=== Let's Drone Out — Episode 411 ===
Title: LDO 411 - Times Are Changing
Recorded: 2023-07-13
Hosts: Jack "Brightontillifly" Nash, Stephen "Belrik" Howell, Andrew "Frank" Hyams
Guest(s): Dominic "Mr Cleanflight" Clifton
Total audience: 1,258
Platforms: YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8VQuhScsIw); SoundCloud (http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/1565750986-letsdroneout-ldo-411-times-are-changing.mp3)
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[0.0] Jack: Hello, and you're listening to Let's Drone Out, a special thank you to our lovely patrons
[6.28] Jack: that help donate so that we can pay the editor to remove the swear words and silly things
[11.36] Jack: we say.
[13.0] Jack: Massive thank you to…
[14.4] Jack: Carlos Campos!
[16.0] Jack: Art Faulkner.
[17.84] Frank: Sam Dahmer.
[19.68] Frank: On with the show.
[20.68] Jack: Hello and welcome, you're listening to Let's Drone Out.
[56.97] Jack: And tonight we are joined with the man with the mustache and the not-so-wonderful connection
[63.93] Jack: Bellrick slash Stephen.
[65.49] Stephen: Hello, hopefully you can hear me.
[68.53] Stephen: Broadband problems, but…
[70.93] Jack: No, no, that was me.
[74.81] Jack: That was me.
[76.97] Jack: My flux just fell off.
[78.89] Stephen: Broadband problems and sabotage.
[81.33] Stephen: So I would like to point out to our viewers that was Jack pointedly removing my audio
[85.85] Stephen: from the stream and not me.
[87.93] Jack: Yeah, I dropped my flux, I was like playing with it in my hand and it just hit the space
[93.49] Jack: bar and it just…
[94.49] Jack: Yeah, yeah, that's what we all believe in.
[95.93] Stephen: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[96.93] hydra: That's totally what it is.
[98.93] hydra: That's what happens with my flux all the time, that is, it's just funny that happened
[102.69] hydra: to you.
[103.69] hydra: Oh, it just gets all over anything that you want to touch.
[106.25] Stephen: Yeah, when I throw random objects at my keyboard, sometimes they hit the keys, it's just random.
[111.09] Stephen: Yeah.
[112.09] Stephen: What, you mean your fingers?
[113.81] Dominic: I don't want these anymore.
[116.81] Jack: Yeah, I'm bright until I fly and we are joined by the whole reason that we have anything
[125.05] Jack: in this hobby, Mr Clean Flight.
[127.05] Jack: I wouldn't say that's true, but hi, everybody.
[130.89] Jack: You're the one who cleaned up the code, you're the one who saved us from Timecop and…
[137.21] hydra: There's more than one flight control software out there, you know, we'd probably just be
[142.01] hydra: using AlgaePilot or something instead, right?
[143.77] Jack: Oh no, OpenToilet, remember that?
[146.77] Dominic: Mm-hmm.
[147.77] Jack: Oh.
[148.77] Jack: Or Deronin.
[149.77] Jack: I thought Deronin was later, wasn't it?
[153.29] Jack: Or Towlabs.
[154.29] Jack: Who knows?
[157.24] Dominic: Who knows?
[158.24] Jack: Individually calibrating ESCs in OpenPilot.
[161.24] Jack: Oh my God.
[162.24] Jack: That sounds…
[163.24] Jack: That was so bad, wasn't it?
[166.24] Jack: A quad would try and take off, it was just like a wing and a prayer.
[176.0] hydra: I don't think I ever tried it, to be honest, the calibration thing.
[180.24] Jack: Well, it was all part of the setup.
[183.0] Jack: You had to kind of go through that wizard before it would let you.
[186.64] hydra: Maybe you did.
[188.48] hydra: It's a long time since I've used that, like a long, long time.
[193.76] hydra: I think I decided fairly quickly that I didn't like it.
[198.4] Jack: So for any of you that are uninitiated, Mr. Clean Flight, Dominic Clifton right here,
[204.6] Jack: took the forked base flight and then wrote Clean Flight.
[213.32] Jack: And then we all switched over and then it was all good until Boris started meddling
[222.12] Jack: around and then kind of had like a little offshoot fork for like beta testing stuff.
[229.2] Jack: And then that got released out into the wild.
[233.36] Jack: And then slowly, you beat a flight, overtook Clean Flight, unfortunately.
[244.05] Jack: Popularity, yes.
[245.21] Jack: The quality at the time, no?
