Guys,
I wanted to dabble into setting up an antenna tracker. Got myself the ServoCity Tube servos, for Pan and Tilt. Assembled it all with a Polulu Maestro and got the interface working. Followed the article here :
http://vps.oborne.me/gcs/Tracker.html
Few things I couldnt figure out and would be glad if someone can point me in the correct direction:
-- Any way I can set a minimum radiius for the Antenna Tracking to start working ? Dont want the tracker to go round and round when I am flying close by or doing passes around me.
-- For the Tilt servo, I have a 180 degree servo travel. The article above says that the neutral should be set facing 45degrees .. In that case though I cannot utilize the full 180 degree travel . Can only get 90 at the most. So my question here is, can the tilt center be set to 0 degrees ie facing straight up and 90 tilt on either side ?
I think thats most of it for now . Would appreciate some help.
Thanks !
Replies
Is there anything I need to do to get the tilt working, like setting a home altitude or something? I can control the tilt servo with the pololu controller program and with Mission Planner, but when I fly the pan servo works find but the tilt servo moves to -45 degrees and stays there.
the next mp version will have beta support for a 180, 180 servo setup.
I actualy think this is less effecient however, as you have 2 crossover point, instead of just 1 with a 360 pan servo.
ie if you fly around yourself, the tracker needs to do a full 180 degree pan, for 2 points of the circle.
whereas a 360 degrees needs to do a single 360 pan at only 1 point.
Can you buy these parts (the pololu maestro etc and not servos) anywhere in australia to complete yourself ?
I just bought from the pololu website. www.pololu.com
W/ credit card, shipped via Fedex got here real fast (I'm in Chile). Bought 4 of them to make it worth the shipping. They should have cheaper shipping rates, if you don't need express.
What advantages has this setup got over an ardustation ? They seem to achieve the same goal, antenna tracking based on determining the direction of the flier, but the ardustation seems a little more compact.
I prefer using Maestro and Mission planner as I have a dedicated ground station for my realtime HD video feed.. Saved me from having to deal with the ardustation, costs, and setup.. Seems to be a little on the glitchy side regardless of setup. I get accurate tracking about 40% of the time.. Still getting the feel for setup, so i'm sure this will improve over time.
Did you say HD or is that 640x400 SD ?
HD - 720p - full stream with about 150-200ms of lag which is good enough for me! the device in the center is the wireless transmitter and controller for my Sony HD goggles. Picture is simply breathtaking; my fat shark dom’s and the standard HD signal don’t hold a candle to the video quality I get with my HD setup..
Here’s a screen capture from my last field test; capture is only running at 15fps and 90% quality, but you’ll get the picture… My last test I had full HD feed out to about 450 meters before I had a radio failsafe that sent the quad home…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMVm40_krDo
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