Packed with an incredible amount of hardware, and increasingly likely to be running an open source firmware, the modern RC transmitter is effectively a little multi-purpose computer in its own right. Accordingly there is a small, but growing, community of developers coming out with software applications targeting these switch-festooned wonders. It’s only a matter of time until they are running DOOM.
One such piece of software is TaraniTunes, developed by [GilDev]. This program allows you to load your OpenTX 2.2+ equipped Taranis Q X7 or Taranis X9D with music files which can be played on the transmitter’s built-in speaker. While it likely won’t win any awards for interface design, the large LCD display coupled with the radio’s numerous physical buttons and switches makes it relatively easy to navigate your music collection.
While the software [GilDev] has written for OpenTX looks straightforward enough, getting the songs on the radio is another story. For each track you need to merge the stereo channels into mono (as the transmitter only has a single speaker), and then convert it to a 32 kHz WAV. But don’t worry about the lack of ID3 tag information, TaraniTunes allows you to create a text file containing not only the filename of each track, but its name and artist.
We’ll admit this one should be filed away in the “Because I Can” category, but it’s still an impressive hack and a clever demonstration of the current state of RC transmitter technology.
Something to do when waiting for your turn on the runway.
Hmm I thought some taranis models could already play mp3s from the card. In any case OpenTX is quite fun to script with its lua interpreter, the game of snake ships from factory for example.
Yet the even newer Spektrum transmitter simply comes with Android and can play music, video or do anything for which there’s an app.
Yeah, OpenTX already supports playing back these mono WAV tracks natively, this is just a script to make it easier to scroll through.
Right. I wanted something that allowed me to scroll easily through lots of songs and play them randomly. It was my first experience with OpenTX’s Lua API and it’s quite well made.
I think Android is a bit overkill for an RC transmitter… =)
Actually, I think the RIFF container format (the real name of .WAV) does in fact support metadata… as Audacity lets you include it when exporting, but not all software supports reading it.
Just one step away from a pirate radio station…
Hey, that’s my app! =D
Hope it will be useful to new people. Thanks for the post!
I own the Taranis Q X7 (https://www.firstquadcopter.com/reviews/frsky-taranis-q-x7-review/). It is my favorite remote controller :). Your hack is reversible? I wan’t to test it, just for fun but I still want to use it with my drones
Yeah of course, it’s just a script with a custom telemetry screen, so you can do everything you normally do while it’s working.