• The best way to mount RC antennas on a drone

    Today another tutorial video I recorded some time ago: how to install RC antennas using zip ties and heat shrink tubes. After all, dangling antennas will be chewed by propellers in a minutes.

  • INAV 1.8: Automated landing for fixed wings

    It’s official: next release of INAV (1.8 or maybe 1.7.2) will incorporate an automated landing procedure for fixed wings. I was already writing about it 2 weeks ago, but now new code has been merged back and will be released. Bear in mind, that this is not “state of the art” landing yet. It’s rather…

  • 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…

  • INAV can do automated landing on fixed wing?

    Those of you how subscribed to my YouTube channel should have noticed, that I got an interest in automated landing of fixed wings after RTH in INAV. And the sad truth was that, well, INAV up to 1.7 was unable to do it right. When landing after RTH was enabled (nav_rth_allow_landing = ON) and it…

  • 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…

  • AnyFC F7 output mapping for INAV

    AnyFC F7 when running INAV, is not using standard output mapping. That means, that M1 output is not where you should connect Motor 1 and M2 is not where Motor 2 should be connected. It’s a little complicated, but with following table it should be pretty easy to connect any possible configuration to AnyFC F7…

  • 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…

  • AnyFC F7 Pinout

    There is still very little about AnyFC F7 on the internet. Especially pinout is kept secret. Without sambas official GitHub repository for hardware projects, there would be nothing at all. I’ve decided to close that gap a little and prepared full pinout for AnyFCF7. Yes, I know they are hand drawn and scanned, but I…