Sky Viper Journey Pro Video GPS Drone V2700 -It's HERE!

Hi Steve,

Feel free to share any and all aspects of the build! Everything is kosher. :blush:

Forgot to mention, if you open up the wifi board, you can remove the camera sensor cable and lens assembly and it will still function for the web AP.

(Doing this voids any warranty, obviously.)

Hi Alex,

Checking with the supply lines, it looks like there were no Australian retailer that picked up the Journey. o_O

Tridge was getting his fixes via the Skyrocket FedEx injections!

Hi @Matt_M,

It would be really good to have such a good GPS machine available in Australia.

I will be waiting for it, and I hope that the future versions will have more reliable motors and a great camera suspension.

Wallmart doesnā€™t ship to Au and Amazon charges exorbitant fees to deliver, so the only hope left is a global expansion of Skyrocket! :slight_smile:

How about having a ā€œmodular droneā€, where you can buy modules like camera, GPS, optical flow, sonar, lidar, cannon, grabber, etc and plug and click it in in a special slot and the software recognizes it at the restart?

Are there other cameras that would use the same connector that could potentially be used if I wanted to upgrade the camera without modifying the drone too much, or is the removal of the cable permanent?

Iā€™ve been having a blast and hope to see how far I can push the Journey for what I want to do. At the moment Iā€™m at the point where Iā€™ll have to build the sonix firmware with the function needed to trigger the camera to take a photo during a mission, but after that the next improvements other than tweaking settings would be getting an optical flow sensor from a FB of one of the other models and improving the camera quality/stability (Both of course would void the warranty :stuck_out_tongue: )

Iā€™m not assuming the final result would of course be exceptional, just adequate, and I see myself eventually building one for that purpose from scratch if I decide to get deeper into the hobby.

Since you mention it, and while @Matt_M seems to be active hereā€¦

Is https://github.com/SkyRocketToys/Sonix dead code? It has been about 9 months since the last developer activity and there are 3 pull requests, including a bug fix and the one I submitted to add the camera trigger capability. I know that multiple people would like to have mavlink control of the camera. The oldest pull request is almost 4 months old. Some customers might appreciate a sonix firmware update and some of us who are fans of open source would appreciate the opportunity to contribute!

Thanks!

We had oneā€¦it was called the 3DR Solo. (RIP) :sob:

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@brad112358, I would venture that it isnā€™t ā€œdeadā€ but that tridgeā€™s contract with SkyRocket for 2018 came to an end. Since he is the primary developer for that repo, he is the one that would handle any merges. (peterbarker has also done some work) That said, In the two years Iā€™ve been watching the SkyRocket fork, I donā€™t think heā€™s accepted any community PRs on any of the reposā€¦but i could be mistaken.

All that said, Iā€™m happy to see SkyRocket embracing Open Source on some of their other products like the Recoil, which recently showed up within their repo. Thatā€™s neat. Unfortunately, I donā€™t think the Recoil sold as well as they were hoping. If there is one toy I can find at the ā€œsecond chance storeā€ shelves everywhere around here it is Recoils! Thatā€™s unfortunate, as it looks like a fun toy, but it just may have missed out on being ā€œpopularā€ā€¦at least in my location. Which is interesting to note, because Matt has mentioned their constant struggles trying to get retailers to take their Sky Viper on their shelves, and yet there are dozens of un-sold Recoils every where i go.

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I agree, it is fantastic that SkyRocket is using Ardupilot and other open source code in some of their products. I purchased 5 Sky Vipers specifically because of that fact. I encouraged some friends to buy one as well because of the potential Ardupilot gave it beyond the features advertised on the box. Iā€™m also very happy the SkyRocket Ardupilot branch was merged into the Ardupilot project. This means new features can easily be made available.

I quite understand that @tridge and other Ardupilot developers are very busy. If the contract with SkyRocket is over, he and @peterbarker may not have time to maintain the Sonix code and @Matt_M / SkyRocket may consider the Sonix project completed and good enough for consumers and have no intention of maintaining or enhancing it. Iā€™m not complaining if this is the case! But Iā€™d say this is the definition of ā€œDeadā€ for a github project. But even if it is dead, it has huge value to customers like us because it can be forked and we, the community, can carry on enhancing and maintaining it for as long as someone with the required skills cares. It would just be nice to know what the intention is so we donā€™t fork if we donā€™t need to. The Sonix project is a wonderful example of integration of Ardupilot with a low cost companion computer to add the many functions it provides. Even if SkyRocket doesnā€™t want to maintain it, perhaps Ardupilot should.

