Posted by Grant Parker on January 12, 2010 at 6:17pm
Hey, I'm trying to mod the Multiplex Easystar and put a FPV camera in it. I don't want to spend all the money on the full UAV thing, but I want to have a home arrow and the battery life displayed on my screen. Can anyone tell me what I'll need to get that to work, with nothing else?
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I'm actually working on this myself... Just find a LED battery monitor and stick it somewhere that can be seen with your camera.
This example: http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXHDJ2&P=ML isn't perfect because it's made for receiver batteries, but the idea is good. This one's only $12. Even this one can be made to work with some clever electronics, such as a voltage divider.
A potential problem is making the range of safe voltages of your batter match the range that this device works on. For example, it the "low" LED on this is 4.5 volts, and you're using a 3S Lipo (9 volts is probably the lowest you want to go) then you can divide the voltage in half. 9*.5 = 4.5 A "full" 3S lipo is 12.8 volts and 12*.5 = 6 which is within the range, and it works. A 2S lipo, 6 -> 8.6 becomes 6*.75 = 4.5 -> 8.6*.75 = 6.45, which is slightly over the range.
Anyway, hope this helps. It should be a lot less expensive than a OSD.
The UAV part is cheap. It's the RC radio, plane, motor, batteries, camera, OSD with GPS, transmitter, receiver, and headeset/LCD screen that are expensive! I flew the UAV part for $25 bucks for a while and it worked fine.
I may be wrong as I to am new to this but I think the ONLY way to get things to display onto the screen is by using some kind of OSD (On Screen Display). Which you can get the Remzibi's OSD for just $114 here at DIY. How ever if I am wrong please someone correct me, but this is the only way I am aware of.
Replies
This example: http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXHDJ2&P=ML isn't perfect because it's made for receiver batteries, but the idea is good. This one's only $12. Even this one can be made to work with some clever electronics, such as a voltage divider.
A potential problem is making the range of safe voltages of your batter match the range that this device works on. For example, it the "low" LED on this is 4.5 volts, and you're using a 3S Lipo (9 volts is probably the lowest you want to go) then you can divide the voltage in half. 9*.5 = 4.5 A "full" 3S lipo is 12.8 volts and 12*.5 = 6 which is within the range, and it works. A 2S lipo, 6 -> 8.6 becomes 6*.75 = 4.5 -> 8.6*.75 = 6.45, which is slightly over the range.
Anyway, hope this helps. It should be a lot less expensive than a OSD.
"I flew the UAV part for $25 bucks for a while and it worked fine." What UAV part are you talking about?
What budget are you working on?