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Droid Config

The settings that make your droid yours: its name, which transmitter channels do what, and its sound.

What it’s for

Section titled “What it’s for”

Droid Config is five sections, Droid, Radio Channel Map, Sound, Startup and Idle, that open and close from their headers. Closed, a header still says what’s set (“Volume 18 · EQ Normal · Board found, 42 tracks”) and what’s happening right now. Startup and Idle have their own guide.

Your droid’s name

Section titled “Your droid’s name”

The Droid section holds your droid’s name: up to 24 letters, digits, spaces or punctuation (no accented letters). The setup wizard asks for it first.

  • It titles the Button Pad page (“Button Pad — B2EMO”).
  • It names the pad file that Export to ETHOS… writes for your radio, e.g. B2EMO.txt. Anything other than letters, digits, _ and - becomes _, so “B2 EMO” makes B2_EMO.txt.
  • The ETHOS widget shows it in its header while it uses that pad file. See The ETHOS widget.

Rename the droid and the next export writes a file with the new name: pick it again in the widget’s Pad source.

Quick start: map your transmitter

Section titled “Quick start: map your transmitter”
  1. Open Radio Channel Map. Each row is one job.
  2. Pick the receiver channel that does it. Not sure which? R/C Monitor shows which one moves.
  3. Press Save. One Save covers the whole page; a bar at the bottom says what’s unsaved.

The radio channel map

Section titled “The radio channel map”

DroidFX reads all 16 S.BUS channels; you choose which ones it acts on. Each channel can do only one job.

Job What it does
LED Mode (Off / On) The LED master switch. Off, every light is off, unconditionally. On, lights run. This always wins.
Button Pad The button selector: a multi-position switch (or the ETHOS widget). Each position is one of 15 buttons.
Button page Optional. Which of the three pages is showing (the ETHOS widget’s DroidFX Page). With it all 45 buttons work; without it, page 1 only. Flipping the page never presses a button by itself.
Volume Optional. Trim the volume from the transmitter.
Light brightness Optional. A knob that dims every NeoPixel and dimmable light together. All the way up is each preset’s own brightness; all the way down is Lowest brightness (10 % unless you change it, up to 50 %). On/off lights ignore it.
Effect speed Optional. A knob that slows every animation to a quarter or speeds it up to four times, smoothly. Centred, presets play exactly as designed, so a sprung or centre-detent knob is ideal.
With no signal Not a channel: what the plain lights do while there’s no radio signal. LEDs alternate (the default), LEDs blink together, or LEDs off. NeoPixels aren’t affected.

The knobs only work with the radio connected: with the transmitter off, in Bench mode or in Display mode, presets play exactly as designed, and the knobs fade back in when the radio returns. Turning a knob also wakes an idle droid.

Finding your channels

Section titled “Finding your channels”

Open R/C Monitor. It shows all 16 channels live, so you can move one switch at a time and watch which bar reacts. It also proves the receiver is talking to the board.

Sound

Section titled “Sound”

DroidFX plays sounds from a DY-SV5W or DFPlayer-style module. Your tracks live on the module’s SD card; the Audio board line at the top of the section says whether it answers (“Board found, 42 tracks”, searching, no SD card). Power the module however suits your build: DroidFX keeps looking for it and picks it up whenever it appears.

Setting What it does
Volume Level A slider, unless a radio channel controls it.
Equalizer Normal, Pop, Rock, Jazz or Classic.
Sound offset How many milliseconds early a sequence sends each sound, so it’s heard on its mark. It follows the measured sound latency unless you set it. If clips still sound late, set it by ear.

Measure finds the sound latency by playing three tracks with the volume at zero, so you hear nothing.

Tracks

Section titled “Tracks”

The Tracks fold lists every track on the card: its number, file name, length, and a label you type (“R2 scream”). Labels save as you type. ▶ plays a track (you’ll hear it) and learns its length.

Scan all tracks fills the list in one go: it plays every track with the volume at zero and records each one’s file name and length. A progress bar and Cancel show while it runs. Meanwhile, sounds from buttons, chatter and the volume knob pause (buttons still switch their lights and servos), and nothing plays late when it ends.

Labels stay with the sound, not the number. They’re kept by file name, so re-copying the same files in a different order keeps every label right once you scan again. Put in a different card and the list is marked out of date until you scan; labels for files that aren’t on the card are listed separately, where you can delete them. Labels are in the backup.

Wherever you type a track number, on Button Pad or the Idle section, its label shows beside it.

Trouble?

Section titled “Trouble?”