Post by sgmason on Jul 7, 2013 13:04:06 GMT -4
Now that I am flying my Sensei with relative ease, and the onboard videos I took look OK I am thinking of converting it to a FPV platform. I have a few goals for this conversion.
Now of course it has to work, if it didn't it wouldn't be worth paying for the parts, but I want to work within a $500 budget. I don't have $500 to throw down all at once, so what I come up with will be modular. With that $500 I will need to get a camera, video Rx and Tx, some sort of monitor (glasses or screen), and an OSD with GPS and RTL. The camera, VRx, VTx, and monitor will be all purchased in one shot, or very closely together. They will be bench tested and range tested well before they are ever flown. I will most likely go with a some sort of portable TV at first instead of goggles just to make it easier to switch from FPV to line of sight.
I don't plan on flying out to 1 1/2 miles at any time, I just want a range that I know I won't have dropped signals all the time. Most of my FPV flying will be well within the max range of my setup, about the same as the previous onboard videos. There is one flight I will want to make that may push the limits of my planned setup, but that won't happen till I am well versed at flying FPV. Even that flight would be under 1 mile, but there may be some features that will cause signal problems. I plan on testing this route before flying it by sitting at the start point with the base station and sending the camera and VRx off in a boat along the flight plan. I am guessing that being at water level my signal will be reduced and if I can get a good signal on the water, I should get a great signal when I am above 75'.
I need a good video feed simply because a bad one will be too stressful on the eyes and kill the fun factor of FPV flying.
I want to keep the plane looking stock because I won't be flying it FPV all the time, sometimes I will just want to fly normally, and don't want the FPV gear hanging off it or extra holes in the fuse. This ties in with the system being portable. I do want to build a quadcopter in the future, and I want to be able to fly it FPV as well without having to buy a second setup to transmit signal to the base station.
I want it to work alongside my XS80 camera because I will want to capture onboard HD video at the same time. To the best of my knowledge there is no way to transmit HD video available to the consumer at this time It would be great to be able to watch my flight in real time HD and have video to post in HD that has the OSD information right there, but at my budget it isn't going to happen.
There are a couple of ways I can approach this, I could make some concessions and just go buy a RTF setup stick it in/on my plane and go flying, or I can cherry pick pieces and build it up myself to try and hit my goals. I think I am going to go with the second option, I have been doing a lot of research and asking questions on the subject and I think I have most of it sorted out so here is the equipment I am thinking about to start this adventure
Camera: 600TVL SONY SUPER HAD CCD D-WDR Color Board Camera
Video Rx/Tx: Mini 8CH 5.8G 400mW Wireless FPV Transmitter and Receiver Kit
Monitor: 9.0Inch Car Monitor 640 x 234 Color TFT-LCD Screen
Power Supply: a couple of Hobbyking 3s batteries, one for the RX and 1 or 2 for the Tx/Monitor. I am still figuring out my power needs, but everything is 12vDC so it 3s for sure.
Since I will be doing a lot of bench testing I can hold off on ordering batteries for a little bit and just use the wall adapters that come with the other stuff for that, but I may be ordering the other stuff as early as Monday.
- Have it work
- Get a range of about 1 1/2 miles
- Have a good video feed
- Keep the plane looking as stock as possible
- Be able to easily move it from aircraft to aircraft
- Work in conjunction with my Polaroid XS80
Now of course it has to work, if it didn't it wouldn't be worth paying for the parts, but I want to work within a $500 budget. I don't have $500 to throw down all at once, so what I come up with will be modular. With that $500 I will need to get a camera, video Rx and Tx, some sort of monitor (glasses or screen), and an OSD with GPS and RTL. The camera, VRx, VTx, and monitor will be all purchased in one shot, or very closely together. They will be bench tested and range tested well before they are ever flown. I will most likely go with a some sort of portable TV at first instead of goggles just to make it easier to switch from FPV to line of sight.
I don't plan on flying out to 1 1/2 miles at any time, I just want a range that I know I won't have dropped signals all the time. Most of my FPV flying will be well within the max range of my setup, about the same as the previous onboard videos. There is one flight I will want to make that may push the limits of my planned setup, but that won't happen till I am well versed at flying FPV. Even that flight would be under 1 mile, but there may be some features that will cause signal problems. I plan on testing this route before flying it by sitting at the start point with the base station and sending the camera and VRx off in a boat along the flight plan. I am guessing that being at water level my signal will be reduced and if I can get a good signal on the water, I should get a great signal when I am above 75'.
I need a good video feed simply because a bad one will be too stressful on the eyes and kill the fun factor of FPV flying.
I want to keep the plane looking stock because I won't be flying it FPV all the time, sometimes I will just want to fly normally, and don't want the FPV gear hanging off it or extra holes in the fuse. This ties in with the system being portable. I do want to build a quadcopter in the future, and I want to be able to fly it FPV as well without having to buy a second setup to transmit signal to the base station.
I want it to work alongside my XS80 camera because I will want to capture onboard HD video at the same time. To the best of my knowledge there is no way to transmit HD video available to the consumer at this time It would be great to be able to watch my flight in real time HD and have video to post in HD that has the OSD information right there, but at my budget it isn't going to happen.
There are a couple of ways I can approach this, I could make some concessions and just go buy a RTF setup stick it in/on my plane and go flying, or I can cherry pick pieces and build it up myself to try and hit my goals. I think I am going to go with the second option, I have been doing a lot of research and asking questions on the subject and I think I have most of it sorted out so here is the equipment I am thinking about to start this adventure
Camera: 600TVL SONY SUPER HAD CCD D-WDR Color Board Camera
Video Rx/Tx: Mini 8CH 5.8G 400mW Wireless FPV Transmitter and Receiver Kit
Monitor: 9.0Inch Car Monitor 640 x 234 Color TFT-LCD Screen
Power Supply: a couple of Hobbyking 3s batteries, one for the RX and 1 or 2 for the Tx/Monitor. I am still figuring out my power needs, but everything is 12vDC so it 3s for sure.
Since I will be doing a lot of bench testing I can hold off on ordering batteries for a little bit and just use the wall adapters that come with the other stuff for that, but I may be ordering the other stuff as early as Monday.