Introduction: Quadcopter Transmitter Mode 1 to Mode 2 Conversion

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The Turnigy TGY-i6 (or Flysky i6) is a very popular Transmitter due the low cost and is very common to found it on a ready to fly bundle. I wanted to get into the FPV world after been playing with a Parrot AR Drone for a while but at the same time I wanted to save some money.


After visiting Hobby King website for a while watching some ready to fly boundles, I notice that they continously offered the mode 1 version of their products at almost 50% of the mode 2 price.

So, one day I bought the HobbyKing Black Widow 260 FPV for $99 dlls and it included the Transmitter Turnigy TGY-i6 on mode 1. I tried to learn to fly on mode 1 but I was already convinced by the mode 2 (watching youtube tutorials of how to fly). So I decided to convert my mode 1 transmitter to mode 2.

Step 1: Basics

Mode 1 vs Mode 2

I learned on the web that the most popular mode on the Us is the mode 2 and on Europe/Asia is the mode 1, its really up to you if you want to learn on any mode, but as I said, (at least on youtube) the mode 2 is more popular and most of the tutorials of how to fly will teach you on that mode.

Diferencies:

Mode 1, the throttle is on the right and elevator on the left.

Mode 2, the throttle is on the left and the elevator on the right.

Description:

Throttle – ascending or descending.

Yaw – rotating clockwise or counter clockwise.

Roll – tilting left or right.

Pitch – tilting forward or backward.

Step 2: Let's Start

What you need:

  • A transmitter, in my case the TGY-i6 on mode 1 (or 2 if you want to do it backwards)
  • A pair of screw drivers

First, remove the battery door and the four screws that are on the back of the transmitter.

Step 3: Open It

Separate the back of the transmitter starting by the bottom of it and disconnect the trainer port and battery cable.

Step 4: Remove More Screws and Cables

Once that its open, disconnect the cables and remove the four screws at each stick

Step 5: Swap It and Close

Swap the sticks, fully tighten down the screws in the plastic post and re connect the cables.

Notice that the cables will not be swaped, only the sticks.

Put the back of the transmitter, re connect the trainer port and battery cables and close it.

Step 6: Configure and Enjoy!

Now you have your trasmitter on mode 2.

At first start there is a warning that requires you to lower the trhottle down for safety, since you swapped the sticks the transmitter still thinks that the throtle is on the right, and the channles will be reversed. So you will have to move up the right stick up in order to continue.

For the configuration, you need to get into Menu---> System---> Sticks mode and change the mode 1 to mode 2.

You also may need to reverse your channels but I did it on the flight controller instead of the transmitter.

Step 7: Final Note

I found that Hobby King locked the transmitter mode in the firmware, so even if I select the mode 2 on the configuration the channels will remain the same. Now every time that I turn on the transmitter I have to move the right stick up to continue. It really doesn't matter much to me because I configure the channels on the flight controller so its a very minor bug.

Im planning to flash a modified firmware that will add up to 10 channels to this transmitter and i'm pretty sure that it will solve my issue with the sticks.

Thank you and I hope you learned something.