WiFi Card upgrade testing

Lamda · Aug 21, 2015

Hmmm. I just upgraded now. I only have the one wifi card in the controller swapped. My SSID has been changed since I first got Solo. Everything went as planned. After the update, my SSID is still the same as what I changed it to. No issues reconnecting and no pairing required. Strange we are having a variety of different outcomes.

At least we now know the update won't brick Solo or the controller and we won't have to swap anything back out.

ALLA · Aug 22, 2015

I have also had no issues with the update, and both my cards are changed, as well as my SSID.

redriderroy · Aug 23, 2015

Lamda said:
That's good to know he approves

Unfortunately, that's how the FPVLR antenna is setup - one LHCP and one RHCP. I was really interested in the hemispherical helix they use because it's compact with reasonably good beam width. I'm not too sure I need it though, since I have more than enough portable range now and the Pepperbox should get me the beam width I need to not have to point exactly at the bird while long distance flying.

Later if I get adventurous (bored?, stuck indoors because of rain?), I might try to make one or two of those hemispherical helixes myself, but both RHCP to match what I will have in my set. There are white papers on the 'net with the formulas for the spacing between/slope of the wires. It's basically a ~4.5 turn helix in the shape of a half sphere. It may be a bit tedious - a 3D printer would help. At this point I'd rather be flying

Lambda,
When you're ready with an antenna design to 3D print you could send me an STL file and I can print it for you. I've printed ABS GoPro mounts for some of my other UAVs with great success. It's a high end Stratasys printer.

Hoover185 · Aug 23, 2015

Just flew a couple of battery's worth earlier this eve. Both wifi cards swapped out (R11e-2HND) and crossing my fingers I didn't leave any cables unplugged. I'm a total newb to UAV's and am no way a techie, so it was all new ground for me. When I got out to the park I was prompted to download and install the new update, which I did. Afterwards I got the "Magnetic interference" screen, so I went into the app to calibrate compass (which the tutorial said would happen as the compass is unplugged during card swap out process). So there I was, facing north and rotating the hell out of the damn thing, as minute after minute passed. Nothing. Shut down and rebooted phone, controller and Solo. Calibrated in around 30 seconds. GPS lock and ready to fly seconds after that. Maxed out at 14 sats in the air (my usual is 11). Seems the update has improved GPS.

As for performance, the area I was flying in is surrounded on 3 sides by homes and businesses, and one on a golf course. I have flown over the course a few times, get to about 1800' out and then RTH kicks in. This time (w/stock antennas) I reached 2600'. Not a huge increase, but an increase all the same. I'm hoping to double my middle-of-nowhere record of 3100' when I try that this week. M8N GPS card should be here sometime this week.

My girlfriend is feeling neglected. I offered to buy her a kite.

CroquettRocket · Aug 24, 2015

NYG said:
An update for those following this discussion. I've gotten some very good help on the Solo FB mod page. I was told that in my older version of Linux the TX-Power being reported back to me for the Solo cards was not accurate, I needed a later version.

I booted under Ubuntu 15.04 and it shows the Solo card having a TX-Power of 21dBm. If that number is accurate then we're looking at 126mw for the Solo cards

27dBm would be 500mw.

I feel so confuse right now.
Based on what you say, Solo has Tx Power of 21 dBm = 126mW and ONLY fly 800m (very theoretical)
And Phantom3 Specsheet say they have 20 dBm (EIRP) = 100 mW and FLY 2000m
What's wrong with Solo?
Assuming they have the same spec, the only difference I can see, based on the distance, is:
P3:
Fade Margin: 38,4 dB
Free Space Lost: 106,1 dB
Rcv Signal Strenght: -62,6 dBm

Solo:
Fade Margin: 46,3 dB
Free Space Lost: 98,2 dB
Rcv Signal Strenght: -54,7 dBm

Reference: http://www.afar.net/rf-link-budget-calculator/

erikgraham · Aug 24, 2015

Here is a video on the pepperbox (mentioned by Lamda above, see page 5 of this thread). It also covers some other options. The crosshair version is interesting for its "punch" but I like Lamda's idea of two pepper boxes. Most of the time I'd probably just use the stock antennas, but there are plenty of times I can see using the pepperbox or crosshair on a tripod - obviously it depends on the shoot.

