MicroArduCopter, 3" props, Omnibus Nano, Success!

Uh, guys: https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?2664393-EZ-WifiBroadcast-cheap-digital-HD-transmission-made-easy

I run this on my 250mm quad with fantastic results. Cheap HD. A bit if DIY required, but super fun.

i did not look much in that thread - last message is impressive, claims to have reception of wifi signal over 21 miles? not sure how it is possible, but, very cool. so, that wifi signal - i presume it also capable of pushing down mavlink telemetry in the same stream? or is it only video? is there a thread or anything consolidated that shows how the whole contraption is built, from the camera step to the app that shows the received stream?

Thats what I was after. How do you build it.

You can start here: https://github.com/rodizio1/EZ-WifiBroadcast/wiki really its just a bunch of soldering and installing some custom images. It wasn’t hard for me to get going. Yes, you can get a telemetry stream on the GCS - some people are actually using it for RC control as well - so everything going over the wifi link. I am using 5.8Ghz and smaller tx so reduced range, but the picture and OSD quality compared to analog is amazing. I’ll post some pictures of my setup when I get time.

Something odd with that page. I click on wiring instructions and get the same page again. Hmm…maybe it’s me.

Wow, I had not seen that before… You just gave me a reason to use my larger copters again :).
New rabbit hole to go down later this winter when I get some time…

it is pretty interesting. do those Pi cameras exist in the more appropriate mount format or is it the only one that looks like this funky board with a small camera in the middle of it?

is there anything that looks like a usual foxeer in micro or full format, with same mounting dimensions?

You basically need the funky board because of the connection options. There are some mods people have done putting lenses on but they don’t work well. I think there are some banggood type alternatives but for the price the vanilla pi camera is best. You can also use an HDMI converter board (e.g. to use a gopro), but that’s quite expensive and increases the latency. I had to play around with the camera settings quite a bit to get a FOV that works for a mini quad and decent latency. That said, there is a lot of image processing that goes on in the pi, so despite the weedy looking camera the image is really nice with good dynamic range etc.

Do you know XBee? You can use it for telemetry… It is very light. About 3.9g with wire antenna. I have some XBee Pro S3B and I will try to use it…

I do not think Xbee are compatible with mavlink, but I may be wrong.

http://ardupilot.org/copter/docs/common-telemetry-xbee.html

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Mounting it needs some work. I use the pie zero with ez broadcast and the pie zero spy cam I’ts the smallest camera (including cable) that iv’e seen for the pie zero.

Here are some pictures. In this one you can see the pizero with the CSL 300 stick above it both in heatshrink. I had to de-solder the USB connector from the CSL and replace it with a regular header. I have used two airscrews on the WiFi card which gives pretty good performance for 5.8Gz. You can also see the camera connector which I have wrapper in copper tape.

Here’s the camera. Would like to mount this at an angle but not got around to it yet

and in this one you can see the micro UBEC I’ve used to power the setup

This is what the receiving side looks like. Two Alfa 051NH’s, mad mushroom and cyclone antenna. Pi3B, BEC (inside the Pi) and headplay SE goggles. Not true HD but a lot better than my dominator v2 HDs. The spikes are so I can stick them in the ground easily.

I can’t really show you inside the googles, but here’s a flavour on my HDMI monitor

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It is very interesting. What Pi is the platform of choice now? I think wiki says pizero is no longer supported and 3a+ or 3b+ needed? Which one?

pizero is fine for tx, just not rx. I have a pi 3B, I don’t think the 3B+ is yet supported.

I have a question about configuring ESCs (4-in-1 Tekko32 from Holybro) with the KakuteF7 board flashed with Arducopter.
BlHeliSuite32 does not work once the F7 board is not BEtaflight/Cleanflight anymore (it can’t connect in passthrough mode to the ESCs).C Is this a normal behaviour? I assume so.

So my question is : how do I access the ESCs parameters to configure them ? In mission planner (which connects succesfully to the F7 autopilot) I only find an ESC calibration menu which is useless with a Dshot protocol anyway.
So how do I do this ?

I have dual antenna one and waiting a 1w tx to test and I can comment results

BlHeliSuite32 works with passthrough on a KakuteF7 (ArduCopter 3.7.0-dev) and the Tekko32 ESC board. See instructions here.

Thanks, great info. Works now.

I wonder why the parameter SERVO_BHL_AUTO is not set on by default in the Arducopter versions for F4 and F7 boards (since all of these boards will use BlHeli ESCs).

I did a test on 2S voltage support on the Holybro and RAcerstar Tattoo 4 in 1 ESCs:

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