Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Cong Do on July 27, 2012 at 11:56pm

Hi, 

Could some one tell me how fast this little toy can operate and at what W.

My order for the DNT900 is coming in a week times. But they have restriction, running 500kb/s you are allow 85mW.

Thanks,

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Permalink Reply by Jake Stew on July 29, 2012 at 12:32am

Look up the specs right from the source if you want to know details about the chip.  

Info page...

http://www.silabs.com/products/wireless/wirelessmcu/Pages/Si1000.aspx

Datasheet...

http://www.silabs.com/Support%20Documents/TechnicalDocs/Si1000.pdf

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Permalink Reply by davidbuzz on July 29, 2012 at 7:47pm

The specs Jake provided are for the raw si1000 radio chip.... but the RFD900 has a power amplifier and very high-gain amplifier on-board as well..... in summary it is:  1 Watt (+30dBm) transmit power, and air speed as high as 250kbps ( serial data rates as high as 115200), configuration dependent, of course.    typical usage for telemetry is with air rate at 64kbps, and data rate at 57600, for better range and lower error rates.

Details are here:  http://rfdesign.com.au/index.php/rfd900

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Permalink Reply by Delfin Magote III on July 28, 2012 at 12:17am

How's the RCLink going? We will be using this for long range telemetry and RCLink would be a great addition. Good results so far from the tests you've done. 

By the way, what is the best or recommended setup for this?

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Permalink Reply by Delfin Magote III on August 4, 2012 at 8:47am

Are the RFD900 ready for purchase? we will be using it here in the Philippines. The allowed frequency is 915-928 MHz. I'm not sure when, but my friend will soon be purchasing it since I already gave her the link,

RCLink is just a firmware update right? maybe i'll just update the firmware after the development is finished, though we could just use the Joystick control from mission planner for the meantime.

Looking forward to the RFD900. :)

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Permalink Reply by Seppo on August 4, 2012 at 6:45pm

Hello Delfin,

Yes, RFD900s are available on the web store: http://store.rfdesign.com.au

We have complete bundles with antennas, ftdi cables, regulators, to make integration easier.

RCLink, is in the "not-so-stealth-development-mode", It is a separate board which screws together with an RFD900, providing 12 channels of RC PWM IO and PPM IO ports.  As it gets closer to release will make some more announcements :)   -- It will be designed to fix with current RFD900 boards so you can have great telemetry now and soon, ultra long range RC control !

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Permalink Reply by Delfin Magote III on August 5, 2012 at 5:01am

Ah. So will it operate on the frequency of the RFD900? Good news though. 

I haven't received confirmation of the purchase from my friend but she already started buying all of our needed stuffs.

For orders here in the Philippines, please lock the frequency to 915-928 MHz.

Thanks.

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Permalink Reply by Michal on August 13, 2012 at 2:25am

What is the reason RCLink is done on external board? Is it not posible to implement it in SI1002 directly, only thru firmware upgrade? At least PPM in and out, due to low pin count? 

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Permalink Reply by davidbuzz on August 13, 2012 at 2:38am

I suspect the si1000 chip is already very busy doing all the other things the software supports, but since the entire source-code is Open Source, you can feel free to roll up your sleeves and get involved in making the code better!

* SiK firmware: https://github.com/RFDesign/SiK

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Permalink Reply by James Churchill on August 13, 2012 at 5:47am

The current featureset for RCLink (not fully disclosed yet, there are some surprises) is already easily too much for the remaining spare capacity of the RFD900's processor.

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Permalink Reply by Seppo on August 7, 2012 at 5:43am

How to cook and freeze a modem.

The RFD900 modems are specified from -40 to +85 deg C.  This was tested, and performance across this range was verified prior to release.  But, we wondered how far can they *really* operate?

Setting the radios to transmit at full power (1 Watt), continuous spam of data, with duty cycle thermal limiting turned off we ran them through our environmental chamber.

Going cold, we got to -73 degC before we started to reach chamber lower limits, and the radios were happily sending data.  The radio was allowed to cold soak at -73 for 30 mins, then turned on and blasted at full power. -- No issues were seen!

Going hot, we had the radio transmitting at full power, while stepping up in 10 degree increments.

At 120 deg C things were all fine, on the way up to 130 deg C, the radio dropped link at 125 degC.  Ramping back down, the RFD900 locked on and recovered a full power link cooling through 123 deg C or so.  

Running through performance tests back at room temperature, no adverse effects were noted from the extreme temperature torture :)

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Permalink Reply by Cong Do on August 11, 2012 at 3:24am

I just got my DNT900 yesterday, It's pretty dam easy to set-up and get going.

Pretty impress it did 500-600 Meters.

The base station was inside a house on the bottom of the hill operating at 1watts.

Both the transmitter had the Quarter wave monopole.

I was walking uphill around the the suburb fill with trees and buildings.

 

It's going to be fun testing RFD900 out in the open.

 

I notice there are 6 GPIO, do I program the GPIO via the firmware?

I have a 1.5GHz Toy that I want to connect to this transceiver but it's logic is 3.3V. Is it possible to alter the serial of the RFD900 to work at 3.3. If not I would need ones of these right http://www.adafruit.com/products/395

Thanks,

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