I am currently working on a tethered drone and wanted to make a couple of changes to the data transmission and I need some help regarding it.
Earlier for telemetry data transmission, I used RFD900+ to connect to the mission planner but now I want to eliminate the wireless transmission and in place of that I want to transmit telem data using RJ 45 cable.
So here is what i am in a need to do:
I want to transmit the telemetry down to the laptop using an RJ45 cable in order to connect it to the mission planner.
Since pixhawk telem1 has a signal voltage of 3.3V, can I treat it as an RS232 signal? If yes can I use this converter to fulfil my purpose
Yes, the product in your link is same as mine. @james_pattison
Ok that means I can use this module for my solution, as far as the connectivity to mission planner is concerned I can use rj45 to USB converter to connect to the mission planner avoiding the virtual com port, converting data back to TTL level and connect to mission planner using a com port just like conventional way to connect.
The pin configuration of pixhawk telem port includes:
5v
Rx
Tx
CTS
RTS
GND
The pin configuration of RS232 TTL To Ethernet RJ45 Converter Network Module is
CFG
Rx
Tx
RST
GND
VCC
VDD
So, I am a little confused about connecting telemetry pins to the converter module. Please help me with this one too!
@Corrado_Steri thank you for your suggestion, I know I can do that as well but as the drone will be tethered and has the involvement of cables so, I am going with the ethernet cable for the telemetry connection and I am curious to make this functional.
Are you tethering power as well?
If not, you just need one twisted pair tx-rx + ground connected to a FTDI serial to USB on the GCS. At 56kbps you should be good for 100 meter
@ppoirier , that’s a good idea too but the thing is that my ethernet cable is twisted with the power cable already so, I just want to utilize the ethernet cable available to me so that I can send my video feed via the ethernet cable as well, eliminating the RFD and video transmitter.
That would be so simple with my BBBMINI… just connect to thet Ethernet port and send Mavlink & Gstreamer downlink
Question: what s the total weight of the cable assembly ?
Well, for now, I just want to stick to the Pixhawk cube, maybe I will give it a try next time.
Total weight of my wire is 4Kg.
I have not bought the serial to ethernet converter module yet and before that, I want to confirm the connection to the pixhawk telem1 port.
Will it work if I only hook up connections like this:
That’s correct, for hooking it up. Whether it will “just work” we can’t tell you without knowing how the data is presented to the pc.
Patrick’s suggestion takes some guesswork out, so is worth considering.
