Posted by Gary Mortimer on October 5, 2009 at 9:52am
As I fly lots of airframes I thought it might be a good idea to have a standalone tracker, so I put an Xbee in a box with a EM406 and its own battery. Very simple to setup using the meshing Xbees, makes me wonder if I added another and put it on a pole at a distance if it would not make a simple repeater, does anybody know.Having its own power means that it will continue working should there be any issues with the airframes power, that does mean quite a bit of weight though.So far I have only completed walking tests and the range appears to be about 350m, if that gets upto 500 when one of them is in the air then I will be happy it will do what I need.After following these instructions http://www.humboldt.edu/~cm19/XBee%20setup.pdf to setup the two Xbees.I found Earth Bridge to listen to the GPS and interface with Google Earth.
No, just hand flown Sarel ;-) Sometimes, you have to go and fly RC models for fun you know. Even though I suppose I had a purpose in mind, testing the tracker! Yes that airframe has developed lots of character, the only time I have broken anything (two servos) was showing off, one in a hand catch, they are on the side and I ripped it out of the mount with my hand, that hurt and the other time playing limbo through the bars of a gate, when the gate caught the servo. I've got some video of that somewhere......
Just had a quick flight and realised I did'nt walk far enough away, chucked it on my faithful old Vtail trainer from www.flyingwings.co.uk It has flown more than 150 hours now with the original ESC and motor, can't be bad. Anyhow it looks tatty now.
That worked out to 400m, I am just charging up my flight battery and then I will pop back to my site and go and walk up into the top left corner of my flying field. That should give more than 400m!
The farmer at my site thinks I'm mad, drilling holes in the sky with lots of different models, he came over and we had a long chat so I could'nt walk off anywhere!
Hi Gary
I'm curious what kind of Xbee you are using, 50mW type or 10mW type? 900Mhz or 2.4Ghz?
I think what you mention about third Xbee is possible. Using third Xbee as a repeater, hopefully we can double the range.
two Xbee xsc (wire and rsma ) an adafruit adaptater on the aircraft and a spark-fun adapter or Xbee shield from NKC electronics link to an EM406 and an one cell lipo battery it's should works ?
Comments
As promised more of a walk, 630m from the car, I'm happy with that, 500m is right on the edge of VLOS for my eyes!
Tycinis, I will try and take it apart later, but work is keeping me busy, good weather so lots of flying, I might even take it flying later.
USB Zigbee / XBee Adapter Configuration from Xbee Adapter on Vimeo.
You got a twitchy finger hey..... or is it the line hold algorithm that's developed a twitch ;) That bird's got character!
Rgrds
Sarel
That worked out to 400m, I am just charging up my flight battery and then I will pop back to my site and go and walk up into the top left corner of my flying field. That should give more than 400m!
The farmer at my site thinks I'm mad, drilling holes in the sky with lots of different models, he came over and we had a long chat so I could'nt walk off anywhere!
I'm curious what kind of Xbee you are using, 50mW type or 10mW type? 900Mhz or 2.4Ghz?
I think what you mention about third Xbee is possible. Using third Xbee as a repeater, hopefully we can double the range.
two Xbee xsc (wire and rsma ) an adafruit adaptater on the aircraft and a spark-fun adapter or Xbee shield from NKC electronics link to an EM406 and an one cell lipo battery it's should works ?
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