Infraction Arrma Infraction Digital HD FPV Build Thread

[ChemEng]

Yes they can be a real pain to find, i heard their about to release more of them soon.


Oh hey how's your Mojave build going?

Oh nice you have DJI goggles, that means you can take advantage of that 100fps frame rate.

Yeah velcro is simply awesome, stick them on there.

“Raspberry PIs”

I was trying to do some other projects like a Pihole add blocker and upgrading my octopi but the raspberry pi hardware just isnt available anywhere.

I have the original DJI goggles and 4 of the air units. I used it for FPV freestyle but don’t have time for that much anymore. Would be great to repurpose it for this.

 

[Mr9Mojave]

“Raspberry PIs”

I was trying to do some other projects like a Pihole add blocker and upgrading my octopi but the raspberry pi hardware just isnt available anywhere.

I have the original DJI goggles and 4 of the air units. I used it for FPV freestyle but don’t have time for that much anymore. Would be great to repurpose it for this.

There are a few available here, Pi 4's are easy to get, the Zero W/2's are harder to find.

I suppose Australian shops aren't shipping oversea's?

I think i blew my Pi up earlier,after wiring up a new harness, well i blew up my wifi card.

Had a ubec facing the wrong way so there was no voltage regulation.

The wifi card made an awesome popping sound though.

Anyway build is on hold for a week.

 

[ChemEng]

There are a few available here, Pi 4's are easy to get, the Zero W/2's are harder to find.

I suppose Australian shops aren't shipping oversea's?

I think i blew my Pi up earlier,after wiring up a new harness, well i blew up my wifi card.

Had a ubec facing the wrong way so there was no voltage regulation.

The wifi card made an awesome popping sound though.

Anyway build is on hold for a week.

I can’t find 4s in the US. I suppose if I shell out I could find one on eBay.

I have burned up my share of electronics. Let the magic smoke out of a brand new mmX8s not too long ago. I feel your pain.

 

[Mr9Mojave]

I can’t find 4s in the US. I suppose if I shell out I could find one on eBay.

I have burned up my share of electronics. Let the magic smoke out of a brand new mmX8s not too long ago. I feel your pain.

Let me know if you need help getting a Pi 4, can always send you one.

Sadly for me i have to wait until i can buy another Pi, they make us wait 30 days until a new one can be purchased...but there are ways around that.

Sorry to hear about the mmX8 that would have hurt.

 

[Mr9Mojave]

The rear guards finally arrived for this today, also the new rear wings that were sent by the seller for free.

They were free because the gaps were too large, much happier with these.

 

[Mr9Mojave]

Finally got around to binding the new R8EF and tested the front light bar sent to me from @

hdt1980​

Just waiting on new adapters for the magnetic light kit.

Very surprised by how bright the light \bar is, will light up the road nicely at night.

It's funny though, I'm considering using another fpv system and the camera with that can see in the dark perfectly..so if i use that system the light bar will be just for show.

I have a grille glued to the front now with white led head lights, waiting on tail light shrouds for the red leds.

I haven't been able to get telemetry readings from the flight controller,yet so i have no battery voltage, distance and speed readings available, it's just taking time to sort it out...it's like 2 wires i have connected the wrong way.

I'm going to range test it soon anyway despite no telemetry.

I have telemetry.

I thought 150km/h will be enough on the gauge..

Success....full telemetry and GPS now established.
Will have speed, distance and battery monitor readings, will record total distance driven and will display all kinds of stats.

Time to get this gear into the car.

 

[Mr9Mojave]

Finally getting Ruby installed into the car, but everything is running as it should so will be testing this weekend weather permitting.

Have to fix the perspex plate shown properly, everything is roughly mocked up before final fitment of everything, but good to get the gear into the interior.

240g's of perspex, Raspberry Pi, flight controller, logic converter, USB hub, ubec and a gps.

Sorted my ground station out, attached the screen to the lid and can simply close it, heaps of room in there.
Rigged up a harness and ubec for it so i can run from a battery when outdoors.

Will upload pics of when it's finished...on the home stretch now.

 

[Moirae]

For the fpv system i could have gone a few different routes, DJI was out of the question but i looked at most of the hd digital systems and decided on Ruby-https://rubyfpv.com/
I'll have a very clean fpv feed with good range. Sadly didn't have any of the items available to build it because it's all different.
It's a WIFI system so instead of having an antenna running from a vtx i have an antenna running from a network card which is run from the Pi.



Ha awesome ask away! Video tx is the Raspberry Pi/wifi network card being run by the Ruby software.
Yep I'll be mostly using my goggles, i can plug my hdmi screen into the Ruby also. The goal is to be able to drive it from a simulator steering wheel.

