Where do you power your FPV from?

[marcus_canada]

I was wondering what you guys are using for power supply on your FPV gear?

I have a brushless gimbal on my Phantom which I power from the main Lipo and get around 5-6 minutes from it before I pull the plug. Normally I put around 1700-1800 mah back into the batteries.
Recently I put my 200mw transmitter on the top of the Phantom and also tied it into the main battery (Charge taps) and tried it but get the flashing RED leds after just a couple of minutes. I'm pretty sure the little transmitter doesn't even use an amp so why am I suffering so badly from voltage drop?

 

[martcerv]

I don't have a gimbal but power my fpv tx from the balance plug on the main battery, my tx and antenna only weighs 55g but cuts just under 2 minutes off my flight time. From 10 to 8 minutes only change being tx on and connected, weight is negligible I think and so most of that will be the extra drain it takes.

A friend of mine with fpv and h3 2d gimbal has got one of these extra for his video tx, not sure if thats the place he got it but its the first link I found searching that battery.
batteries.https://www.nitrohouse.com/mobile/produ ... emid=13150

It apparently fits to either side of the main battery inside the phantom and should get about 45 min of fpv time out of it using a 500mw tx or he may have 600 I cant remember. Main reason he got it is he was also getting noise when powering of the phantoms power and others said this helped them.

I think I will get one once I get a gimbal as loading fpv and gimbal off the one battery seems a bit much.

 

[marcus_canada]

Yea, makes perfect sense. Thanks !

 

[jumanoc]

I power my FatShark VTX from balance plug using FS filter:

http://www.dronesvision.net/en/acce...-002s-filtered-balance-lead-power-supply.html

 

[martcerv]

I power my FatShark VTX from balance plug using FS filter:

http://www.dronesvision.net/en/acce...-002s-filtered-balance-lead-power-supply.html

I wonder if my TX came with a filtered power input? as it doesn't seem to get any noise at all even when powered off the main battery balance plug. I have heard some people say they get lots of interference and noise but I am quite surprised how clean my video image is, If I just connect the TX and do a range test the signal is the same as if I am in flight.

I was watching another guys feed on 1.2ghz the other day, some great flying too at least until it ended up a tree but he had a very noisy image. I understand the picture will be better at 5.8ghz but shorter range and drops out much quicker when you lose LOS so I cant do any of the deep forest flying he was doing but his image was viewable but noisy even with LOS at around the 300-500m mark compared to what I get out of mine.

The guy was surprised at the reception I was getting out of the DJI 5.8 setup as many other 5.8ghz setups will struggle much more, even in flying like the video I posted in this thread I had no issues with video feed. viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1646

In a few flights there I pretty much flew all over this image here with me standing at the bottom of the yellow line showing distance 315m to end of second field for reference.

This is pretty much the local RC testing grounds it seems, gets pretty busy on a nice day. The guy on 1.2 was flying deep in the forest filled with RC craft like xmas decorations not too far but low and deep inside which I wouldn't dare on my 2.4, 5.8 setup but still the video clarity looks quite nice compared to 1.2 even in clear LOS.

Are you guys with gimbals finding you get a weaker signal when flying directly towards yourself with the camera and gimbal in between your LOS to the tx antenna? I was getting this a bit but changed frequency and didnt notice this at all on my last few flights.

 

[marcus_canada]

Are you guys with gimbals finding you get a weaker signal when flying directly towards yourself with the camera and gimbal in between your LOS to the tx antenna? I was getting this a bit but changed frequency and didnt notice this at all on my last few flights.

When I was range testing on foot, I realized quickly that line-of-sight is the big one. Put something in between the tx and rx and you're in trouble. At about 125 meters I flipped the phantom in such that the phantom frame and gimbal were in the line of sight and it made no difference.

I am using some cheapo hi-gain ebay antenna which may or may not make any difference.

 

[martcerv]

I had noticed my gopro did effect the signal a bit in the past plus I have a carbon fibre mount and carbon fibre isnt great for video signals. Last flights I did I had lots of interference and noise plus signal was dropping within a couple hundred meters 1st flight but was poor at about 50m, changed frequencies and had no issues with noise in any orientation of the phantom at up to 500m away with even behind a few trees low to the ground.

Was nobody flying that I could see but it was possible someone was in another place not too far away behind the trees as its a popular rc area.

 

[marcus_canada]

I wanted to get some firm numbers on this so I took the bird out this morning. Two batteries, the stock one and a nanotech 2200 which is 28g heavier than the stocker.

With the gimbal and gopro loaded and the FPV too although I did NOT power up the FPV transmitter.

5:30 from the stock batt, 6:00 from the Nano