Building a multicopter part 2

In the last part I built a quadcopter that would work for LOS flying. In this I am going to document my addition of the FPV gear to that frame.

Parts list:

Camera - Runcam PZ0420 (with case, whoops)
Transmitter - Boscam ts832 (would buy a smaller one next time)
OSD - MinimOSD (not the kvmod version, whoops again)
Antennas - FatShark RHCP

FPV install

Here's the gear laid out

Some of these parts go on the quad. The rest is for the ground station.

Transmitter stuff plugged together.

Transmitter stuff and receiver plugged together. It's all working. Now to figure out how to lay it out on the frame.

This pic is kind of bad but so is my layout. I am not entirely sure how to make it all fit in such a way that I can also get to the rx/tx pins on the naze. I had the receiver in a spot where it would block any servo connector connected to the pin headers. I had to move the receiver forward.

It's kind of hard to tell here but there are 2 pins soldered on to the tx/rx pins on the naze. This will send information about the gyros, accelerometers, compass and mode to the OSD.

You can see here the receiver is attached to the top plate right under where the vibration dampeners are. It's attached both with double sided sticky tape and a zip tie.

The OSD is programmed up. and installed with double sided tape attached right to the video tx. I also have a post about how to program the minimOSD if you want to check it out. My camera, OSD, and vtx can all run on 12v so that's how it connects. This has the benefit of allowing the OSD direct access to the battery voltage for display. I don't need to connect up the voltage sense pins on the naze.

Here it is, I think, completed. The camera was attached to the front. I was dumb and accidentally bought a camera with the case which doesn't fit inside the frame. On the up side it will probably not break as easily as the bare board ones do.

I attached it with a zip tie underneath the lens and some double sided tape from the case to the top plate of the frame. It seems unlikely to move on its own. Though it is right out in front, in a perfect place to take the brunt of an impact. We'll see how it works.

As a bonus here's my goggles. I ordered the Quanum V2 from hobbyking in Hong Kong expecting it to take a month or so to arrive but somehow they got here in one day.

Hubsan X4 FPV

I got some small parts to put together a small 5.8 ghz video system to play around with. I attached it to my hubsan x4 like you see below.

I needed to solder on a JST plug to steal power from the main battery for the whole system. Other than that, it's all just rubber banded on.

The fit is REALLY tight. The props hit the camera wires or the antenna if they move slightly off so every crash requires a reset of all of the parts. I should look into transplanting all of the electronics to another frame.

UPDATE (2016-01-22):
I have changed the setup slightly... I now used double sided tape to attach the camera on top and the transmitter on bottom, The wires are wrapped around the body/arms.

None of the wires stick into the props... there is JUST BARELY enough space between the front props and the camera. I am experimenting with where to put the camera to give it a good angle to fly. This thing doesn't have acro mode so the "typical" up angle makes it always look at the sky. It needs to be a little further back than this pic has it. When I go full forward, I am just looking at the ground.

Here's a video of it flying... I dont have a way to capture the view from the onboard camera... yet...

Standalone mwosd on minimosd with FTDI USB interface

I have a minimosd (without the kvmod) that I wanted to play with and perhaps run on my fixed wing once I get confident enough to try some FPV. I decided first to try to get it running in standalone mode. This is how the minimosd works without a connection to a flight controller such as the naze32. In this mode, you can only get battery voltage overlay.

First thing is to bridge the 5v partitions. There are 2 pads (one front, one back) that you need to make sure there's a solder connection on.

Then plug the FTDI adapter into the minimosd according to the pinout. As you can see here, they just go straight through on this board.

Make sure you have the Arduino suite downloaded as well as MWOSD.

Then plug the adapter in to your USB port. It will add some drivers. Load up the arduino studio and open the MW_OSD.ino sketch from the MWOSD package you downloaded. In order to work in standalone mode you need to make a few changes in Config.h.

1) #define MINIMOSD

This is the OSD hardware line that should be uncommented.

2) #define NOCONTROLLER

This will get the board to work without a flight controller. If you are using a FC, choose the correct one here.

3) #define FIXEDWING

I am not sure what this does but from the code it looks like it has something to do with a compass/GPS mode.

That's it. Save this and flash it to the board. You'll use Arduino studio and have to select the proper com port and board type. Most likely "Arduino Pro or Pro Mini (5V,16MHz) w/ATmega328"

Now open the MW_OSD_GUI appropriate for your platform and select the correct com port. It should load your MWOSD settings.

First thing is to select and upload fonts (left side). It seems they get corrupted easily. I selected "Display Video Voltage" so that the video power feed is used to display the voltage. This is how you do battery overlay without a FC. If you plugged 5v in from the FC and 12v in from the video input you might burn out the board. There's a stepdown transformer between the 12v side and 5v side but it might blow up if it's fed in both directions. 

You need to play with a multimeter to find the right settings for the voltage adjust.

Unless you are using an FC, none of the "Displays" or "HUD" stuff will work. It needs the gyro and mode inputs to display anything. I really just forgot to turn them off in this pic.

You should also put your HAM callsign in there to legally transmit (I, like most people, am using 5.8 GHz for the video link). Make sure to save your settings.

Now plug it in between your camera and your video Tx. The image you receive on the receiver side should have the OSD overlay.

NOTE: The OSD telemetry and the USB by default both use UART1. If you want to be able to use cleanflight while the OSD is plugged in, you need to switch to UART2 and use the RC3/4 pins and have your receiver->FC in PPM mode.

NOTE 2: Also, powering the board using the bridge from the 12v side is not how it is intended to be used. You are meant to power from the 5v side with the bridge and then have the 12v power not plugged in to that side of the board. That said, it does appear to work for me and I haven't burned it out (yet).