RC Model Reviews

Thanks, rogueqd, that was the most incredibly useful reply. Really, it's the sort of thing that makes this forum so great.

Hopefully I can respond in kind with some useful advice for people who want to modify their original FatSharks base models to give a better image, especially for people like me who wear glasses (and have bad astigmatism in one eye).

On topic. I have my AXN all set to go for FPV tomorrow, though without the circular polarised antennas unfortunately, as I was sent the wrong polarity sma connectors. Meh, I'll just have to fly close for now.

I have a pan/tilt camera set-up (mounted on foam in place of the canopy) and I have to say that three things struck me straight away.

Firstly, the picture is a damn sight better when both Tx and Rx are tuned to the same channel (duh!!!).

Secondly, operating the pan/tilt head via the pots on the Turnigy 9x is beyond spooky. Watching it work with goggles off was hilarious, and made the AXN look all robot-like...kinda unsettling.

Thirdly, looking at yourself through the goggles is weird too, plus, checking it out through its full range of angles made me get a bit air-sick.... and I was still on the ground!

The connectors on the Hobby King video gear are reversed from industry standard. Get some SMA female jack To RP-SMA plug adapters.

To minimize my controls I put tilt on a pot (I just set the horizon before take off) and reprogrammed my rudder control to pan. I mixed a bit of rudder in to my ailerons just so the servo still did something.

The pan/tilt made you airsick? Better pack a paper bag for your FPV maiden.

What I've done is set up some tricky mixes (on the 9x).
Flicking the top of two switches on the left changes the rudder control to pan control and vice versa.
Flicking the top switch on the left next to P3 takes the tilt from a static position to whatever P3 is set to. Can take a screenshot if anyone wants to know how

Was going to go FPV flying yesterday afternoon, but my pan servo broke and I didn't get time to fix it

Cheers
Chris

rogueqd wrote:The connectors on the Hobby King video gear are reversed from industry standard. Get some SMA female jack To RP-SMA plug adapters.

Yeah, I already knew that the sma's on the Tx and Rx were reverse polarity. I managed to get some straight rp sma's at Jaycar but they had no right angle rp connectors nor any adaptors. So I ordered some right angle rp sma's online and got standard ones instead.

rogueqd wrote:To minimize my controls I put tilt on a pot (I just set the horizon before take off) and reprogrammed my rudder control to pan. I mixed a bit of rudder in to my ailerons just so the servo still did something.

Nice idea. There are lots of ways to go with the 9x Tx and ER9x. I find I can reach both top pots for pan and tilt, with my thumbs still on the sticks, so I'll go with those for now. Another mix that I might try is using a switch to convert the left stick from elevator/rudder to elevator plus aileron and then use then right stick for pan and tilt, plus a pot for throttle (this is on a mode 1 radio). Alternatively I could fly FPV with my spare 9x and use Mode 2 with the left stick switchable for pan/tilt, again with a pot for throttle. Just switch back to normal layout for launch and landings.

rogueqd wrote:The pan/tilt made you airsick? Better pack a paper bag for your FPV maiden.

The last time I was sick on a plane was in 1954 on a DC3 flight from Melbourne to Hobart, when I added a pizza island to the map of the world on the cockpit firewall. As a sailor, I'm usually the last man with his cookies in place, so I'll be OK (I hope) it was just the lurch of the pan tilt head that gave me a small wave of vertigo.

Bruce, will the diversity module also be compatible with the standard hk 5.8ghz video receivers or just with the diy ones?
Also have you maybe found a 5.8ghz "rf chip" that has higher output power, for example 500mW? Do you plan to make such a slightly higher powered design version also?

I believe the newer Dominator* goggles use glass lenses, but I bet they are just simple magnifiers, instead of coated cemented doublets (let alone properly designed eye-pieces). I'm going to pull my Fatsharks apart and replace the optics with something much better, once I find out the size of the LCD panels and the focal length I need to image them properly. The image of the panels (if not the content) should be sharp as a tack, without any blue fringes or other rubbish, like I get now. Also with replacement eye-pieces I can set the magnification and thus the field of view to what I want.

* Edit: Useless for me anyway, because they don't have inter-pupil adjustment, which I must have.

Hi new here!

Sid, apologies for bringing up such an old quote, but I have a similar IPD problem, does anyone know how the lcd assemblies are mounted on the FatShark Dominators?
Basically is it possible to modify to make them adjustable?, or are they part of the molding.

Bruce, Following your "FPV made easy" series, with interest.

Would it be jumping the gun to ask the type and supplier of the tx rf module you used in the backpack?
Getting stuff here from the far east can be really slow and I don't want to be left behind on this one!!!

I'm trying to find a reliable supplier who won't suddenly go "out of stock" the moment the DIY project hits the web.

Hi Bruce, I would like to get into fpv but before spending out a lot of cash I would like to try something cheaper, in the uk we fly on 35megs & now 2.4ghz, I was wondering what your thoughts are on using 2.4ghz wireless spy camera etc, can buy these for around £50.00p in the uk, I know the range is very short 400yrds + but I feel that it would be better to test on a small scale to see if you like it first before spending out a lot of cash, perhaps you or somebody else can give me which set would be the best to get and with greatest range,bryon.

bryon6.wanadoo.co.uk wrote:Hi Bruce, I would like to get into fpv but before spending out a lot of cash I would like to try something cheaper, in the uk we fly on 35megs & now 2.4ghz, I was wondering what your thoughts are on using 2.4ghz wireless spy camera etc, can buy these for around £50.00p in the uk, I know the range is very short 400yrds + but I feel that it would be better to test on a small scale to see if you like it first before spending out a lot of cash, perhaps you or somebody else can give me which set would be the best to get and with greatest range,bryon.

Go to rcmodelreviews on youtube and watch Bruce's videos about the different cameras available...