Starting from the ground up

[Coyote]

Hi guys, well i decided that now im for financially stable that i could make a Ground Station the way i wanted, not how my pocket dictated. So it made sense to start from the ground up.

So here comes another ground station :)

Im still a big fan of lightweight, practical and easy to carry tripod based ground stations. So im doing another one.

This time round im using only two parts of my other ground stations, the Emprex recorder and the video splitter. Apart from that its all new kit.

Onboard will be :  

Myflydream Antenna Tracker - The EZ Antenna tracker was giving up the ghost, the GWS servos on sale were all cheap copies and naff, if it wasnt loosing audio and stopping tracking the cheap copy GSW`s were failing, so in the bin it goes !
7" Monitor - No JDX tiny screen anymore, a permenant screen large enough to see OSD and for passengers to get a much better view
Emprex recorder - It does a pretty good job for the price and never misses a beat
5.8ghz 13dbi Patch - More than enough range and a small compact size
ImmersionRC 5800 DUO rx - The best 5.8ghz rx on the market, with diversity built in, this means i can compare patches / helical etc side by side on the tracker
Skew-Planar secondary antenna - The best ground based rx antenna for 5.8ghz
8 Way Video Splitter - The best ive tried so far and at only £10 a great little unit
Heavy duty tripod - I like my tripods to have a flat front to the legs, it makes mounting the equipment so much easier
2.4ghz vdeo link to FatShark Dominators

So the MyFlyDream came today, after a quick glance over and a quick test i really like this unit. Unfortunatly with the antenna i was planning to throw around on it i think its too much weight and too limiting on the tracker to continue, so im going to go with a 13 dbi patch instead. So ill have to wait to get the patch on there, the MyFlyDream ill post pictures of in daylight tomorrow.

Todays little task was practicality. With a tripod theres not much useable space to mount equipment, but the more simple the better. Having said that i had extra features to be added but still needed it to be practical so a bit of forward thinking required. The monitor for example was going to need a strong sturdy mount, but being 7" would take up a lot of leg room, so i set about space saving :)

The monitor :



£25 ebay special, that comes highly recommended by Shikra from on here. Its a tidy little unit, 2 video in plugs, a surround, remote and mounts. The picture on it is really good so i bought that

To save the space, but have my buttons to hand, i decided to mount the monitor on top of the Emprex recorder.



The top two thirds have no buttons or access required so it became a good candidate for overlap.

The monitor has this metal bracket on the rear for one of the swivel mounts, handy for a mount, but also very handy for the next step



Remove the bracket and you free up a little room, and whats more, you have 4 mounting holes now available to fix the monitor onto.



As an added bonus, the now removed bracket, conveniantly is now a stencil for marking holes up on the Emprex :)

I took the Emprex front cover off, offered the bracket up to it, made sure that none of the potential screws would interfere with the Emprex`s hardware and marked the holes and drilled them out



And there you go, you could then put the Emprex cover back on and job done. The monitor and Emprex though has a lot of wires, especially the monitor with meters of cables



I cut all the cables, mounted the Bec supplying the Emprex inside the monitors cover and joined the 12v supplies and hardwired the AV 1 in. This then meant no cables to hide, no unsightly cables on the outside and only one wire ( 12v and 0v ) coming from the two units



The Emprex requires one AV in, which will be plugged in once on the tripod, but apart from that, give it power and thats it :)




Here`s a run down of parts used as requested :

MyFlyDream
Emprex BPR 101
Monitor
Tripod
Video Splitter
10mw 2.4ghz Vtx

[Devonian]

Why use diversity with the MyFlyDream tracker?  IMHO, best bang for 5.8GHz is a Skew-Planar (or Cloverleaf) on the VTx and Helical on the VRx tracker.

Immersion Duo uses Airwave modules, and although pretty good, the best (in terms of sensitivity) for 5.8GHz is the Sky-RF modules (as sold by FoxTech-FPV and others and often has 'RC305' on the VRx).
The Sky-RF modules have -3dBm to -5dBm more sensitivity and that equates to at least the equivilant of doubling the VTx power output ;)

Sorry for the 'negative' comments, but as you are starting afresh...

Nigel.

[skyscraper]

Hi guys, well i decided that now im for financially stable that i could make a Ground Station the way i wanted, not how my pocket dictated. So it made sense to start from the ground up.

