FlyinFlynn

So.... the PCB's arrived for the airborne gps logger with a small oled display - They came 8 to a panel making them very economical (5 panels is the minimum order ~£10 ) I don't suppose I am ever going to run out of them. 🙂 After building and flashing the xiao board it came out like this - Pretty close to the intended layout If you forget to insert a card it warns you - It advises you it is awaiting a fix from the GPS - Once it knows where it is it starts recording the fixes and displays the maximum height and speed achieved - Powered by a 7.4v lipo - I have uploaded everything to my drive I should note that not all the functions of the display have been tested ( like the "can't record another track because you have 99 tracks already" but if they don't work the fix should be simple and there are comments in the sketch to help navigate it.) That's it.... I'm done.

I am currently pursuing a somewhat 'return to my roots' theme and am building a balsa and tissue model for use with an RTP pole. I intend to power it with a couple of small brushless motors, an esc or two, a micro Rx with a single servo on the elevator. Part of the fun is coming from lasering the parts from 1.5mm balsa sheet. I start with the free plan from AeroFred, I chose a Bristol Beaufighter because... why not! The workflow is - crop the formers one at a time in Adobe Acrobat, save the former as a .JPG, import that into LibreCAD and trace around the shape. Save that as a .DXF which I import into Vetric Aspire where I scale it to the size measured from the Acrobat crop, add the stringer cutouts, add the second half with the mirror function and tidy the shape up and finally save it as a .SVG which will import into LaserGRBL for cutting on a 3 Watt laser. I may be tempted to go for a stronger laser with a air pump option sometime but the balsa will all be 1.5mm. thats 1/16" to the imperialists 🙂 so I expect to get through with a couple of passes... if not....laser upgrade time!. The free plan from AeroFred The part to be worked on cropped from the plan The shape traced and the stringer locations marked Stringer cut outs added and the shape mirrored to produce a full former The file loaded into LaserGRBL ready for the cutting. It's pretty time consuming but very gratifying when you see the part releasing from the balsa plank. No plastic filament was harmed in this build 🙂

Hi all, I have finished my modifications to ‘Fanfantulipe’s’ RemoteID firmware. It has all it’s original functions comprising the French regulations for remote ID including a wifi web page for viewing on a laptop on the ground for both configuring the device, downloading the track plot data and displaying in real time the positional data. There is also a facility to transmit telemetry to a FlySky transmitter but as I don’t have a FlySky transmitter I have never enabled and tested this feature. All info for anyone interested is on My drive

Not something I have experienced UNLESS you program it with a void(loop) with nothing to slow the loop down so the uP is too busy chasing its own ar5e to listen to the UART.....then you have to force boot mode by holding down the boot switch while resetting the device....but it's not normally needed in my experience. Also don't forget to set USB CDC on boot to enabled (in tools) or else the ESP32c3 wont talk to the serial monitor either.

That's ok providing you check 'the stability' at the end of a flight where you have burnt off most if not all of the fuel. It is not a good time to discover you were on the limit of aerodynamic stability when the tank was full. Retracts weight can also come into play if you have them fitted. The most sensitive time for aerodynamic stability is when you are low, slow and dirty - just the same conditions when you are on your finals. I think everyone understands the recommended CofG is only a starting point, designed to get your model flying without re-kitting itself inside the first 10 seconds of airborne flight.

So... having taken a look into FS's wish list I have come up with this - I have mocked up the code to produce a max speed and max height reading that should display on a 128x64 pixel oled, looking like this I hope. I'm awaiting the PCB's and constructing one before releasing any other details. On a separate approach, I am also working on a gps logger Tx and Rx combo that will display on a ground based 2.2" display showing the TX modules current height, speed, max height and max speed based on the French RiD. Whilst ,no doubt possible, incorporating the wifi/webserver into the above unit is above my pay grade....and why re-invent the wheel? The module on the left is the transmitter in the model and the display is an ESP32 and 2.2" display in one. Just early days of the display development, it now has the max data too, along with the current lat & long so it acts as a lost model locator too! I find the GPS altitude data to be too skitish and unusable, I am working on integrating a barometric sensor into the RiD module to send data from that sensor which has, in the past, proved to be more reliable. Windy Millers data logger also uses a barometric pressure sensor to provide altitude data, presumably for the same reason. Again, awaiting the postie to deliver some goodies before I'm able to build one and test it out.

