Jay Lagare

Drones

Step-By-Step Guide To Whooping

By on Sunday, September 10, 2017

Maybe you’ve seen some people, actual or in videos, flying or even racing these tiny little drones called whoops. It looked like fun and you want to get into it. So how do you get started? I will show you my approach to get into whooping that will ease you into the hobby and not break the bank.

Let’s start by first defining what exactly is a Tiny Whoop. Jesse Perkins, the man credited with starting it all, describes it perfectly:

“Tiny Whoop is a small first-person-view aircraft that truly allows you to feel the gift of flight and the feeling of being tiny. A small apartment becomes a vast terrain worthy of taming. The small tree in your front yard is a deep and engaging forest. With shrouded propellers we can now fly FPV around people and kids safely. It’s more fun than I’ve ever had.”

Strictly speaking a Tiny Whoop is a 65mm-sized quadcopter with ducts and a camera from the Tiny Whoop company. But the Tiny Whoop has become so successful that the term has become genericized. Today, a whoop is any nano or micro-sized quadcopter with ducts and a camera. And whooping is having fun flying around everyday places and people.

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Drones

Binding With The Kingkong Smart100 DSM2 RX

By on Tuesday, August 15, 2017

The DSM2 RX that comes with the Kingkong Smart100 is generally regarded as garbage. It’s hard to bind with, it’s got poor range, etc. I will show that, at least in binding, it’s not completely hopeless. Here’s the step-by-step binding procedure:

  1. Plug FC to USB
  2. Flash NAZE firmware (NOT ALIENFLIGHTF1) — I used NAZE v2.0.0
  3. Set UART2 serial RX
  4. Save and reboot
  5. Set motor protocol brushed
  6. Set motor pwm speed separated from PID speed
  7. Se motor pwm frequency 32000 (or set motor_pwm_rate = 32000 on CLI)
  8. Set motor stop
  9. Set receiver serial-based receiver
  10. Set provider spektrum1024
  11. Save and reboot
  12. On CLI: set spektrum_sat_bind=5
    • 3 for DSM2 1024bit/22ms
    • 5 for DSM2 2048bit/11ms default AlienWii32
    • 7 for DSMX 1024bit/22ms used by Devo 7e
    • 8 for DSMX 2048bit/22ms Used by new DXe
    • 9 for DSMX 2048bit/11ms
  13. On CLI: set spektrum_sat_bind_autoreset=0
  14. On CLI: save
  15. Unplug FC from USB
  16. Plug battery to quad… RX should be in bind mode (rapid flashing orange)
  17. Turn on TX and bind
  18. Unplug battery from quad
  19. Plug FC to USB
  20. Revert to ALIENFLIGHTF1 (optional)
  21. On CLI: set spektrum_sat_bind=0
  22. On CLI: set spektrum_sat_bind_autoreset=1
  23. On CLI: save

Now you can do other configuration you may want to do or maybe just go fly.

Hat tip to Idriz for guiding me on the procedure

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Drones

Linear vs Circular Polarized Antennas

By on Friday, July 14, 2017

Linear antennas are simple, cheap, light, durable and work well enough. They do suffer from polarization and multi-path interference. These issues are mitigated with circular polarized antennas. On the sending side, circular polarized antennas send usable signals regardless of orientation. On the receiving side, they capture polarized signals and– when using matching circular polarized antennas– drop multi-path interference leading to a cleaner picture. In the above video from Neil DeLillo, you can see this difference in actual real-world use. Here’s the full article that explains the difference in detail. Basically, it’s weight/durability vs picture quality.

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