Category: DIY
-
DIY wireless telemetry link for UAV
Telemetry link between UAV (drone, airplane, boat) and laptop/mobile/ground station device can be very useful. Not only to get current drone position, altitude or battery level, but also, when wireless link provides such a possibility, to update drone parameters in-flight. Some radio links, like OpenLRS provides such a possibility out of the box. They include…
-
HC-12 433MHz RF serial module range test
As I mentioned in my first post about HC-12 433MHz radio modules, I’ve put my interest in them for telemetry purposes. While S.Port telemetry I’m using in FrSky Taranis radio might have higher range than HC-12, it is closed environment. Since $10 for a pair of HC-12 is not much, I’ve decided for more open…
-
Improving cheap radio range
Radio range of my first drone, UDI 829A was pretty pathetic. OK, it was (still is, I only have to finally replace motors) pretty indestructible, quite stable and reasonably priced. But effective radio range as quite short. More less 50 meters. Above that limit strange things started to happen. The reason was pretty simple. Just…
-
How to flash firmware to ESP-01 ESP8266 WiFi module
One can think that internet know everything about everything. Yesterday I’ve learned the hard way that is does not. It took me better part of evening to find a working way to flash firmware, any firmware, to cheap ESP-01 ESP8266 WiFi modules. There are many tutorials, most of them were just wrong in my case.…
-
10 channels for FlySky FS-i6 radios
This news might be not super fresh, but somehow it missed my attention. There is a good news for all owners of FlySky FS-i6 radios: there is an unofficial firmware that turns this cheap 6 channel radio into 10 channel one. Of course, there is a small catch, or even a few of them: All…
-
Improve Boscam BOS 600 cooling with thermopad
Boscam BOS 600 is a 5.8GHz 600mW 32 channel video transmitter well suited for long range (> 1km) FPV flights. Its design makes the whole casing a radiator. This is good, since 600mW of RF means a lot of heat. Unfortunately, Boscams BOS 600 design has a serious bug there: so what if whole casing…
-
Programming ATtiny85 and ATtiny45 with Arduino IDE
What is ATtiny ATtiny is a fimily of microcontrollers by Atmel, the same company that provides ATmega series used widely in "real" Arduinos. Comparing to ATmega, ATtinys are much simpler, smaller (usually), with less features. But also cheaper, easier to connect, using less energy, and trust me, in many many cases you do not need…
-
Read RC PWM signal with Arduino
Arduinos are cheap and simple development board. You can do a lot with even the simplest of them. For example build you own quadcopter and flight controller (after all MultiWii = Arduino + MPU6050). Of course, this is not as simple as one might imagine and there are few (actually a lot) obstacles that needs…
-
DIY FPV LC power noise filter
Both electrical motor and ESC are source of electrical noise that influences all devices connected to the same battery. This is why, very often, on airplanes or big multirotors FPV circuit is powered from separate battery. On small or medium drones this can be hard to archive: additional weight will influence both flight performance and flight time.…