User guide ‐ Community Board and Custom Devices

Community Boards & Custom Devices

Note

This article is for users who would like to install a Community Board firmware with Custom Device support.

If you are a developer, and if you are looking for a tutorial on how to create a Community Board with custom devices, then check out our GitHub Template Repository.

Installation

The installation of a Community Board is as simple as unzipping a file and copying the content to the right folder.

Prerequisite: You will need a zip-file that contains all the files that are required to install a Community board with custom devices successfully. You can download it from the website of the project that offers the Community Board.

Note

For this guide, we will be using the standard MobiFlight Community Devices for illustration. They already come pre-installed with MobiFlight, but we can take the official zip-file for showing the steps.

For installing the required Community Boards perform the following steps:

1. Download the Community Board zip-file, e.g. LINK-STILL-MISSING
2. Open you Windows Explorer, using Win+E
3. In the file path window, paste %LocalAppData%\MobiFlight\MobiFlight Connector\Community
4. Unzip the zip-file content to the Community folder
5. Restart MobiFlight Connector

Upload community board firmware

Now that you installed the necessary files for the Community Board and custom device, it is time to try it. You will need a board that is compatible with MobiFlight and with the Community Board. Normally, Arduino Mega 2560 should always be supported. Please check with the information from the Community Board provider for compatibility with other boards.

Tip

Try the MobiFlight GNC255 for following along with this guide. MobiFlight GNC255 Community Board is included in MobiFlight Connector version 10.0 or newer

To upload the Community Board firmware to your board, perform the following steps:

1. Start MobiFlight
2. Connect a compatible MobiFlight board
3. Ignore any firwmare update notification by MobiFlight
4. Go to the Board Settings
5. Select the Board that you want to use with the Community Board firmware
6. Optional step: In case the board currently has official MobiFlight firmware installed, "Reset Board" first.
7. Right-click on the board again, now you will have additional options available
   • If you want to use a partner board firmware, take a look at the first level
   • If you want to use a community board firmware, take a look at the entries in "Community"
8. Select the Community Board of your choice, confirm the firmware upload dialog

Congratulations, your board now successfully has the Community Board firmware installed. You will now also be able to add the respective custom devices that are supported by the Community Board.

Adding custom devices

Now, that you have your board flashed with Community Board firmware, you will have additional Custom devices as options in the Device menu.

Note

Adding, configuring, removing custom devices is working pretty much the same like standard MobiFlight devices

Perform the following steps:

1. Right-click on the Community board
2. Select "Add devices" and navigate to the "Custom devices" sub-menu
3. Select the device of your choice, e.g. GNC255 LCD
4. Click on the newly added device to review the device settings
   • Verify selected pins or i2c address for proper connection
   • Optionally, adjust the name to your liking

Using custom devices

Ok, so you managed to upload the firmware, and to add one or more custom devices to your board. Now it's the time to try it.

For trying out the custom device, perform the following steps:

1. Close the Settings Menu
2. Create a new Output config, e.g. My Custom Device
3. Click on the Edit-Button (...) to open the Output Config Wizard
4. In the Output Config Wizard, click on Display tab
5. Select your Community Board from the list
6. Select your Custom device from the list
7. Check the different message types and values that are available
8. Click on Start and Stop on the Test Panel
9. Experiment with different test values to get familiar with the possibilities of the custom device and its different message types

![NOTE] Message types and possible values depend on the individual custom device. Check out the specific documentation of the respective Community Board and Custom device to learn how you can use it.

Congrats! You configured and tested your Community Board with its custom devices.