Has anyone tried to use an Xbee setup to communicate with a Radian rather than USB as you can with an MK FC, etc? Adjustments can then be made in flight, could be useful. andy
You would need a seperate Xbee device for each radian though. You have to program each one individually. Josh
It would still beat the snot out of having to land connect the laptop, take off, test, land, connect.......... John C., What would it take to use an Xbee radio to one module at a time? Thanks John F
I haven't used an Xbee - but if you can make it act like a serial link which is transparent to the software (ie appears as a COM link on the PC side) then it might work. If the PC side puts out TTL level UART logic then it might plug straight into the programming adapter instead of the usual cable. It would need to run at the right baud rate (38.4K,1 stop bit, no parity) at the Radian end of course.
57600. Watch out with using Xbee for firmware updates though -- those seem to require reliable transmission of long data blocks -- and if anything goes wrong you're likely to brick something! JohnC can probably comment further on the presumption of a reliable data link for firmware upgrades. That said, I don't know how many bytes of data a written to the Radian when you do the Write command -- it may be such a short burst that my worrying is irrelevant. Andy.
No chance of bricking a radian while programming : the bootloader code is well protected Also the normal programming is protected by checksums so you will know if it fails ...
I agree - boy it would be nice to play with the gains in the air. The baud rate is set to 57600 for MK purposes, but an Xbee can be set to serial interface at 38.4K,1 stop bit, no parity no problem.
Thanks, John The xbees are pretty flexible. On the MK I use a usb shield that plugs right in to the computer and becomes a com port. On the flight control side I use a breakout board hardwired to the boards. It is 4 wires: power, ground, DOUT and DIN. John could you tell me the pinout on the 5 and 6 top pins please?
John, Pin 5 is data out from the Radian and Pin 6 is data in. If you guys think this is a worthwhile feature, I will look into the possibility of using a channel on the camera operators radio to control the gain. Much easier than rigging up an XBee ....
I totally agree! That would be the way to go. If each radian had a gain you could (at least on the better radios) assign a channel for each and never even need the laptop at the field. Even if we could assign one gain at a time until you find the sweet spot would be wonderful. Can you have that upgrade ready by Saturday, please?! john
I third or fourth the idea, JohnC. That would really, really make life easier for those of us who fly with different cameras on the same shoot. Take off, Position Hold, Altitude Hold, adjust pan gain to taste (that being the one that gives me the most problem)......Brilliant. Andy.
John ... as originator of this thread I'll vote for having gains on a Tx channel rather than Xbee. Thanks andy PS can we also have proprtional as an alternative to slew control on tilt ... so much easier for one man operation.