While up at the Freefly training session a week ago, Tabb recommended these "Panasonic DECT 6.0 plus" cordless phones for operators to communicate while shooting. It is 2-way communication like a fancy PL system, only $50. No delay like cell phones either. I have a question for anyone using these: - I plan to copy the Freefly guys and hack the main base station and attach it to the back of the Spektrum transmitter, and Tabb was powering it off of a big Lipo battery. The phone's power supply says that it outputs 6.5v. Are you guys using a voltage regulator to get it down from the Lipo's 16v, or can you confirm that inputting the full 16v volts does no damage to the phone's base station? Thanks Ben
They would be using a BEC. Plugging 16v in would result in a sizzle noise for maybe .5 sec.. or and a puff of smoke.
Ben, this is a popular regulator. Castle Creations makes a usb dongle that allows you to set the voltage to what ever is in the range. http://www.quadrocopter.com/Battery-Eliminator-Circuit-BEC_p_625.html
Ben: Would these work as an alternative (you'd need to switch them to voice operated (VOX) mode). http://www.amazon.com/Midland-GXT10...&qid=1382565008&sr=8-2&keywords=midland+radio Andy.
I think the difference, other than price, is that VOX always seems to have the start delay and you miss the first part as it starts up. Phones would be constant on and as Tabb pointed out are dirt cheap.
Thanks Gary. How would one wire up a BEC like that? I'm familiar with voltage regulators (in the camera world), but the BEC you linked to seems RC-world specific. It has red/black wires in and a 3-wire harness out. Any idea how you would solder that up to have the 16.8v input and 6.5v output? If that works and you can customize the output voltage, I'll be buying several of these and tayloring everything to run off of these Lipo's....
The three wire JR connector is used both to program the output voltage and supply the programmed output voltage. See http://www.castlecreations.com/support/documents/cc_bec_user_guide.pdf There's also a BEC FAQ on that link Gary gave. Hope that helps. Andy.
For the benefit of European members, DECT 6.0 refers to the use of DECT in the 1.9Ghz spectrum in the USA and was a marketing term developed for fear that people would think that DECT 1.9 was "less" somehow than devices in the 2.4ghz range. So the regular Panasonic DECT phones in Europe would probably do the same job, but cannot see any models with a "plus" option.