I could drive it from home with the Ruby connected to a 40" tv if i wanted, but yeah goggles will be used the most for i love the immersion goggles give you. But my goggles have no audio output so I'll be playing the feed through the tv, etc.

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This is what will be the system, the picture with the camera will be in the car, the other is for the ground station.

Can I ask why dji was out of the question?

 

[Mr9Mojave]

Can I ask why dji was out of the question?

Cost basically, it's a large investment to step into dji territory.

If i had cash to burn i would have chosen dji...but there are other companies producing some really good gear now, and being my first time trying digital it was good to build something myself for a quarter of the cost.

I'll laugh if i can't get 500m down the road and video fails on me.

 

[Moirae]

Cost basically, it's a large investment to step into dji territory.

If i had cash to burn i would have chosen dji...but there are other companies producing some really good gear now, and being my first time trying digital it was good to build something myself for a quarter of the cost.

I'll laugh if i can't get 500m down the road and video fails on me.

Ahh I thought that might be it but I didn't want to assume. I was scared there might be some technical reason. I've always thought it would be cool to hook up the dji 03 system to an arrma but I didn't know if it was even possible.

 

[Mr9Mojave]

Ahh I thought that might be it but I didn't want to assume. I was scared there might be some technical reason. I've always thought it would be cool to hook up the dji 03 system to an arrma but I didn't know if it was even possible.

It's very possible, you can hook up anything you want, someone is running Ruby on a 1/10 scale, you'll be surprised by how much you can fit into a small area, but the Infraction has loads of room, was a good choice for this.

I was originally going to try Walksnail Avatar HD, that's a really good system that you can connect a flight controller and gps to.

Will be interesting to see how the standard antenna's perform, will try them first before throwing circular polarised antennas on.

 

[Mr9Mojave]

It's all in the car finally.

A few little things left to do, but one thing i can't bring myself to do, and that's cutting into factory wiring harness so i can power everything from the car's lipo packs..so until i build up that courage I'm simply running Ruby on it's own lipo...I'm scared i hate cutting wires..especially brand new shiny ones.

I was running around the backyard with just the body and then swung it around, i think the gps recorded a top speed of 3kmh.

The gps which is attached on a false roof to keep it under the roof line picked up 7 balloons...i mean 7 satellites really quickly, so I'm ready to rip this down the toad, can't wait for the weekend.

Oh yeah I'm sticking with the USA theme and have kept it...left hand drive.

Mounted the camera too high up so i wasn't getting the bonnet in view, need to send camera down..but arrrgh the windscreen is tricky to mount a camera on. Poor windscreen will see the dremel again.

Below pic is final view for now.

 

[Dan B.]

Can’t wait to see the video!

 

[rotauq]

I am curious to see if using a screen is more viable than FPV googles.

I did hook up a dji fpv system to several cars, but driving on googles was instant headache. Way too much bouncing around.
A screen + regular Line of Sight seems like a better choice indeed

 

[Jamr]

Looking forward to this also.

 

[Mr9Mojave]

I am curious to see if using a screen is more viable than FPV googles.

I did hook up a dji fpv system to several cars, but driving on googles was instant headache. Way too much bouncing around.
A screen + regular Line of Sight seems like a better choice indeed

What kind of cars were they..?

I have a 4WD thingy but it's powered by robotic motors, has big tyres which act as suspension for it.

I could drive that for a long time through goggles and it hardly moves, doesn't bounce or anything.

Basically it comes down to personal preference, but for full immersion nothing beats goggles.
When i was flying my 5" freestyle drone goggles were a must, you don't want any light leaks, but i was gapping very tight spaces with it, flying under picnic tables, etc so goggles were a must..you feel as though your literally inside that drone, etc.

For the Infraction it will depend on location and how I'm driving to want to drive either through the screen or through the goggles.

When I'm in an underground car park i will want goggles on for something like that, but I'll be driving this without fpv also.

 

[rotauq]

What kind of cars were they..?

I have a 4WD thingy but it's powered by robotic motors, has big tyres which act as suspension for it.

I could drive that for a long time through goggles and it hardly moves, doesn't bounce or anything.

Basically it comes down to personal preference, but for full immersion nothing beats goggles.
When i was flying my 5" freestyle drone goggles were a must, you don't want any light leaks, but i was gapping very tight spaces with it, flying under picnic tables, etc so goggles were a must..you feel as though your literally inside that drone, etc.

For the Infraction it will depend on location and how I'm driving to want to drive either through the screen or through the goggles.

When I'm in an underground car park i will want goggles on for something like that, but I'll be driving this without fpv also.

My first drive will be LOS only, but will be testing range looking at the screen with the radio i have....so with the GPS i can simply watch the distance being chewed up casually on the screen before i have to turn around..which should be around 2km.

