Blogs

Modding a Wikipad for use as a ground station

Posted by Aaron Curtis on August 25, 2013 at 8:30pm

3689544430?profile=original

Hi all,

I got a Wikipad (an Android tablet that targets gamers) to experiment with as a ground station / second TX, mostly because it has dual joysticks. There is a lot of work to be done until it has RC-controller like capabilities. First step was a workaround for the design flaw that no USB data ports are exposed when you have the tablet snapped into the joysticks. I did the mod and then made this guide:

wikipadMod.pdf

Hope you guys find this useful! I will be working to add Wikipad support to Droidplanner and maybe Andropilot too.

Aaron

Tags: android, ground, hack, mod, station, usb
E-mail me when people leave their comments –
Follow

You need to be a member of diydrones to add comments!

Join diydrones

Comments

  • Richard McCoy September 17, 2015 at 10:52am

    Sure, I'd like to experiment with the old version. Do you have the link? Would I have to compile it?

  • Aaron Curtis September 17, 2015 at 9:52am

    Unless you want to use an old version, though -- you can get that from github.

  • Aaron Curtis September 17, 2015 at 9:51am

    Hm. At some point I'll probably put it back in, but unfortunately I'm insane busy until March 2016... remind me then?

  • Richard McCoy September 17, 2015 at 5:30am
    Would I be able to get the droid planner version with joystick support? They have taken it out in recent versions. I want to try it with my Ipega PG-9701.
  • Aaron Curtis September 16, 2015 at 10:40pm

    Oh right, I guess Droidplanner is called Tower now too.

  • Aaron Curtis September 16, 2015 at 10:39pm

    Sorta... I added joystick support to Droidplanner and it was taking input from the wikipad sticks  ( https://github.com/foobarbecue/droidplanner/commits?author=foobarbecue ). But before I actually flight tested it, I smashed the screen on my wikipad and never got around to buying another one... moved on to other projects. I know Droidplanner has come a long way since then and but actually I haven't tried it in over a year. I suspect it would work -- would be interesting to know.

    foobarbecue/droidplanner
    Ground Control Station for Android Devices. Contribute to foobarbecue/droidplanner development by creating an account on GitHub.
  • Richard McCoy September 16, 2015 at 5:54pm

    Did this project ever come to fruition?

  • WallyJas September 16, 2013 at 4:59pm

    Well, I for one , am mega excited about the idea Aaron. I'll be getting one as soon as is available. :) Thanks

  • Aaron Curtis September 16, 2013 at 11:39am

    Hi Wally, that is precisely the idea! I think a lot of people have this in the back of their minds. Many people are uncomfortable with the idea of more software layers between the sticks and the aircraft -- good safety practice until now has been to always maintain a traditional RC transmitter link for manual control. I think it should stay that way for quite a while until android joystick software is really proven. As for why the thread is not "taking off," threads here only seem to get lots of attention if they hit the "top content" and I have no idea what triggers inclusion in that list. I think once we can demonstrate that this actually works well, there will be a lot of attention. I still haven't gotten around to flight testing my own code.

  • WallyJas September 15, 2013 at 9:26pm
    I'm not sure if I fully understand. Will the Wikipad/Joysky be able to plan and execute missions through DroidPlanner AND manually control the drone using the joysticks? That's such a brilliant plan I'd love to have something like that. Why is this thread not taking off, am I part of a very small group that likes this idea, is it an unwanted feature for most?
This reply was deleted.