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Do 3DR radios only work with APM?

Posted by Ben Matthews on August 23, 2012 at 5:51am

Are the 3DR radios only designed to work with APM's or will they work with any Flight controller that can work with say xBee's or the APC220?

I'm sorry if this is a silly question but I am new to radio telemetry, I have searched for literally days to try & find the answer but have found nothing other than one or two brief mentions, one where they say they have the 3DR radio connected to a Paris Board & working with the MWC WinGUI but as I said only a brief mention.

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Replies

  • Meez September 2, 2012 at 8:05pm

    3dr also works with my Mikrokopter controller Quad and Hexa 

  • Ben Matthews August 23, 2012 at 9:04am

    That is all good to know thank you.

  • Ed Kirk August 23, 2012 at 8:58am

    3692493273?profile=originalLocating the 3DR Radio this close to the GPS seemed to cause a glitch when doing a "return to home" but it was also very windy during that test.  Other wise I have had no other issues or problems.3692493132?profile=original

  • Ed Kirk August 23, 2012 at 8:35am

    I have seen no "glitches" with the 3DR Radio and have not lost the link during normal flight with my quad.  I left my laptop in house and walked the quad with GPS down the street about a block, the house is surrounded by 6 food chain link fence, the data transfere lights never stoped blinking and when I got back to the laptop the GPS earth image had a yellow trail indicating  the path of my strole. 

    The 3DR Radio is great for tuning the control board if you have a laptop and can take it out to the field, there are other options that are just as good, maybe better depending on your expectations.

  • Ben Matthews August 23, 2012 at 7:53am

    That's great news thank you, I am planning on testing the 3DR's with the OP CC board & the new CRIUS AIOP, I am also going to try the Bluetooth bridge so I can link up to Android in the field.

    I have just read several people saying that they wont buy the 3DR's until the glitches are sorted out, glitches, is this true?

    I am also keen to find/make a smaller lighter antenna for the Air unit, I have read here that its possible to use a stripped coax wire (17cm long for 433Mhz).


    @Ed Kirk

    Have you tested range at all?

  • Ed Kirk August 23, 2012 at 7:42am

    I am using the 3DR radio with MWC WinGUI and it works great, I have tried it with the Arduino GUI and it doesn't always transfere data but it does connect, could be something in the settings.  I have tried it with the 3 latest versions of the Paris 4 board which require making wiring and plugs which are available from DIY Drones.  I have checked it on the FlyingEinstein board and it works.

    I tested it with the Paris board and MWC GPS and got excellent data, I had a glitch with GPS when the 3DR Radio was located next to the GPS board, they were touching each other.

    I have written PID changes to the Paris board in flight and noticed a twitch during the change, I avoided changes to the throttle settings for obvious reasons.

  • Ben Matthews August 23, 2012 at 7:16am

    Thank you for your clear response!

  • Zachary Eldridge August 23, 2012 at 6:33am

    You can use them for any project like xbee's.

This reply was deleted.

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