Are you inexperienced to cell UAV? Read this!

Sinamics

Hi Maurice

I was looking for someone able to help me to implement a Quadcopter with RPI2, LTE, Pixhwak, cam...

We are here to help you. 🙂

I would like make a dedicated web site all during the builing, but it takes time also.

Trust me, i know creating a website from scratch is very time consuming.

You said "I will suggest to start reading my blogs, either for Navio+ or Pixhawk". Are you talking about a specific Blog explaining the assembly ?

Im refering to
https://discuss.uavmatrix.com/d/38-navio-and-rpi2-create-the-ultimate-4g-drone
and
https://discuss.uavmatrix.com/d/17-howto-rpi-pixhawk-with-4g-cell-video-telemetry

They might not describe everything, but you should get a good idea where to start.

Also, could you tell me, before I buy all thoses devices, if you think that I make a good choice 💯

You might want to buy a 5v 5A bec for RPI2 power supply, this is absolute essential to get a stable RPI board.
I also would recommend buying various cables for the Pixhawk and Serial to Ethernet adapter.

image 44167632356687fd05fc52573767284.jpeg

image 210931501256687f6249ea7400580519.jpeg

momoleharico

Thank you,
So, I have to make a choice now : Navio+ or Pixhawk. Navio+ seems more expensive but cleaner than Pixhawk.

Having used both of them, what do you advise ?
Question : During the development phase, can I replace the LTE by a Dongle Wifi without having to much things to modify later ?

In your blog you say :

"We need to attach more power to the RPI2 USB, using a 5v 5A BEC. This will supply our 4G modem with enough power. All onboard equipment are powered from the same battery source."

Could you give me the properties of this Battery source please ? V, A, Mah ... ?
Also, Do you have a website to advise to buy all cables ?

Thank you

Sinamics

Navio+ is a great board and indeed cleaner, but you cant use PiCam, only USB webcam will work.
Read this thread for furhter info.

Its really up to you, both of them works great.
Yes you can use WIFI dongle for testing purposes and LTE modem when flying. This wont require any change of code as long as you configure the interfaces correctly. The battery source is the main LIPO, in your case
- LiPo Battery For RC Helicopters boats cars Li-Poly Battery Free Shipping ". And from that battery i connect 5v 5A bec to supply RPI and Serial to Ethernet adapter.
Those Cables you can find all over the world. You could also ge them from China,
e.g http://www.banggood.com/

momoleharico

Hi Christian,
I am going to buy the PiwHawk finaly.
Waiting to receive it, I am going to work on the alimentation. I just read the difference between U-BEC and S-BEC (sweachable), and I am going to buy an S-bec. It seems to be a better choice because it doesn't consume electricity and provide a more stable current. Do you confirm that ?

Thanks

Sinamics

I dont know in depth details, but im always using Switching BEC, and never had any voltage issues using them. You should be fine with S-BEC.

mattiao

Hello, I don't have clear when I need to use the BEC to power the servos.
I am using a Pixhawk powered by the Lipo battery through the power module was included. Are not the 6 aux out ports enough to power a small servo?
looking this link http://copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/common-servo they connect the servo directly to the aux port and a BEC to another aux out port. Is it correct?

Sinamics

Hi matt. Yes you need to connect power source to one of the Aux port. Pixhawk will not be able to supply sufficient power itself.

Jason_Halderman

Hello! Im new to this board!
I own a couple of apm based flight controllers, fairly new to RPI, and I just found this site.. I have a couple of questions:

Can this be done with an amp 2.6 (I have a couple laying around)?
Has anyone tried using a RPI Zero (Have a couple of those laying around too)?
Has anyone tried skipping the eithernet-serial adapter and going strait tx-rx rx-tx (board to board, apm site says it can be done but you guys seem more in depth)?

Sinamics

Hi Jason.
You can use this configuration on all flightcontrollers that provides serial telemetry data such as APM 2.5 / 2.6 Pixhawk, Navio+, ect... Basically all APM driven boards..
I never tried RPI Zero, but i guess it might work. I have tried the GPIO tx / rx and it worked using TCP and Ser2net . But it simply wont work using UDP. Ser2net is only supporting TCP.

