FPV is nothing new but until recently, you had the choice of the budget analog setup with not that great image quality or the high budget proprietary digital setup like DJI, Walksnail, CloudRC etc
Then came OpenIPC (Our projects - OpenIPC), an open source project supported by some brands. Runcam is one of them and sell their RunCam Wifilink setup, now on its second version. For less than $200 (before tariffs), you can set a budget digital FPV setup with VR goggles and headtracking (another opensource project).
Didn't have the budget for another crawler so went with my beloved Wraith 1.9, but limiting modifications to a minimum ... these are rare and I want to be able to get back to original later.
Parts I'll be using :
Some cheap VR goggles, those you insert your smartphone inside, some 9g servos, an Arduino Nano 33 BL Sense and a mono audio wire for headtracking.
and of course the Runcam Wifilink 2 G
The Runcam itself with the 19mm camera connected to the VTX including it's own fan (never included in high-end setups but required anyway for ground use), some cable to power and connect to a flight-controller I won't be using, and cable to program it through the network
The G stands for "Ground station" I guess. This is the G part ... a 5.8Ghz Wifi receiver with a pair of antennas and a USB hub to connect to your smartphone or tablet.
I'll also be using a Fusion SE 1800kv to free the room used by an ESC, and my DumboRC DDF-350 with its 10ch receiver (6ch would be sufficient but I have 10ch so let it be 10ch).
First step was undressing the Wraith to see how much room I have.
Some mockups give an idea of where to go for the initial setup.
Then play with the gimbal and electronics.
First power on of the setup :
There are issues with the pan servo and an error message removed later by changing the OSD configuration of the RunCam, but that seem promising.
Head set is ready :
The USB receiver and hub are glued to the goggles, the Arduino fixed on one strap and everything, smartphone included, will be powered by a powerbank.
Headtracking is a matter of soldering two wires to connect to the radio and setting the Arduino with the related software (Head Tracker v2.2 | Head Tracker v2.2)
First drive :
3 issues were identified. First the power bank shut the output powering the Arduino because of too low consumption ... this will be solved by a USB Y-cable on the "smartphone" port.
Second issue are related to my eyes. I have a strong myopia with high unbalance between the two eyes ... to make it short, I'm virtually blind of one eye. On the smartphone, the software (Pixel Pilot) was set as full screen so my sight was limited to the left side of the screen, hence the driving like seating sideways on the vid.
Third issue ... my eyes issue asside, the camera is too far on the rear.
To solve my eyes issue, I tried setting Pixel Pilot in VR mode, so it display two images. But then I have to choose between image quality (driving and recording in 1080p without the goggles) and using the goggles in 720p@60fps .... my smartphone isn't up to the task of display two videos of 1080p@60fps on the same screeen.
New layout.
I've found an interior that fits the Wraith 1.9 and a figure to remix, so the camera will be inside the cockpit.
After some prints and the use of the sacrificial pink outfit ... it works
Here's what it looks like in its current state
First drive in the wild this afternoon, with the smartphone and headtracking fixed to the radio.
Wraith FPV tests - Clamart 01
This is the video as recorded in the smartphone, as seen when driving. It shows all the signals interferences for driving in a forest.
Range wasn't great, about 200m, but the truck was out of sight.
I need to rework some bits ... like the powering of the Arduino via its microUSB port, too fragile, it broke. Also need higher quality microSD cards, the main one with 1080p and on-board recording had issues on one of its video files and the second one, with setting for VR googles but no on-board recording, was faulty.
Then came OpenIPC (Our projects - OpenIPC), an open source project supported by some brands. Runcam is one of them and sell their RunCam Wifilink setup, now on its second version. For less than $200 (before tariffs), you can set a budget digital FPV setup with VR goggles and headtracking (another opensource project).
Didn't have the budget for another crawler so went with my beloved Wraith 1.9, but limiting modifications to a minimum ... these are rare and I want to be able to get back to original later.
Parts I'll be using :
Some cheap VR goggles, those you insert your smartphone inside, some 9g servos, an Arduino Nano 33 BL Sense and a mono audio wire for headtracking.
and of course the Runcam Wifilink 2 G
The Runcam itself with the 19mm camera connected to the VTX including it's own fan (never included in high-end setups but required anyway for ground use), some cable to power and connect to a flight-controller I won't be using, and cable to program it through the network
The G stands for "Ground station" I guess. This is the G part ... a 5.8Ghz Wifi receiver with a pair of antennas and a USB hub to connect to your smartphone or tablet.
I'll also be using a Fusion SE 1800kv to free the room used by an ESC, and my DumboRC DDF-350 with its 10ch receiver (6ch would be sufficient but I have 10ch so let it be 10ch).
First step was undressing the Wraith to see how much room I have.
Some mockups give an idea of where to go for the initial setup.
Then play with the gimbal and electronics.
First power on of the setup :
Head set is ready :
The USB receiver and hub are glued to the goggles, the Arduino fixed on one strap and everything, smartphone included, will be powered by a powerbank.
Headtracking is a matter of soldering two wires to connect to the radio and setting the Arduino with the related software (Head Tracker v2.2 | Head Tracker v2.2)
First drive :
Second issue are related to my eyes. I have a strong myopia with high unbalance between the two eyes ... to make it short, I'm virtually blind of one eye. On the smartphone, the software (Pixel Pilot) was set as full screen so my sight was limited to the left side of the screen, hence the driving like seating sideways on the vid.
Third issue ... my eyes issue asside, the camera is too far on the rear.
To solve my eyes issue, I tried setting Pixel Pilot in VR mode, so it display two images. But then I have to choose between image quality (driving and recording in 1080p without the goggles) and using the goggles in 720p@60fps .... my smartphone isn't up to the task of display two videos of 1080p@60fps on the same screeen.
New layout.
I've found an interior that fits the Wraith 1.9 and a figure to remix, so the camera will be inside the cockpit.
After some prints and the use of the sacrificial pink outfit ... it works
Here's what it looks like in its current state
First drive in the wild this afternoon, with the smartphone and headtracking fixed to the radio.
Wraith FPV tests - Clamart 01
This is the video as recorded in the smartphone, as seen when driving. It shows all the signals interferences for driving in a forest.
Range wasn't great, about 200m, but the truck was out of sight.
I need to rework some bits ... like the powering of the Arduino via its microUSB port, too fragile, it broke. Also need higher quality microSD cards, the main one with 1080p and on-board recording had issues on one of its video files and the second one, with setting for VR googles but no on-board recording, was faulty.
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