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Radian setup videos

Discussion in 'Radian' started by Tabb Firchau, Sep 13, 2012.

  1. Tabb Firchau

    Tabb Firchau Administrator
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  2. MIke Magee

    MIke Magee Active Member

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    Tabb, and all, these videos are great. Thanks for all your effort.
    -m
     
  3. Brian Bills

    Brian Bills New Member

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    Great vids Tabb. Loving these things!
     
  4. Tabb Firchau

    Tabb Firchau Administrator
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    Thanks Brian!
     
  5. kjetil tønnesen

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    Hello
    I have got my radian for my 3x gimble
    And i wounder how to power up the radian and servos
    Do you use bec for servoes and radian get it's power from the reciver?

    Can i power my servos from the radian gyro??

    I cant wait to get this radian up and go:))
     
  6. Adam Paugh

    Adam Paugh Distributor

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  7. Tabb Firchau

    Tabb Firchau Administrator
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    Thanks Adam for chiming in.

    The way I do power is to have 5V BEC feed into Receiver then to Pan module-------->Roll Module-------> Tilt module. The servos are powered from each Radian they plug into.

    Tabb
     
  8. kjetil tønnesen

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    Thanks tabb
    but one more thing
    i dont have radian on my pan servo
    can i plug my panservo into roll radian and still be able to pan with the radio

    i will use graupner hott 16 reciver and ppm

    thanks
     
  9. Andrew Goodwin

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    Hey guys, this is very helpful.

    Hopefully not too dumb a question: Lipo into the BEC to receiver, then pan and onward, but what about the video downlink? How do we power the transmitter?
     
  10. Andy Johnson-Laird

    Andy Johnson-Laird Administrator
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    Hi Andrew (Good choice of name. You're third Andrew/Andy on the forum).

    In my case, I power the video downlink directly off the 3S Lipo. 12 volts-ish. ;)
    I also use a second Recom/Arch 5v/1A to give a clean +5v to the IR Camera trigger as I burned out a Strato Snapper and the MK IR would keep hanging owing to the servo noise on the +5V out of the BEC.

    Hope that helps.
    Andy.
     
  11. Andrew Goodwin

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    Thanks Andy,

    Question for you (or Adam, or Tabb). We have a flight board we were using on our old droidworx, can I power everything from that? (ie, just sodder the pos/neg from the castle onto the board to power the radian system?

    I'm a bit foggy on how this all works still, working on it today. Would the spectrum (we're using a dx6i for the 360 gimbal) plug directly from the board into the Radian?

    We'd like to avoid using two batteries if we can help it.

    Andrew
     
  12. Andy Johnson-Laird

    Andy Johnson-Laird Administrator
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    Andrew: Excuse me answering (I can see that you addressed it to Adam/Tabb), but the FC board has two Recom 5v/1A DC/DC converters on it. One intended for the FC itself and the other for servos. Adam told me the each FF servo can pull a maximum of 1.5A *each* in normal operation, more if the servo gets "stalled" against an obstacle. So 5A would be the better choice.

    So here's what I've done:
    3S Lipo ---> Castle BEC --> Spektrum RX ---> Radian sensor #1 -> Servo #1
    | ---> Radian sensor #2 -> Servo #2
    | ---> Radian sensor #3 -> Servo #3
    +-> Recom 5v/1A ---> IR Camera trigger

    If you really wanted to, you could use the FC just for it's Recom for the IR camera trigger, but why fly the extra weight?

    Andy,
     
  13. Andrew Goodwin

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    Hey Andy, OK thanks for this. For some clarification:

    - The castle BEC goes into the pan Radian first (does it go into the 1 slot?), (and the spectrum receiver plugs into the bottom of that too), right?
    - What exactly is a Recom 5V/1A, where do I get one?
    - From this Recom, which is plugged into Radian 3 (tilt), I can power both video downlink, and trigger the shutter?
     
  14. Andy Johnson-Laird

    Andy Johnson-Laird Administrator
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    Oy. Sorry Andrew---the forum software ate all the spaces that I had used to line up my pretty diagram and made a complete nonsense of it.

    But this much is right.

    Lipo --> Castle BEC -> Spektrum RX --> Radian sensor #n (Port 1) --> Servo #n.

