All-in-one portable "ground station" was born in Hungary....

Hi, I'm Adrian from Hungary.

Let me introduce my vision which became reality!

My idea was to make a portable ground station that includes all necessary components for FPV flying or piloting an Arducopter. I decided to use these parts from my previous ground station:

Futaba FF9 transmitter with FASST module
868 MHz 3DR telemetry module + USB FTDI panel
8" LCD screen + control panel
time base corrector (for screen to avoid sleep)
Iftron nano 5.8 GHz video receiver

I decided to add extra functionality to my ground station. Instead of using my Mobile phone, I bought an Android MiniPC (MK808b sunvel clone) and connected to the LCD via HDMI. My first idea was to use a touchpad for input, but I couldn't find any that could match my requirements. So finally I bought an USB ring mouse! The mission control app is Droidplanner.

After I had all the required parts in front of me, I started to design the shape with a 3D engineering software. Here is the final result (rendered 3D images):

Basically it has a top and bottom layer made of 2 mm black glass-fiber plate and FDM-printed spacers/side plates.

The ground station has the following sockets/peripheries:

2x USB and 1X USB OTG port
balancer port for battery
video and audio RCA output
trainer port for simulator
12V DC input for using external power supply
3 antennas: 2,4 GHz transmitter, 5.8 GHz video receiver, 868 MHz telemetry
port for teach panel of time base corrector

I'm using 9 cells of 18650 size Li-ion (3,7V) in 3P3S configuration. With 1.3A measured consumption ground station can operate more than 4 hours!

After I received all parts, I started to put it together. It took 2 weeks, with endless amount of soldering...and also had to make some PCBs for trim buttons, LCD control, power distribution, etc.

Here is the final result:

Both video input or mission control can be shown on the screen:

Here are the external connections:

The ring mouse and the power switches:

UPDATE: Under the hood...

Finally I'd say thanks to the following team/people:

Ground Zero (www.groundzero.hu) for help in 3D printing
Arthur Benemann for Droidplanner
my friend for sharing his CNC mill station

For further information, please connect me by mail: nhadrian@gmail.com

I'm not planning to produce since it would need serious investment. For example, the FF9 and the 8" LCD screen that I'm using are discontinued, so replacement should be bought...

Best regards

Adrian

This is just a lovely thing to see and this actually inspired me to start working on my own groundstation again.

There are three styles to design utility items and the first is to just tape stuff with duct tape together and hope that no one sees the end product as it will be judged as crap when people see it. Second style is to design it so that it looks very nice with some extra curves, flashy lights, chrome and such and people will want one when they see it and after using they are throwing it to a thrashbin because it does not work as well as it looks.

The third style is achieved when functionality and form suddenly meet and the end result looks fantastic because each and every form is there to support the functionality.

This groundstation is a perfect example of the third style!

That thing just screams out loud "I am professional and once you try me you will never use anything else except maybe a 2.0 version of me!".

(And you can guess that mine is a perfect example of the first designing style)

I bet that you could very well design this to be optimized to be built in small batches like 50 units at a time and with parts and assembly costs of 200 to 300 USD depending on the screen quality and sell this for 599 to 899 USD per one.

If you don't do that there will be chinese manufacturers doing something that look similar but with crappy parts :)

I wish I could have contacts to people or companies with 3D printers and CNC mills who would do something for me with friendly prices. Every company that has a CNC station or 3D printer here in Finland won't give a s**t about helping hobbyists even when they have no clients and their equipment just sit there unused.

I don't also want to buy a CNC machine or 3D printer just for my use.

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Comments

Crashpilot1000 September 5, 2013 at 6:47am

"Meister" is up to a similar Task here: http://www.multixmedia.org/Multi-GCS/index.html

and there: http://fpv-community.de/showthread.php?25594-MultiGCS-f%FCr-Linux-u...

Maybe you can team up?
Jarkko Airaksinen September 5, 2013 at 6:27am

This is just a lovely thing to see and this actually inspired me to start working on my own groundstation again.

There are three styles to design utility items and the first is to just tape stuff with duct tape together and hope that no one sees the end product as it will be judged as crap when people see it. Second style is to design it so that it looks very nice with some extra curves, flashy lights, chrome and such and people will want one when they see it and after using they are throwing it to a thrashbin because it does not work as well as it looks.

The third style is achieved when functionality and form suddenly meet and the end result looks fantastic because each and every form is there to support the functionality.

This groundstation is a perfect example of the third style!

That thing just screams out loud "I am professional and once you try me you will never use anything else except maybe a 2.0 version of me!".

(And you can guess that mine is a perfect example of the first designing style)

I bet that you could very well design this to be optimized to be built in small batches like 50 units at a time and with parts and assembly costs of 200 to 300 USD depending on the screen quality and sell this for 599 to 899 USD per one.

If you don't do that there will be chinese manufacturers doing something that look similar but with crappy parts :)

I wish I could have contacts to people or companies with 3D printers and CNC mills who would do something for me with friendly prices. Every company that has a CNC station or 3D printer here in Finland won't give a s**t about helping hobbyists even when they have no clients and their equipment just sit there unused.

I don't also want to buy a CNC machine or 3D printer just for my use.
Crashpilot1000 September 5, 2013 at 5:46am

Wow, nhadrian!

Now I understand why mwii never accepted your good codechanges :) :)
Erik Unger September 5, 2013 at 2:11am

Wow, this is _really_ cool. Make it a Kickstarter project!
Nicholas Witham September 5, 2013 at 1:07am

Any chance in getting hold of any drawings or plans for this.
Marooned September 5, 2013 at 12:58am

DIY, level hard

This is amazing job!
zmooth September 5, 2013 at 12:57am

Awesome design, very impressive!
Developer

Philip September 5, 2013 at 12:12am

Brilliant :)
Developer

Randy September 4, 2013 at 11:53pm

This is incredible! an amazing piece of work. You are quite the engineer!
Buzz Golden September 4, 2013 at 8:59pm

You know most want to pick this thing apart, just tell the guy its amazing and one of the nicest, most impressive things you have seen.

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