NYG · Aug 24, 2015

CroquettRocket said:
I feel so confuse right now.
Based on what you say, Solo has Tx Power of 21 dBm = 126mW and ONLY fly 800m (very theoretical)
And Phantom3 Specsheet say they have 20 dBm (EIRP) = 100 mW and FLY 2000m
What's wrong with Solo?
Assuming they have the same spec, the only difference I can see, based on the distance, is:
P3:
Fade Margin: 38,4 dB
Free Space Lost: 106,1 dB
Rcv Signal Strenght: -62,6 dBm

Solo:
Fade Margin: 46,3 dB
Free Space Lost: 98,2 dB
Rcv Signal Strenght: -54,7 dBm

Reference: http://www.afar.net/rf-link-budget-calculator/

The Solo has seen wildly different radio performance based on where people are located and how much WiFi they are competing with. I know the P3 uses the 2.4Ghz band but I don't believe they use WiFi. I can't say I spent a lot of time looking at the P3 or light bridge so someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

One thing for sure the Stock antennas on the P3 controller are better than the stock antennas on the Solo controller. Probably just about anything is better than the stock Solo controller antennas.

I tried increasing the TX power of the stock solo card too when I had in a laptop. The commands took but the card always listed at 21dBm.

Lamda · Aug 28, 2015

Just got my 2.4Ghz Pepperbox in the mail. It's half as long as they quoted me. I think they were quoting the 1.3Ghz version. Not tiny but easy to throw in any backpack. It's hefty tho...they added a 3 1/2 x 3/4 inch slab of wood to reinforce the backplane, add a tripod socket and cover up the tuning/balancing/wires.

I've updated my original post with the correct dimensions.

NYG · Aug 28, 2015

Lamda said:
Just got my 2.4Ghz Pepperbox in the mail. It's half as long as they quoted me. I think they were quoting the 1.3Ghz version. Not tiny but easy to throw in any backpack. It's hefty tho...they added a 3 1/2 x 3/4 inch slab of wood to reinforce the backplane, add a tripod socket and cover up the tuning/balancing/wires.

I've updated my original post with the correct dimensions.

Since you have it in hand how durable does it look to you? Any concerns?

Lamda · Aug 28, 2015

NYG said:
Since you have it in hand how durable does it look to you? Any concerns?

Really sturdy! I still wouldn't want to drop it face first onto concrete - it's a Plexiglas box cover after all. The backplane flexes a bit when pushed - its relatively thin, however the wood reinforcement makes it much stronger - I'd hold it there when not having it mounted on a tripod. If putting it in a backpack, I'd probably keep it in it's box that it shipped in - which is pretty much a perfect fit and doesn't add much volume - about the size of a smaller loaf of bread. I posted pics in the Solo Antenna Mods thread.

NYG · Aug 28, 2015

I've been doing some tinkering this past week. When i was looking at different WiFi cards and looking into the ath9k driver I came across some interesting posts where some people running dd-wrt were patching the ath9k driver to patch the regulatory domain in the driver to override the restrictions. This allows you to operate on restricted channels and to increase TX-Power.

Last week on the FB Solo mod group a patch was briefly posted and removed. But i grabbed a copy while it was posted. I had no idea it would (possibly) be compatible with the Solo.

I applied the patch to my Solo and controller:

root@3dr_controller:~# chmod 777 reghack
root@3dr_controller:~# ./reghack /lib/modules/3.10.17*/extra/net/wireless/cfg80211.ko
Patching @ 0x000229a0: core world6 regdomain in cfg80211/reg.o
Patching @ 0x000237f4: embedded US regdomain in cfg80211/regdb.o
Patching @ 0x000284b8: embedded 00 regdomain in cfg80211/regdb.o
root@3dr_controller:~# ./reghack /lib/modules/3.10.17*/extra/drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath.ko
Patching @ 0x00002a4c: ath world regdomain with 5 rules in ath/regd.o
Patching @ 0x00002aec: ath world regdomain with 4 rules in ath/regd.o
Patching @ 0x00002b70: ath world regdomain with 3 rules in ath/regd.o
Patching @ 0x00002bd8: ath world regdomain with 3 rules in ath/regd.o
Patching @ 0x00002c40: ath world regdomain with 4 rules in ath/regd.o
root@3dr_controller:~#

These are the before and after results for channels:

Before the Patch:
Frequencies:
* 2412 MHz [1] (30.0 dBm)
* 2417 MHz [2] (30.0 dBm)
* 2422 MHz [3] (30.0 dBm)
* 2427 MHz [4] (30.0 dBm)
* 2432 MHz [5] (30.0 dBm)
* 2437 MHz [6] (30.0 dBm)
* 2442 MHz [7] (30.0 dBm)
* 2447 MHz [8] (30.0 dBm)
* 2452 MHz [9] (30.0 dBm)
* 2457 MHz [10] (30.0 dBm)
* 2462 MHz [11] (30.0 dBm)
* 2467 MHz [12] (disabled)
* 2472 MHz [13] (disabled)
* 2484 MHz [14] (disabled)

After the patch:
Frequencies:
* 2412 MHz [1] (30.0 dBm)
* 2417 MHz [2] (30.0 dBm)
* 2422 MHz [3] (30.0 dBm)
* 2427 MHz [4] (30.0 dBm)
* 2432 MHz [5] (30.0 dBm)
* 2437 MHz [6] (30.0 dBm)
* 2442 MHz [7] (30.0 dBm)
* 2447 MHz [8] (30.0 dBm)
* 2452 MHz [9] (30.0 dBm)
* 2457 MHz [10] (30.0 dBm)
* 2462 MHz [11] (30.0 dBm)
* 2467 MHz [12] (30.0 dBm)
* 2472 MHz [13] (30.0 dBm)
* 2484 MHz [14] (disabled)

Channels 12 and 13 are now active. I manually edited hostapd.conf and added channel 13 to test it out. I'm using a US Samsung galaxy tab pro 8.4 and it would not see channel 13. My laptops have no problem. I ended up flashing and trying a few different ROM's on my tablet until I found one that worked well. I just got it up and running today where I can use channel 13.

Now the next thing I'll try, maybe over the weekend is bumping up the TX-Power of the controller. I have no interest in doing that to the Solo. I'm going to try just increasing it 1 additional dBm (from 27 to 28). I just wish there was a command line tool on the Solo to show me that the parameters are working.

I'll see how it goes........

Rod · Sep 15, 2015

NYG said:
This is some code that's in the sololink_config file. If this code is being executed on the Solo and controller you can see they've set a limitation of 27dBm. We can try changing this file to increase the limit to the MikroTik card max of 29dBm, or we can create our own scripts that execute on startup to override what this is doing. Do we know this is doing what we want it to do? I'm not sure because I haven't found a way to list the actual TX-Power on the Solo or controller.

One of the things I should have done before installing the new cards was to run them in a laptop to test how warm they get running at 800mw.

Having said all that I've found the change in connectivity between the Solo and controller to be so dramatic that I'm not sure I need to change anything.

get_wifi_power() {
if [ -z /sys/kernel/debug/ieee80211/phy0/power ]; then
echo "error: unable to read power level"
return 1
fi

power=`cat /sys/kernel/debug/ieee80211/phy0/power` <- The output of this is 30
if [ $power -gt 27 ]; then power=27; fi
echo "$power"
return 0
}

set_wifi_power() {
desiredPower="${1}"
if [[ $desiredPower =~ ^-?[0-9]+$ ]]; then
if [[ "$desiredPower" -lt 0 || "$desiredPower" -gt 27 ]]; then
echo "error: wifi power level must be between 0 and 27"
return 1
fi
else
echo "error: attempting to set wifi power to non-integer"
return 1
fi

echo "$desiredPower"
iw phy0 set txpower fixed $((desiredPower*100))
return 0
}

How do I access this code on the Solo? I've just gotten the Beta Solo Developer Guide and it tells how to SSH into the unit. Is this the path to the config file?

Timmytimetravel · Sep 16, 2015

Roc-noc where I was going to get my wifi cards from seems out of stock. Whilst I wait or find alternate online supplier-

Nyg, which rom did you end up using on your tab? I have a tab s8.4 so slightly different but the branch or flavor of rom may be similar to go channel 13?

If I have it right a few pages back I can't/shouldn't run my amped fpvlr setup at the same time as the cards? Won't give me "even more". Happy with that I can just screw on the alphas instead. Just wondered if anyone tried it.

NYG · Sep 16, 2015

Rod said:
How do I access this code on the Solo? I've just gotten the Beta Solo Developer Guide and it tells how to SSH into the unit. Is this the path to the config file?

The sololink_config file is under /usr/bin or /usr/sbin if i remember correctly. If you're looking to increase TX-Power the command from the command line as shown in the file is:

iw phy0 set txpower fixed $((desiredPower*100))

So if you want to set power at 28dBm you would execute: iw phy0 set txpower fixed 2800

NYG · Sep 16, 2015

Timmytimetravel said:
Roc-noc where I was going to get my wifi cards from seems out of stock. Whilst I wait or find alternate online supplier-

Nyg, which rom did you end up using on your tab? I have a tab s8.4 so slightly different but the branch or flavor of rom may be similar to go channel 13?

