Hi guys,
I've just got my hands on one of the new Bubl cameras (www.bublcam.com) so of course the first thing to do was mount it on my Solo.
Unfortunately as soon as I turn the Bubl on it kills the Solo's GPS reception - not only reducing the overall number of satellites visible, but also creating so much noise that even with 7 or 8 sats it can't get a fix.
I've contacted Bubl to see if there's any way of turning off the internal WiFi, but I doubt it will be possible, nor is something that's high on their priorities right now, so I'm pretty sure I'll need to fix this myself.
Does anyone have any experience with shielding GPS receivers from electrical noise on the UAV?
Is it better to shield it at the source or the receiver?
Does the shielding need to be wide, or can you just get away with putting it directly between the two components?
How does the distance between the components affect the interference? At the moment the Bubl is only 5cm from the GPS. Will the interference drop off quickly as I get a few more cm away?
I've tried some field testing but the results weren't consistent enough to draw any solid conclusions.
Any advice you can offer is much appreciated!
Joel
(A pic of the setup is attached, as is a graph of the number of satellites visible over the course of a few minutes - it's pretty obvious where I turn on the Bubl)
Replies
Thanks for the advice guys.
Because of the nature of the camera there's no real way to wrap it like you can a GoPro. By the time you make cutouts for all four lenses it gets a bit pointless.
I've attempted to get some layers of aluminium foil and copper between the Bubl and the Solo, but it's still degrading the GPS reception. I can't tell if it has made any difference.
I've flown a couple of times in Manual but that's not a good long-term option for the sort of shots I want to do.
I think I'll have to leave this idea for now, but I'm sure with the second or third generation of spherical cameras they might be suitable for use on drones - it would be worth keeping on eye on how the technology develops.
That's pretty cool.
I hear wrapping devices in copper foil helps.
GPS interference is pretty common problem caused by cameras it seems. I tried aluminum foil on my raspberry Pi camera which also destroys the GPS signal and it helped a bit but not much. The interference actually looks worse for the Buble than the RPi.
I had issues in the past with GoPro's killing my GPS due to RF noise which was "helped" a little by covering the GoPro in copper. We are talking about WiFi now which has quite a bit more range. I've had several friends crash quads which flew fine close up but when they got some distance (50-100') they explained to me that the copter just went nuts. The first question out of my mouth was "Was your WiFi on" and both answered yes. The only explanation I could think of is that the wifi encompasses the quad with so much noise in the air that the controller can't get a word in edgewise and the GPS is now losing it's mind thinking it's off course and compensating.
Now that both friends have learned to keep WiFi off neither have had a glitch. Be careful with WiFi on anything you have in the air. BTW, that is an interesting camera, I hope you can get that WiFi turned off and share some pics with us!