My ground station... made out of an old shelf

Started by CurryKitten, June 20, 2012, 11:06:42 PM

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CurryKitten

June 20, 2012, 11:06:42 PM
I've had my vrx, separate lipo and wire attached to my radio tx up until now.  I liked to be able to move around with all my stuff, but just plugging the dominators in is a juggling act.  So I decided to build a very basic ground station.

I was talking to a colleague at work about the difficulty in finding a nut you could screw a tripod into, and hey managed to find one in his shed for me.  I went to B&Q to look for a small piece of plywood, but they only seem to sell it in 1mx2m strips.

So, sat in my garage for the last 10 years, was a cheap pine curved shelf that never got put up and never will.  So I sawed the middle bit out and decided to construct my ground station from it.

First thing I did was gouge out a hole to shove the nut in and glue that in place.  I drilled a few holes to hold some cable ties



Next, turned it over and stuck on some velcro strips



Then stuck on all the equipment I need.  The vrx, super-cheapo-dvr, 2 cell lipo, and an annoying amount of cabling (hence the cable ties)



Then tried it on the tripod



It doesn't fall over, which was a pleasant surprise and the pines about an inch thick



Managed to get in the field for some flying today, and I'm a convert.  A few minutes to setup, but then I don't have to keep putting things down, and my radio is much lighter





Got that little cheap little panel antenna after breaking a skew and cloverleaf, but it performs really well so far

Funky Diver

#1
June 21, 2012, 09:47:40 AM
Hehe, recycling is truly the coolest way to go!

Looking good!

skyscraper

#2
June 21, 2012, 11:58:28 AM
Quote from: FD on June 21, 2012, 09:47:40 AM
Hehe, recycling is truly the coolest way to go!

Looking good!

Yep. I like to build stuff "Fast and Dirty" too. Looking Good!

Andy

Coyote

#3
June 21, 2012, 12:52:34 PM
Very inventive, looks nice and simple, neat and effective :)
Education and schoolin is good, but FPV is gooder :)

FPVSteve

#4
June 21, 2012, 03:53:20 PM
A timely post, my new tripod arrived today and I'm sure I have an old shelf ;D Hell I even have the same DVR :laugh:

Zeeflyboy

#5
June 21, 2012, 05:47:42 PM
Simple and effective... Nice job

pcnukem

#6
June 21, 2012, 09:22:33 PM
I like it but can you see the monitor ok in the sun?

CurryKitten

#7
June 22, 2012, 12:55:37 AM
Quote from: pcnukem on June 21, 2012, 09:22:33 PM
I like it but can you see the monitor ok in the sun?

The little DVR is just there to record.  So I can see enough to check if it's getting a picture and if it's recording (I can cup my hands around it if I need to), but it wouldn't be really possible to fly with it.  The other video output of the vrx connects to my goggles.  Perhaps I can build a little sun shade though, just in case a passer-by wants to see what I'm up to

pcnukem

#8
June 22, 2012, 08:50:01 AM
Good idea to record your flights from a ground station, I think someone ran off with my plane on tuesday.  G.man and I were out flying on a massive hill, my plane went down the other side of the hill less than 100 meters away, we expected to just go over the brow of the hill and see it but nothing.
We surched for about 2 hrs and Gordon flew over the whole area with his video pointing down, very clear video you could see every flower, branches and piece of rubbish so you would have seen a pink and white plane.
On watching Gordon's video "Newlyn Quarry" Just as he's coming into land you can see someone the other side of the hill where my plane went down less than 5 mins later.  So if i had a recording ground station I would have seen what happened to it.

CurryKitten

#9
June 22, 2012, 10:01:22 AM
God, that's rough, I'm really sorry to hear about your plane.  Yep, the main reason for the recording is to record it's position just in case.  The OSD has the GPS co-ordinates on the screen at all times, although so far, all I've needed (in my limited range) is a vague feeling of the direction and the lost model beeper.

*sigh* just when faith in humanity is restored a little with dirtyharry getting his Tri back, you get someone literally picking your plane up and legging it. 

pcnukem

#10
June 22, 2012, 10:08:55 AM
Can you give me a link where you got your pvr, thanks.

CurryKitten

#11
June 22, 2012, 11:00:19 AM
Got my DVR here http://www.newmp3technology.com/av25.htm it's low res (320x240) but you can see stuff well enough, and it's only £25.  Be aware though that the online retailer is best described as hit or miss.  My unit inexplicably took about 10 days to get here.  Steve W got one first, and had all sorts of hassles with them.

pcnukem

#12
June 22, 2012, 11:04:16 AM
Ok thanks Will take a look.

FPVSteve

#13
June 22, 2012, 11:11:32 AM
Yea it's good for the price (the recording isn't great at all but it works for testing your video link which is why I bought mine) - basically it's a 25 quid DVR.

Keep on top of the transaction though ;) Took a PayPal dispute for mine to arrive, they insisted it was coming from London but when the packaging label says "Belgium" I realised they'd been economical with the truth yet again...
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