Remote controlled flying things-Quads, Hex, Octo or anything

[Marschy]

Had success with Goodluckbuy. They have refunded the EMS shipping that I paid for. They still haven't processed the order, that's another issue.

The Aliexpress transaction is another story. They are claiming that they sent the 7 inch monitor via Hong Kong Registered Letter rather than EMS because it has an inbuilt lipo battery. BS is all I can say, the monitor doesn't have an inbuilt battery from the description, that is the next model up with diversity receiver, so this one looks like it will go all the way to a dispute and possibly having to unscrew the cover off the monitor once I receive it to take photos to support my dispute claim to Aliexpress.

Don't deal with this store on Aliexpress. They will rip you off for shipping.

http://www.aliexpress.com/store/1185701

[GGV8Cruza]

He is running A DJI F550 flame wheel with a NAZA Controller and fatshark FPV The F550 is a hexcopter. Mostly stock standard I think but he does get some great footage. Flight times are about 7-8 min with a 6ah battery.
This is what I can remember about his gear. Oh and he uses a Spektrum DX8 Radio.
Regards
Crispy

He also has a new fold up model as well which fits in his back pack. It goes up takes some great video and normally comes back 

GG

[Crisp Image]

He also has a new fold up model as well which fits in his back pack. It goes up takes some great video and normally comes back 

GG

Now that would be good. Take it into remote areas where the car can't get to and then fly.
I have been thinking about something like that but have not come across anything I like yet.

[CBRK]

Eureka,  minimosd is finally working!

So happy, now it gets to come to Fraser with us!

Chris

Sent from my GT-I9506 using Tapatalk 2

[Marschy]

Would you believe it. My minimOSD is working fine, but I just felt the temperature of the 3DRRadio Air module and it's cooking, jiggled the molex connector about, poof, blue smoke, and because it's piggy backed to the minimOSD it took that out as well.

The minimOSD that I thought I buggered up by removing the diode is actually working as I found out last night, but now I have to get a new 3DRRadio telemetry set. I'll get the Hobbyking version this time.

Well done on getting yours working Chris. I am going to solder the minimOSD connectors for the video in and out and power. What I'm finding is vibration is causing the video to break up really badly due to the el-cheapo props causing lots of vibration through the frame. I don't want to loose video during flight, so I think soldering the connections is my best option.

Another thing I noticed as well is the Hobbyking MinimOSD gives a very nice video feed with the OSD overlay using separate power for digital and analogue, whereas the one from Aliexpress that I removed the diode and is using 5 volts for the analogue side tends to flicker. The very reason for the separate power feeds.

The new 7 inch monitor also arrived yesterday with built in 5.8 gHz receiver. Very nice little screen, also came with XT60 power connectors. This is the one I got ripped off for shipping, but admittedly it is a nice monitor, so I might as well just suck it up and wear the $10 additional shipping cost that they ripped me off for.

I see you've also got the tablet mount for your 9XR. Good piece of kit, hey? The large holes at the very top allow the antenna for the 3DRRadio SMA connector to poke through then connect the antenna, so it's a really useful bit of gear.

[CBRK]

Would you believe it. My minimOSD is working fine, but I just felt the temperature of the 3DRRadio Air module and it's cooking, jiggled the molex connector about, poof, blue smoke, and because it's piggy backed to the minimOSD it took that out as well.

The minimOSD that I thought I buggered up by removing the diode is actually working as I found out last night, but now I have to get a new 3DRRadio telemetry set. I'll get the Hobbyking version this time.

Well done on getting yours working Chris. I am going to solder the minimOSD connectors for the video in and out and power. What I'm finding is vibration is causing the video to break up really badly due to the el-cheapo props causing lots of vibration through the frame. I don't want to loose video during flight, so I think soldering the connections is my best option.

Another thing I noticed as well is the Hobbyking MinimOSD gives a very nice video feed with the OSD overlay using separate power for digital and analogue, whereas the one from Aliexpress that I removed the diode and is using 5 volts for the analogue side tends to flicker. The very reason for the separate power feeds.

The new 7 inch monitor also arrived yesterday with built in 5.8 gHz receiver. Very nice little screen, also came with XT60 power connectors. This is the one I got ripped off for shipping, but admittedly it is a nice monitor, so I might as well just suck it up and wear the $10 additional shipping cost that they ripped me off for.

I see you've also got the tablet mount for your 9XR. Good piece of kit, hey? The large holes at the very top allow the antenna for the 3DRRadio SMA connector to poke through then connect the antenna, so it's a really useful bit of gear.

Hi Marschy,

Hmmm that is not good, dont tell me between us we are only allowed one working MinimOSD, let me know when yours is working so I can avoid killing mine :-)  On a plus they are $20 odd from HK and I usually get it 48 hours after I've ordered it.

