Thanks @NYG! I just installed the upgrade card on the controller and will try a test flight connected to a FPVLR antenna. It's worth mentioning that you may need the nimble, small hands of a Chinese child factory worker to get those harnesses disconnected inside the controller. My meatslabs of hands had a tricky time. Most of my time on the upgrade was fixing connector head pins.
WiFi Card upgrade testing
- Thread starter NYG
- Start date
Thanks @NYG! I just installed the upgrade card on the controller and will try a test flight connected to a FPVLR antenna. It's worth mentioning that you may need the nimble, small hands of a Chinese child factory worker to get those harnesses disconnected inside the controller. My meatslabs of hands had a tricky time. Most of my time on the upgrade was fixing connector head pins.
Will be interesting to see what you get pairing it with the FPVLR.
A small screw driver used as a pry tool does wonders
and is still cheaper than keeping child labour on hand I don't like taking those little connectors apart much - I worry about how durable they are with repeated disconnect/reconnect.
I actually only pop off the large connector in the lower/middle of the larger circuit board. I then prop up the controller, standing it on the top edge with the 2 halves slightly open and I unscrew the camera pitch toggle lever switch and push it into the controller's cavity. This frees up enough room for me to rotate the top partially away from the bottom so that I can access the processor board/wifi card assembly with minimal removal of cables and parts. Alternately, you can try to unplug the connector to the toggle switch, but I find it stiff and fiddly - unscrewing 4 black screws was much easier for me.
Not sure how I've missed this thread this long but am glad I stumbled on it today. I too have the fpvlr setup and am interested to see how the guy with this does after the upgrade. Think I'll be ordering a set of the upgraded cards as well, sounds like most have had a pretty long wait to recieve them anybody got a site or link where they received them quickly.
Thanks NYG and others for the time and effort testing, I'll be happy to weigh in with results when mine arrive.
Thanks NYG and others for the time and effort testing, I'll be happy to weigh in with results when mine arrive.
Yeah, dropping the pitch toggle is smart. I wasn't quite sure what I was dealing with in there.
Test flight was super. I only took it out ~2.1mi @ 400ft. RSSI was notably better, even though I was pretty sloppy aiming the antennas in the right direction. In fact, @2mi I was reading ~-68db. I'm certain there's a lot more range left in this configuration.
I couldn't figure out how to do a screenshot on the Samsung Tab S (just swapped that out from nexus 7). I'll try to grab one on my next test flight w/ the Solo's radio upgraded too.
Video feed was flawless. My previous record in the same area with similar conditions (mountain terrain, decent amounts of em interference on the spectrum) was about 1.1mi using the FPVLR antenna.
I had to turn back due to some high power transmission lines on the mountain ridge I was flying. I was also concerned about battery as the return trip was into a headwind. However, I did have 30% upon landing.
I'll try to upgrade the card on the Solo maybe as soon as tomorrow. Honestly, the upgrade on the controller alone is fantastic.
Test flight was super. I only took it out ~2.1mi @ 400ft. RSSI was notably better, even though I was pretty sloppy aiming the antennas in the right direction. In fact, @2mi I was reading ~-68db. I'm certain there's a lot more range left in this configuration.
I couldn't figure out how to do a screenshot on the Samsung Tab S (just swapped that out from nexus 7). I'll try to grab one on my next test flight w/ the Solo's radio upgraded too.
Video feed was flawless. My previous record in the same area with similar conditions (mountain terrain, decent amounts of em interference on the spectrum) was about 1.1mi using the FPVLR antenna.
I had to turn back due to some high power transmission lines on the mountain ridge I was flying. I was also concerned about battery as the return trip was into a headwind. However, I did have 30% upon landing.
I'll try to upgrade the card on the Solo maybe as soon as tomorrow. Honestly, the upgrade on the controller alone is fantastic.
Wow that's a good increase. Glad it is working out for you. I haven't swapped out the card in my Solo yet. I tried attaching a Feiyu G4 gimbal today with a GoPro handlebar mount to the fixed camera mount on the Solo. Unfortunately all the metal in the handle was causing magnetic interference in the Solo. Will just have to wait for the official gimbal.
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I checked the MikroTik website for resellers by location and found a company locally and picked up the cards the same day.
Thanks I'll try the same micro center may well have them not much else near but they have a ton of different stock here. I'll check Micro Tik site first though.
I ordered mine from Baltic Networks. It was a shot in the dark because I never did business with them before but they shipped very quickly to me. They actually sent me the wrong cards at first and sent the correct cards overnight and emailed me a return shipping label for the wrong cards. For a first time buyer they were very good to me.
