Comment by Alonso Rodriguez on July 11, 2012 at 11:47am

I wonder if this controller can be modified to use the 3DR radios instead.

Comment by Hans Cappelle on July 11, 2012 at 12:35pm

I don't really see the advantage of this? You can easily combine standard (and very cheap) 2.4GHz radio's with arduino libraries that are available as is.

Design looks nice. Except maybe for comfort.

Developer Comment by R_Lefebvre on July 11, 2012 at 1:30pm

Yeah, this is really neat, except for the part about Xbees.  I'd be way too concerned about losing the model when (not if) the Xbee bricks, which seems to happen way too often.

Hans, can you link to any of these arduino projects?  I'd love to do something like that.  I wondered if it was possible to output to an FrSky Tx hack module.  Servo City has nice gimbals, just mount the whole thing in a nice laser cut aluminum case.

I've been trying to build a nice transmitter tray which my Tx will sit in anyway. I want something to rest my hands on so I can "pinch" the sticks.  Currently I use this gawdawful old-school Robbe styrofoam tray.  And the result is that the 2.4GHz antenna points right at the model which is bad.

It would be really cool to make something sort of like that case, but bigger.  And have 6 pushbuttons for mode selection instead of a knob or switches.  Set them up like radio-buttons, where only one is active (with an indicator light), and then the Tx simply transmits the PWM of the active mode.

Maybe even include the ArduStation, and a monitor (ABOVE the flight controls where it belongs instead of where they put it on that other "open" Tx.)

Developer Comment by R_Lefebvre on July 11, 2012 at 1:32pm

Is the whole Ardustation thing still alive?  I see they are still for sale, but something about it seems stale...  Will it work with the latest code?

Comment by Paul Feely on July 11, 2012 at 2:38pm

Ardustations still work well - latest code adds MAVLINK 1.0 support. http://diydrones.com/forum/topics/ardustation-2-version-2-0-15-rele...

We're waiting for details of new hardware rumoured to be on development for some time...

Developer Comment by R_Lefebvre on July 11, 2012 at 2:47pm

Ardustation hardware?

Comment by Earl on July 11, 2012 at 4:15pm

Would be nice with the 3DR radios, not xBees.

Earl

Comment by Jason Lyons on July 11, 2012 at 5:27pm

Wow... a lot of latency.  I certainly wouldn't use this on anything flying.

Comment by Jack Crossfire on July 11, 2012 at 7:08pm

It currently says:

Things not included in the kit.

• XBee Modules. 

 

But really anything is going to need the 3D Robotics/Sparkfun seal of approval.

 

 

Comment by Hans Cappelle on July 12, 2012 at 12:21am

@R_Lefebvre: Check this project of mine, it has throttle connected to arduino to intercept or pass through according to state. I have the code finished here but have to check in still. Anyway you can check the links I have on the wiki. It lists info on reading single channels or on parsing PPM signals on a single interrupt pin (pin 8).

http://redmine.hcpl.be/projects/tag-combat/wiki

If you don't mind performance too much the easiest solution is to use pulseIn() method from Arduino to retrieve the PWM signal from the receiver (on any pin). Then use ServoTimer2 library (check links on wiki) to write the PWM back to a servo (after processing). ServoTimer2 lib works muck like the Servo lib using attach() and write(). Only write() will accept ms now instead of degrees.

The downfall of this is that this happens in the same loop. So if you do a lot of processing you will get slow response. Solution for this is to use interrupts. Arduino UNO types have 2 of these pins for that so you're limited to 2 channels unless you read the PPM signal from the receiver (most receivers you can get it from by hacking also). There is also a library to parse that PPM signal on PIN 8 (has to be PIN 8!) linked on my wiki. ServoDecoder it's called if I remember well.

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