OSD Setups

[Jackson T]

Hi all, I've been having a great time flying my scratch built 4 meter glider recently. It's heaps of fun to fly FPV, and I've recently been learning to thermal LOS with it. It would probably be hard to thermal it with FPV because it would be hard to notice the subtle changes in rate of sink/climb, so I started looking into OSD/telemetry. An audible variometer would be the best, but altitude OSD would be almost as good. The only problem is I have no idea how all that stuff works or how to set it all up. Could any of you OSD/telemetry users out there point me in the right direction please? I'm using the FT Marvel Vision II FPV goggles, a Quanum Elite 600mw vtx, and my radio is a Turnigy TGY-i6. I'm pretty sure the TGY-i6 can do telemetry, but I don't know if it can make audible telemetry noises for the vario. It's just an idea at this point, but if it doesn't cost too much I would love to give it a go. Any help would be much appreciated!

 

[Fluburtur]

You could put a flight controller with inav in there, would give you all the flight parameters you want to know and it doesnt even require a gps since most of them have a baro now (at least all the matek plane ones)
Im not sure the flysky can do that however (the tgy i6 is just a rebranded flysky i6)

 

[danskis]

I'm interested in this too but I'll probably just throw $ at it. I did find this on Banggood which sheds a little more light on the problem. A plus is that this one comes with the pin outs for plane servos. I've got a FlySky too so I'll try to do a little more digging on that.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/400...VoD2VMv33EhjjBicz4kaAug-EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

[Jackson T]

I'm interested in this too but I'll probably just throw $ at it. I did find this on Banggood which sheds a little more light on the problem. A plus is that this one comes with the pin outs for plane servos. I've got a FlySky too so I'll try to do a little more digging on that.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/400...VoD2VMv33EhjjBicz4kaAug-EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

Thanks! Would I be able to use that to get altitude OSD in my FPV feed? Looks like a pretty good price. Would connecting the servos to it allow me to use it for stabilisation/auto level?

You could put a flight controller with inav in there, would give you all the flight parameters you want to know and it doesnt even require a gps since most of them have a baro now (at least all the matek plane ones)
Im not sure the flysky can do that however (the tgy i6 is just a rebranded flysky i6)

Thanks for the reply. I no absolutely nothing about this stuff, what does the flight controller do in a fixed wing?

 

[ElectriSean]

Thanks! Would I be able to use that to get altitude OSD in my FPV feed? Looks like a pretty good price. Would connecting the servos to it allow me to use it for stabilisation/auto level?

Thanks for the reply. I no absolutely nothing about this stuff, what does the flight controller do in a fixed wing?

The link posted is for a flight controller. It can do all sorts of things, from stabilization to auto leveling to autonomous flights and return to home, depending on what firmware you flash. You can get altitude to display from the built in barometer, or connect a GPS for full location and heading display.

Don't just plug the servos into the FC though, they must be powered separately or you will kill the board

 

[Fluburtur]

Unless you use a FC designed for planes like the matek wing ones but yeah, for just osd you can just run servos in parallel

 

[Jackson T]

The link posted is for a flight controller. It can do all sorts of things, from stabilization to auto leveling to autonomous flights and return to home, depending on what firmware you flash. You can get altitude to display from the built in barometer, or connect a GPS for full location and heading display.

Don't just plug the servos into the FC though, they must be powered separately or you will kill the board

Thanks for the info, that really helps. Would the boards have a built in compass to display heading without need for a GPS? Would I be able to program a vario through INAV or something with the altitude info coming from the FC? Thanks for your help everyone!

 

[ElectriSean]

Magnetometers require distancing from the power system, they are usually packaged in a combo unit with a GPS. You can get standalone ones as well, but I'm not aware of any FC's that have them built in.

 

[Jackson T]

Would I be able to us this FC that @danskis linked for just OSD, with all stabilisation and other features disabled? I'm only after OSD at the moment, I can experiment with the other features later. Also, would I be able to program the FC to send a beeping signal through the FPV feed from the altitude sensor to act as a vario?

 

[ElectriSean]

You can use the FC for OSD only, but I don't think it's possible to make it behave as an audible vario. I believe that requires a standalone vario sensor set up through telemetry with the audio produced by the transmitter. I'm not familiar with your radio, so I'm not sure if it's capable or how to set it up if it is.

 

[Fluburtur]

I think some inav guys made a hack to use a pwm output to make sound but I dont think anyone uses that, opentx radios can do an audio vario but I doubt you can do it with the i6 even with modded firmware

 

[model3113]

Just doing some googling for the same thing and I found this

https://dronesvision.net/product/la...-thermals-for-ultimate-long-range-fpv-flying/

Also from watching @rctestflight I learned that Ardupilot has a glider build. I dunno much about that yet as far as needed sensors.

 

[Bricks]

The link posted is for a flight controller. It can do all sorts of things, from stabilization to auto leveling to autonomous flights and return to home, depending on what firmware you flash. You can get altitude to display from the built in barometer, or connect a GPS for full location and heading display.

Don't just plug the servos into the FC though, they must be powered separately or you will kill the board

I was wondering about this as the description says built in BEC?

 

[Jackson T]

Just doing some googling for the same thing and I found this

https://dronesvision.net/product/la...-thermals-for-ultimate-long-range-fpv-flying/

Also from watching @rctestflight I learned that Ardupilot has a glider build. I dunno much about that yet as far as needed sensors.

That would do the job nicely! Only problem is it's $129 .

 

[Jackson T]

So I never did get a flight controller, but now there is an autopilot going on Hobbyking for $62 AUD ($45 USD)! Would this one work as an OSD module, and if so what else would I need besides the camera, VTX, and autopilot?
Here's a link: https://hobbyking.com/en_us/micro-h...D=19778&indexName=hbk_live_products_analytics

 

[Wes B.]

So I never did get a flight controller, but now there is an autopilot going on Hobbyking for $62 AUD ($45 USD)! Would this one work as an OSD module, and if so what else would I need besides the camera, VTX, and autopilot?
Here's a link: https://hobbyking.com/en_us/micro-h...D=19778&indexName=hbk_live_products_analytics

That FC is a bit older from 2015 and I'm not sure it will support newer versions of flight control software. A newer FC like the one I linked will work with INAV and Ardupilot. It has current and voltage monitoring built in along with OSD and quite a few other features. If you wanted GPS capabilities you could just add a low price GPS module. I use one of the older Matek F411-WING boards on my nano goblin and it works great.

http://www.mateksys.com/?portfolio=f405-wse

 

[Jackson T]

That FC is a bit older from 2015 and I'm not sure it will support newer versions of flight control software. A newer FC like the one I linked will work with INAV and Ardupilot. It has current and voltage monitoring built in along with OSD and quite a few other features. If you wanted GPS capabilities you could just add a low price GPS module. I use one of the older Matek F411-WING boards on my nano goblin and it works great.

http://www.mateksys.com/?portfolio=f405-wse

Thanks @Wes B. The f405 looks like a good FC, especially with inbuilt current/voltage sensors! The HK one has now dropped to $26 aud ($19 usd), so I reckon I'll still probably get that one just because its so cheap. That is, if the older software it requires is still available. Any ideas if this would be the case or not?