Drones

[kecked]

The drones I like best are Gregorian chants

I have piles of helicopters if anyone is interested. They are blades. I really got into them until I found out how hard they are to learn to fly. The description was balancing a ball bearing on the back of an upside down bowl. They were not kidding. Have never tried a multiblader. Sounds like fun though.

[norty303]

For control have a look at the FrSky Taranis and newer models. There is open source firmware called OpenTX (may have had a name change by now) for it which is very good, although when I was more involved was a lot of focus on sailplanes and soarers as we have a need for a lot of different flight modes and combined control surface movements.

I've got an old Turnigy 9x here that has been extensively modified actually which was sort of the predecessor to the Taranis.

[lasersbee]

But, if I am willing to store HD on board then am I able to transmit low res from the HD capable camera for framing? The HD camera would only align if the gimbals held the navigation and the HD camera, fixed, relative to each other.

Sure you could transmit a lower resolution image with a 5.8Ghz 32-40 channel Xmitter
for framing shots. Banggood has plenty of 200mW 5.8Ghz A/V Xmitters and Receivers
at reasonable prices.

Jerry

[planters]

You would need to fix such a camera to the gimbal. Anyone worked with the Zenmuse mounts?

[kecked]

If you have a ham radio license you have more options in the 1.9 ghz range as well as many other bands. There are tons of 1w transmitters for this range. Still like of sight. If you go to slow scan you can go beyond line of sight. Even the 800/900mhz range gets you started over the edge. I use 440mhz all the time for 10-20 miles at 5w but again it's slow scan.

[White-Light]

If you have a ham radio license you have more options in the 1.9 ghz range as well as many other bands. There are tons of 1w transmitters for this range. Still like of sight. If you go to slow scan you can go beyond line of sight. Even the 800/900mhz range gets you started over the edge. I use 440mhz all the time for 10-20 miles at 5w but again it's slow scan.

Are there dedicated channels though?

Long time since I was a HAM (around 30 yrs to be precise), but back then I think there were something like 2 channels reserved for data transmission and the rest were voice. Even then you couldn't guarantee someone wouldn't do voice in the data channels even though it was forbidden. The issue I see with using HAM frequencies for drones is unless there are now channels reserved for this (and respected), you could lose you drone if someone decides to come into the channel and broadcast voice or other data that interferes with the drones reception of commands.

[kecked]

I was just advocating it for the camera

[planters]

I like 433MHz and I plan on using tripod mounted Yagis. Why the restriction to slow scan? The data rate for control and even video should not pose a bandwidth issue. The old television frequencies were at 1/5 of this frequency.

It seems, if I am reading the description accurately, that I could initially build an entire system based on 2.4GHz for control and 5.8GHz for video and then later, I could plug in a 433 MHz Dragonlink converter for the the control and then use the 2.4GHz wifi from the camera with a booster and set up a moderate gain Yagi for each in order to extend the range.

I was reading about the new DJI A3 system. They have an option to add as many as two additional GPS units solely for redundancy. This suggests to me that they have determined that their "fly away" problems may be related to the GPS.

On the structural front, I am impressed with the carbon fiber tubes from Dragon plate that I have been testing (why all these dragons?). I have worked with composites in the past and even with carbon fiber, but it has always been hand lay up and at best with vacuum bagging. But, this high temperature, pressure cured, pre-fabricated material is spooky. I am building articulated joints for the arms and when stressed, these thin wall tubes will shear off the aluminum retaining pins in the joints.

Rock West made a video demonstrating their manufacturing and not surprisingly the carbon is stronger than aluminum, but notice the relative stiffness at about 50 seconds into the video.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKE...onUoqj7aLJs-Yw

[kecked]

Well last time I updated equipment was about 1990 or so.....

[kecked]

Wanted to make it complex?

Launch a drone that just sits on station up about 300 feet or so. Place a repeater onboard. Now your range is extended tremendously. AWAC style.
Beam microwaves up to it to keep its batteries charged. It can then send a maser out to charge the drone in flight. Let me know how it goes

repeater is not a bad idea but the rest was to be funny. Maybe use a helium balloon for the antenna and put a collinear array up for 2.4ghz. Should be substantial gain.
Power it from the ground and make the signal at the antenna for loss or use a downconverter to send the data back down the power leads. I did this for HRPT 1.9ghz to 37mhz downconvert.
Unless you want to fly miles from home base none of this is needed. I should add it is now illegal to go beyond line of sight without an FAA license for the craft. It falls out of the hobby use exemption.
I suspect the use of the repeater also violates ham radio rules for the control operator too. Was nice to dream up....