Internal Avionics Arrangement

[kindred]

Was wondering if anyone knew where to get a diagram of the internal arrangement of the avionics in a UAV. Things like servo locations, gps, autopilot etc. would appreciate any kind of help.

[clolson]

I'll jump in here and say something because no one else has and I'm trying to put off the start to my work day. :-)

There is no single answer to your question. I look at this like it's a jigsaw puzzle. You have a bunch of parts, you have an airframe, now *you* have to figure out how to make it all fit together and where you want to put things.

Everyone is flying different airframes and different components. You have flying wings with wide (but very short) bays. You have more traditional trainers with large cabin areas where you can be sloppy and put things anywhere you want. You have smaller aircraft with cramped cabins (or long narrow fuselages that just barely fit the standard R/C gear) where you have to put in a lot of thought and creativity to make it work. You might need to bolt some things outside, but that gets ugly quickly. You'll have way more wires running around than you expected, and they'll turn into a huge tangled nightmare if you don't keep on top of them and think carefully about wire lengths and routing.

Then, even if you do come up with a neat tidy arrangement, you'll probably want to add a component or two or three as you go forward, and that can blow up your original tidy scheme.

I've not seen any diagrams posted here like you wondering about. But I have seen a *ton* of pictures scattered through the various threads where people show their arrangements and gear.

Here is a picture inside my Telemaster showing the MNAV sensor head (and servo controller) as well as a gumstix flight computer. The compent wrapped in orange "hitec" foam is my receiver. The long grey pushrod tube at the bottom of the picture is where I route my antenna wire.

I've seen *much* neater and tidier installations, so I'm not holding this up as an example of the right way to do it, just as an example of something that so far is working out ok for me.

http://baron.flightgear.org/~curt/UAV/SeniorTelemaster/Link/IMG_4602.html

You may notice I use velcro in a few places to tie up wires and secure components. The velcro gumstix mount is really nice because I can pull it off to easily get at the 1Gb MMC card to grab my data or upload new a new version of the flight computer application or tweak the onboard config files.

You may also notice the complete absense of servos or pushrods in the cabin. That is intentional to keep the cabin area clear for all the other gear. The rudder and elevator servos our mounted in the tail. And this aircraft is electric powered so there is no throttle servo.

Hope that helps a little bit.

[kindred]

thanks clolson. hope your work day turned out alright. appreciate the help

[danstrider]

I have another one...

[Tom Harper]

You do very neat work!

[kindred]

wow! that is neat

[danstrider]

bump

[dalbert02]

I agree, each installation is different. In fact, I have changed the configuration in one of my planes many many times simply because I want to add new capability or change the mission or new hardware becomes available.
-dave