Think they have them as well wow I'm surprised I found this random card. I have trouble finding anything around here.
I was trying to find a good way to say this, I found this which explains it better. I agree with upgrading the WiFi card and such thats fine and cool. Just be careful when doing the antennas:
Because higher gain antennas achieve the extra power by focusing in on a smaller area it is important to remember that the greater the gain, the smaller the area covered as measured in degrees of beam width (think of an adjustable beam flashlight). In many cases a high gain antenna is a detriment to the system performance because the system needs to have reception over a large area. I would say on the controller high gain antennas is ok as you need to tell the SOLO command and control, and for the most part you will always be facing in the direction of SOLO. Maybe not a good idea on the quad itself as its moving all over the place.
Thoughts?
After what seems has taken forever to get these darn cards from my seller, I can report that I made the switch as well and got 3-4 times the range in the same area with repurposed router antennas. I have the Alfa antennas here, but have not used them. I am very happy with the current range, as it dramatically improves connection reliability, which for me was the issue before the mod.
Has anyone tried modifying the parameters yet for max power? If so, what difference did it make, if any?
Has anyone tried modifying the parameters yet for max power? If so, what difference did it make, if any?
No I haven't yet. I looked over the script NYG posted and it looks to be a pretty easy fix. But I really haven't felt the need to...it's cumbersome if a firmware update wipes it and the mod requires rewriting the changes each time.
With my current wifi card upgrade to just the controller, it gives me a solid connection and enough range to fly further than I'm comfortable with in my local area (I'm surrounded by ocean on one side and long strips of high-rise buildings on another). Next week I should be able to test flying in a more sparsely populated urban lake/park area.
I admit, I'm still looking at different antennas. I managed to order an Immersionrc 2.4Ghz 13dbi RHCP 35 degree panel for pretty cheap on eBay yesterday. (It's actually super cheap compared to prior sales prices @$29 with the option to make an offer, but I have to pay extra to ship it up to Canada.) Bought it more for kicks to tinker and see how it performs rather than pushing for max range.
It would be nice if someone could measure the current draw of your controller and your Solo both before and after the cards are changed. This way you/we will know how much it may affect flight times, heat, etc.
This would give a more complete picture of how things will perform over time.
This would give a more complete picture of how things will perform over time.
My own personal observation after running these cards for a number of weeks now is that the stock cards will never see the inside of my controller or solo again. I haven't done any precise measurements of flight time or battery drain but the difference appears to be minimal if anything. The benefit for me is too substantial to go back.
Hopefully a future modder can measure before and after flight times. Any additional details people can provide will only help all of us.
Why are you doing this if it will void your warranty? Am I missing something. I'm new to all of this stuff. Is it to see how far you can fly it . I'm a little nervous about flying out of visual range because of the personal legal liability I have if this 3pound flying brick hit something or someone. Just curious.
Walter, before Solo and Phantom 3, this was really a tinkering hobby. "Modding" is what people do to their stuff to see how it can be optimized and "fix" what the OEM could have done better. Of course there is a subset of flyers who like to see how far they can go, but this mod will also strengthen your signal when you are flying within range and around objects. Finally, the warranty, while great, is not that important to some as they are not used to it and 3DR is a company that "might" honor the warranty even if you have modded something on the quad.
Having swapped out only the wifi card in the controller and using one Alfa antenna, I had a chance to fly in a different area today - one that seems to visually match the suburban areas where I see people testing.
I got out over 4000ft. Went past the large park I was in and over the river snaking around it. I was headed over some homes on the other side. I didn't feel like going any further, but you can see that I was only at about -71dB.
This is in contrast to the ~1650ft in my normal area of flying which is highly congested with wifi. As a video platform, this is more than I realistically need. The connection is, however now rock solid. No worries flying overhead and hitting dead zones triggering random RTH.
I got out over 4000ft. Went past the large park I was in and over the river snaking around it. I was headed over some homes on the other side. I didn't feel like going any further, but you can see that I was only at about -71dB.
This is in contrast to the ~1650ft in my normal area of flying which is highly congested with wifi. As a video platform, this is more than I realistically need. The connection is, however now rock solid. No worries flying overhead and hitting dead zones triggering random RTH.
Considering the boost I'm getting with just the wifi card swap on the controller side, people concerned about battery life can safely do this with little impact to their controller's power usage and leave the Solo stock with no impact to the bird's power draw. After flying 3 batteries today, my controller barely made a dent in the fully charged battery - no different from what I would normally expect. We have options
Eventually I'll swap out the card in Solo as well..saving some tinkering for later lol.
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