    The BEC is the power supply that feeds first into the Spektrum RX. The Radian sensors get their power via the three wire connection to the receiver (black is ground, red is typically +5v, and white is the signal). This connection is Port 1 on the Radian. The Radians can also provide a secondary connection to another servo via the Aux port (Port 4). This too provides power to the secondary servo -- which can either be a real physical servo or the input to the camera control.

    Recom is the name of a company that make DC/DC converters. Arch is another. Unfortunately, in the RC world "Recom" has taken on the generic meaning for "DC/DC Converter." (Just as "Molex" has taken on the meaning "small connector." Molex is the company!)

    Where to get them? Quadrocopter.com carries both 5v and 12v . The 5v is made by Recom, the 12v is from Traco (used for an FPV video downlink transmitters on the Cinestar itself (not the gimbal) where you have a 4S (four cells in series) Lipo with output as high as 16v that has to be brought down to 12v). You can also buy them from mouser.com, digikey.com and several other places. Mrs. Google knows about them! :)

    The Castle BEC (Battery Eliminator Circuit) http://www.quadrocopter.com/Battery-Eliminator-Circuit-BEC_p_625.html provides variable DC output voltage (you can pre-program it using a USB cable (sold separately)). The output current varies depending on the input voltage, but is around 5 to 7 Amps. A BEC differs from the Recom/Arch/Traco, etc. in that it outputs more current, that's all.

    If you're using a 3S (3 cells in series) LiPo battery, you've got 11.1 volts nominal to play with. You could power the cameraman's video downlink directly from the Lipo. But, for the servos, you need to convert the 11.1 volts down to, say, 5 volts. So that's where the Castle BEC comes in. It feeds the down-converted voltage to the Receiver and from there out to the Radians.

    For the camera trigger you also need 5 volts. "Why not use the output from the Castle BEC," I hear you ask. The answer is that, in theory, you could. BUT.....I did this and discovered that the Freefly Servos (in common with all other servos, I gather), generate a lot of electrical noise when they're operating and this noise feeds back out on to the +5v connection from the BEC to the servo. Anything else connected to the +5v output of the BEC then experiences this electrical noise. In my case, I was seeing 4 volt "spikes" of noise -- add that to the +5 volts and you see spikes of +9 volts going into the camera control -- little wonder the Strato Snapper fried and the MK IR control would hang.

    Hope this all helps.
    Andy.

     
  15. Tabb Firchau

    Tabb Firchau Administrator
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    Hi Guys, we put together a more in-depth video to assist in setting up the Radian. Take a look here:

     
  16. kjetil tønnesen

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    nice one tabb

    i dont get it how to setup 3 different fligth mode??
    how do i do this with my mx 20
    that was a great thing:)
     
  17. Andy Johnson-Laird

    Andy Johnson-Laird Administrator
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    Tabb uses the phrase ATV when referring to the adjustable slew rate. It means adjustable travel volume or end point adjustment -- it adjust the total travel of a given servo channel. Normally this would be used to control the amount of travel for say an aircraft rudder or aileron, but here it's being used to adjust the amount of slew signal fed into the Radians -- which alters the speed at which the servos move. Hence, low travel, smoother motion. Higher ATV, best for action shooting....

    Not being a veteran RC'er like Tabb, I had to look it up. Thank you Mrs. Google. Again. ;)

    Andy.
     
  18. kjetil tønnesen

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    Yes i now what travel adjuse do ,but how can i get slew mode off and just stadilization and stadilization and servo input++3fligth mode
     
  19. Andy Johnson-Laird

    Andy Johnson-Laird Administrator
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    Kjetl: You need to assign a three position switch on the MX-20 (such as Ctrl 9 or Ctrl 10) to a specific radio channel on your MX-20. This is described on page 52 of your MX-20 manual.

    The manual is online at Download if you don't have a paper copy to hand.

    Select a channel, say, 6, then assign it to Ctrl 9 or Ctrl 10 switches. Then in the Radian software set the Mode parameter to channel 6. The Mode parameter is shown in the Radian documentation for Step 4. If you want all three Radians to be controlled by channel 6, then set the Mode value for all three to be channel 6.

    Hope this helps.
    Andy.
     
  20. kjetil tønnesen

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    thanks andy
    i will try this;)
     

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