So here comes another ground station :)

That looks very neat!. The monitor is I believe exactly the same as the one I got on Ebay, which I currently use as an alternative to goggles. It does come with a lot of wires but they terminate in a 8 pin mini din connector. I got a chassis socket for this from Maplin and discarded the original wiring harness to my spares box. (You hace to be careful as there are a couple of different 8 pin min din styles.. consult wikipedia)

I wish I had seen the recorder. I have ordered a chinese one off Ebay with no idea if it will be any good or not.

Guess I should post some pictures of my ground setup ...

regards
Andy

[skyscraper]

[...]

the best (in terms of sensitivity) for 5.8GHz is the Sky-RF modules (as sold by FoxTech-FPV and others and often has 'RC305' on the VRx).
Nigel.

The RC305 sends on different frequencies to Airwave each side of 5.8 GHz. Are these legal in UK. I was under the impression that they werent?

regards
Andy Little

[Coyote]

Hi Nigel, the reason for the duo is flexibility to try out other antennas side by side on the tracker. The rc305 is not on approved ISM channels, but I have tried and got one here. The picture quaily from the rfsky gear is rubbish compared to immersion. With 23 dbi of patch to try out the 3dbi won't be missed but the quality would.

[FPVSteve]

This is yet another one of those threads that I can learn a load from... Nice one Ian, looking great.

[Coyote]

Well here`s the MyFlyDream, its not on the actual tripod yet ( still waiting on its arrival )

         

Im pretty impressed all round wth this unit, its very well put together, which s refreshing with some dubious work being presented from manufactorers recently. Well packaged, the servo feels very strong and its pretty easy to use. To actually fly with you cant get much easier, changing settings doesnt need to be done often at all

The patch and the Duo will be mounted up here so no more wrapping of cables whoop whoop !!!

[g.collins]

nice one Ian, mine is still in its box, I will get it together one day.
;) G

[Coyote]

Well the tripods arrived ! :)

Its not as heavy duty as i was expecting, but fine for the job so i can begin



I went for a black look this time, so should look nice, added the MyFlyDeam ATT and epoxied the control box on
Next the Monitor mounted on the Emprex went onto the main leg, epoxied and cable tied this time

       

Next the Monitor mounted on the Emprex went onto the main leg, epoxied and cable tied this time

       
So far so good :)

[BlueFlyer]

proper jealous mate, looks good with the monitor on there and the tracker up top.

[Coyote]

Cheers :)

Next cool mod :

Im going to get some Fatshark dominators tomorrow ( today actually ) and one thing i hated was wires everywhere, hense the MyFlyDream really, slip ring no wires, so one of the reasons for picking the dominators was the rf board option of wireless conectivity.

Then i stumbled on a great idea on RCGroups of all places !

Make the MFD transmit wirelessly instead of clamping a vtx to the tripod :)

I opened the MDF, located the 12v pin, 0v Video out and Audio pin.



I then tapped these pins and took them to a 10 mw Uk legal Fatshark vtx.



I removed the vtx antenna and extended it and made a di-pole so its located outside the the MDF case.



Im hoping that being so close to it the pictures fine with the tracker in all orientation, and the 10mw vtx doesnt get too hot in there, but at only 10mw im thinking it wont generate much heat at all tbh

[Devonian]

Looking good Ian.

On a side note, I'm sure I have found a way to put the Sky-RF (RC305) 5.8GHz VTx and VRx onto the correct frequencies for UK use.
'Simple' mod will give (you need to be comfortable soldering SMD components)
5725 5745 5765 5785 5805 5825 5845 5865
Not the same as Airwave, so they can't be used in combination (5MHz difference per channel).

Testing over the festive season to confirm after I mod mine...
I'll make a seperate post when I'm done and if I'm right.

Sorry Ian, back on thread.

Nigel.

[Miles]

Looks great Ian :)
Only thought is that the VTX will get quite hot, so you will need a external heatsink or airflow if you don;t want it to release its magic smoke ;)

[Coyote]

Hi Nigel, yeah ive read the convo on rcg your having with Markus, loving the soldering machine :)

Hi Miles, yeah the jury is out wether it will get too hot, but only being 10mw i think it will be fine

[Miles]

OK, but my one of that VTX got quite warm after 5 mins of running with no airflow. I used an old computer fan to cool it, doesn;t need much but it will overheat if it has nothing.