Well, I need some help

357bob

New member
I've built my first quad around the Lux v2 pro F3 board using Betaflight configurator. Got it all(most) figured out and had a great time learning and look forward to much more.
The problem I'm having is OSD. I've got the Eachine VR-700 pro goggles and have tried every setup i can think of.
VTX units I've tried are TX5258, TX805, (eachine) and Wolfwhoop Q1-pro. My camera is a Wolfwhoop C5 micro.
Everything is pretty low end but this is as much an experiment as anything for now.
If I wire the camera straight to the VTX I get a clean display to the goggles. If I run the camera through the FC on a UART (camera to rx, vtx to tx) i get a black screen at best. At worst, I enable UART2 to any of the betaflight cam protocalls and it resets my receiver from UART 4 to UART 2, and I have to start over.
No combination I've tried allows me to enable OSD in betaflight and get it to stick after save and reboot. I've also tried smart audio through the UART 1 TX pad, no luck. I can't find a lot of knowledge for beginners so I may be way off base and not know it. It seems the very basics are assumed to be known thus hard to find.
This is not ultra important as I can install a buzzer for battery level but as this is a learning experience, I'd like to get all I can functioning.
I have another FC for a quad build but need an ESC before I start experimenting with that one. Knowing me like I do, I'll probably give it someone as soon as I get it figured out lol. I love to build (I have 6 finished planes and two underway) but maybe 1 hour total flight time.

Whew, sorry for the long post but hopefully I provided most of the info needed to get some help

Robert
 

CarolineTyler

Legendary member
Sorry, but the FC you bought does not have an OSD chip on it. The camera needs to connect to a video in pad and the vtx to a video out.
 
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357bob

New member
Thanks for the quick reply! That makes it less important but when you say the cam needs to connect to a video in and the VTX to a video out, isn’t that the same as UART RX and TX? Or does it not support that because of the lack of OSD ?
Thanks again!!

Robert
 

357bob

New member
So as I think about it does the following, from Lumeniers website, suggest there is an add OSB of some sort?

“VIN + VBAT merged - A single wire to power the board will provide voltage input and Telemetry/OSD voltage data.
Filtered voltage output - output 5v 1A (and 3.3v where applicable) to power peripherals such as GPS, RX, BLACKBOX, OSD. 5v/3.3v RX selectable.”
 

Fidget

Active member
You could add a separate OSD board. Then you could wire that V pin to it so that it can know what voltage to display. A minimOSD would be the cheapest way to go. I made that work a couple of years ago, but it requires an FTDI cable to program.

I don't completely understand UARTs but essentially they're just digital I/Os, kind of like plugging in different USB devices to a PC. They won't pass video signals through them.
 

FDS

Elite member
Video connection is not the same as a UART.
The FC usually has the video pads separately to UARTs, the video goes in, through the OSD chip, then back out to the VTX.
Really these F3 boards should be consigned to history, you can get perfectly good F4 boards for under $25 now.
 

CarolineTyler

Legendary member
The UART (Universal Asynchronous Receive Transmit) is like a USB connection, digital data and not for analogue information which a video signal is.
In modern VTX units often have a digital receive which you would connect to the TX of a UART to allow the FC to change settings on the VTX such as channel and power output.
 
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357bob

New member
The UART (Universal Asynchronous Receive Transmit) is like a USB connection, digital data and not for analogue information which a video signal is.
In modern VTX units often have a digital receive which you would connect to the TX of a UART to allow the FC to change settings on the VTX such as channel and power output.
Thank you, that actually brought a whole lot of thing together for me!
Bought the board new for 8.00 thinking I'd figure it out as I go. I've learned a ton.