jim pettis

Maybe I'm missing something.

To charge the FCO2, I turn it on, switch it to the PC setting, and then plug in the usb cable. However, even after 4 hours of charging I only get 5 to 8 mins of vidoe before the battery craps out, and thats at room temp.

Am I charging it wrong? Sometimes the case does get a bit warm, which should be a good thing. Other times I just can't tell if it's taking a charge or not.

Anyone have this issue?

jim pettis

Finally got mine in the air today. 35 degrees. Battery did in fact only last 2 mins. 38 seconds. Focus was HORRIBLE. Ended up opening the case, opening the lens cover, and after a bit of surgery, freeing up the lens so I could test different focus points. I made a scratch on the side of the lens mount, and the lens face. Best I came up with was a little less than 1/8 of a turn in.

Stupid me didn't save the test pics to show that there can be a huge change in the sharpness of the pics and videos....sorry.

One thing however....the ribbon that connects the lens unit to the main unit can, and WILL pull out of the main unit. There is a tiny black clip that secures it in place. You have to gently remover that clip (I say gently, because the infrared sensor blocks one side, and I ended up breaking one of the tabs off), slide the ribbon back into the slot, and then reclip the black tab on top of it.

Thought I had ruined it when it happened, but the fix worked, and it still works, but with much better clarity.

opjose

Hmmm...

Worried after reading your post...

I put my camera on my powered USB hub with my computer off, to charge it last night.

I forgot about it, and when I came back the next morning I noticed that my hub's green USB indicator light for the camera had gone off.

So I unplugged the camera and plugged it in again. A few minutes later the light went out again on my hub, indicating the camera was not receiving power. The LCD on the camera was off too.

So I wonder if the FlyCamOne2 features auto-cutoff when charging?

Anyway I then tried a recording to see how long it will record.

As I write this I am already at 18 minutes and still going strong.

I just finished ordering the remote trigger for the camera listed on FlyCamOne's forum pages. Pretty neat... it lets you control recording via your TX for $22.00 shipped.

smalley46

Been playing with this the last two weeks out at the field. I think the video is pretty decent especially when facing back at the tail. However, I too have had early shut off times of 8 or less minutes. Experimented today in the house. First a full 3 hour charge. The camera ran for 30+ minutes with no early shutoff. I think battery needs to be in a relatively warm environment and have a full charge. I'll see how it does in the air next weekend.

opjose

The remote switch is capable of pulling power from your flight battery, so it can take care of short battery times as well.

More info may be found here: [link=http://www.curverc.co.uk/index.htm]Click ME![/link]

jim pettis

Which of the 3 interface types did you order opjose? In another thread I had asked about remote power for the camera, and the one bit of info I got back was that it supposedly will draw the equivelent of two servo's worth of power to run the camera. Not sure if this is in fact true, but it does seem like a large draw.

When I opened the case, my battery is stamped 300 mah...not a very big battery at all.

I would be curious as to how it works when you get the remote, as far as how much extra power it draws, and what happens after 60 seconds when the camera goes into "standby". On mine, the only way out of that is to hit the shutter release, then the mode select. If this happens during flight, aren't you out of luck as I'm guessing the remote switch only activates the shutter release?

opjose

I ordered the "Type 3" one as it purports to have a jumper to enable/disable the external power. It should arrive any day as I did receive a confirmation of sending, e-mail.

Given the 300mAh rating of the internal battery and that LiPo's should never be fully discharged, I think it would be safe to say that the camera draws between 120 to 180mA which is in line with the two servo comment...

I was able to get the camera to record for well over 35 minutes the other day, at which point I lost interest.

The USB transfer is painfully slow though and from now one I'll merely pop the SD card into a reader instead.

Re: Standby

That would be a show stopper. I'll have to check mine as I've not really looked at the timeout.

jim pettis

It would appear that I was in fact mistaken. I had thought I read something about a standby mode, but have had mine in the UR mode now for at least 5 mins and its still waiting for me to push the shutter button to start, so guess that won't be an issue Opjose.

Thanks for the link to the shutter release. I'm going to wait to hear from you as to the results before buying. Just curious....I noticed it accepts paypal payments...if you have an account with them, do they automatically convert US funds to Euro's?

In case anyone is interested, here is a link with some two sample pics I took showing factory set focus, and self adjusted focus. The pics are in the last post at the bottom of the page. There is a HUGE difference in them....take a look.

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showt...703830&page=28

opjose

Re: Paypal

Yes I used Paypal. Paypal automatically converts to the correct currency and it gives you a good exchange rate.

I always utilize my Credit Card as my primary funding for Paypal, although PayPal want's it otherwise.

Paypal does not guarantee a return of funds if something goes wrong, and they are a bear to deal with.

The CC gives me a quicker, easier to handle recourse...

Re: Pictures

WOW! What a difference...

Now I need to do what you did.

jim pettis

I noticed you had dropped in to look at the difference in pics. As to the covering, yes, mine is off.

I'm the same way as you with pay pal. Why I need to give them my bank account info to be "certified" is beyond me. Credit card info should be good enough for just about anyone on the planet.

The tabs holding the case together are not the strongest. One of them on the top next to the lens body broke at one point, so it has a small piece of scotch tape holding it closed. Not a huge issue, just be more gentle than I was.

opjose

They "certify" you to establish that you have an account somewhere that they can directly withdraw and deposit from... ooops...

So I opened a seperate account where I keep about $20.00 in just for Paypal... so I remain certified, or certifiable for continuing to use them...

Thanks.

opjose

Well I opened mine up, just as you said it opened easily.

There is actually a small indent next to the infrared sensor that accepts your fingernail just fine, to start the ball rolling...

