msp-tool

msp-tool

msp-tool is a command line tool for streamlining the write/compile/flash/debug cycle in MSP based flight controller firmwares.

It's regularly tested with both iNAV and Betaflight, but should work with any other MSP based firwmare.

Installation from source

msp-tool is under development, so there are no binary releases at this time. Instead, developers should install it from its source.

To do so, install Go in your system, then type the following command:

  $ go get -v github.com/fiam/msp-tool

msp-tool will be installed to ${GOPATH}/bin.

Using msp-tool

To start msp-tool, the only required argument is -p, which indicates the serial port it should open to connect to the flight controller. Once connected, it will print some information about the firmware and the board. For example:

$ msp-tool -p /dev/tty.usbmodem14211 

Connected to /dev/tty.usbmodem14211 @ 115200bps. Press 'h' for help.
MSP API version 2.1 (protocol 0)
INAV 1.9.0 (board OBSD, target OMNIBUSF4PRO)
Build 2bcdc237 (built on Feb 16 2018 @ 23:16:49)
[DEBUG] [     4.794] Barometer calibration complete (1931)
[DEBUG] [     5.413] Gyro calibration complete (-37, 23, -46)

msp-tool will automatically enable DEBUG_TRACE output from the FC and print all output to the terminal. Additionally, it supports keyboard shortcuts for the following functions:

• h: Print the help with all the supported commands
• q: Quit msp-tool
• r: Reboot the board
• f: Compile the firmware for the board, flash it and reboot (see Flashing below).

Flashing

msp-tool allows quickly rebuilding the firmware and flashing it to the board with a single keystroke via the f shortcut. To do so, you need to tell msp-tool a couple more things via command line arguments:

• The root directory of the firmware source code, via the -s command line option. Its default value is . (the current directory), so it doesn't need to be provided if you're starting msp-tool from the same directory where the Makefile for the firmware is located.
• The target name, via the -t command line option. Note that this is not needed in INAV 1.9+ and Betaflight 3.4+, since MSP_BOARD_INFO includes the target name and msp-tool automatically detects it.

For example:

  $ msp-tool -p /dev/tty.usbmodem14211 -s ~/src/inav -t OMNIBUSF4PRO

Note that flashing requires dfu-util to be present in your $PATH, since it's used to actually download the firmware into the flight controller.

Additional command line options

Call msp-tool with the -h argument to print a list of all the available command line options.

Getting in touch

I'm usually idling in both INAV's and Betaflights's Slack rooms as alberto. Feel free to send me a message if you'd like to discuss new features.