[247.33] Jack: Yeah, because it was just kind of…
[249.93] Jack: I was just adding stuff.
[252.09] Jack: I mean, the notch filter was revolutionary.
[256.09] hydra: Yeah, I mean, B2Flight has been called things like filter flight before, right?
[262.85] hydra: Yeah.
[263.85] hydra: Yeah, I mean, obviously filters do make a huge difference and they are very, very useful
[267.57] hydra: in signal processing.
[268.57] Dominic: So, yeah.
[270.33] Dominic: Hey Alexander.
[274.59] hydra: But they're not my speciality, the filter side of things.
[278.39] hydra: That's not my speciality.
[280.67] Jack: Yeah.
[282.99] Jack: Was it, you know, back in the day, was it quite difficult to like keep up with all the
[288.31] Jack: pull requests?
[290.31] hydra: You have no idea.
[291.71] hydra: It was a very fast changing time back then, yeah.
[298.43] hydra: And the amount of people available to do code reviews, because I was busy like refactoring
[303.71] hydra: a code base left, right and center, trying to like clean things up and make it into like
[309.11] hydra: a more mature system, right?
[312.47] hydra: And at the same time I'm doing that, people are going, oh, this is pretty good.
[314.91] hydra: Oh, it flies pretty good.
[315.91] hydra: Oh, can I add this to it?
[316.91] hydra: And here's some code.
[317.91] hydra: It's like, I was going to get to this other thing.
[320.43] hydra: Now I've got to look at that.
[322.11] hydra: And there wasn't enough of me to go around or enough of all the other maintainers and
[327.15] hydra: so on at the time either, so.
[330.43] hydra: And I guess it was the first like large project with a large community involvement.
[336.15] hydra: And I've never done that before.
[338.67] hydra: And it turns out you need someone who can manage a community and manage all that side
[345.27] hydra: of things if you're busy writing the code.
[349.43] hydra: So I didn't have enough time to do both.
[351.55] hydra: And therefore one thing slipped and it's the thing that obviously I don't enjoy doing as
[355.63] hydra: much as the other thing that slipped, which is community management.
[359.27] hydra: I prefer coding.
[360.27] hydra: So, you know, I mean, computers only argue back a little bit.
[363.87] hydra: People argue back a lot.
[367.63] Jack: Right.
[368.95] Jack: I know.
[369.95] Jack: Yeah, totally.
[372.59] Jack: I mean, you really have, you know, kind of gone completely through it.
[378.19] Jack: So did you need a community manager then?
[380.63] Jack: Did you need to find someone?
[383.27] hydra: I hadn't even thought about it or contemplated it.
[387.43] hydra: These thoughts only come to me post situation, as it were, you know, hindsight.
[395.11] Jack: It was still early day, though, for, you know, what it was.
[400.11] hydra: Yeah.
[401.11] Dominic: Yeah.
[402.11] hydra: Yeah.
[403.11] hydra: I mean, there's, but it's, yeah, I mean, there were a few other, you know, bits of software
[412.31] hydra: that predated it, like we mentioned earlier, but they're all maturing, you know, being developed
[417.51] hydra: like really actively at that time, like they still are today.
[423.19] hydra: There's some aspects of it are more sort of known and sort of commonplace now, whereas
[429.19] Jack: before, no, you ever, you have attempted to go back and like, you know, revive clean
[436.99] Jack: flight or do you ask that?
[439.39] hydra: Someone asked me that the other day, actually.
[441.19] hydra: They joined the clean flight discord server because there is actually a clean flight discord
[445.29] hydra: server.
[448.19] hydra: I did I did I have I posted the link anywhere?
[451.19] hydra: I don't know because I created it because Slack was like dying, basically.
[456.99] hydra: So I just archived all the slack stuff, created the clean flight discord like ages ago, and
[461.79] hydra: then I've just pasted a dump of the slack archive in there.
[464.39] hydra: And a couple of other people randomly hop in there and say hi.
[468.59] hydra: And then someone popped in there last week or something and said, it's clean flight dead.
[471.89] hydra: I'm like, well, it's not actively maintained anymore.
[476.19] hydra: And he goes, I was hoping for clean flight five or something like this.
[480.59] hydra: I'm like, well, you know, I'm programming in Rust these days.
[483.49] hydra: So we'll see.
[487.29] Jack: Rust the programming language, not the video game.
[490.49] Jack: Correct.
[490.99] Jack: Yes.
[492.79] Jack: It always throws me is Rust coded in Rust.
[497.09] hydra: Do you know the compilers can compiles itself now?
