Adding a camera (worklog)

[absoloodle37]

Where are your videos? Can you post them to YouTube and provide a link? Might help us figure out what's wrong with your signal...

[SuperRoach]

Re: Video, sure thing!

It's actually taking a long time to upload, but:
http://youtu.be/d27frLZu5nk

--- Clip finished uploading, now have a look!

This one is the hotel clip. It crashed a lot of times heh, but I'm getting used to the phone as the controller. Got a few hovers going between 3 and 4 minutes if you can't be bothered watching the whole clip.

You'll notice that the signal appears to be better and less snowy when flying. This is compared to what it used to be wired up, where it was clear idling, but dropped out as soon as the throttle went up.

Sound is from the laptop's mic btw.

I'll also see if I can upload one of the other clips.

[SuperRoach]

Anyone take a look?

[Surrender]

I have watched parts of it when i was in train, but no all.
I was not able to see something, it is really heavy flickering. Maybe you can go outside, then we can see a bit more (:

I think it is pretty easy with android control, i only used droidmote and cf control before the eSky.

On the other side it is cool to have a working signal! Great job

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

[SuperRoach]

Ok, I'll have a go outside tomorrow.

[omwdunkley]

Anyone take a look?

Yo, I cant see the video, it doesnt play and redirects me to:
https://support.google.com/youtube/answ ... rror1&rd=1

Any ideas?
Thanks for your efforts!

[KaR]V[aN]

Seems a power lack either in transmissor or the camera. I'm sure that a DC-DC would help to get rid of those glitches.

This one is the one I would try, is a step-up DC-DC converter, input from 1v to 3.3v, output 3.3v and is small enought so probably it won't weight much:

http://www.ebay.es/itm/Step-UP-Power-Co ... 430&_uhb=1

Also is cheap enough to give it a try.

[SuperRoach]

Thank you, I've ordered it. Looks like a perfect fit, although shipping time will be a while - eta will probably be 15th August.

Out of interest, how would something like this work for it as well?
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10967

[tobias]

What would be best is to have a buck-boost DC-DC regulator that can both step-up and step-down the voltage, like the ADP2504. It can take a voltage from 2.8 - 5.5 volt and output a steady 3.3V. I have not seen any breakouts for this chip and though. I found some step-up/down at pololu though.

Connecting the DC-DC step-up to the 2.8V linear regulator is not a good idea if it uses to much current and I wonder what the behaviour is when it is feed with more then 3.3V. If it then just outputs the same as the input voltage then it should be OK to connect to the battery or VCOM but otherwise it might not be the best solution. Also DC-DC regulators produce voltage ripple which might degrade the camera performance. Only a test will show that.

Have you read the post where I got it to work pretty well? Exchanging the regulators on the transmitter and camera to 3.0V ones and adding a inductor as filter might be the best and lightest solution. It should also be possible to connect the enable pin on the regulators to the expansion port so that the camera and transmitter can be switched on/off from software.

[SuperRoach]

Thanks for pointing out that post Tobias. At the scale they (inductors and regulators) are on for the camera and TX, I worry about being able to solder them at all.

You are totally right about the charge time too - I've manually been unplugging it in the past if I had the chance to for charging time.

I think I had noticed when using the VCOM originally, that signal dropouts were much more frequent.
Your Pololu link is a great resource too, I'm having trouble finding parts which are small enough for these devices - many things for Larger RC Cars and robots though.

I noticed this one by the way Tobias -

Link to S7V8A on pololu
It has a 2.7v-11.8v input range, and is even adjustable with what looks like a trim pot on it., and weight is .6gm (looking at specs) which I could gain back more than enough by trimming my camera cable down.
That part if it's ok doesn't look like It'll cost much, so if it seems suitable I'm all good to get that as well and be a guinea pig for trying it.

Switching off the camera via software - wow that would be a neat option to work on when things settle down too.

*edit* I just took a look at the size of the Transmitter and how the cables are connected to the crazyflie - picture - I felt dizzy about unsoldering what's on the TX and went crosseyed