I do think there would be value for SkyRocket as well as the community if they were to maintain the existing project themselves and welcome community contributions beyond the initial development phase.

@Matt_M, What is the intention for the SkyRocketToys/Sonix project?

ā€“Brad

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Youā€™re exactly right, the SONIX was a GREAT venture into creating a cheap companion computer. Also, the APWeb is probably the best feature!

APWeb was ported over into the ardupilot repoā€¦but iā€™m not sure how much it is being updated.

By ā€œnot deadā€ I mean that when SkyViper decides to start building their 2019 models, youā€™ll probably start seeing activity in their again. So, perhaps then tridge will evaluate PR ideas to incorporate, if it is within scope of the contract.

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I hope to see a SkyViper/ArduPilot micro-FPV house-racer. Thatā€™s what Iā€™m after next :smiley:

One for the wife and I, where we can fall back to the EKF in Loiter/Stabilize if need be, and I can jump to Acro if Iā€™m feeling squirrely. Even better, if we fly outside and lose control/video, we can just let it RTH.

Thatā€™s perfection, right there. Plus I can tweak to my heartā€™s content.

I donā€™t think youā€™ll ever get a micro with RTHā€¦thatā€™ll require GPS.

However, I would LOVE to see opticalFlow integrated into the Micro. Those micros can be so hard to control, Iā€™d love one with the stability that they achieve in the Fury. Those sensors are getting so incredibly tiny and cheap, that is has to be possible.

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A bit portly for a houseracer, but coming very close to the ideal mark.

I think youā€™re right, for a pure indoor racer, OF/Sonar is far more important. I was thinking of a hybrid indoor/outdoor micro, which can stray a bit larger than a pure indoor one should.

Hi guys,
Yes, there are some new lidar and OF sensors that are very small. Would fit on a micro. They arenā€™t great outdoors, but would be perfect inside. Thereā€™s some discussion about the min the 3.6 section of the forum. Iā€™d imagine it wonā€™t be long before similar sensors are released that do work well indoors and outdoors.

GPS is working great on my microcopter. Iā€™ve been programming missions and having no problems. I usually have 12-18 satellites. More when Iā€™m up high.

As far as micros being hard to controlā€¦ I have been flying daily for the past year, and progressed from constant crashes and rebuilding, to now Iā€™m flying through abandoned houses and into covered creeks (concrete creeks in urban areas) and all sorts of crazy places I could lose my copter, and donā€™t ever crash anymore. All manual flying. It just takes practice. Then once you can do it, itā€™s great fun! It really puts me in a good mood after I fly for 5-10 minutes.

Iā€™m not going fast, but still, scary place to flyā€¦

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Move the components from a Nano SV over to the small Whoop frame. Stability gain and removable longer flight time battery make it worth the effort. I added larger motors and tri-blade props. One of my favorites to fly.

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How about implementing a RTH feature by monitoring the radio signal strength. Sort of how Tridge implemented binding of nearby drone and receiver, just in this case the drone will try to move in the direction of stronger signal by flying in small circles / turning. When the signal is strong enough for reliable flying it will just stay there waiting for the input from the controller.
Could it work?

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Okay, got a new journey. Flies great I have been all over my 60 acre farm with it all from the driveway. Canā€™t get the phone to show anything even though it connects, and when I get it back and pull the sd card, no movie. Any help would be appreciated.

@mikeathley

While your flying, do you press the left shoulder bumper ā€œvideoā€?

Also have you done the initial firmware updates when you first started up the drone? If not that may be a very good reason to why you do not have video feed on your phone.

Another thing to check is if the sky viper 2.0 app has an update.

Just a thought, best of luck

Aloha Matt_M! After seeing your Pioneer refit, have you ever seen the Wingsland S6? Iā€™ve been playing w/them since they dropped to $129.00. It has a flowhold camera and ultrasonic sensors. Still a very small product but brushless. I wonder, could you do the same with it? Swap the DJI sensor and Wingsland VTX to use the app? IDK, but would be happy to use my own radio if necessary. Use the app for osd/vid/fpv? Just a thought. Happy New Year! se

Matt: When you get around to using waypoints, consider curved flight lines (Gently Curved, Convergent, Non-traditional Drone Flight Paths) to mitigate the systematic SfM doming (elevation) error. Iā€™ll try to upload an example

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