Jason_Halderman

Thanks for the response!
I was unsure on the GPIO setup, the RPI zero has no eithernet connection and you basically have to use the same adapter in reverse to get it, Ill just get a regular RPI and go from there.

The cell setup would be great where i live as I have trouble with a strong video feed and my unboosted range is cut due to all the trees in the area, but we have strong cell network connections. I have considered switching to 433/900 or 1.2 setup but I find this sites setup both interesting and challenging!

Sinamics

You wont be dispointed. 🙂 cell telemetry is great.

Keep us updated.
Happp new year everyone... 🙂

momoleharico

Hi guys,
Could you advise me about how to share the the electricity from the battery to all the devices please.
Also, what do you think about this : http://dev.ardupilot.com/wiki/raspberry-pi-via-mavlink/

It seams that it is possible to avoid to use the convertor Serial -> Ethernet
Thanks to all.
Maurice

Sinamics

Hi Maurice
Im using a 5v 5A bec to supply raspberry pi and Serial to eth converter. Pixhawk uses 3dr power modul and my Castle motor Regulator (embeded 5v 5A bec) is connected to the pixhawk servo output rail.
I`ve tried connecting tx-rx to RPI GPIO using mavproxy as described in your link. It works, the only drawback is that mavlink uses allot of RPI power, causing the gstreamer to lag.

I was using the first gen PI, so it might work better on PI2. It would be awesome if we could skip the serial to eth converter. Im sure there is a way.

momoleharico

Hi Christian,
Thanks for yout response.
I understand for Raspberry and Serial converter. Regarding Pixhawk,

why you don't use the Sbec 5V5A ?
Your 3dr power modul is an other LIPO Battery ?
Also, could you give me the link or the name of the various cables for the Pixhawk and Serial to Ethernet adapter that you advise me in the past please ?

Thanks
Maurice

Sinamics

@momoleharico
Regarding Pixhawk, why you don't use the Sbec 5V5A ?
3DR power module also gives me live measurement of the battery voltage and current draw inflight, which is very useful.

momoleharico Your 3dr power modul is an other LIPO Battery ?

No, everything is powered from the same battery.
You could however use a seperate battery for pixhawk ect.

momoleharico Also, could you give me the link or the name of the various cables for the Pixhawk and
Serial to Ethernet adapter that you advise me in the past please ?

Serial to Eth you can find everywhere. Just google it, Example bellow.
http://www.robotshop.com/en/ethernet-serial-web-server-module.html

@mattiao
That`s interesting. You are running mavlink, right?
Could you please post your video resolution, framrate? Latency? A youtube video would be awesome
Dont you have a 2.4Ghz radio you could test with?
to bad it wont work with 75Mhz.

Ethernet to Serial Web Server Module

• 3.3V TTL UART, Xbee compatible 20-pin • 10BaseT/100BaseTX Ethernet PHY• TCP/IP Protocols• RoHS Compliant
Read more...

mattiao

Hi,
I am using the PI2 skipping the ethernet converter and the cpu never uses more than 20% while streaming at the same time.

The only issue I have is still the interference the cellular line is creating on my 75MHz RC receiver, like I mentioned in another post...

mattiao

Hi Bernt,

this is a video I did to give you an idea of the latency that is just few tenths:
This is the pipeline I am using to stream:

raspivid -t 999999 -h 720 -w 1080 -fps 25 -vf -hf -b 500000 -o - | gst-launch-1.0 -e -vvv fdsrc ! 
h264parse ! rtph264pay pt=96 config-interval=5 ! udpsink host=xx.xx.xx.xx port=9000

Unfortunately I don't have any other radio or receiver than my 75MHz has the interference issue.

https://youtu.be/SSQ4YzubQGc

3G telemetry and FPV with Raspberry PI

The layout of the system is: - Pixhawk flight controller - Raspberry Pi 2 connected to the Pixhawk via telemetry port - 3G cellular connection to internet - ...
Read more...

Sinamics

Thank you for sharing Mattiao.
So i guess we could say that gstreamer works satisfactory using Mavlink / UDP and without the TTL to Eth adapter.

HolgerHey

Hi
How do you power down the Raspberry Pi after a flight?

Sinamics

Im usually just pull the power. It may not be the correct way, but i work, 🙂
If you really want to shutdown your PI in a safe and correct manner, you must use this line of code.
sudo shutdown -h now

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