A question for some techies (more experienced than me)

[Kev the Frog]

Hi,

A question for you techies....

I have a Vision 2+ (the one without the scroll wheel controller). I want to put a "Headlight / Landing Light" on the Bird, no problem there, there are lots of types available and a straight connection to the battery contacts etc would work....

But, and here is my question.... I would like to have the ability to switch it On/Off whilst in flight. I was wondering if Chan 7 could be used as a trigger for some sort of switch/relay to enable me to do that.

Would that have an impact on the way I control the camera angle now - via the I-phone app to raise or lower the camera as I don't want to lose that.

If any one things it is possible do you have any ideas on what I would need and how to do it?

Thanks.

 

[Kev the Frog]

No one able to help then?

 

[pitcher8811]

You would probably need some kind of controller on the drone end to receive messages and interpret them as open ciruit/close circuit. Think like turning on an LED with an arduino, but using a remote.

 

[DrJoe]

You would probably need some kind of controller on the drone end to receive messages and interpret them as open ciruit/close circuit. Think like turning on an LED with an arduino, but using a remote.

The Phantom controller communicates directly with the NAZA, which in turn relays commands through UART in its CAM ports. You'd have to do some pretty fancy electrical engineering to have a "plug and play" use for the 7th channel. Better to try RCGroups forums... they do a lot of EE stuff.

 

[CityZen]

Here's a thought: If you plug a servo into F2, will it also be controlled by the pitch control? If so, have a lever on the servo be able to toggle a push-on, push-off switch, such that when you pitch all the way up (or down; either way) it toggles the switch. This works as long as you don't normally pitch the camera all the way up (or down) too often.

That is the mechanical way of solving this. An EE would just program a PIC to look at the receiver output like these guys did:
https://www.rcdepothobbies.com/RCDH_RETRACT_LANDING_GEAR_FOR_DJI_PHANTOM_2_p/rcdh-ph2retract.htm
(The landing gear extends or retracts by various toggling of the S2 switch.)

 

[Kev the Frog]

Now that is very interesting, thanks for the links.
I think the retractable landing gear looks a good mod, and during installation it would require only simple adaption/addition, to enable/switch a landing light to come on when the gear is in the down position (I assume the s2 switch still operates for the stock nasa mode options as well - need to check that out).
But thanks again for pointing me in an interesting direction.
Kev

 

[CityZen]

Here's some more things to look at:
http://www.robotmarketplace.com/products/rc_interfaces.html
http://www.dimensionengineering.com/
The light controller from the second link looks particularly interesting.
All this is stuff run from a servo channel. If the Naza doesn't put out the channel you want to see, you can always tap into the receiver signal with a Futaba SBus decoder to see any available channel.