Discussions

Pixhawk with DJI Lightbridge

Posted by Chris L on October 30, 2015 at 8:36pm

Has anyone been able to configure a Pixhawk to work with a lightbridge HD link?

I'm able to get the Lightbridge control signals to the pixhawk but I've yet to figure out how to set the FailSafe. When I turn off the RC controller, the lightbridge air module continues to output the same S.Bus channel signal levels.

From talking to others I've found out that Lightbridge outputs the fail-safe "flag" in the header or footer (I'm not sure which) of the S.Bus signal (not the normal PPM channels like the pixhawk is expecting). Can anyone confirm this is true and if so, how can I map the DJI Lightbridge failsafe signal to the Pixhawk's failsafe.

Thanks!

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Replies

andreas kellermann December 9, 2015 at 7:54pm

Sounds great. Where did you get that information? I haven`t seen much details about the internal workings of the Lightbridge system. I was really tempted to tear one down for a while to see if there is anything which can be read out. But the price for the things is a bit high for that :(
GocGoc December 8, 2015 at 1:29pm

Hi Chris, are you using Lightbridge 1 or 2?
- Chris L > GocGoc December 8, 2015 at 4:30pm
  
  Lightbridge 1
Tobias Witting December 8, 2015 at 12:46pm

Having remote control and HD video in one all-in-one link is certainly nice. It concerns me though that lightbridge and especially sololink is essentially normal wifi, which probably cannot compete with the robustness of frequency hopping 2.4GHz RC remote controls. I would be more at ease with using a robust 2.4GHz FHSS remote control and having HD video and telemetry over a wifi link.
- andreas kellermann > Tobias Witting December 9, 2015 at 6:45pm
  
  Well not a normal plane but since I`m rather confident in the failsafe / RTL mode (Usually I crash the plane 9/10 of the time) and I never had a RC signal loss on the lightbridge (so far) I`m fine with the Lightbridge.
  
  Wouldn`t buy it again, thought...
  - Elvin Sosing > andreas kellermann December 11, 2015 at 10:36am
    
    Hi Andreas,
    
    May I ask why would you not buy it again? I was thinking of buying it, however I came across a lot of owners getting dissapointed with it. Thought of getting the LB1 because it's cheaper now.
    
    I am using Pixhawk with AC-3.2 on my copter and planning on upgrading my video feed to HD.
    
    Thanks,
    
    Elvin
    - andreas kellermann > Elvin Sosing December 11, 2015 at 11:42am
      
      Maybe if you get it a lot cheaper. I just don`t think HD link was worth that much money. And then you only got one air unit which is a pain for planes where the air module is buried in the fuselage and it takes ages to switch them to another plane.
      
      Quality wise it`s great. A huge step from analog fpv. Just don`t use USB for the ground to monitor link. USB technology is crap for hd video transmission and will add at least 200ms of latency.
      
      Where do you get it cheap? I would be intrested in a second air unit...
      - Elvin Sosing > andreas kellermann December 11, 2015 at 3:44pm
        
        Thanks for the insights. It's not that cheap though, you can get for 800-1k USD. DJI store sells it for $999 maybe because of the lightbridge 2 release? How much did you get your LB1 if you don't mind?
        
        How about OSD and manual gimbal control for non DJI hardware?
        
        Thanks,
        
        andreas kellermann > Elvin Sosing December 11, 2015 at 4:32pm
        
        I haven`t found a option to control non DJI gimbal via gimbal port. You can still use the SBUS channels. But you lose the option for the second transmitter...
        
        No non DJI OSD either, as far as I can see.
        
        I paid about 1300$ when it first came out here in Switzerland.
      - Andre K. > andreas kellermann December 11, 2015 at 12:09pm
        
        USB is not the problem, think of an SSD drive or fast SD on USB2.0 , you can still get a cluster of data well within 1ms , the bandwidth is also much higher than required. Then you have USB3.0...
        
        The problem is poor , or p***-poor hardware that uses it.