[501.49] hydra: Yes.
[503.59] hydra: That's always like a milestone for any new programming language.
[507.09] hydra: You know, can the compiler be written in the language that it compiles itself?
[512.49] hydra: So you need an old version compiler to make a new version of the compiler.
[515.69] hydra: But at some point you need something that creates the first bit of Rust code.
[519.09] hydra: So that first bit of Rust code you can then write the next version.
[523.29] hydra: And then you have to translate all the code into Rust or something once you get to that point.
[528.59] Jack: It was like the very first CNC machine, you know, you needed to make the parts yourself
[534.59] Jack: and then it could self-replicate kind of like 3D printers with the same thing.
[539.49] hydra: Right as well.
[540.09] Jack: Yeah.
[541.09] Jack: And for like taking from other things and as soon as you've made that one thing, then it could make parts
[546.49] Jack: for itself to make it better or make 3D printers.
[551.39] Jack: It's kind of weird.
[554.79] Jack: You look hot.
[556.69] Jack: I also love the fact that your like office slash workshop is in clean flight colors.
[564.19] Jack: Sealing, ceiling fan.
[566.49] hydra: And then we've got somewhere over here.
[567.79] hydra: We've got is where is it a giant floor fan?
[572.99] hydra: Oh, that's quite nice.
[574.39] hydra: I am just gonna stay like this.
[576.09] hydra: It's pretty good.
[577.89] hydra: So I was going to show you Jack my amazing PC down here.
[581.79] hydra: Where is it which is also a clean flight green.
[584.99] Jack: Was it was it paid for by clean flight money?
[588.49] hydra: No, most things are not.
[593.79] hydra: No, nothing's really paid with clean flight money because whatever money the project got, it was basically
[599.09] hydra: used to like buy the devs like hardware and you know, might pay for test equipment and siliscopes
[605.69] hydra: and things like that really.
[608.09] hydra: But not so much my computer because I need one of those anyway.
[610.49] Stephen: So these projects don't work as profit centers unless you're selling companies thousand pound plus
[617.09] Stephen: versions of the hardware.
[618.49] hydra: Well, I mean, there's a bunch of different ways to monetize like open source projects.
[622.89] Stephen: You have to have like a premium tier that you saw really expensive kit to not 50 or 20 quid boards to hobbyists
[630.09] Stephen: where you can at most factor in.
[631.39] Stephen: Yeah, perhaps a couple of quid if you're like BLLE 32.
[635.49] hydra: Yeah, it's down to a volume game when the item you're selling is small and low value.
[643.99] hydra: So it's like how many of them can you shift?
[646.19] hydra: You know, it's like cans of tomatoes in the supermarket.
[650.79] hydra: You got to sell a lot.
[652.89] Stephen: When your total addressable market is like 300 guys across Europe.
[657.99] hydra: That's the challenge.
[659.09] hydra: It's exactly the market is very saturated.
[664.39] hydra: That's the word we're looking for saturated.
[666.69] hydra: There's a lot of product out there.
[669.99] hydra: Yeah, there's a lot of stuff out there and there's new people going.
[672.99] hydra: I mean, I see people popping in like the hardware dev channels and stuff.
[677.29] hydra: It's like how do I do this?
[678.79] hydra: How do I do this?
[679.29] hydra: I'm thinking I make a new flight controller.
[680.99] hydra: Is there any references for this out there and you see it like almost daily.
[684.29] hydra: There's someone someone new asking about it.
[686.39] Stephen: I found this job error.
[687.39] Stephen: That's extremely cheap and available in large quantities.
[691.49] Stephen: But is there a reason that the no we lost him.
[695.89] hydra: No Steven connection problems nightmare.
[700.29] Jack: This is a futile.
[701.99] Jack: Yeah, I kind of just hope that clean flight is going to be like one
[705.99] Jack: day like we you where, you know, in a couple of years, there'll be one
[710.49] Jack: update and we will be like, you know, paste in that South Park name.
[716.09] Jack: I didn't hear the bell, bitch.
[720.69] Jack: It's still going.
[723.09] hydra: Yeah.
[724.39] hydra: Yeah.
[725.69] hydra: I mean the thing with it is I'm split too many ways.
[729.29] hydra: My time is it's like I don't have enough time.
[732.39] hydra: And like I was saying, you know, you need like a community manager
[735.19] hydra: and someone to do this and someone to do that.
[737.69] hydra: And it's it's a you need the size of the project and the potential
[743.49] hydra: user base requires more than one person to do it like a team.
