Toombstone Labs

I designed a case for the electronics circuit board tonight. It will be laser cut out of 1/8" plywood and then glued together. The ports are for (left to right): 3s battery, TX signal to Dragonlink by servo cable, video RX to the 5.8 GHz repeater by servo cable, window for digital voltage indicator, and antenna for the 5.8 GHz repeater. The case will then be secured by screws into the back of the biquad antenna so everything but the Dragonlink module can be removed from the tripod in one piece. I will update this post with pictures of the final product but it may be awhile because I still need to order the digital voltage indicator.

Today, I got around to designing support structure for the biquad antenna. I also cut some PEX tubing to make quick connect flexible clamps to hold the antenna to the tripod. This will allow for quick assembly of the ground station and will make it fast to pack up. I countersunk the holes so the flat head screws didn't stick out and touch the tripod legs when snapped on. Also, I needed to file down the points on the other side so they wouldn't stick through to the reflector plate.

Since I live in Illinois it is hard to get out to fly in the winter due to the dreadful weather. So I decided to use my time indoors building a ground station so that when the weather becomes more bearable I will be ready for some fun flights. Setup will look something like this I have about a five foot tall tripod that I will use as the base for all of my equipment. To start I drew out a general schematic of how I wanted to set it up. Dragonlink V2 for control on the top of the extendable head, 1.3 GHz biquad antenna for video on the top of the legs, and an electronics box somewhere in the middle. This will have a 2.4 GHz FrSky D4RII receiver to use as the link from my transmitter to the Dragonlink. Also, I will run the video out from the receiver through a DVR and then into the 5.8 GHz transmitter to repeat the signal to either my goggles or monitor. To reduce the wiring I decided to build an electronics box. This will hold all of the components mentioned and using ...