Putting Solo's guts in an FPV racing frame.
- Thread starter erikgraham
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Well, you don't need much more excuse than that! I'm all for trying new things, and if you have the spare parts and can accept the risk, go for it.
On the other hand, I wonder if some of the goals you're after are somewhat mutually exclusive. It would absolutely be cool to be able to go from a high speed, highly maneuverable flight right into a nice multi-point cable cam shot. But what makes a good high speed quad doesn't necessarily lend itself to the stability needed to take smooth slower footage, and vice versa. Those videos look so smooth, partly, because they're maintaining such a high speed. I suspect if they flew more slowly, the lack of stability would immediately become apparent. You can solve that with a gimbal, but the added weight would then impact the high speed maneuverability. It's like trying to make a sports car that's also a SUV - any move in one direction comes at the direct expense of the other.
You could potentially eliminate the need for a gimbal with something like this, once it comes out and assuming it works as advertised: SteadXP It's a GoPro backpack with it's own accelerometers and records all the movements while the video is recording. There will be an application that reads the video and the recorded movement log to stabilize the video to a degree not possible with straight post stabilization. I backed the campaign on kickstarter with similar goals as yours in mind - to build a smaller more agile quad for higher speed footage.
If smart shots is a must, then yes, at the present time, your only choice is to cannibalize a Solo. But that might change sooner rather than later. There's several options to add full flight controller capabilities to systems like the Raspberry Pi, and this one does it for the newest Pi Zero: PXFMini This would mimic some of the capabilities of the Solo in that you'd have a full system running mission planner ON the vehicle, and the combination would be much smaller than the Solo's main board. I have a Pi Zero and it's tiny! It's 2.5 x 1.25 inches, and this shield was built for the same footprint.
That still wouldn't get you smartshots, but it's just a matter of time before the capability is added to APM - most of the capabilities are already there. By setting the WP_YAW_BEHAVIOR parameter to 0, you can already manually control yaw during auto missions. You can also set up a channel in mission planner to save a waypoint. I haven't verified this, but it sure sounds like you can set a toggle on a transmitter to save waypoints as you fly. So as I said, a lot of the capabilities are already there, and I've read that some of the main APM developers are working to bring the Pixhawk 2 capabilities to APM.
Again, if you want that now, then the Solo is the only choice and it'll be a fun and challenging project regardless. The only other thing I'd add is that flying FPV is HARD!!! I'm sure it comes easier to younger folks, and I'm not THAT old (41), but I recently set up a little 250 with a mini Pixhawk, a camera and transmitter and started flying FPV. Man, I don't think I could EVER get to the level you see from people like Charpu and the others. And you might find that if you did get to a reasonable level of proficiency, the attractiveness of smart shots would be diminished - if you're that good of a pilot, being able to program perfect flight paths wouldn't be necessary since you'd just be able to fly them yourself!
You said you were going to start by building up your FPV flying skills, and that's really where it begins. I'd definitely recommend a mini Pixhawk and GPS. From experience, I found it very difficult to fly FPV on a non-assisted flight controller. I tried using a standard CC3D, but I wear glasses and am pretty blind without them. So putting on/taking off the goggles/glasses takes time, and with a quad sliding around like a car on ice, that's often time you don't have. With the GPS, I can get it in the air, put it in brake mode to stop it where it is, take my time getting the goggles on and when I'm ready, switch out and start flying. Same when I'm done, I can either put it in brake or just RTL while I take the goggles off and get my glasses on. And you can start in loiter mode just to get the hang of it, progress into altitude hold to let you build up your reflexes without worrying so much about altitude, then move to stabilize, then acro and so on.
These guys just came out with a 35x35 mm pixhawk clone targeted at racing, although their first productions are out of stock at the moment: AUAV PixRacer and I have one of these setups and it's been easy to set up and trouble free: Pixfalcon.
Lastly, those FPV videos are impressive and awesome to watch, but those guys ALL regularly crash - it's impossible NOT to crash flying like that. What you see in those videos all have the crashes edited out. The margins doing that kind of flying are razor thin. You might find a frame that protects Solo's main board really well, but even if it protects all the edges physically, it'd just be a matter of time before repeated beatings does it in. Those guys either get components for free/discounted, or they're making enough money to justify smashing quads to bits left and right, AND their flight controllers are probably in the <$50 range max - it's a totally different story when you're dealing with a flight controller that's only replaceable by buying and dismembering a $1000 product.
So wow, I wrote a damn book! Anyway, sounds like a cool project, as you say, the place to start is with a basic 250 to develop/refine your FPV skills. And while Solo is the only option right now for smart shots, it may very well be that by the time your skills are where they need to be, you'll be able to replicate smartshots with off-the-shelf components, or at least a fairly accessible DIY solution.
I look forward to following your progress.
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That's a lot of gear to be carrying in an FPV frame, but if you can add like Collision avoidance etc you would certainly have the edge good one be interesting to see how it progresses.
Not an FPV but if you want to really hone your flight fundamentals check out the Hubsan Q4 i was literally laying in bed last night just flying in circles for practice! tons of fun!!
That wasn't a serious offer was it? If so, let me know. I have brand new in box ver2 solo I would be willing to trade.A disco is made for a solo type setup! I could actually get behind that idea. An fpv racer is not. The 800kv motors on the solo will do dick on 5 inch props, even less on 5 inch props. The mass a gimbal has, will not work well with flips and rolls. My Kreigerpus running betaflight can do 5 or 6 snap rolls PER SECOND. If there was a gimbal on it, I'd expect the gimbal to break in the air. 2.4ghz resonates on 5.8 so my interfere argument is still valid. That is why the racers place the Vtx antenna as far away as possibly from the rc antenna. Gopros in general are known to have a lot of lag in the fpv community. It is so bad, that I will bet my solo you can not find a pilot that has made a name for himself that flies through the go pro. We don't carry around 2 camera because we want to, it's the best solution to the problem. Solo uses digital video. The gopro video has lag when it leaves the camera through the port. Once the pic hawk processes the video and transcodes it to digital, I would surmise the lag has more than doubled. Now we need to transmit it, and decode it. Where as a simple 5.8ghz Vtx sends out an analog signal, with a lag that is less than 100 milliseconds, perhaps half that depending on the source camera. The solo is an amazing bird, but you will be ruining everything it is by this. If you want an fpv racer, set aside 600 and I will put together a parts list for you and you will actually enjoy flying it while your solo is parked in the air filming you
Edit: better yet if you want an fpv racer, I will trade you one that will do over 80mph, for your Solo
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I was thinking I would outfit one of my solos for sport and one for video with the gimbal. There must be a simple way to put a 5.8Ghz video setup on the solo. I am still pretty new to this, and It seems that it would be a great experience.
wow this was a blast from the past
fast forward to present time
the only real thing preventing solo from becoming even better post 3DR than it ever was with 3DR is their reluctance to release the remaining propietary code.
If indeed that code is still theirs to release (and not in the hands of creditors)
fast forward to present time
- 3DR is out of the consumer world
- DIY community has already created an improved PH2 and its soon to be in the hand of beta testers
- DIY has already addressed one of solos biggest flaws, the gps
- Best Buy appears to be down to dregs in inventory and may actually be selling reboxed returns
- Solo has flown on master but not ready for primetime
- two companies are claiming to have a DIY frame soon for the transplanting of solos smarts to a bigger frame
the only real thing preventing solo from becoming even better post 3DR than it ever was with 3DR is their reluctance to release the remaining propietary code.
If indeed that code is still theirs to release (and not in the hands of creditors)
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