Coming soon: MinimOSD!

Hi guys! I'm giving you a preview of an upcoming product from the DIY Drones store, the MinimOSD, a minimal Arduino-based on-screen display board. It's tailored for use with ArduPilot Mega and the MAVlink protocol, and designed to be as compact as possible.

It's main components are an ATmega328P 8 bit microcontroller with an Arduino bootloader, and a MAX7456 monochrome on-screen display. Programming is done through an FTDI-compatible 6-pin header.

It features two independent power and ground sections to isolate the OSD's analog stage: a +5V section for the ATmega and the OSD's digital stage, powered through the FTDI cable or other +5V source; and a regulated +5V section for the OSD's analog stage, powered through the video in/out header and capable of handling up to +12V input. Solder jumpers are available to combine the two power and ground sections if desired.

Spec lists are the best, so here's one!

ATmega328P with Arduino bootloader
MAX7456 monochrome on-screen display
FTDI cable compatible pinout
Standard 6-pin ISP header
Two independent power sections with an LED indicator on each
Solder jumpers for combining the power sections
+5V 500mA regulator for up to +12V supply input
Solder jumper for PAL video option
Exposed test points for HSYNC and LOS
Dimensions: 0.7"W x 1.7"L (2.4" w/ pins as shown) x 0.3"H

The production version won't be green, and we're not too fond of blue anymore, so expect something different on future products ;)

(And yes, I know I missed a decoupling cap on the board in the photo. Sorry Chris!)

Expected release date is within 2-3 weeks, price is TBD. Watch this space! UPDATE: Price will be $89.99 USD.

Here is an example

this camera "2.8mm MTV Lens 650TVL SONY Effio-E DSP SONY CCD OSD Board Camera " is not compatible with the max chip, (but works with whatever chip is used for the Range Video OSD or the Eagle tree OSD).

But this camera: "Super WDR LG XDI-II DSP 650TVL HD 1/3 960H Dual Scan CCD Board Camera" works.

Here is a screenshot today of a very similar board, the EpiOSD (the mikrocopter OSD) running firmware I modified heavily from CE-OSD. It reads the mavlink telemetry port from ArduPilot on my skywalker and throws up everything I can think of. "Man" in the top left is the APM mode (Manual). You can see the character size you get with this OSD, this shot is PAL. NTSC loses quite a few lines.

The first camera I mentioned above did not work at all. The second one did. There is a discussion on this issue here:

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1450835

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Comments

KnutL November 26, 2011 at 1:04am

I dont know if it works with ANY OSD, because until now I have none...

Would you expect that this problem is really related to the resolution (TVL) ?
Justin November 26, 2011 at 12:58am

does it work with remzibi osd?
I don't think this is something you can predict unless someone else has tested the combination already.
KnutL November 25, 2011 at 11:52pm

I am really confused now : How big is the risk, that this nice OSD will not work for a specific camera ? I am using one of these 690TVL cameras http://www.securitycamera2000.com/products/690TVL-HD-Ultra-WDR-Pixi....

Any comments possible on that ?
Developer

Sandro Benigno November 25, 2011 at 8:39pm

MinimOSD writes all the panels in vsync. We are using a new approach to write all the panels using fewer SPI transactions. Also the OSD class descends from BetterStream (used on FastSerial).

I forgot to say that is works pretty fine with GoPro's live video. I guess is a good start. =)
Justin November 25, 2011 at 8:25pm

it is hard to write much in vsync..

however even if writing stops, the osd is non functional with cameras not compatible with the chip.. I think some recent high res cameras play fast and loose with the NTSC pal spec.

unfortunately higher res cameras are attractive for fpv!
Developer

Sandro Benigno November 25, 2011 at 8:14pm

@Justin: Sorry the delay (deadly busy). That jumper just sets the desired default mode when you have no camera attached. NTSC/PAL is already auto-detected when you have a video input.That's useful when people are using it on ground as a telemetry monitor only, with no FPV equipment... just a wireless serial link (E.g.: X-Bee).

About FPV cameras: I'm using many cameras for testing it. One of them is from DIYDrones store: http://store.diydrones.com/Super_HAD_CCD_Camera_1_3_Sony_520TV_Line...

About issues with certain cameras... What kind of sync are you using (external or autosync)? Are you writing on screen on the vertical sync time only?
Justin November 24, 2011 at 3:58am

Here is an example

this camera "2.8mm MTV Lens 650TVL SONY Effio-E DSP SONY CCD OSD Board Camera " is not compatible with the max chip, (but works with whatever chip is used for the Range Video OSD or the Eagle tree OSD).

But this camera: "Super WDR LG XDI-II DSP 650TVL HD 1/3 960H Dual Scan CCD Board Camera" works.

Here is a screenshot today of a very similar board, the EpiOSD (the mikrocopter OSD) running firmware I modified heavily from CE-OSD. It reads the mavlink telemetry port from ArduPilot on my skywalker and throws up everything I can think of. "Man" in the top left is the APM mode (Manual). You can see the character size you get with this OSD, this shot is PAL. NTSC loses quite a few lines.

The first camera I mentioned above did not work at all. The second one did. There is a discussion on this issue here:

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1450835
Tomas Soedergren November 24, 2011 at 3:35am

Thanks for the heads up, Justin.

Dev Team, will you be checking for these issues and report your findings, please?

I really look forward to your OSD release and of course, I´m hoping for a rock solid performance ;)
Justin November 23, 2011 at 8:33pm

For those (like me) interested in this please be aware that the max7456 chip that it uses cannot deal with a lot of the 640TVL cams on the market. The symptom is that it simply passes the input signal to the output signal. It acts like a wire. It also does this if the firmware on the OSD sets NTSC mode and your camera is PAL, or vice versa. But even if you match mode for mode some (maybe all?) "640TVL" board cameras as video input sources cannot be dealt with by the OSD. The same problem occurs with other OSDs based on this chip.
Steve Smetters November 21, 2011 at 8:22pm

Can't wait as I need to eliminate all of the extra weight I am carrying around by using Eagle Tree OSD and components ( extra gps, Logger and OSD ). My quad sounds like angry bees because it takes so much power to get off the ground.

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