Like most things electronic I'm not surprised you can't find it from the UK. Even if you did it would just be a supplier in the UK who has bought some from a the same supplier you find on the likes of Aliexpress in China and added their markup. I can't fault the delivery of items from China - especially Aliexpress. I will accept not everyone will have the same experience but I rarely have an issue and if I do Aliexpress usually side with the purchaser. I , very recently, ordered two replacement glass tubes for my desoldering gun, both arrived damaged and Aliexpress refunded me within 6 hours. As far as delivery goes, I only order from places offering 'free' shipping if you order over $10 worth... thats $10 in total, not from the same supplier - you do see the price reflects this cost and have to add stuff up but I find it usually works out cheaper in the end. Of course you need to be ordering enough stuff to make the €10 minimum but for me that is rarely a problem 🙂 I'm currently finding 10 day delivery is quite normal for me on the continent... it just gives me time to start the next project! I'm not sure it makes a difference but there are two versions of the HT1818z3G5L.. one with flash and one without. I always go for the one with flash just in case the GPS baud is stored in flash but seeing as how the firmware instructs the GPS module what rate to use at boot up it shouldn't matter if you have the non-flash version. Happy soldering!

Yikes.....nearly as expensive as playing with toy planes.

It's called a 'Nora Batty'

Ah well..... in that case it would be a much easier task to add something like a 0.91" oled display to the Xiao/HT1818 board . something like this The display has two lines of text so perhaps alternately display alt / max alt and then speed / max speed..... Of course Windy's solution is proven and 'off-the-shelf' and this one would need a bit of work and a new PCB. More tinkering methinks!

Thanks EB I'll try that next time. Just because you take a photo at 4k doesn't mean you want it taking the whole page!

Good question Bob. I envisioned it as on the ground - live. If it was on the aircraft I wouldn't consider that as 'live' ..... but Im sure FS will enlighten us shortly.

I seem to remember being able to size an attached photo in the past ( maybe on a different forum), but now don't seem to be able to. Is there a way without faffing with editing the photo resolution?

The remote ID device (HT1818Z3G5L GPS module and a ESP32C3 super mini) and the ESP32-2432s022 display unit. display super mini HT1818Z3G5L GPS No PCB required.

The short answer to that is 'more than I can manage!' The ESP32 is a powerful beast and for a real coder I would imagine it would not be too difficult, but I am just a tinkerer messing around in the code margins. There is a world of difference between taking a line of code and modifying it to do what you want and writing that code from scratch. This existing gps logger code would need to be extensively modified to create a wifi hotspot, password protected, then form the csv data package and squirt it out over wifi. You would then need a receiver and display of some sort, either a laptop and a specially written app or another ESP32 device with a screen that you hold in your hand on the ground and displays the data. That data would also be problematic because you would need to filter out any obviously erroneous data that would inevitably get in there for your max speed or max height readings. The GPS is notably quite bad at accuracy of height data which is why Windy Miller included the barometric sensor in his original version to get the altitude. You also have to keep in mind the commercially available units that possibly have this functionality and their cost..... in order to put the work in to make a home built one you have got to want to do it for the satisfaction... the cost of it isn't in your favour ( I've already spent more on PCB's and components than the cost of a commercial unit... but where is the fun in that?) Having said all that, if you dig into This thread on RiD's you will see that that device already has the functionality you ask for, a display on the ground showing you your aircraft's position, speed, course, altitude, max speed, max altitude and a bunch of other data too. I'm not sure how the author of that software handles erroneous readings from the GPS because it is written into the app he wrote. I built a ESP32 based device with a 2.2" TFT to decode the data that is sent from the RiD and with a bit of tinkering I have got a rudimentary speed and height display (that needs further work) but have not yet managed to work out how to pick out the max values received by the device..... maybe more progress incoming.....maybe!