Solo accessory Bay

eleger · Jan 17, 2017

Hi All,
Probably a stupid question,
But I keep failing and failing to find an accurate answer.

Where could I find a step by step self explanatory tutorial to hook up an accessory bay ?
I'm trying to trigger a camera (nex-5 or 5100) trhough MP, but I cannot find which port I'm suppose to soldier and/or where from/to.
Thanks for your upcoming answers and sorry again if it seems a pretty dumb question to you.

Best

e

erikgraham · Jan 18, 2017

eleger said:
Hi All,
Probably a stupid question,
But I keep failing and failing to find an accurate answer.

Where could I find a step by step self explanatory tutorial to hook up an accessory bay ?
I'm trying to trigger a camera (nex-5 or 5100) trhough MP, but I cannot find which port I'm suppose to soldier and/or where from/to.
Thanks for your upcoming answers and sorry again if it seems a pretty dumb question to you.

Best

e

Start here:
https://dev.3dr.com/

That will lead you here: https://dev.3dr.com/hardware-accessorybay.html

Hopefully that will get you started.

eleger · Jan 18, 2017

Thanks,
I got a look on that already,
I was expecting something more stupid-friendly. I mean by that, where port to soldier between the Solo mother board and the accessory bay to hook up an IR trigger and so on..
Thanks!

e

Dogman1973 · Jan 19, 2017

I havent seen one single set of instructions to do this... but I did it with my Nex5 using a combination of these:

Trigger Survey2 Camera Using PWM Signal From 3DR SOLO

Note that not all the pixhawk pins are represented on the accessory connector... seems 3dr were too cheap to put the full header through (from memory only first 12 or so pins), so you'll need to solder direct to the solo motherboard (as per the mapir instructions) or complete the remaining wires for the accessory connector.

Russ Knight · Jan 20, 2017

Is a connector available to connect devices to the mouser adapter?

SARDG · Jan 20, 2017

Russ Knight said:
Is a connector available to connect devices to the mouser adapter?

Check my replies in your other thread. Their is actually much info available by Googling. 3DR, Hackster, other forums, etc., have info.

Russ Knight · Jan 21, 2017

Thank you.

eleger · Feb 7, 2017

Good evening,
So I soldered the pin 14 18 and 19 from the main board toward the accessory bay port, following that:

Extend 3DR Solo Accessory Bay - Hackster.io

Then I added the accessory board:
3DR Solo Accessory Breakout Board

But then I'm stuck.
I trimmed a micro-usb port and plugged the red,black and green cable to the channel on the left bottom.
black went to the Channel 6, red to the Channel 7 and green (or white?) to the 8. And plugged the micro usb to the camera (sony 5100)

But I still have issues connecting my sony5100 and trigger it with Mission planner like how it is explained here:
Extend 3DR Solo Accessory Bay - Hackster.io

Could you tell me where I'm wrong?

Thank much!

e

Dogman1973 · Feb 7, 2017

ummm... straight into the usb? the PWM channels are not USB. I'm not aware of any way to use USB directly to trigger the camera

Sorry I wasnt clearer in my earlier post... I'm using the flytron PWM to IR adapter, triggered off PWM7.

But you've got the first part done which is get the PWM pins to the breakout board

-- edit --

I just realised the 5100 has no IR, so you'll need another adapter type. I believe the pixhawk itself has a relay output, but that doesnt seem to appear on the solo.

I think this is what you need for newer gen sony cameras without IR (5x00 and QX1 etc) to trigger via PWM
Camera Shutter Triggering for Sony MultiPort Connectors using SkySight MONO — Copter documentation

eleger · Feb 7, 2017

Hey Dogman,
Thanks for your quick and accurate answer
I'll try that then..
But then how do I plug in to the accessory board?

best

e

Edits: They sell the Seagull #REC, multi now, not the mono anymore.right?

Dogman1973 · Feb 7, 2017

I think you want the Seagull #MAP2 - Seagull UAV which is PWM based. The #REC appears to be for relay/level inputs

Then decide which PWM you'll use (sounds like you've wired up PWM ch6, 7 & 8)
The accessory board supplies the GND and Vcc to each PWM header. You'll see on the board screen print a '-' which is gnd, a '+' which is Vcc, and a 's' which is the pwm data. wire those up to the corresponding pins on the seagull device.
Then just configure pixhawk in mission planner to trigger the camera with appropriate values (per their support video's) and for the PWM channel you used.
In my case I used Ch7

If you look at the vid/links i posted earlier, it's basically the same setup... just the #MAP device itself uses usb instead of IR as the final trigger

eleger · Feb 7, 2017

Thanks Dogman,

I spoke only with the very helpful Rone from Seagull, he advised the same as you.

I ordered, should be here this week.
I don't want an IR trigger because it is slower for triggering...

I'lll you know how it goes.
Be sure that I thank you much for your reply.

Best

Dogman1973 · Feb 7, 2017

Nice... good to see they're supporting their products!

Good luck... let us know how you go...

I'm thinking of trying one of those and moving to a QX1 camera which is much lighter and higher res, but i'll lose realtime HDMI feed :-(