FPV setup. What to use??? To many numbers, not enough knowlegde.

[phatfreddy]

Hi folks, I am sure this question has been asked before but I cant find it, please excuse the newbie

I have a DJI550 with naza and GPS on the way to me. I have gone for a Spektrum DX8 & AR800 on advice, I hope it was right.

I have played around with a friends quad with my GoPro slapped onto it and got some nice results, so would like to venture into FPV; this is where the problems start. I have read so many different things and watched so many YouTube videos that I think my head might explode.

What I am thinking of so far is as follows, I am sure my lack of knowledge will shine through here so please, any help would be greatly appreciated.

I was thinking of using a 5.8Ghz setup (based on what seems popular) with a 500mW transmitter (not that I know the difference between, 200, 500, 600 etc) with a skew planar wheel antenna, and two receivers, one running the skew planar, the other using a high gain panel antenna, through an Eagle Eyes ground station for diversity. The intention would be to be able to use either a screen or FPV goggles, the FatShark look favourite, and to use the GoPro as the FPV camera at the same time as it is recording to its SD card.

Please be gentle with me, as I said, i have read so much that I am more than a little confused

Thanks

 

[Malcr001]

Spektrum gear is rubbish pretty much every FPV'er will tell you this. When I first went FPV'ing at this particular field my heli failed to bind and spooled up by itself flew into a bush. Obviously some nearby building must have been blasting on 2.4ghz.

5.8ghz is gaining popularity for some reason. Possibly because the antennas are small, I used to have 5.8ghz gear but I hated how it couldent penetrate through anything as well as the fact that at the time it suffered a lot from multipathing issues.

Again this comes down to a personal preference but I'm a lot more happier with 1.3ghz which cost a fraction of the price compared to my iftron gear.

I'm not going to go into the issues with using your gopro cam as the FPV cam as this often divides readers on whether its a good thing to do or not.

Nothing sounds wrong with using a SPW and a patch antenna with an eagle eyes diversity reciever.

 

[phatfreddy]

Hi Malcr001, thanks for the reply. Shame about the Spectrum, it is literally on its way! :upset: Great info on the 1.3 though, especially if it is cheaper. Adding a small dedicated FPV camera is probably not a major issue if it is a better idea.

 

[Malcr001]

Hi Malcr001, thanks for the reply. Shame about the Spectrum, it is literally on its way! :upset: Great info on the 1.3 though, especially if it is cheaper. Adding a small dedicated FPV camera is probably not a major issue if it is a better idea.

You need to be careful with cheap chinese 1.3ghz vtx's. Pretty much every 1.3ghz vtx out there isnt perfect but a good place to buy them is readymaderc.com as Tim tests them himself.

I have spektrum gear but what I do now is I'm using the ezUHF so I'm no longer operating on 2.4ghz. This means you can still use the spektrum tx but for my DX7 I needed to open it up and create a connector. You aparently dont need to do this with the DX8 (just use the trainer port).

 

[kloner]

you have to buy a 2.4 radio to fly any of the aftermarket lrs systems so no money really wasted. You'll have an ar8000 to sell though if you get into it. You'll see 2000ish feet, with a naza setup right is to hit failsafe and that flattens it out, you just want to make sure to not have the best possible stance so you can turn around, reach up, something to get it to listen to ya again

I too went through the 5.8 but have gone to 1.3 after getting into it. has so much better penetration. 5.8 a blade of grass will litteraly screw up the view, make junk. 1.3 goes behind buildings and never blinks. The availability of the components is a lot better too. I went with the new ready made digital rx with the saw filter, think runs $70 and it has as good if not better picture than the 5.8. Audio isn't as nice, but i don't use that anyways.

I went down the road your talking with a diversity rx, spw and patch, just not a good way to do it. If you wanted to use something without tracking, your better off with something like a crosshair on one and a helical on the other or just 2 helicals side by side offset by there beam width so instead of 20-40 degrees, you cover 80 degrees out in front of ya. IBcrazy, the guy that made up all this rhcp stuff used 2 helicals, one low gain, wide beam and one high gain narrow beam like these
http://www.readymaderc.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=11_45_49&products_id=937
http://www.readymaderc.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=11_45_49&products_id=936
or
http://www.circular-wireless.com/en/products-page/helical-modo-axial/heliaxial58/

my rx is this one
http://www.readymaderc.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=11_34_44&products_id=911
but they have these too
http://www.readymaderc.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=11_34_44&products_id=912

or if you are a lawmate guy
http://www.readymaderc.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=11_34_44&products_id=1020
http://www.readymaderc.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=11_34_44&products_id=1015

the saw filter gives it more gain and a clearer picture. Tim from RMRC and IBcrazy both say the digital one is the buy of the year.

depending what system you get and how ambitious you are in the wiring depends what go pro cable you'd use.
http://www.readymaderc.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=11_34_44&products_id=1015

i personally use it for live feed and recording. Problem is i want 960p for flying, but 1080p for making movies. 960 is a 4:3 and shows top and bottom by probably 1/4 more to see, pretty big in a quad

 

[RTRyder]

If you're just starting out then Spektrum with 5.8 will work fine for now. Sunday I was out flying and got out to over 1900 feet horizintally and 360 feet vertically with perfectly clear video and no loss of signal on the Spektrum side of things. I will say that's pushing close to the limit for what you can do with 2.4 and the 5.8 gear, you pretty much need a clear line of sight to get those kinds of distances.

My new TBS Discovery build will have a 433mHz long range radio system and probably a 1.3 gHz video system, I want to be able to get out to a half mile and more reliably. Thing about FPV with multirotors is you're limited to half your flight time per battery for distance, you need to be aware of how far out you are and how long and how much power it's going to take to get back. Not a problem with a fixed wing FPV plane where you can get up to a decent altitude and then glide a long way. Long range with a multi requires a big battery and small light frame while being aware of power, distance, and flight time, otherwise you may want to stay fairly close to make sure you don't have to head out on a search and recovery mission in which case the 2.4 radio and 5.8 video gear is fine.

Ken

 

[phatfreddy]

Thanks so much for all of the help! Thanks for the links and info, brilliant to have so much experience on tap. I do actually have two GoPros, had to have the new Hero2 of course , so I could have them both on, they dont weight much and the batteries are great. I do have a couple of questiosn about the helicals you suggest. The links you gave took me to 5.8Ghz units, can these be used with the 1.3 RX, are they directional like the panel antenna and would I run the two through a diversity unit?

 

[phatfreddy]

Thanks Ken, everyone has been so helpful, I am glad this site was recommended to me. I think initially at least it is looking like I will be sticking with my Spektrum gear, until I get a few more hours of flying in anyway, but it seems that 1.3Ghz is the way to go for me. The DJI550 I have bought has the GPS unit on it with return to home, will that mean it will know when to head home battery wise or is that only in cases of it heading out of range?

 

[kloner]

http://www.readymaderc.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=11_45_52&products_id=884

http://www.readymaderc.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=11_45_52&products_id=475

i just posted a picture of my ground station, that is this
http://www.readymaderc.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=11_45_52&products_id=823
i really like it. if your gonna go in, i'd recomend tracking and a single rx, don't worry about diversity. everytime they switch form one to the other it makes junk, kinda annoying, especialy when you got something like spw and a patch cause unless your a couple miles out it is constantly switching back and forth.

I just got out of a diversity rx and couldn't be happier