On the HK MinimOSD, be careful if using two batteries, I may have gone through 2 others due to the ground potential not being the same.  I was using a separate battery for my camera (analogue side) to the FC which was powering the Digital side.  If there is more than 0.3V difference in ground between the two circuits it fries the board.  If you plan to use separate batteries make sure that the grounds are connected to avoid this issue.  I'm going to try to resurrect my two dead ones by soldering the analogue and digital circuits together  Should result in a simpler circuit as one of my cameras is a 5V camera - will have to check the current draw (which I suspect will be higher).  Then again I plan to just plug in the other Minim's to my working config and confirm there status.

So I now power it all of the one battery and it works nicely, although it also piggybacking off the telemetry radio rather than it's own connection.  I'll deal with that one issue after I get back.

Regards,

Chris

[CBRK]

I see you've also got the tablet mount for your 9XR. Good piece of kit, hey? The large holes at the very top allow the antenna for the 3DRRadio SMA connector to poke through then connect the antenna, so it's a really useful bit of gear.

I picked it up a few hours before the photo was taken.  Its pretty good so far, I had to remove a bit of the rubber to mount the monitor, due to the way the monitor is moulded.  So I guess I had two wins last night, MinimOSD and the mount kit!

Easy to build and seems reasonable quality.  I'll have to do some flying with it to see how good it is :-)

Thanks for the suggestion.

Regards,

Chris

[Marschy]

Not 100% sure what I did to fry the 3DRRadio, needless to say, as soon as I connect it, it heats up like a stove.

The minimosd that I thought I stuffed by removing the diode is working now all on 5 volt supply for both the atmega chip and the video chip, but getting flickering on the screen, could be dodgy solder on either the ground plane solder pad, or the one on the front for joining the two supplies for 5 volt.

Removing the diode right next to the vin/vout pins is to isolate the 5 volt power supply from the 12 volt video power supply. There are other ways of doing this as well which involves not joining the ground wire (I think this is what you are referring to ^^^^ about the 0.3 volt difference using 2 batteries). I didn't know about the 0.3 volt difference on the ground causing the board to fry, I wonder if that is what I did with the Hobbyking board, as this one I didn't do any soldering whatsoever and just used 5v digital power and 12 volt analogue power as per the bog standard instructions?

Either way, I'll be resoldering the solder pads for the 5 volt supply joints and getting rid of the servo connectors and soldering them directly to the vin/vout pins. It works perfectly other than the annoying flicker (more a pulse than a flicker if that makes sense). It's the OSD text that is flickering, not the actual video, but quite noticeable.

[Hogbert_1999]

Which Mini OSD is that I like the layout etc..

[Marschy]

It's called the "MinimOSD".

Minim OSD v1.1

It uses the Mavlink protocol so your flight control board must be compatible.

[CBRK]

Not 100% sure what I did to fry the 3DRRadio, needless to say, as soon as I connect it, it heats up like a stove.

The minimosd that I thought I stuffed by removing the diode is working now all on 5 volt supply for both the atmega chip and the video chip, but getting flickering on the screen, could be dodgy solder on either the ground plane solder pad, or the one on the front for joining the two supplies for 5 volt.

Removing the diode right next to the vin/vout pins is to isolate the 5 volt power supply from the 12 volt video power supply. There are other ways of doing this as well which involves not joining the ground wire (I think this is what you are referring to ^^^^ about the 0.3 volt difference using 2 batteries). I didn't know about the 0.3 volt difference on the ground causing the board to fry, I wonder if that is what I did with the Hobbyking board, as this one I didn't do any soldering whatsoever and just used 5v digital power and 12 volt analogue power as per the bog standard instructions?

Either way, I'll be resoldering the solder pads for the 5 volt supply joints and getting rid of the servo connectors and soldering them directly to the vin/vout pins. It works perfectly other than the annoying flicker (more a pulse than a flicker if that makes sense). It's the OSD text that is flickering, not the actual video, but quite noticeable.

I'm thinking it might be what happened to yours, I think I've killed two before I realised what was happening.  None of the diagrams on the Ardu stuff says this...  Had to read it in forums.  Having done it, the board just worked without issues (3rd) as did my 2nd one until I tried it on two batteries.  Must link the grounds together as I'm sure that you'll have the same problem.  The + stay separate it's only the ground's that need to be linked.  I found it easier to just run it off the one battery and use a BEC to down it to 5V for the camera that needs 5 V, I just remove the BEC for the cameras that need 12V.  There are downsides and that is if the flight battery dies so does everything else but I figure if I loose the main battery I loose the APM which has the data I want anyway, so I'd have to use the telemetry data which is on the tablet or PC so no major loss really.

