Brittany RC field, FPV, FPV Components, FPV Transmitter, Hitec Skyscout

FVP using 2W 5.8Ghz VTx

August 27, 2013 Json Leave a comment

Finally got an SD DVR recorder to record some FPV videos over Britanny RC airfield. The setup has a 2.8mm lens on a 700TVL camera and a 2W 5.8Ghz Video transmitter.

The camera gets totally washed out when it’s pointed directly to the sun (I understand some cameras automatically superimposes a black dot of extremely bright objects like the sun).. not really a big issue.

The stock Yagi Antenna’s on the VTx and VRx are good enough, although once the plane is directly overhead and goes through the ‘donut hole’ video signal is lost. Simply shifting position / angle of the receiver or the Video Receivers antenna easily fixes it though. Circular polarized antennas a.k.a. Cloverleaf should give better performance.

Here’s the vid:

Brittany RC field, FPV, Uncategorized

IcarusFPV takes to the air! First FPV flights.. check!

August 11, 2013 Json Leave a comment

The long holiday gave me enough time to finish the assembly of the video transmitter and portable ground station. The $9 Carbon Fiber holder mount bracket from AliExpress.. was all the scaffolding needed to screw or tie up everything.

Will have to do something with that AV cables eventually…

A recessed section behind the LCD is the perfect spot for the AV Rx.

Made 2 flights yesterday.. the first saw the plane go into a stall.. making a beeline for mother earth from 100 ft.. recovered just in time and land behind some trees. Fortunately the plane and electronics were practically undamaged. The 2w VTx proved its worth, and continued transmitting from the ground. The second flight was better and your professional crash pilot was able to FINALLY fly real FPV (and enjoy the view!).. could not have been possible without the invaluable help from club residents Kevin, Bryan and Emil who provided the spotting and FPV flying tips!

What an excellent FPV day!

Here's my FPV training platform =) 25% glue! — Here’s my FPV training platform =) 25% glue!

FPV, FPV Components, FPV Ground station, FPV Howto

Creating a 12v distribution hub for FPV components

August 9, 2013 Json Leave a comment

Making a simple power distribution hub is easy. However, to make sure things will work and not result to magic smoke, make sure that:

All electronics that will be used for this must have the same voltage (e.g. all 12v or all 5v)
You MUST know the maximum power draw in Amps of all the components that may or will be connected to this hub. Refer to your electronics documentation to get the maximum amp draw and add them all up.

Next, prepare the materials:

Get a UBEC suitable for a) the voltage and b) the maximum Amp draw of all your components. In this example, I’m making a power distribution for my portable FPV ground station which is attached to my transmitter. My components consists of a 7″ LCD, the AV receiver and (soon!) an EzUHF LRS transmitter.. all of which draws a maximum of 1.8A. This means a 2.5A UBEC at a minimum should be enough (it wont hurt if we get something with a higher Amp output). This 12v 2.5A UBEC from HK is adequate for my purpose.
A male XT60 or Deans plug, a servo extension (this is optional in case you dont want to hardwire distribution plugs to the UBEC) and several female JST cables. Of course this assumes that all your components will have JST male power plugs as well =) Anyway, here’s the materials prior to assembly:

L to R: male XT60 (to connect to LiPO batt), UBEC, (optional) extension cable and then the JST female plugs.

Finally, solder them all together making sure that the positive wires are connected to the correct connectors otherwise.. poof! Ok here’s the end product:

Custom made 12v 2.5A power distribution. Need a bigger Amp? simply unplug the servo extension and replace the UBEC. Note that I added an extension between the XT60 plug and the UBEC, the longer wire means more flexibility for my application.

Make sure to use heat shrink tubing to insulate soldered connections.

FPV, FPV Components, FPV Howto, FPV Transmitter

Mounting a 2W FPV Video Transmitter

August 9, 2013 Json Leave a comment

My FPV kit arrived about a week ago, having opted to get the (relatively) humongous 2W transmitter (at 180g) and which does not have any mounting to speak of.. what you get is an aluminum heat sink and perforated steel sheet casing at the bottom.

Some folks insert steel clamps at the bottom, whatever those are they must really be small and almost impossible to find anywhere. My solution was make a custom mounting made out of PVC sheet using good ‘ol used phone cards (or credit cards). The first thing to that needs to be done is to take the screws off the the fan (dont worry they’re pretty much securely screwed in the aluminum heat sink):

The next step is to cut out some kind of base from the phone card, this will be attached and screwed on top of the fan. Dont worry the screws are long enough for a good secure fit. Here’s the end result: