QuadMeUp

Category: Electronics

  • GPS Racer: worklog #8 – sonar test platform

    I honestly admit, that my 6″ quad (codename GPS Racer) was never very pretty. It was just ugly with that GPS tower on the front. Today it got even uglier: I’ve equipped it with HC-SR04 sonar connected via I2C bus (ATtiny85 to the rescue). Why, you might ask, have I done something so useless? Answer…

  • AnyFC F7 and DIY buzzer for INAV

    Because both original and Banggood clone of AnyFC F7 flight controller and missing buzzer support, its usefulness is somehow limited. There is no dedicated pin and driver. Next release of INAV (1.7.2) will finally solve this problem by reusing Motor #9 output as buzzer output. But, some additional hardware will be required. To be precise,…

  • FS1000A and XY-MK-5V, Arduino and VirtualWire

    While FS1000A and XY-MK-5V 433MHz radio modules might not be the best choice in terms of quality, or reliability or distance (although few hundred meters in open space are doable), they have one very important trait: they are extremely easy to use. No complicated wiring, no advanced programming. If you want to send some data,…

  • FS1000A and XY-MK-5V range test

    Very often, where you go cheap, there is a price to pay. Exactly like with cheap 433MHz transmitter-receiver pair of FS1000A and XY-MK-5V. You rather do not expect much for $1, right? When playing with them in a middle of a big city (Berlin), few meters of the range was all those modules were able…

  • FS1000A and XY-MK-5V 433MHz RF modules: overview

    One of the cheapest (but not the best) solutions for DIY wireless data transmission between different devices (Arduino and other microcontrollers) is a pair of 433MHz modules: FS1000A and XY-MK-5V. A set of them (you will need one transmitter and one receiver) costs about $1. Pretty cheap, right? Of course, there is a price to…

  • Using FET transistors as switches

    When over a year ago I published this post about using transistors as switches, I described only how to do it with bipolar transistors. And bipolar (NPN and PNP) transistors have a small problem: they are current driven, so they consume current when they are switched on. They consume much less than they drive, but…

  • STM32 F1 and F3 versus LRS 433MHz interference issue

    This topic first appeared on my table few weeks ago. Can a flight controller interfere with long range system running on 433MHz band like openLRSng? STM32 F1 and F3 based CPU running most flight controllers (Naze32, SPracingF3, Flip32, CC3D, etc.) run on 72MHz. Actually this is 8MHz of external clock and 9 multiplier. But still,…

  • ESP8266 and DS18B20 – wireless ThingSpeak sensor

    Here is another small project of mine: battery operated ESP8266 ESP-01 WiFi thermometer using DS18B20 and ThingSpeak API to collect data. Before we proceed, you should: Know how to program ESP8266 with Arduino IDE Know how to run ESP8266 on battery power for months Have an account on ThinkSpeak, create a channel and obtain write…

  • ESP8266 ESP-01 Low Power Mode – run it for months

    Amazing ESP8266 ESP-01 WiFi boards have pretty irritating problem: theirs power consumption is pretty high. Minimal power consumption of about 70mA when doing nothing and above 100mA when when transferring data makes it rather impossible to use it on battery power for a longer period of time. Set of 2 AA batteries would be drained…