rcwingman
being Ghetto since 2016
This is a build log to share the steps and knowlage by making a GPS / RSSI based antenna tracker with open source and open hardware stuff.
Maybe some peoples are interested in building something similar. For a selfish reason I hope this thread can help me to stay motivated and finish this FPV tracker.
Hello my name is Marco and I am from Germany.
I decided to buy a Ultimaker 2 3D printer early this year to improve possibilitys on electronic- and RC builds.
The first projects was some replacement parts and adapters from Thingiverse.
The printer was still on the first filament spool that came with the Printer bundle but it was time to print something bigger.
So the Ghetto-Station-Antanna-Tracker seemed to be a very quick and easy first bigger print for me.
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:547358
This is a Video of the same station with a other housing:
It consists of 25 to 30 3D-printed parts, 2 servos, a Arduino Mega, Minim OSD, a 2004 display as well as some connectors and buttons.
All in all about 10 parts connected to each other can't be to difficult - I thought.
Features:
GhettoStation:
GhettOSD:
GhettoProxy:
FSK-Modem:
After everything was printed and tested it turned out, that my tracker has issues or needs improvements like:
The estimated two week project already takes over 2 months, but It seamed to be 80% done.
I am at this state of the old V1 now:
It's like a curse, after I improve or fixed some issues some minor or new issues appear.
It stated to be a love hate relationship after a while.
The time I spend on this thing is not wrote the value i get out of this. But on this point it would be stupid to stop.
So guys: What do you think & what would you improve?
Goal is to make a ground station out of it
Maybe some peoples are interested in building something similar. For a selfish reason I hope this thread can help me to stay motivated and finish this FPV tracker.
Hello my name is Marco and I am from Germany.
I decided to buy a Ultimaker 2 3D printer early this year to improve possibilitys on electronic- and RC builds.
The first projects was some replacement parts and adapters from Thingiverse.
The printer was still on the first filament spool that came with the Printer bundle but it was time to print something bigger.
So the Ghetto-Station-Antanna-Tracker seemed to be a very quick and easy first bigger print for me.
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:547358
This is a Video of the same station with a other housing:
All in all about 10 parts connected to each other can't be to difficult - I thought.
- Its a remix from Idefix RC with a lot of space for additional stuff.
- The Firmware is already written from Kipk and open source (of cause
Features:
GhettoStation:
- Antenna Tracker:
Handles different types of pan/tilt configuration:- 360° Pan | 90° Tilt
- 180° Pan | 180° Tilt
- any other custom configuration
- Easy configuration trough LCD menu
- 4 bank of settings to handle different kind of antenna mounts, or telemetry/baudrate settings.
- Handle protocols from most opensource flightcontrollers:
- UAVTalk: OpenPilot; Taulabs
- MAVLink: Arducopter, Arduplane, PixHawk, Autoquad
- MSP: Multiwii, Baseflight
- NMEA: GPS NMEA ASCII protocol
- UBLOX: GPS UBLOX binary protocol
- Internal Protocol optimized for really low baudrate links ( works well with 1200 bauds ) LightTelemetry (LTM) send enough data for a full ground osd or gcs software.
Supported in Taulabs & Baseflight fork from my github repo:- Taulabs : ltmenabled branch activate ltm modules by default for all boards. LTM is also merged in official Taulabs tree. You need to enable it for your board before compiling.
- Baseflight (naze32) : use LTelemetry branch
- Compiled binaries : Taulabs & Baseflight builds with LTM enabled
- Convert & output LightTelemetry data for ground OSD ( GhettOSD )
- Support Arduino Mega 1280/2560 or Teensy++2 boards ( Teensy++2 only have one serial,so softserial is used for osd output. Mega already have many hardware uart available => better )
- Battery voltage display & low voltage buzzer alarm
GhettOSD:
- Ground based On Screen Display for GhettoStation (Based on Minimosd-extra software.)
- can displays: Ground Speed / Airspeed / Altitude / Altitude relative to home / Home distance / Total distance / Home direction / Ground course / Voltage / Current / Consumed Current / Flight Time / Flight Modes / GPS sats / GPS fix / Warnings / Pitch / Roll / Heading
- Windows configurator to edit osd settings/panels
Wire Minimosd Rx to Ghettostation output port, and do not care of mounting an osd on all your r/c stuff anymore.
GhettoProxy:
This software for Arduino mini converts UAVTalk/MavLink/MSP/NMEA/UBLOX/MTK protocols to LTM. Should be used on your UAV to send LTM over low baudrate telemetry link ( Audio modem / OpenLRSng / RF modules )
FSK-Modem:
After everything was printed and tested it turned out, that my tracker has issues or needs improvements like:
- The 360 degree rotation spins endless.
- The wiring connections between the bottom and moveing upper part gets mechanicaly fatigue. ( cables break)
- Internal components can't be switched or resetet internaly.
- on fast movements the Arduino and OSD kicks out.
- The internal components should be clean implemented to avoid short outs on transportations.
- The Display is too smal, a 12864 can provide interesting Telemetry information like distance, GPS-coordinates, battery, state, RSSI strengh.
- A voice feedback would be great.
- switch between different powersources.
- internal chargeing.
- onboard snowflake display .
- Ground temperature, wind, humidity readings with SHT21, DS18B20 and Ultrasonic sensors.
- Bluetooth connection to a laptop to catch telemetry out.
- RSSI Antenna switching.
- 3DR Modem and FSK Modem switching.
- Lipo fuel gauge implementation to get a better battery state.
- Adding a V-Mount plate on the back to get a stable, protected powersource .
The estimated two week project already takes over 2 months, but It seamed to be 80% done.
I am at this state of the old V1 now:
It's like a curse, after I improve or fixed some issues some minor or new issues appear.
It stated to be a love hate relationship after a while.
The time I spend on this thing is not wrote the value i get out of this. But on this point it would be stupid to stop.
So guys: What do you think & what would you improve?
Goal is to make a ground station out of it
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