Can I remove lightbridge from my Phantom?

[Itay]

Hello friends,

Is it possible to remove lightbridge from my Phantom?
I would like to use it on an rc airplane for a bit.
Also, it there a competitor to lightbridge?

Thanks.

 

[Richard R]

I doubt that the lightbridge circuits are contained in a single 'black box' that you could just pull off and reuse. And the interface and command and control programming is, undoubtedly, deeply imbedded in the firmware.

 

[airbender]

Hello friends,

Is it possible to remove lightbridge from my Phantom?
I would like to use it on an rc airplane for a bit.
Also, it there a competitor to lightbridge?

DJI does make and sell a 'stand-alone' lightbridge unit, but it's not cheap

Buy Video Downlink | DJI Store

How this would integrate into a non-DJI bird, I don't know as I've not looked that closely at it.

 

[With The Birds]

Google "wifibroadcast" AND FPV. Wifibroadcast is part of the wifi standards. Lightbridge is almost certainly nothing more than a slick implementation of the wifibroadcast protocol. Running a raspberry Pi in the AC with a wifi dongle that supports promiscuous mode and some open source code on an SD card will get you there and you can leave the phantom intact.

Start here Wifibroadcast – Analog-like transmission of live video data

 

[wichkans]

Ahhhhh. What he said.

 

[Itay]

... you can leave the phantom intact.

Start here Wifibroadcast – Analog-like transmission of live video data

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.

 

[With The Birds]

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.

I haven't done it but I have seen it working, the person who did it has basic IT skills and managed to get away with installing a basic software image freely available. I will try and ask for more detail of what was involved. The FPV quality was very good, similar range as lightbridge with claimed lower latency. Less then $200 investment also. Had it mounted on a 600 size flybarless RC heli.

 

[Jiggly-Wiggly]

I'm kinda disappointed at how slow the UAV hobby is progressing --- I would have thought by now "build-your-own" UAVs would be commonplace and slapping on a Lightbridge to get 1080p FPV would be rather simple, although maybe not the cheapest option.

If Lightbridge is based on some "Wifibroadcast protocol" --- then why arent we seeing it more widespread on different brands of drones?

I suppose the government regs are holding back what could be a very rapidly growing industry --- but that's what govt. is good at --- stifling innovation and capitalism

 

[Itay]

... then why arent we seeing it more widespread on different brands of drones?

I suppose the government regs are holding back what could be a very rapidly growing industry --- but that's what govt. is good at --- stifling innovation and capitalism

You are right. Other than Connex, I don't know of any real competitor to Dji's LightBriedge, ant it's way too expensive.