Friday, April 29, 2016

Dominator V2 upgrade - lower resolution?


I just bought the Fatshark Dominator V2 DVR upgrade kit from ReadymadeRC - they weren't available in Aus at the time, but are now at NextFPV

After installing it, the video is now lower resolution...? Hunting for a config change or something - if anyone knows a fix please lmk


Old:

$ ffprobe /Volumes/NO\ NAME/DCIM/100DSCIM/PICT0193.AVI
Input #0, avi, from '/Volumes/NO NAME/DCIM/100DSCIM/PICT0193.AVI':
  Duration: 00:00:38.73, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 5854 kb/s
    Stream #0:0: Video: mjpeg (MJPG / 0x47504A4D), yuvj420p(pc, bt470bg/unknown/unknown), 720x480, 5098 kb/s, 25.04 fps, 25.04 tbr, 25.04 tbn, 25.04 tbc

    Stream #0:1: Audio: pcm_s16le ([1][0][0][0] / 0x0001), 44100 Hz, 1 channels, s16, 705 kb/s


New:
$ ffprobe /Volumes/NO\ NAME/DCIM/100DSCIM/PICT0194.AVI
Input #0, avi, from '/Volumes/NO NAME/DCIM/100DSCIM/PICT0194.AVI':
  Duration: 00:00:18.97, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 4324 kb/s
    Stream #0:0: Video: mjpeg (MJPG / 0x47504A4D), yuvj422p(pc, bt470bg/unknown/unknown), 640x480, 4130 kb/s, 24.83 fps, 24.83 tbr, 24.83 tbn, 24.83 tbc

    Stream #0:1: Audio: pcm_s16le ([1][0][0][0] / 0x0001), 8000 Hz, 1 channels, s16, 128 kb/s


Some photos:





Video from Team Legit on this upgrade is here


Saturday, April 9, 2016

LS210 build complete, stackable OSD w Naze

I finally got some time to build my LS210, using scrap parts of a 260 King Kong (RIP) with some new bits

This time I used the stackable OSD - that fits (albeit with soft-serial challenges noted below) cleanly on top of a naze32 - which I got from from NextFPV.

It has some challenges which confused me at first, where Cleanflight (running Betaflight) freezes up when you plug in the battery and power it, which is because of the stacking and connecting of the TX/RX pins - they share the UART, thus it locks up when USB is connected with a battery.




My solution was to solder wires to both the TX/RX on the Naze and OSD, then bring those out to the back and solder simple connectors on. So when i'm in the field I can plug in USB to the Naze with power for the OSD, and disconnect the wires. I thought of better solutions, such as just tune it and get the ESC/motors right, and OSD, then don't touch it unless it's de-stacked, but meh - this works.

You can see the wires out the back (left) below, yellow is the most obvious of the two




The bottom layer is actually the "5 in 1" PDB with low-power alarm, so this thing is carrying a bit of weight it could do without really, but that's all part of building and perfecting right?




This article (mentioned above) was handy, but read it in full! 
The bat pins are fine to solder and link, but the tx/rx confuse the Naze (as above) due to the soft-serial and uart giving grief. Repeating so people actually see this..

I'm running MWOSD, can't wait to put props on and actually see how it goes...


I also got a Foxeer HS1177 600tvl Sony CCD from Multirotorshop, who were awesome, as I had issues with the camera due to the "5v" out from the Eachine 200mW vtx actually giving 4.09v, meaning the camera appeared to be dead-on-arrival.. Swapped the power line over to 12v from the PDB (it takes 5-22v anyway), so i'll see how the power affects the signal interference wise, and potentially clean it up or adjust to suit.

I also found the front camera panel far better on the LS180, it fits better and the camera lens fits through rather than needing to take the lens out and file the tags down.. I hope my LS180 replacement frame (smashed the top plate) has the same style..

Final product:




LS210 (left) size comparison to the LS180 (right) - the advantage of the LS210 is obviously that it can run 5" props.. Shown here with a DAL T5040 5" prop on: