I’m currently building a 650 size aerial photography quad with a Pixhawk controller & discovered via a Painless360 video on YouTube that a common approach to switching between the multiple (more than 3) flight modes common to a Pixhawk AP setup is to install a 6 position switch into a Taranis using the spare port S3. This has the benefit that you don’t need to combine two of the normal switches on the Taranis, which just sounds confusing to me.
I picked the switch up from Banggood. It seems to be the one that everybody uses.
I followed a guide on YouTube that showed installation of the switch on the right hand side of the radio, but I wanted to have it on the left as I generally use the switches on the left before the right. Spoiler – installing the switch on the left doesn’t work, or is at least a lot more difficult.
This is the hole that I drilled on the left hand side. I wasn’t overly happy with the idea of cutting away the handle reinforcements, because they’re probably there for a reason, so I drilled the hole such that I would only have to cut one of them away. I started with a 2mm bit, then enlarged it with a 6mm bit as that was the largest HSS bit I had. That wasn’t quite big enough, so I had to mangle the hole a bit larger with a masonry bit which is why it isn’t especially clean.
Here’s the switch in place, nicely braced by the handle reinforcements. Would’ve been nice if this worked…
Wires soldered up; I used black for ground, red for VCC & yellow for the signal.
Soldering the other end to the PCB. Top pad is ground, middle pad is signal, bottom pad is VCC.
This is how I wanted it.
Covered the joints in PlastiDip to insulate & safeguard against tugging.
Alas the radio wouldn’t actually close with the switch in that position. Because the wires come out of the switch on the left, it means they get in the way of the switches on the front half of the radio. I tried a few things, rotating the switch, etc. but in the end decided that just putting it on the right would be easier. So a new hole on the right, more central this time.
Luckily the wires I had already soldered & PlastiDip’d were long enough.
With the wires coming out the left, there is now space on the right for the front panel switches to fit.
There we go!
