Upgrade Time

We have taken the downtime resulting from our close encounter with a tree with DeaconEye and the wait for an airspeed sensor for the Catfish to work on some upgrades for both.



On the Catfish, we installed a modified USB cable which connects to a servo output and triggers the camera. This frees us from the cumbersome, less-than-ideal CHDK script that we were running to trigger the camera. Now, still using CHDK, we will be able to trigger the camera continuously using a switch on the transmitter and, when the switch is turned off, the camera will turn off. This will be a big improvement over having to guess the number of images we need to take to cover the flight area. As of right now the cable is installed and working and we are putting the finishing touches on the CHDK script. I will update when all is finished.

As for the DeaconEye, we are installing a DragonLink receiver. The DragonLink is a long-range RC radio system. It uses 433 MHz VHF as opposed to the rather impotent 2.4 GHz system we were using. This should give us a much, much longer range and, most importantly, the ability to punch the signal through vegetation better. As good as all of that sounds, it is turning out to be a more involved process than we expected.

My first step was to remove the DragonLink transmitter (Tx) from the Turnigy Tx that it came on (the Catfish came with a DragonLink system mounted on a Turnigy). Our JR Tx is of much higher quality, and I prefer using it by a long shot. So, by moving the DragonLink to the JR, we are able to fly all our aircraft using it (more on that later). That makes the Turnigy a spare for whatever we want to use it for. Installing the DragonLink on the JR involved a few steps. First, the JR does not have a removable RF module, so that complicated the process from the start. On most transmitters, DragonLink installation is as easy as removing the stock RF module and plugging in the DragonLink. With that out, I had to connect to the trainer port of the JR and to the battery. The trainer port outputs PPM, but it is reportedly quite weak. To boost the output, I carried out an internal modification to the JR outlined here:

http://fpvlab.com/forums/showthread.php?1970-JR-X9503-PPM-mod&s=20c1d9ca7ac04aa9161a5dc6fa801eaf

With that done, I connected a servo cable directly to the battery connector pins in the JR. I drilled a hole in the back of the Tx and ran the cable out beside the trainer port. After this, I custom-made a cable to connect the DragonLink to the trainer port and the servo power connector. I wired the DragonLink PPM signal wire to a headphone jack connector to go into the trainer port. I wired the DragonLink power wires to a servo connector to connect to the JR's power connector. This post covers roughly what I did:

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1738728

With that done, it was a simple matter of plugging everything in. With it all hooked up I powered it up and reconfigured the receiver connections because moving from the Turnigy to the JR, all the channels got mixed around. Once I got all the channels sorted back out I did the mode switch mixer on the JR so that we could select flight modes on the Catfish. Now all that is left is to install a DragonLink receiver on DeaconEye and get it set up to go. I will update this post when all upgrades are finished.