ASP Terminology & General Radio Programming Basics
Since most users will be upgrading to a true hobby grade R/C system to use ASP a basic understanding of how this system work will be of great advantage. In particular knowing what is sent from the outputs of your receiver and how servos or control boards like ASP respond will help immensely. This is what will be concentrated on here.
When your receiver gets information from your radio it splits this information up into the individual channels and sends it onto your control board, ESC or servos. All this information consists of is a single 'on' pulse of between 1 and 2 milliseconds repeated every 20 milliseconds. It is simply the amount of time that the pulse is on that tells the servo or control board what to do. In the case of servos a pulse of 1 millisecond will send the servo fully left and a pulse of 2 milliseconds sends the servo fully right. A pulse of 1.5 milliseconds is exactly in the middle and hence the servo will move to the mid point or NEUTRAL position. Since 1.5 is a rather odd number to work with it is easier to refer to the neutral position as 0 even though it represents a pulse of 1.5 ms. Calling the neutral position 0% is somewhat better as it represents a zero amount of displacement left or right. The full extent of travel left may then be termed -100% and the full extent of right travel +100% . Thus a pulse of 1 ms becomes -100% and 2 ms becomes +100%. The instructions for ASP use this convention. The table below demonstrates how the various pulse width signal on CH5 control the functions of ASP.
Consequently, the “ON” signal for Asp is referred to as CH5 +100%. This means that to turn Asp “ON” Asp is looking for a pulse of between 1.8 and 2 milliseconds on Channel 5. When such a pulse is received Asp will “turn on” . If CH 5 is then returned to the neutral position we can continue to use the channel to receive more commands. Likewise if CH5 is in neutral when the tank is powered up we can use the 100% signal as a switch to turn the tank on when it is desired to do so.
If you wish to use a radio other than a 9X or Taranis series radio you will need to refer to your own radio manual as to how to assign switches to channels and what values to output for a particular switch position.
In summary, to set up a switch on your radio to control a function on Asp you must:
1. Set one position of the switch to output a neutral signal (0% ie: around 1.5 ms)
2. Set the second position of the switch to output the desired activation signal
To operate start with switch in position 1. Activate the desired function by moving switch to position 2 and then return the switch to position 1 (toggle).
This information is important if you are programming your own radio switches to control Asp. Remember, if you are using a 9XR series or Taranis radio all of the settings for Asp can be downloaded and transferred to you computer via (USB). It is al done for you
. Knowing the above will help you if you wish to change from the default ASP radio settings.