IA-Flyer

I put a small video on my FTP site using the camera some of us bought on ~ebay~ and from this forums market area. The file is named Panasonic_ccd.zip and is the model with the 71.9-degree lens.
[link=http://elwood.pionet.net/~jjoy/panasonic_CCD.zip]Panasonic CCD Video[/link]
There was heavy turbulence at the park, so I couldn’t get a close-up video of the A-7 and tank. At the airport a full-scale was taxiing in and made a good subject for a few minutes.
The video was taken at sunset so the lighting is poor, but the camera held up well in the conditions. I’ll try to post something from a brighter day when I get a chance.

Thanks Chuck!

Fubar-One

My Feedback: (1)

Excellent video, Jim!
Extremely clear image. I dont know how you manage to eliminate all the vibrations like you do. You need to repost the specs for your video stick again for those of us too lazy to search thru the threads. Like me.
Pic of how you mounted the camera would help too. I have NO luck with mounting em on IC planes for some reason.
Wonder what was goin thru that pilot's mind when you flew over...[X(]

Ensignnolo

Sweet!

Ensignnolo

jester125

Best "ebay" cam video I've seen yet.

chris

IA-Flyer

He didn’t see me coming, I dove in from the sun!

Actually, he’s a fellow RC flyer (I know him well) and came over after parking his plane to watch the live video while I flew another flight. He has the white pickup that was by my red car in one of the low passes.

Vibration isn’t fun and I wish I had a secret fix all I could share. But I’ve found the best system to be a soft mounted engine and a rigid mounted camera. Right now the plane has no vibration at any throttle position and I love it! Well see what happens when I hook up the tilt servo.

I’ll post a few pictures of the new camera mount, but not much has changed from the original design.
[link=http://www.rcsites.net/ia-flyer/]Video Stick[/link]

I torn my video sender out of the wing in anticipation of ordering a second 600mW system from Bill, but when I had saved enough and went to his site he was sold out! Drat, NO it can’t be! So I just put everything back as it was, until later this month anyway.

mr.rc-cam

Excellent video quality! It would be really interesting to toggle between the two eBay Panasonic CCD cameras to see the change in field-of-view.

Hacked wireless video senders can be a lot of fun and a great source of RF project experience. For sure, it's amazing what 1mW of RF can do with a careful installation and good antenna system.

Skycam41

WOW, awesome quality!!! Which TX/RX are you using for your video equipment and what plane was that in? BTW, great take off and landing on your very short strip, you should be good for landing on a carrier

I finally got my Flyin King in the air last night with the digital Canon A70 but for some reason I only got 1 second of footage [&o]

Mike

IA-Flyer

Mr. RC-CAM

You read my mind!

I’m going to use a dual camera system on my new plane, but if I get a chance I’ll try to mount a second on the video stick and get some footage.

I can still remember a quote from you about 9 months ago and it went something like this, “when I added a 50mW amp to my sender it really brought it to life!”
That statement has been killing me ever since!
I love the no compromises quality I get with the setup but I want more power! I wish I had your electronic ability, but all the pictures of amps being added to systems looked a little different than mine. I figured I would just ruin it trying the mod.
If this thing put out 50 to 200mW I would be a very happy camper!

P.S. the video I posted in this link was done with a stock receiver and it’s stock patch antenna (I have 2 of the systems). I wasn’t in the mood to bring out my big antenna and didn’t plan on flying beyond visual anyway.


Ensignnolo, jester125, Skycam41,
Thanks!
I’ll try to post some detail on the installation and equipment as soon as I can.
I’m on a dial-up at the moment so it’s a little harder to send pictures and video these days. But I did find some space on my ISP’s FTP site, so I can post some videos from time to time.

The transmitter is a Part-15 Radio Shack video sender that is long out of production.
I modified it by installing an antenna from a computer wireless network access point.

