[Daxo]

Amazing idea with the carrier board, was thinking among the same lines just with castellated holes, ofc minus the mad skills you guyz got to actually carry out the idea.


Loving the work you guyz have done so far, eager to see how this evolves! Just reading and watching your work makes me feel you guyz are onto something big!




Been busy lately, a lot, but thought to just share a glimpse of thoughts i had for some time now.



I thought in lines how it perhaps might be an fc hardware design standard as well, simply by having and IMU board with MCU AND IMU IC's while the only difference between the projects/fc boards would be the 'motherboard', that is, the circuitry approach/design.

If standard accepted, the first manufacturer to offer such IMU board would be able to offer it for best price of all IC's since everyone would now be a part of group buy in range of 1000 + units instead each individually aprox 200 units per batch.


Anyway, don't mind me the layman, keep up the amazing work!

If it comes to being LP hardware, when time comes please let me know, I would like to contribute with at least some funds since I can't with required skills.

[lucas]

Check out the PDb from Epiquad:



https://quadcoptersenzo.nl/en/epiquad_epipdb


Sort of what Alessio has in mind.  Minus the Hirose connectors.

[nitromethane]

Mateusz and a_morale make a valid point about just using ESCs that are already on the market.
It would make sense to just design a PDB carrier board with current/voltage sensors, 5V step-down regulator and some solder points at convenient locations.
Something similar to what lucas pointed out.

I'm also coming to realize, that while I tried to create a nice and small board (which was a bit of a pain designing a two layer PCB), it's footprint is turning out to be a bit of a pain to combine with other things.
Still, I like it and want to make a prototype, so if needed, surface mount headers it is then. (example: http://si.farnell.com/samtec/ssm-112-l-sv/receptacle-2-54mm-vert-12way/dp/1668266)
I'll see if I can add a little bit of polish to the board design and then probably order some PCBs...


Also that open source VESC thing that Mateusz pointed out looks really neat and I have components on order to build a couple...

[lucas]

They are pricier but you cant go wrong with SMD Machine Pin Headers:

http://www.proto-advantage.com/store/images/PRODUCTS/MPH100IMP40F-G-V-SM_0.JPG?osCsid=jr8cv0vlnc3sg7h5ck436ieie3

http://www.proto-advantage.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=1900031

My suggestion:

Go for Stackable 36mm x 36mm boards.

Picture this:  a VTx + OSD stacked on top of a Radio Rx, stacked on top of a Flight Controller, Stacked on top of a PDB....

My mouth is watering... .... Where do I send you money?

[nitromethane]

I might try to do a full Revo or Sparky2 in a 36x60mm stackable format some day...

[Daxo]

Here's something I'm working on, similar in terms of esc carrier board. Nothing special, merely food for thought.

There's few more photos here, https://forum.librepilot.org/index.php?topic=1436.0

[nitromethane]

So, I was thinking, having done the work to make the small dip footprint Nano, it shouldn't take too much effort to stretch it a bit and have it on a 36x36 board.

That would probably give me enough board space to weld on a RFM22B module.

Now, looking at the Revo schematic, there are 5 signals between MCU and RF module, 4 being standard SPI lines and one Interrupt line.
Looking at how Nano is wired up, on Rx input port there are SPI signals on pins In6 (SCK), In5 (MISO) and In4 (MOSI).NSS could be wired to In1 and interrupt could be wired to In3, leaving In2 usable for PPM.
Would that work??

Also I'm a pretty poor programmer and we'd need a proper programmer to get the software sorted (maybe I could try to do it, but I'd probably make a mess of things...)
I'm guessing that due to the modular nature of firmware and the fact that device drivers and OPLink code are already written, that shouldn't be too hard (??)

Any toughts?

[TheOtherCliff]

Nano on 36x36 with RFM22B added sounds like a Sparky 2.0 

[nitromethane]

I've been messing around in KiCad some more and came up with something that should be a 6 channel brushed ESC + Voltage/Current sensor + Buck-Boost converter enabling 1S and 2S LiPO operation and should be stackable with my NanoDIP design.

Mosfets should be good for up to 5A each which is more than plenty, the main current limitation is set by PCB traces, which I'm thinking of laying some solder on top to increase their current carrying capability.

There's also some space left on that tiny board which I could probably use for a simple low voltage warning...

I'm not certain that I'm quite happy with the design just yet, but am really interested what you guys think of it.

Other than that, I'll probably be ordering some PCBs in not too distant future and will try to build a prototype and then make the designs public...

[Mateusz]

I love it I wonder if it would be possible to fit small lost model alarm (buzzer).