrading!

You CAN revert to FW 3.02 if you for some crazy reason would want to. You CAN’T revert to earlier than FW 3.02.

If you have throttle channels servo throw reversed you MUST check the digital idle trim-function! (Go to Fine tuning -> Digital trim and fix it!)

Overall impressions so far

Well. Shortly put, usual Jeti-quality. I’m not afraid to say the negative things also but so far everything “just works”, pretty much this is usually the case with Jeti updates. Regarding the Jeti vs. UDI-protocol problems they are fixed with REX-receivers new firmware. There is a separate article on this coming up with oscilloscope analysis on both firmware 1.00 and 1.01 in REX receivers.

Future looks bright for Jeti for sure! :)