Jim

mr.rc-cam

I think you will be blown away by the 50mW upgrade. Perhaps you will get the courage to add the Linx BBA-519 Amp by looking at these photos of Xcam2 hacks (it is all the same to the Linx):
http://groups.msn.com/rccam/rccam4.m...oto&PhotoID=20
http://www.yb2normal.com/linxamp.html

Basically there is an RF input, an RF output, +5VDC power, and a bunch of grounds (everyone of them count too). To prevent wayward oscillations, the amp must be installed so that the ground pins are well coupled to the Tx's PCB ground (short leads!). Operation on voltages higher than 5V is possible if you follow the data sheet's current limiting resistor info. Success is easy if you keep all the leads short and follow basic RF construction. The photos show typical methods that the average mortal can do.

IA-Flyer

[link=http://www.linxtechnologies.com/ldocs/modules/m_bba.shtml]BBA-519-A[/link]


Is the correct one to order $13.95? I could give it a try on my second sender, if you are willing to look at some close-up pictures to make sure I'm using the proper pads and pins?
I have a feeling I need to remove the RF module from the circuit board to see anything that looks like the links you gave me.

Is the backing circuit board needed at all, or just the TX section?
It looks like a fun project.

mr.rc-cam

It is $15.00 from Digi-Key: http://dkc3.digikey.com/PDF/T041/0521.pdf

Do not do that (leave the sardine can alone). All you need is access to the Tx's antenna connection (where the coax solders to the PCB). Remove the antenna coax, and using a VERY short wire (mine was about 0.2" long), connect the BBA-519's input to it. The antenna coax will go to the BBA-519's RF output. All Linx grounds go to the Tx's RF ground, which is essentially the massive copper copper plane on the Tx's PCB. Do not skimp on the RF gnds!

I installed mine "deadbug" style, per the photo shown in the link I posted. Yb2normal did the opposite. Use whatever method is easiest for you to use. The goal is to install the RF Amp with VERY short leads. At microwave frequencies, the wires become efficient inductors and really mess things up.

Fubar-One

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Great info, guys!

IA-Flyer

I’m pretty sure my antenna wire goes under "then into" the can and over the base circuit board. I’m not sure I can get at it with out removing the can, I’ll take come pictures tonight of the top and bottom and post them.

BTW, I did a short day flight today and it looked very nice and bright, I’ll try to make a short 10 second or so video from the footage and post it tomorrow.

IA-Flyer

Here are some pictures of the installation, and one of the video senders.

I'm going to switch to a BlackWidowAV system soon. But I would like to try the 50mW hack just for the fun of it Mr. RC-CAM, I can always use the system somewhere.

For the camera mount, I put a support area in the wing and ran a servo lead and the camera wires to it. That way I can try out new mounts by just making a new hatch and screwing it down.
If you look close at the side of the plane you can see it looks like a pincushion! I've tried a lot of different camera mounts.

Here is a short low quality video using the old CMOS cam, with a Pan-Tilt mount.
The Pan-Tilt setup was fun, but with no assisted flight devices like a Co-Pilot on the plane I found it was just easier to use tilt only and fly the plane at what I want to look at.
The Pan-Tilt setup was removed and will go on the next plane I’m building, it will have flight assists that will fly the plane while I look around.

[link=http://elwood.pionet.net/~jjoy/Pan-Tilt.zip]Pan-Tilt.zip (1.7 megs)[/link]


There are more details about the plane and the Pan-Tilt mount at my site, but these pictures are the latest configuration until the Black Widow system arrives!

IA-Flyer

Top view of the video sender.

mr.rc-cam

Adding the Linx amp will not be difficult. Here is what I would do:

Mount the BBA-519 IC "dead bug" style on top of the sardine can, right above the antenna coax area. The RF-IN of the IC must be aligned directly above the antenna coax. Glue down the IC with a small amount of CA or epoxy.

All IC grounds will be soldered to the can's tin cover (solid leads, each less than .25" long). The tin is plated so a hot iron and a little flux will work fine.

Cut the existing coax lead as short as possible. Solder only the center lead to the RF-IN. The shield must remain, but do not connect it to the IC.

