Month: May 2020

Posted on

Testing out the GoPro Hero 5 Black

Hey everyone, not many of you here I’d imagine but that’s just fine. Blogging into the void is popular nowadays I guess!

Just got a GoPro Hero 5 Black from eBay a few days ago, and a 3D printed mount for it from a friend of mine today. The footage is way better than I thought it would be and that’s only 1080p 30 FPS. Going to stick to that because it’s perfect resolution and such for my use.

All that’s left to do now is try to balance the weight better because it was very front heavy during this first try. Moving the battery to the back end instead of the middle helped a ton, and while it is still heavy in the front it should be better to fly.

Anyways, have a good day!

-Jon

Posted on

Learning C# and Unity

It’s summer break now and I’m out of university for a few months so that’s nice. I would like to get an internship going but because of the COVID-19 stuff, as well as not being a junior in university yet (will be this coming semester!) I can’t really get an internship. So I’ve decided to take an online course series to learn C# so I can work with Unity.

Previously I’ve done a few small projects with Unity and I really did not get anything done and it was more smashing ideas from online together to get something to work. Honestly I really like programming and want to actually make stuff with Unity, so I enrolled in an online course series for learning C# and Unity.

The course is Introduction to C# and Unity Programming on Coursera taught by Dr. T. Chamilliard from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. Really wonderful guy and teacher. Right now it’s really small steps but I’m actually learning exactly how everything works and how to use it properly. Once I get some projects rolling later I’ll more than likely share some stuff.

-Jon

Posted on

FrSky Taranis X9D+ 2019 Causing VTX Interference

Drone Interference Video

Hey everyone, hope you’re doing well. Today I’m going to talk about some interesting but infuriating problems between my radio transmitter and my video transmitter. The video above this shows off the problem in action. Please disregard the audio being a little bit out of sync as I’m not used to recording and syncing audio to a prerecorded video.

Currently I’m using the FrSky Taranis X9D+ 2019 and the Tramp HV 5.8ghz VTX. For some reason I see lines on my goggles screen only when the taranis is turned on, and these lines go away instantly when the taranis is turned off. This can be seen in the video I’ve posted above. We’re fairly certain that the interference is caused by the transmitter putting off noise on frequencies that it should not be. And I’m fairly certain the VTX is picking up the interference, and not the goggles’ built in receiver, because two different goggles have the same issue.

Right now we’re using ACCST D16 but we’re going to change to ACCESS and see if that solves the problem. I’m waiting on a cable to come in so I can flash the ACCESS firmware to my receiver, so I’ll update soon with how it went and if it solves the problem.

Flashing the ACCESS firmware and binding with ACCESS … did it solve the problem? Well at the moment no as I was unable to physically access the receiver on the FC due to the protective case’s screws being clipped. I’ve emailed the FrSky technical support and they’ve been lovely so far about how I should flash the firmware on the FC I have but have no responded about my issue of being unable to remove the protective case… I’ll update if this ever gets resolved.

Solution has been found!
So I figured out what the problem was, and it is very simple. The way I have the flight controller setup is such that the receiver antennas come out the front, on opposite sides of the camera. Because of this setup the video wires are picking up noise from the receiver antennas and causing the interference seen on the video. To fix this I just have to flip the flight controller so the receiver antennas are going out the back of the drone.

-Jon