[750.79] hydra: Basically for wearing this kind of this kind of sized project.
[755.49] Jack: Yeah, it'd be amazing.
[757.49] Jack: I think you should run a team and then you know, kind of have like
[760.69] Jack: the the f1 like equivalent League where people fly and you know,
[767.49] Jack: D shot 150 limit, you know, like f1 board.
[775.49] hydra: I mean, it might be entertaining, I guess, but it's not where my heart
[780.39] hydra: is. It's like I've seen how we used to do things.
[783.39] hydra: I'm a technologist right and always wanted to push things forwards.
[787.59] hydra: So I know there's something better now.
[791.29] hydra: Why would I want to use this old thing anymore?
[792.99] hydra: You know, yeah, they would have to be a good reason.
[797.29] hydra: One shot 42.
[798.79] hydra: Yeah, back to it.
[799.79] hydra: Yeah, it's like chopping your fingers off with the yeah with the one
[803.09] hydra: shot stuff.
[803.69] hydra: It's like no.
[805.89] hydra: Thank you.
[806.89] hydra: No, thank you.
[808.39] Jack: Oh, do you remember?
[810.29] Jack: With the switch, the random twitches on your bench.
[815.19] Jack: Oh, yeah, it's not good.
[818.39] Jack: I just you know, like I just love it when you know, I don't know
[822.29] Jack: whether you've seen it, but I had a friend who like left up just
[829.49] Jack: before you released left the hobby just before you released the
[834.09] Jack: FPS the seriously pro f3.
[837.59] Jack: So on time his his his last quad was like days 32 the like, you
[846.89] Jack: know, the BL Heli ESCs be by DYS the white ones.
[852.29] hydra: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[853.39] Jack: Yeah.
[855.69] Jack: Yeah, and 1806 motors in a in a in a fossil stuff like, you
[862.69] Jack: know, yeah, you know 250 quad.
[866.59] Jack: But like they popped round for the first time in ages and they
[871.59] Jack: were like looking at my quads of being like, what is this?
[875.59] Jack: And and then I played the video of like, you know, wrote a riot
[880.69] Jack: like flying the multi-we boards and being like watch this and
[885.59] Jack: they were, you know, like, where's the ISD?
[889.29] Jack: My friend was like, we didn't have an SD.
[892.19] Jack: We you know, like what's air mode?
[894.09] Jack: Like they never heard of air mode.
[896.19] Jack: Oh my God things you fall out the sky and you like it and you
[899.89] Jack: don't know why you don't know where there's any just the fun
[903.99] hydra: of trying to keep it up there.
[905.69] hydra: Yeah, half the half the half the entertainment.
[908.89] Jack: I think that was we used to celebrate when we finished a
[912.99] Jack: battery that used to be a big deal.
[915.39] Jack: Yeah, if you actually remember that if you get to the end of
[918.09] Jack: a battery, yeah, like there was like party poppers and you
[922.59] Jack: know, my God, I didn't crash it.
[924.59] Jack: Pins and everything.
[925.79] Jack: Yeah, you never used to finish a battery.
[927.79] Jack: Your props used to break before that.
[929.89] Jack: Yeah, the old, the old chatter props.
[933.39] Jack: Yeah, you know, like there was, you know, there's still
[937.29] Jack: bi-blades, you know, like just, oh man.
[940.89] hydra: One of my favorite quads is a bi-blade one.
[944.29] hydra: It's one of my favorite.
[947.49] hydra: Have it in Ibiza.
[948.49] hydra: I just used to fly over there and it just makes this most
[951.39] hydra: amazing screaming noise when the props are slightly damaged
[955.89] hydra: or whatever and it just boons around everywhere.
[958.29] hydra: It's just like obnoxious.
[959.59] hydra: It's great.
[960.79] Jack: My favorite quad of yours was the TBS Acro Disco.
[966.79] Jack: Oh, Acro Disco in, that's well good.
[969.79] hydra: It's not the right frame for doing like Acro in, but if
[973.39] hydra: you do the Acro in a disco, it's well good.
[977.39] hydra: Do you still have that?
[978.89] hydra: It was amazing.
[980.89] hydra: I've still got that.
[982.59] hydra: It's in the box in the cupboard over there.
[984.49] hydra: It's in there.
[985.19] Jack: Grab it, please.
[986.19] Jack: I'll stall for it.
[989.19] Jack: There's a, like Dom's got like a video on his YouTube, which
[993.59] Jack: I might ask him to like, send me a link of his YouTube, but
[996.69] Jack: it was like, yeah, you know, he was like, sort of like replying
[999.89] Jack: to Mr. Steel, like, you know, can your, can your quad do this?