However my lens does NOT turn at all... I tried turning the circle with the eight marks on the edge to no avail.

I'm afraid of breaking the lens. It doesn't want to turn for me at all.

jim pettis

I ran into the same thing. I just very very gently put pressure on the outer portion with a pair of needle nose pliers, and used the other hand to turn the lens. A second or two of pressure and I felt it break free. I think they put a tiny drop of something to hold it.

The reason I used pliers is the outer unit feels like its glued to the circuit board or something, and I didn't want to twist it off, so in came the pliers.

opjose

I think they used CA on mine. There's no way I'm going to be able to turn it without ripping out the whole assembly... it's that tight.

jvn01

Hi there guys

Just noticed this thread - your interface should be with you in the next day or so Jose :-)

Regarding the FCO2 power consumption when fed with 5V on pin 4 (relative to pin 3 which is GND) I did some bench test measurements here with the FCO2 and the current drawn is between 250mA and 350mA depending on the state of charge of the internal LIPO and the mode you are in. Strangely, the FCO2 current draw in standby mode (ie display reading 'VR') is only 20-30mA less than in record mode (display blinking). Either way, 350mA worst-case is a fair bit extra for a lightweight radio ESC and you should definitely be sure your BEC in the ESC can supply the extra current on top of the normal servo load or you risk the chance of losing your Rx supply with obvious consequences...

As you correctly point out, the CurveRC interface type 3 has a jumper so you can enable/disable the power to the FCO2 via the servo red wire. This way you can choose whether to load the Rx supply or not. Alternatively, the type 2 interface has a separate wire pair to allow you to connect your own 5V supply (ie separate BEC off the main Lipo or perhaps simply a 4.8V flight pack in a glider). If you're happy to just charge the FCO2 first and keep things simple then the standard interface (type 1) is the one to go for.

Have been getting some nice results with my FCO2 setup and the remote interface over here in the UK with some unusually nice weather this week - have a look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4j3ORmk5go

Jason
www.curverc.co.uk

opjose

That's a bit more draw than I had anticipated...

I was going to place the camera on a Big Stick .60 which has a big 2800mAh battery in it anyway, so it should not be problematic.

It may be advistable for anyone looking to power the camera externally to use a seperate pack for the camera alone.

This would be very easy to do with your interface.

jvn01

That's true but bear in mind a couple of things -

- the battery capacity per se is not the issue, it is the rated current of your BEC in your ESC. Some are rated at 1A, some at 1.5A, some at 2A, etc. This is the thing to be careful of if you're planning to use the type3 interface which can power the FCO2 from the servo red wire (and hence the ESC inbuilt BEC). This is why the jumper is fitted, so you can disable it if your BEC is not up to the extra load

- to power the FCO2 off a separate battery pack, you would need an external BEC/regulator to drop the pack volts to 5V which is what the FCO2 requires. These are available from places like UH for around $10 for a 2-3A BEC (although you only need one rated at 350mA or higher). Then you could use the CurveRC interface type 2 with the separate wires and connect the external 5V to these wires. Alternatively you should be able to use a 4-cell Nimh/Nicd pack at 4.8V ie in a glider connected directly to the extra wire pair on the interface and hence power the FCO2.

hope this helps!

Jason

opjose

Yup exactly what I was thinking of doing after reading your post.

jvn01

Just make sure you check your pack volts with a voltmeter first - I imagine the FCO2 will be happy with anything up to 5.5V and probably higher but I would not like to guarantee that without an official word from ACME. I will try to talk with ACME and get their word on voltage tolerances - akthough they haven't exactly been confidence-inspiring with technical info so far - they can't even tell me why some FCOs don't work on external shutter control on pins 1&3 - the odd one only works on pins 1&2 - until they 'talk to their man in china'...

jim pettis

Well, not my best flying, and not the greatest video out there but here is the 1st attempt...

There is a lot of play in the lens unit since I opened up the camera to fix the focus issue. The waviness of the video seems to correspond to engine speed. I'm going to have to play around with some foam padding and other methods to secure the lens unit more firmly....

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v4...centattemp.flv

opjose

On many videos including yours I notice a lot of "beat interference" causing the waviness you see during playback.

This is caused by motion or vibration that is in semi sync with the video recording frame rate.

When you shoot through the prop, this is very apparent, but in your case you are not doing so.

SOOOO....

This brings up a big question ( remember I have not yet flown mine yet )....

The camera came with a fairly thick vibration isolation pad to keep this from happening.

Did you use this on your plane?

Where is the camera mounted on the plane?

BTW: Videos from unpowered gliders or planes with the engine shut off never have this problem.

jim pettis

Mine was mounted on a PTS P-51, about midpoint on the wing. This is the second video I have made.

The 1st one was the one that led me to tear the unit open and fix the focus. In that 1st video I was mounted inside the landing gear wire, and yes, I did pick up the prop sync. However, there was absolutely no "waviness" in that video.

In both cases I placed a foam pad under the camera, and then taped it to the wing with hinge tape. I really think that the damage I did to the tabs that hold the whole unit together when I was fixing the focus have led to a huge amount of play in the silver "lens unit". It would make sense that since it is now much looser in its mount, that sympathetic vibrations would create the waves that happened. I will be playing around with more hinge tape to try to lock the lens housing in place.

I hesitate to mount the camera permanently using the supplied pad and velcro. Seems a bit too permanent.

teryn1

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bldrums

Has anyone had any issues with the unit locking up your computer?

opjose

The included driver is not the best, but it should not lock up your computer...

Do you have a USB printer?

If so you may want to unplug it then restart the computer before plugging in the FlycamOne.