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Project Dualcopter – worklog #4
More than a year after staring this damn project, I finally decided what goes where. And on top of that, short description how Dualcopters works (or at least should work). There are two counter rotating propellers on top. They are responsible for thrust and YAW control When both props turns faster, dualcopter gains altitude When…
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A proper way of doing read callback receive with Arduino LoRa
Arduino LoRa is a great library that brings LoRa support (SX1276/SX1277/SX1278/SX1279) to Arduino world. I'm using it in my Crossbow LRS project (still not stable enough for flight, work in progress). Until now, the biggest problem with this library I've found is that examples suggests that heavy protocol processing inside interrupt callback is fine. Unfortunately,…
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Video tutorial: 5.8GHz Inverted Vee antenna for FPV
Today another video tutorial. It’s just simpler to show how to make something on video than with text and images. So, without further ado: How to make Inverted Vee antenna for 5.8GHz FPV at home. All that is required is: coax cable (here RG316) SMA/RP-SMA connector copper welding wire caliper soldering station basic tools At…
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Crossbow LRS, range test that did not went well….
Yestarday I wanted to make a first “real” range test of my DIY LRS system. “Real”, because RX was supposed to be on a flying wing, but only as an passenger. Actual control was supposed to be happening via FrSky X8R. Crossbow RX was only to measure RSSI and check for failsafes. It, well, did…
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DIY RC radio link: the problem of protocols
So, you want to build your own RC radio system? Long range maybe? Cool, I want to do it too. Since I’m pretty deep in that topic now, I can give you a hint or two. For example, have you thought about a protocol your radio system will implement? Or rather should I say: protocols?…
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Hands on: LoRa32u4 II 868MHz LoRa development board
Idea for Crossbow, DIY LRS system did not appearned in my mind out of nowhere. All my previous LoRa attempts were aimed at telemetry purposes only. E45-TTL-100 are cool, but bulky. If I would want to use them, I would either have to attach Arduino to it or hack it open and reprogram onboard CPU…
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Hands on: FrSky XSRF3O flight controller
Since I just started to add support for “old” FrSky XSRF3O flight controller to INAV (expect this in a release after 1.8) it might be a good idea to share few words about it. First of all, it comes in a box. Why am I mentioning this? Because none of my flight controllers, and I…
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Crossbow LRS second range test
Looks like crappy range problem from previous post is fixed now. Today I managed to reach 2.8km range with better antennas. The ones I got from LoRa32u4 supplier were NOT 868MHz antennas for sure! 2.4GHz/5GHz probably, hard to tell. Traces on PCB are ~60mm long, so perhaps those are loaded 3/2 monopoles for 2.4GHz or…
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Crossbow LRS: first range test
This will be fairly short post. Today I tested range of a prototype of my SX1276 LoRa based LRS Crossbow. Unfortunately, I was not very impressed. Or rather: quite disappointed…