If I have it right a few pages back I can't/shouldn't run my amped fpvlr setup at the same time as the cards? Won't give me "even more". Happy with that I can just screw on the alphas instead. Just wondered if anyone tried it.

My current android ROM is "crdroid-4.4.4-20150316-mondrianwifi.zip".

[ROM]SM-T320[4.4.4] UNOFFICIAL crDroid Kitkat [20150316]

My video feed was very unreliable using a 5.x version of android so I went with KitKat. KitKat was also easier to get channel 13 working.

As far as amps/antennas/cards you can use any of the antennas at any time, that's all up to you. the problem is how much power you put into the amps. The sunhans amps that are popular are rated to not exceed 20dBm on the input. So if you're using a more powerful WiFi card you're most likely going to exceed the rated requirement unless you set your tx-power lower, or use attenuators between the wifi cards and the amps.

Timmytimetravel · Sep 16, 2015

Excellent thank you! Something to try for sure.

Maybe I can still leave the amps inline with the batteries off (since I have it all rigged up in a 3d printed holder). Maybe they have some sort of passive passthru when off.

SteveReno · Sep 16, 2015

NYG said:
The sololink_config file is under /usr/bin or /usr/sbin if i remember correctly. If you're looking to increase TX-Power the command from the command line as shown in the file is:

iw phy0 set txpower fixed $((desiredPower*100))

So if you want to set power at 28dBm you would execute: iw phy0 set txpower fixed 2800

Nyg, you tried this tx power setting & does it work?
The

Sent from the 4th dimension using my Nexus 6

Timmytimetravel · Sep 18, 2015

These cards are now in stock again at roc-noc.com. He just got a 100 in. Ordered

Rod · Sep 18, 2015

NYG said:
The sololink_config file is under /usr/bin or /usr/sbin if i remember correctly. If you're looking to increase TX-Power the command from the command line as shown in the file is:

iw phy0 set txpower fixed $((desiredPower*100))

So if you want to set power at 28dBm you would execute: iw phy0 set txpower fixed 2800

Thanks, I found the config file and lots of others. I am using ForkLift on my OSX machine for browsing. Reading through the code to get the path to other config files I need to mod.

Eye in the Sky · Sep 18, 2015

NYG said:
Yesterday I posted on another thread about testing I'm doing with WiFi card upgrades in the Solo.
The stock cards are mini PCIe and based on the Atheros AR9382 chip, both controller and Solo have these cards.
I've got a pair of MikroTik R11e-2Hnd (800mw) cards that I've been wanting to test, they're based
on the Atheros AR9580 chip. The Solo uses the ath9k driver that is compatible with a wide range of
Atheros based cards.

I've been regularly doing my testing at a local middle school/high school facility. It's not the cleanest
area for WiFi, especially with the surrounding neighborhood but it's only a few minutes from leaving home to flying.

With the stock wifi cards and stock antennas the max range I got was 600'-700' before RTH. This was pretty consistent.
With just the new Mikrotik wifi card in the Solo my range increased to 1500' before RTH.
Today with the controller also upgraded with a Mikrotik card I went over 2500' before RTH.

With a pair of router antennas I was getting 1300'-1500' before RTH with the stock wifi cards.
With just the Solo upgraded I reached 2300' before RTH.
Today with both the Solo and controller upgraded I reached over 3700' before RTH.

I also have a homebrew high db panel antenna that I reached just under 4000' with today but I'm finding it very difficult to aim when i get out that far.

Today is also very humid and cloudy day. Looks like rain soon.

I had a couple of concerns going into this:
1) would the new cards generate more heat and would that be a problem? So far this looks to be OK
2) would the newer cards eat more battery? This is still an open question but I haven't noticed any difference just on normal flying habits with the limited tests done so far.

Also of note I don't know the TX power of the stock wifi cards and I have yet to find a compatible linux command to display it on the Solo or controller (certain commands are missing). I also saw in one of the startup scripts that it *may* limit max TX power to 27dbm. I also don't know the exact TX power of the new Mikrotik cards, based on the results though the Mikrotik cards are significantly better.

More research needs to be done on this. I also need to do some testing from the command line to see if i can boost power from the Mokrotik cards.

So far so good. I'm pretty damn impressed right now.

I also planned on testing a 1W mimo booster I had but decided not to do it yet. I just don't feel like carrying around the booster, extra battery, cables etc...

I'll keep you all posted as this venture continues.

Just wondering how the range is affected with just the wifi mod and how well streaming works. I would like to upgrade just the wifi cards without doing any antenna mods just to get that little bit more distance but do not exactly know how the controls and video will be affected.