Telemetry radio has been working fine attached to bottom of Nova. Therefore, I bought a 15cm SMA cable and moved radio inside Nova and the antenna comes out the side of body. It's a tight fit, but radio is in channel between PowerBoard and shell. Only thing cable is really touching is the slight edge of ESC white nylon socket.
EDIT 2015-01 : This is the my old Internal layout. It has since been changed and optimized.
EDIT 2015-05 : Since the above pic, I had moved the 915mhz radio back outside/underneath Nova. I have now tried moving it back inside again (during gimbal install). I didn't want it in old location because GPS is over there now.
This is the new location. Notice FrSky antenna moved to top of RX (still at 90 degrees to back one). If this all passes interference and RSSI testing, it stays here. I will just add a bit of foam tape to prevent vibrations between radio and case.
Verified 3DRobotics 915mhz Telemetry radio settings. ECC is on. While slower through-put, official docs say it is recommended and supposedly it has better distance range. Yes, you can change settings on the slave radio from MissionPlanner (without removing it from quad).
Hey there! First of all, very nice blog you have here, i've been following it since before I got my Quanum Nova PNF and up till I have it up and running. It looks like we have almost same setup.
ReplyDelete1 question about this telemetry module placement.
I recently received my telemetry module and installed it inside the body.
It started flying ok until I lost GPS connection and my quad was flying away and fast in loiter mode. Panicked for a bit and until about 100 meters away tried switching to RTL and was glad it started flying back closely. Close enough I can see the GPS LED is blinking, I just override the controls with Stabilize mode and land right away.
It was a clear sky with no buildings around so i figured the interference comes from within the quad.
I ordered an SMA cable to extend the antenna outside the quadcopter, does this help? Have you got issues with GPS since you moved the telemetry back inside?
Mine works fine inside or outside. However, no mater where radio-board was ... my antenna has always been outside quad. Grab your logs before you fly again to maybe get a clue as to what happened with GPS.
DeleteAh ok, maybe that's why - i was just too excited and went flying with telemetry module and antenna inside the quad. Did noticed getting 9 sats initially though i thought all is ok. Checking the logs i did noticed GPS glitches for that flight. Removed the telemetry module and went for another flight today and all seems well. I'll wait for the antenna extension cable to arrive and try setting up telemetry again.
ReplyDeleteYou can always just strap it to the bottom of quad (as I have done many times). 915mhz seems to have less range than 2.4ghz. It's antennas like Line-of-Sight of each other.
DeleteOne of my 915mhz radio sets shipped with 4-inch 2.4ghz antennas. 2.4ghz is actually stamped on antennas. They work but I always wonder if optimally. The other set is same size but un-marked.
DeleteI could do that but not with gimbal on. It is a good idea though to test flight with the telemetry radio and antenna outside before moving them in with the antenna cable extender.
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