Chris

[gec]

Was looking through Aliexpress today and found this ...
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Free-shipping-RC-airplane-RC-Cessna-182-plane-EPO-hobby-model-aircraft-RTF-aeromodelo-eletricorc-planes/2025038921.html

Might be my next RC machine ... Its pretty big !!!

Mandrake

I bought that very same plane the other day, but much cheaper, here is a link to it if your still interested.

http://www.pw-rc.com/product_info.php/cPath/126/products_id/3585?osCsid=7c26c592d7650e1e87bf95aa2be4e438

[Mandrake]

Price difference is the radio controller I think my one is included ..

[Marschy]

I'm thinking it might be what happened to yours, I think I've killed two before I realised what was happening.  None of the diagrams on the Ardu stuff says this...  Had to read it in forums.  Having done it, the board just worked without issues (3rd) as did my 2nd one until I tried it on two batteries.  Must link the grounds together as I'm sure that you'll have the same problem.  The + stay separate it's only the ground's that need to be linked.  I found it easier to just run it off the one battery and use a BEC to down it to 5V for the camera that needs 5 V, I just remove the BEC for the cameras that need 12V.  There are downsides and that is if the flight battery dies so does everything else but I figure if I loose the main battery I loose the APM which has the data I want anyway, so I'd have to use the telemetry data which is on the tablet or PC so no major loss really.

Chris

I have to do a bit of reading on this. My camera is 12 volt, hence the reason why I went down the route of removing the diode. I found a thread on rcgroups but I'm buggered if I can find it again, but this picture from the 'Files' section of the Hobbyking site for the MinimOSD shows what I did with regard removing the diode.



The reason why I removed my diode was for a few reasons, my camera is 12 volt, and the replacement board already had the ground and 5 volt pads soldered together. and I found (and subsequently lost) a thread on rcgroups that explained why this was done.

A common theme with these boards though, is people frying them all the time.

[Marschy]

I found a possible solution to my OSD flickering problem. Apparently 12 volt cameras can cause the OSD text to flicker due to the video signal voltage being too high. Putting a 150ohm resistor in line with the video in signal fixes it. Read reply # 38. It's obscure stuff like this with this OSD that can do your head in.

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1858197&page=3

[Marschy]

This is cheap. $134.72 including EMS shipping

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/APM2-6-ArduPilot-UAV-Flight-Controller-APM-2-6-6M-GPS-w-Compass-Power-Module-915Mhz/2021736205.html

I'm getting another one for my Reptile-Aphid frame. I've been toying with getting a Pixhawk, but they are almost twice the cost, putting one of these on the Xmas wish list.

[Mandrake]

Well I have launched into FPV and possibly OSD ( If I can fit it all together !! ) ..
Ordered a mini camera on Thursday 28th arrived today .. Pretty good I thought - Boscam 2.4Ghz Tx/Rx , 4.5" screen and mushroom antennae should be here early next week .. Then after that a Remzibi OSD and GPS if I can add them in to the spaghetti wiring loom --
I hope I have all the correct bits that will go together ... ...  Time will tell eh !!
Mandrake

[Marschy]

Yep, this OSD stuff is proving to be fun, getting it work that is.

[gec]

Price difference is the radio controller I think my one is included ..

Possibly mate, weve bought a few RTF planes and the transmitters are usually rubbish, if you are looking for a good digital 2.4 ghz radio you cant go past this one from HobbyKing, Its a 6 channel radio, it has a 10 model memory and the receivers are cheap.

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__54822__OrangeRx_T_SIX_2_4GHz_DSM2_Compatible_6CH_Transmitter_w_10_Model_Memory_and_3_Pos_Switch_Mode_2_.html

[yogi]

Anyone after a gopro but can't afford $500 .... Ebay a sj4000 cam less than $100 with all of the fitting mounts !!!! And you can use it for fpv and aerial photography.

yogi

[WilSurf]

Can I ask you guys please stop talking about flying?
I am starting looking at it again, just to start simple with a Horizon Hobby Super Cub RTF.
Maybe..................

Not sure where you can fly these things in Perth.

[Marschy]

Flying fixed wing can be problematic with regard places you can take-off and land and the space you need to fly the model.

Maybe a model club may be an option.

http://www.maaa.asn.au/state-associations

[Hogbert_1999]

Ok managed to dodge the weather yesterday and get out with the multi and get some vid (first one so be gentle LOL)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVed33cyedw

[Marschy]

All I can say is wow, wow, wow.

The obvious advantage of FPV over LOS.

[Hogbert_1999]

Great glad you liked it I will have another one from yesterdays adventure later in the week (when i get time to edit it).
It was actually quite windy (being at the beach) and therefore the quad was fighting it but I think the footage hides the majority of it well!