If you want an awesome fpv experience, build something so it doesn't matter if you flip over, you just drive it up a wall and flip back over again, It's fun driving it upside down also..not at night though...that can do your head in real fast.
360deg servo and you can see all around you.

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The big difference between air and surface is that in the air, all movements are your own control, whiles on the surface it adds a lot of (tiny) movements which are not your own. For crawling and slow movement this is fine, but i did get into this hobby for the extremes. I've tried fpv on bashers and speedrunners, but it didn't offer me what i was looking for.

Being immersed into the goggles also creates different safety issues air vs surface. A drone gives that 360 overview as you can quickly turn in any direction. Onroad, with chance of traffic a spotter is mandatory.
A screen like you are using combines LOS and FPV, less immersion also means 'feeling' vibration less. Therefor you resparked my curiosity

 

[Mr9Mojave]

This is my view for now, was harder than i thought to get the camera in the right position.

The camera will need a mount made just for it, these camera's aren't like your typical fpv camera's, so their just harder to get into the right spot.

I'm going to have to make a new windscreen for it with proper mounts for the camera's, so for testing the way it is now will be fine.

Testing this weekend.

HD cam view

Just realised i wont be able to show OSD readings in the footage until my HDMI splitter arrives.
Can always record it with a camcorder though..

Couldn't drive today, had a small pit window before the rain came, one of my lipos took forever to charge, one of the cells was off so my charger kept at it until that cell was fully charged..also forgot to bolt the electronics bay to the body, so tomorrow i hope to get out there.

 

[Mr9Mojave]

Maiden drive and test completed...this thing is a BEAST!

Apart from destroying a front LHS CHOON...and then the front RHS CHOON decided it didn't want to be attached to the wheel anymore and rolled beautifully away into the distance.. I thought the wheel came off so was relieved it was only the tyre...not enough glue i think.

I took the spare Hoons in case something like this happened so was good to keep going.

Sunday was a bad day to test where i was, people would always pop out of nowhere so i had to be careful, it's Albert Park Lake where we host the Formula 1 race, so i used the pit lane which is beautiful tarmac. I was getting a lot of wheel spin before it would start to grip, i reached 70kmh and that was fast enough, i haven't driven an rc car in a few years so i was VERY rusty.

While i was struggling to drive fast..i was thinking this-"How do those guys do those insane speed runs?
I'm like damn those Scorched guys reached 216mph and I'm struggling to do 45mph!

The video feed was really good, but i really needed my goggles, there was too much glare on the screen to drive it well, but was good to see the gauge working, but my distance wasn't working, there would be a setting i can change for that..but all in all a successful day.

Very impressed with the battery packs, crazy punch from them and they lasted for ages....for the way i was driving.

I was recording the video feed, but when i powered off the Pi, i didn't realise i needed to stop the recording first, so it wiped all the data.
It would have been the same as the action cam footage anyway until i can record the OSD footage.

Will have some footage soon to show, i only arrived home an hour ago, but it will be boring for it was just a test drive but will edit some clips together.
I just need to make a mount for the Pi camera so it's more secure...and learn how to glue tyres properly to rims.

 

[Dan B.]

Maiden drive and test completed...this thing is a BEAST!

Apart from destroying a front LHS CHOON...and then the front RHS CHOON decided it didn't want to be attached to the wheel anymore and rolled beautifully away into the distance.. I thought the wheel came off so was relieved it was only the tyre...not enough glue i think.

I took the spare Hoons in case something like this happened so was good to keep going.

Sunday was a bad day to test where i was, people would always pop out of nowhere so i had to be careful, it's Albert Park Lake where we host the Formula 1 race, so i used the pit lane which is beautiful tarmac. I was getting a lot of wheel spin before it would start to grip, i reached 70kmh and that was fast enough, i haven't driven an rc car in a few years so i was VERY rusty.

While i was struggling to drive fast..i was thinking this-"How do those guys do those insane speed runs?
I'm like damn those Scorched guys reached 216mph and I'm struggling to do 45mph!

The video feed was really good, but i really needed my goggles, there was too much glare on the screen to drive it well, but was good to see the gauge working, but my distance wasn't working, there would be a setting i can change for that..but all in all a successful day.

Very impressed with the battery packs, crazy punch from them and they lasted for ages....for the way i was driving.

I was recording the video feed, but when i powered off the Pi, i didn't realise i needed to stop the recording first, so it wiped all the data.
It would have been the same as the action cam footage anyway until i can record the OSD footage.

Will have some footage soon to show, i only arrived home an hour ago, but it will be boring for it was just a test drive but will edit some clips together.
I just need to make a mount for the Pi camera so it's more secure...and learn how to glue tyres properly to rims.

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Wait, so you can just roll up to Albert Park and walk around? I would have thought it’d be a secure area. You’re seriously doing this on the pit lane? What the hell, man?!? Not fair!!!