FPV system

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vonKlutch

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I was wondering if some of you veterans can give me a little information of what the best video system is for a 250 racer.

Forgive my lack of jargon, but I'm basically looking to do a budget build, except when it comes to the control/video. I dont want to have a system that loses signal when I go around a building, and I dont want to be staring at static the whole time. I think I'm going with the Taranis as it seems to be the most common system I see.


Any thoughts?
 
vonKlutch said:
crap i just noticed there's a section for this. sorry
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Yep, there is and you're in one of them hahahaha. First builds are better off in this section, as though it might be a 250 racing build the builder is going to be a novice and will need a little extra help.

The Taranis is one of the better systems and VERY upgradable, and firmware upgrades continue to push the hardware to have more and more features. I'm writing something for Oscar Liang that involved research into the Taranis radio and have been impressed enough that I'm going to be buying one here soon myself hahahaha.

As for penetrating buildings it really depends on the type of building, concrete generally has a lot of steel in it (concrete is just a brace and form to hold steel and gets all of it's strength from steel), this steel and concrete really do a number on your signal's ability to penetrate. There are a couple options, one of which is an anteana tracker with a high gain anteana. The anteana is far more sensitive to the variations to the signal, but as a result is more directional, enough so that you can lose signal if you go outside of the area that the anteana is focused toward.
 
I'm not sure I understand what the tacker does. Is this a different type of anteana or an addon?

very noob here. My day job is welding so I understand the structural stuff but you lost me with the other stuff lol.
 
vonKlutch said:
I'm not sure I understand what the tacker does. Is this a different type of anteana or an addon?

very noob here. My day job is welding so I understand the structural stuff but you lost me with the other stuff lol.
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Typo hahaa sorry. Should have said tracker, it is a little servo driven mount that your antennas are always facing toward the quadcopter

Do you have any info on the buildings you'd plan to fly around?
 
Nothing specific, just trying to make the right choices when it comes to reception right off the hop. would be some mad to have a signal thats dropping or FPV thats just static. I'd like the clearest picture possible.

Only thing I can think i'd fly through or around are barns, maybe old abandoned construction like cement and the like. and Parking garages? maybe do some cool videos. Also trees. I really like the idea of racing around through the bush.
 
As far as the FPV, you are not alone. I've been trying to fly through wooded trails. Originally I was hoping for a 1000 yard range, and have since dropped that to about 400 yards and will probably have to drop my expectations even lower. I've tried several transmittors/cameras, 2 receivers and several antennas and so far the best antenna has been the helical and an omnidirectional with a diversity receiver. I also mounted it on a tripod with about a ten foot pole and I got a slight improvement with a as well. I don't know if 5.8ghz improves with height (still learning) but it could have something to do with ground reflection and it did seem to improve. There is a Cellular wireless skew- planer omnidirectional that's supposed to be pretty good, but I have not gotten to it yet. I have an Aomway omni directional that I intend on testing (if it ever stops raining), but Ive found so far that you pay a lot of money to experiment with minimal improvement when using 5.8ghz. I recently bought a 900mhz system to try, but the video is crappy and antenna options are limited because the antenna needs to be very large when tuned to 900mhz. more tuning and possibly a low pass filter or some other tweak will be needed to find the full potential of the 900Mhz system. So far I wasn't impressed with it and have since moved on to more quad builds for the time being but will get back to it as some point.

I think I understand what you want (I've seen the videos of guys flying awesome wooded trails) and I'm still wondering how people get the quality and range to fly those challenging and very wooded paths. Seems like there are only a few possiblities- 1) they have found the magic bullet combo that allows for such awesome flying. they have a ton of time and money into it and are not just going to give up the information. 2) They are exceptional pilots and can somehow fly through all the static and drop outs associated with 5.8ghz in highly wooded areas, at long range. 3) The idea has crossed my mind that they are 'doctored' videos that have been edited to appear as some long range highly forested adventure, that looks really cool but is not reality.

ETA- a 4th option is that they are not using 5.8ghz. If you are in the us you are limited to 910mhz, 2.4 ghz and 5.8ghz. Anything else you need a HAM operators license. Which I may get at some point to continue experimenting.
 
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Altsickeness said:
As far as the FPV, you are not alone. I've been trying to fly through wooded trails. Originally I was hoping for a 1000 yard range, and have since dropped that to about 400 yards and will probably have to drop my expectations even lower. I've tried several transmittors/cameras, 2 receivers and several antennas and so far the best antenna has been the helical and an omnidirectional with a diversity receiver. I also mounted it on a tripod with about a ten foot pole and I got a slight improvement with a as well. I don't know if 5.8ghz improves with height (still learning) but it could have something to do with ground reflection and it did seem to improve. There is a Cellular wireless skew- planer omnidirectional that's supposed to be pretty good, but I have not gotten to it yet. I have an Aomway omni directional that I intend on testing (if it ever stops raining), but Ive found so far that you pay a lot of money to experiment with minimal improvement when using 5.8ghz. I recently bought a 900mhz system to try, but the video is crappy and antenna options are limited because the antenna needs to be very large when tuned to 900mhz. more tuning and possibly a low pass filter or some other tweak will be needed to find the full potential of the 900Mhz system. So far I wasn't impressed with it and have since moved on to more quad builds for the time being but will get back to it as some point.

I think I understand what you want (I've seen the videos of guys flying awesome wooded trails) and I'm still wondering how people get the quality and range to fly those challenging and very wooded paths. Seems like there are only a few possiblities- 1) they have found the magic bullet combo that allows for such awesome flying. they have a ton of time and money into it and are not just going to give up the information. 2) They are exceptional pilots and can somehow fly through all the static and drop outs associated with 5.8ghz in highly wooded areas, at long range. 3) The idea has crossed my mind that they are 'doctored' videos that have been edited to appear as some long range highly forested adventure, that looks really cool but is not reality.

ETA- a 4th option is that they are not using 5.8ghz. If you are in the us you are limited to 910mhz, 2.4 ghz and 5.8ghz. Anything else you need a HAM operators license. Which I may get at some point to continue experimenting.
Click to expand...

You legally are supposed to have a HAM for modification of any of our radio equipment, and for equipment without that handy FCC ID on it. Can't say I remember the last to me someone was prosecuted for non-disruptive, non-commercial use of RF, but I might be wrong.

Multipath propagation is hard to fight with 5.8gHz in a wooded area, but polarized antennas really can help. I'd strongly suggest using two types of polarization and diversity.

2000px-Multipath_propagation_diagram_en.svg.png


http://www.slideshare.net/s4h4rr/diversity-techniques-for-wireless-communication-42991111
http://www.slideshare.net/ishanegi35/antennas-wave-and-propagation
 
Im using right hand polarized Omni and a right hand helical. would you say that's the best I can get? Or are you saying something left hand polarized with something right hand polarized? I'm also wondering about the FCC sticker. The only thing that I own with one on it is my Radiolink TX. None of my VTX transmitters or cameras, or control rx stuff has a sticker on it. I'll probably get a HAM at some point anyway, so I can get into other frequencies.

Thanks for the links and graphic. More studying!
 
http://www.getfpv.com/connex-mini-hd-fpv-for-drone-racing.html

Digital... No snow (theoretically) though if you happen to mostly lose signal then no lower quality white noise to kinda see your way around, it would likely result in a crash.


EMI_cables_Analog_digital.jpg


wireless_signals.png

analogdigital.jpg


As you see using digital may be able to get arid a lot of quality problems, but may introduce some range problems. I bet you could flash a transmitter and receiver to use a digital encoding to accomplish a similar thing, but with more latency.
 
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