rimb05

Wires are fine for me. This way, there's more flexibility. I'm not sure what kind of connectors I'm going to use yet... rimb05

No problem Daniel, hope you get well soon! rimb05

Daniel, Same here. I'll take two RTFs when they're done. I flew last week with my hand wired OSD. It was much too windy, and I ended up eventually crashing into a tree I only got to test the autopilot briefly, but it seemed to be turning in the correct direction. I'll post the video soon. The last frame is quite amusing, with a picture of the lipo ejecting from the plane, still connected Everything survived in the end. rimb05

Yes, I agree. An hour or two of backup is plenty. I've had to wait 2-3 minutes for a cold start. It just makes it quicker to have a warm start if you're changing lipos often in between flights. rimb05

I would prefer to have a battery, but a smaller one would be nice. I wonder what the current draw is on the EB-85A in battery backup mode? An Ultracap style (1 farad capacitor) might just do it. I've also seen smaller backup batteries in other GPS modules (with solder tabs). rimb05

Daniel, No need to write a windows app. Just use hyperterminal to upload a text file to the OSD. It works very well, and is easy. It's just a matter of making a text file with the 5 waypoints on it, something like: VLake 87.44.33.44 42.55.43.44 Test1 84.44.33.44 47.55.43.44 Test2 86.44.33.44 45.55.43.44 then, use hyperterminal's "send text file" feature. You can use spaces to delimit the fields like above, or commas

Sounds good to me Daniel, I'm just thinking out loud Your idea of having a pop-up map with waypoints as markers is great. This makes a lot of sense if you get lost. You've got to admit, it's very tempting to make this into an UAV controller, since it has almost everything you need. I suppose it's best to keep things simple, less screen clutter, etc.

Good point. That would be useful as well. "Learn Route" could be an option on the menu. I'm envisioning using a momentary switch on the transmitter to toggle between the menu options.

Daniel, Will the newer processor give us more I/O pins? If so, I think a second switch on the transmitter to scroll between waypoints would work great. For example: AUTOPILOT OFF HOME WAYPOINT1 WAYPOINT2 ... SET WAYPOINT Then, a constant indication of the waypoint setting somewhere on the screen, so the pilot knows what mode the autopilot is in. "set waypoint" would always store the current location into, say waypoint 16. For uploading waypoints from the PC, a, SD card interface would be nice, but that takes up 4 I/O pins... I think a simple serial port interface would work just fine. Open Hyperterminal, and upload to OSD a small text file with 16 waypoints, one per line, etc.

Wow! Those images are amazing. I can't wait to try it! You're right, I could put the Copilot before the OSD, and that works fine, it's just one more layer of safety with the copilot after the OSD (in case the OSD fails).

Daniel, Sorry to hear about the BOB-4. I'm glad it didn't happen to you while flying! I've been trying to iron out some glitching in my plane, and have narrowed down the problem. I'm using a copilot in this plane, and while I haven't planned on using it while testing the OSD, it's there just in case something bad happens. The glitching happens when I put the copilot in series with the OSD (Receiver->OSD->Copilot->Servo). I checked and re-checked that the voltage levels were good at every point in this chain (I have a Futaba receiver, but I have a level shifter that outputs rail-to-rail 5v, so I've got ~5v TTL at every point). I was stumped as to why the elevator servo jumped around in a strange, rhythmic pattern. Then, I finally figured it out. It has to do with the way the OSD outputs PWM. Apparently, it's not synced to the OSD inputs. Let me explain: The copilot, and many other devices don't like it when they receive all their inputs at the same time. They prefer to have a small delay between channels (most likely because the inputs trigger an interrupt, and if two channels come in at the same time, it can't figure out which one trigerred the interrupt). In my setup, the copilot gets it's elevator input from the OSD, but it gets it's aileron input directly from the receiver. The problem is, the OSD's elevator output is not synced to the receiver's outputs. I looked at this on a scope, and the two are completely asynchronous. It's as if the OSD's outputs are synced to an internal timer instead of the receiver inputs. This causes glitching in the copilot, because every now and then, the two inputs line up, and the copilot can't handle that. My question is: how difficult would it be to have the OSD outputs synced to the OSD inputs? I assume this would be as easy as moving the code in your timer interrupt to the input interrupt function. I realize this is pretty low on the priority scale. Maybe I'll do this myself once you release the source code.

OK, you'll know that the the AN0 and AN1 pins are connected properly if you get a text pop-up on the left of the screen, that has the voltage and amps listed. Even if the current sensor is not connected, these text labels will pop up as soon as there's a voltage on AN1 (it will show 0 amps if the current sensor is not connected to AN3, though). rimb05

just like in the schematic, the battery is connected to AN0, through a 22k. Then, the same battery also connects to AN1 through a 22k. 11k resistors to gnd on both inputs. This is, of course only necessary if you're using one battery. If you've got separate electronics / motor baterries, you should connect the motor battery to AN1, and the other battery to AN0 (both still in series with the 22k resistors).

docphi, You might have the same issue I had: you need to have your battery voltage connected to AN1 (not just AN0). Since I'm using a singe battery, I originally connected the battery voltage to AN0 only, but AN1 needs it too. The current sensor itself is connected to AN3. I hope this helps.

No problem, I'll try to recreate a specific scenario for you step by step when I get a chance. I'm having some level shifting issues with my plane right now, so I'll need to work that out this weekend.