I am focussing only on 5.8GHz FPV setups so far. Maybe I will go to Long Range one day, but not for now....

After buying LOTS of various FPV items I have quite a lot of 'sub standard' items(!!) and some 'great' items! So I decided to make a list of what is good and what is NOT good to get!
What is "good" today might not be good tomorrow!! It is an ever changing world of electronics and FPV goodies!

I will just keep updating this thread as I go through more things over time.....

There are some 'nuisance problems' with FPV Goggles that are perpetually annoying.

For all use:
1) A need for power - a battery that you need to fit or hold somewhere

For use with Head-Tracking:
2) A lead going to your TX
3) Having to press the Head-Tracker Reset Button, which are ON the Goggles, quite often.

After a bit of investigating and thinking I decided on a 'fix' for all of these issues in one swoop.....

....

For FPV there is quite a large range of options as to what Camera you use. So I will cover all the ones I have tried and what pros and cons each have.

List:
1) 808#16V2 (720p - CMOS)
2) Mobius (1080p - CMOS)
3) FH18C (520tvl - CMOS)
4) CAM5820 (380tvl - CMOS) with 20mW 5.8GHz inbuilt TX
5) Sony SuperHAD (600tvl - CCD) boardcam
6) Sony HADII (600tvl - CCD) minicam

I also have several pan, or pan/tilt setups - plus Headtracking via goggles or separate DIY unit, so I will cover those also.

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After fun with the FPV250's I decided to get something a bit bigger, to carry decent FPV/Camera payloads and be able to do more 'useful' missions. More stable... more efficient... longer flying...

There are lots of cheap X Frames around, but this H frame stood out with a bit more character. It cost a bit more than many X's, but it can also fold up into a nice small rectangle - so it won out as my final choice of the many options there are.

I have not decided on what motors and ESC's yet - nor even the Flight Controller!
I am thinking APM, but next in line could be a KK2.1.... but it will be something with GPS and thus RTH and Waypoints capability.

I have to go and do some reading and assessing of what things to use with it.....

.......Continue Reading

First lets go over a few “FPV Goggle’ details…..

In order to make the smallest possible unit (Goggles) designers have chosen to use two very small display screens – one per eye. If you were to use a single display screen it would need to be 3.5” at least, so that both of your eyes can see it all – because your eyes are spaced apart and separated by your nose!
So, now we have two very small screens, and we need those to be very close to our eyes – to keep the whole goggle unit ‘short’ and small. This means we need lenses to magnify what we see of the small screens, and they need to have a LOT of magnification! Also, the more they magnify the screen image, the larger a screen result we “see” – it is forming a Virtual Screen, like watching some large TV that is further away from us! That is pretty cool really!
The larger you want that Virtual Screen to be, the more magnification you need.

The lenses are already a very complex shape because they need to ‘convert’ a ‘round’ camera source – that is our eye – into clearly seeing a rectangular screen. This is a complex lens shape to create! It is also a very ‘thick’ lens, because of the complex shape and it needing to have a huge ‘convex’ curve for magnification. The more magnification the greater that curve must be and then optics get more and more difficult to produce with clear results.
Most are done in plastic. Some are done in glass (very few!).

The goggle Specs pretty well always give a FOV – Field Of...Continue Reading