[1004.49] hydra: It's not been out for a while.
[1006.69] Jack: Dom, Dom was like, he's like the worst game.
[1010.89] Jack: His, I mean, what moto could you possibly have had on that?
[1016.09] Jack: Like, I must have been like 20 or right.
[1022.39] Dominic: They gotta be.
[1023.79] Dominic: Yeah, there it is.
[1024.39] Dominic: I see it.
[1026.59] hydra: I see it.
[1027.49] hydra: A box of random old stuff.
[1031.39] hydra: Check that bad boy out.
[1033.09] hydra: That's one of the, I love that one.
[1034.59] Jack: That was well good.
[1035.59] Jack: Hobby RC strap on it.
[1039.09] Jack: It was very flat and pancakey.
[1041.69] hydra: Look how thin the carbon is on that bad boy.
[1044.49] Jack: Oh my God.
[1045.39] Jack: That was me.
[1046.99] Dominic: Is that a, is that a ZMR?
[1051.59] Dominic: I don't know what any of these are anymore.
[1053.49] Dominic: They don't stay in there.
[1054.19] Dominic: V-tail.
[1055.89] Dominic: Oh my God.
[1056.69] Dominic: Yeah, I remember that one.
[1059.09] Dominic: V-tail.
[1060.89] Dominic: And then I have to get all these out before I can get to the
[1063.49] hydra: other one because of the bomb.
[1064.79] hydra: Is the V-tail.
[1065.69] hydra: Same frame, but try a tripod.
[1068.99] Jack: Try a tripod though.
[1070.79] Jack: Is the V-tail running like a KK2 board or was there a special
[1076.09] Jack: setting?
[1077.99] hydra: If you're asking me now, don't know.
[1080.19] hydra: This was my favorite quad for a long time.
[1082.79] hydra: This is the one that went to drone nationals in 2015.
[1085.79] hydra: This was.
[1087.09] Jack: Jesus Christ.
[1087.89] Jack: I mean, look at it.
[1088.79] Jack: It's got like a board camera.
[1090.59] Jack: There's so much 3D printing.
[1091.79] Jack: I mean, I can't imagine how much that weighs.
[1094.59] hydra: It's not light.
[1097.19] hydra: We old sunny sky motors, but it was loads of fun.
[1100.79] hydra: 20-0-8.
[1101.59] hydra: Pretty durable as well, actually.
[1103.39] Dominic: Oh, yeah.
[1103.79] hydra: 20-0-6.
[1105.09] hydra: I've got to get this going again soon.
[1106.39] hydra: This never flew, but I have some new software that should
[1109.79] hydra: actually make this work.
[1112.79] Jack: Oh, what the tilting.
[1114.29] Jack: Yeah, servo arms.
[1117.59] Jack: Why do people think that that would actually work?
[1120.89] Jack: Because it does.
[1122.79] Jack: Well, I've got some new code to get this working.
[1127.19] Jack: It doesn't work.
[1129.39] Jack: Here we go.
[1130.69] Dominic: Yes, the Acro disc guy.
[1135.19] Dominic: Yeah, turn us up.
[1136.99] hydra: There we are.
[1138.59] hydra: The GoPro went over here.
[1140.59] Jack: Yeah.
[1141.79] Jack: Has it got like the NASA board and like TBS core soldered
[1147.09] Jack: in and everything?
[1148.49] hydra: No, I think this.
[1150.89] hydra: I think I may have upgraded it like maybe a few years ago
[1154.59] hydra: and it's got at the time that I was flying it had.
[1157.89] hydra: I think I used to run a Sparky in this most of the time.
[1161.99] hydra: Yeah, when I was doing most of the Acro stuff, I was using
[1164.69] hydra: the Sparky in this.
[1165.69] hydra: Remember the board that's got like the weird cutout in the
[1168.09] hydra: corner and only three mounting holes or something.
[1171.89] hydra: Yeah, it's like a F3 or F4.
[1174.39] hydra: I think it might have been an F4 Sparky it's called, but
[1176.99] hydra: this has gotten an F7 jewel in there at the moment.
[1181.49] hydra: It's well good.
[1181.99] hydra: I used to run like 4200 milliamp batteries in that thing
[1187.29] hydra: with what motors are on it.
[1189.29] hydra: Sunny Sky X2212 13 980 KV.
[1198.39] Jack: I can't find the Sparky flight control.