If you have a LM7805 Vreg in the Tx then use it for power. Be sure to add a .1uF power decoupling cap directly on the BBA-519 (again, short leads).

Connect the antenna coax's center lead to the RF-OUT. Connect the shield to the BBA-519 ground pins.

IA-Flyer

Thanks Mr. RC-CAM, I can handle something that simple.
I added a 7805 to the board to drive the 5v camera so that part is covered.
Sounds very simple, thanks!

Fubar-One

My Feedback: (1)

Man, I wish there was a kit for that plane. My building "skills" are not at a point where scratch building attempts would be a good thing.
I have finally gotten up the nerve to try the twin Super Sportster project and am even contemplating adding tricycle retracts to it.
Maybe I can come up with something like you got there eventually tho.
Great plane!

Skycam41

Question, how did you keep the vibration away? Impressive video

IA-Flyer

Dan, My ability to kit a plane is non-existent!
I should probably draw up some plans for it incase I ever break it, I like the way it flys.
Lets see, that’s number 34 on the to-do list.

Skycam41, I made a very soft engine mount for it and use a very rigid mount for the camera.

Radiofly

IAFLYER- That is very nice video and worth emulating. I probably missed some posts somewhere, but I'm a little confused about where the quality comes from, the panasonic camera, the radio shack tx, or the mount? Which ebay panasonic camera is it, a kx121?

IA-Flyer

The camera is a CX-161 board camera and they are for sale here on RCUniverse for $40. The ad appears at the top of the forum we’re posting in quite often, and in the market section.

The quality is a factor of all the things you mentioned, the video sender is large and low power but was designed to send as close to perfect video as possible. The camera mount and engine vibration dampening reduce the vibration to the point it isn’t noticeable and doesn’t degrade the quality.
A Panasonic CX-171 would have even higher quality, but it’s close to the price of a camcorder so I haven’t tried one.

Jim

Radiofly

Oh, somehow I missed those ads for the cx161. $40 is a good price for that camera. I guess they are being unloaded since Panasonic is getting out of the board camera market. Ok, let's see some CX171 Ads!

IA-Flyer

I installed the BBA-519-A amp to one of my video senders tonight.
I thought about starting a new thread but this is where everything else is on the topic.

Mr. RC-CAM, thanks again for the great directions and helping me take the plunge into doing this!
I did a mix of the way you and Bill installed them. I went for the “dead bug in a knife edge ” method so the overall height would stay the same.
The sender had an 8-volt regulator so I used it and two 100-ohm resistors in parallel to power the amp.
The “BBA” bottom ground pins are soldered to the ground plane of the base circuit board, the top ones were soldered to the can. Please let me know if you see any problems with the install.

Removing the un-needed IR part of the board was as much work as installing the amp!
I left the antenna input a little long (1 mistake worth) and it could be trimmed down another ¼” if needed, but everything seems to be working fine and I don’t see any increase in noise in the video signal.

I’m hoping to find someone at a TV station that can test the RF output; I’d love to know the actual gain I received. If it went from 1-7 mW to 40-50mW it should be an impressive gain!
I’ll do some ground range tests then try it in the air.

Jim

IA-Flyer

I found a way to test the relative output of the amp installation.
I’m using a wireless network monitoring program and looking at the noise floor change when the video transmitter is turned on.

The wireless network was set to channel 1 (2.412GHz) and the senders were tested in the same location / antenna orientation on channel “A” 2.411GHz.
The first test was done in my house and about 12 feet away from the receiving network. The Black Widow system was not in this chart because it produced to much power to be tested at this distance.

The second test was done with the video transmitters located at a greater distance, in my garage with some walls in between.
The un-modified video sender shows higher power peaks at the beginning and end of each transmission in the graph, I’m pretty sure this is from me being in close proximity while connecting the power.

I did a ground range test using a small receiver antenna and didn’t see any difference in range or quality. I’ll try it in the air next.
It looks pretty obvious from the test that the amp is doing its job and producing quite a bit more power!