skip intermediary ESP32

[commanderguy3001]

Instead of using an intermediary ESP32 between the steamdeck and the elrs transmitter, you could instead use the python crsf-parser library to send out raw CRSF frames to the esp32 in the expresslrs modules. By changing the hardware.html configuration of the module to use the full uart wired to the internal usb-uart converter for data, as well as switching the dip-switches (or jumpers depending on what TX you have) over, the way you would also do for flashing the module, this should be really easy to do.

This would have a few potentially huge advantages, specifically:

• less needed hardware
• less wiring
• having channel mappings done on the steamdeck directly, allowing for easier manipulation/configuration
• allow for proper high frequency high accuracy control. your current system is limited significantly by the 115 kbaud connection between the steamdeck and the aux. esp32, as you're sending just 8 channels, each as 3 characters that encode the value, plus a delimiter character. so the theoretical maximum update rate you could achieve would be about 460 hz. in practice, it will be lower than that.
• allow for CRSF telemetry
• less potential for errors along the line
• technically probably also a tiny bit less latency, although I would not say that that is critical here

[TigeyJewellAlibhai]

Thank you for this comment and sorry for delays in my response. I agree that your solution is definitely better than what I currently have. I need to first confirm that I am able to send mavlink from a GCS, and CRSF from a python script through the same port to the module. I am not certain this is possible with the current ELRS mavlink-rc firmware, but I will definitely update this post as I make progress