[1201.09] hydra: Sparky.
[1201.69] hydra: Yeah, Sparky.
[1203.49] Jack: Oh my God.
[1205.29] Dominic: The only thing that comes.
[1207.09] hydra: I did my first flip with this quad.
[1209.69] Dominic: Oh, I remember the days of the first flip.
[1213.59] Dominic: This is a line of sight one.
[1214.99] Dominic: Should I say?
[1216.89] hydra: This is all line of sight.
[1217.79] hydra: That's all I can find.
[1220.29] hydra: No, it's not that Sparky.
[1222.69] hydra: Talab Sparky.
[1224.29] hydra: Well, it's the original Sparky then probably.
[1229.99] Dominic: It might have been an F3.
[1233.23] hydra: No, you said F4.
[1234.23] hydra: This is well good.
[1235.13] hydra: This one is a lovely one.
[1236.53] hydra: Let me power it up.
[1237.73] hydra: Hold on.
[1238.43] hydra: Let me turn my bench power supply.
[1239.63] hydra: I've got to steal the power from it because I've got I made
[1242.23] hydra: up a cable today just for random things that you do because
[1246.23] hydra: it's got a Pimpelli D set up on this thing.
[1248.63] hydra: Let's have a chuckle.
[1252.28] hydra: No, this is got four.
[1254.98] hydra: Oh, and this is a 3S as well.
[1256.28] hydra: So I better not shove 16 volts in it.
[1260.88] hydra: Can we get it working?
[1261.88] hydra: What's the chance?
[1264.85] Jack: I wonder what the boot sequence is going to be like.
[1268.25] hydra: Hold on.
[1268.55] hydra: I've got to get my battery cables, right?
[1270.45] hydra: XT60 to XT60 Deans connector.
[1274.95] hydra: Deans connector on the quad.
[1280.25] hydra: What is wrong with you?
[1282.15] hydra: And then what do you want about 12.6 volts or something in it?
[1288.45] Jack: Something like that.
[1289.75] hydra: Yeah, 12.6.
[1290.55] hydra: Hold on.
[1290.85] hydra: Let me put the bench pass by 12.6.
[1293.35] hydra: Current limit because it's not been turned on for a while.
[1296.45] hydra: Probably need more than 500 milliamps though.
[1298.55] hydra: Let's go 2 amps.
[1302.66] Dominic: Boy beats.
[1304.36] hydra: Yeah.
[1306.96] hydra: Hold on.
[1308.46] hydra: No, wait current limit kicked in just as it would do the motor
[1311.26] hydra: beeps.
[1311.56] hydra: Here we go.
[1312.86] hydra: Oh, yes.
[1314.76] Dominic: Yeah.
[1316.96] hydra: Look at that bad boy.
[1319.16] hydra: Oh, low battery.
[1323.48] hydra: Don't worry about it.
[1324.08] hydra: It's fine.
[1324.78] hydra: Evan is fine.
[1326.58] hydra: This is where we used to do night flying with this thing.
[1328.68] hydra: It was brilliant.
[1329.68] hydra: I used to do like just go out like randomly and just do night
[1333.08] hydra: flying flips and stuff line of sight as well.
[1336.28] hydra: Good.
[1336.38] hydra: Oh my God.
[1338.28] hydra: Love this thing.
[1339.38] hydra: It's brilliant.
[1341.28] Jack: It's amazing back in the box.
[1344.78] Dominic: Back in the box.
[1347.08] Jack: The acro disco man.
[1348.98] Dominic: The acro disco.
[1350.48] Dominic: Love the acro disco.
[1352.38] Jack: I miss the old school ESE startup, you know, like the Simon
[1356.78] Jack: K and all that.
[1358.58] hydra: I don't know what that was in that.
[1359.88] Jack: Like with the flash, like the that sounded like Simon K.
[1365.28] Jack: Probably was.
[1367.38] hydra: Yeah.
[1367.58] hydra: I don't know.
[1368.48] Jack: You know, the USB app mail flash loader.
[1373.18] Jack: Yeah.
[1373.58] Jack: Yeah.
[1374.08] Jack: Yeah.
[1374.18] Jack: You know, the thing that you like stick over the whole bloody
[1378.88] Jack: chip, but for whole Arduino is on each arm.
[1384.68] hydra: Let me just set my bench pass by up again.
[1386.18] hydra: Sorry.
[1387.28] hydra: All right.
[1388.38] hydra: Oh, what's going on there?
[1389.88] hydra: I've got it wired up, right?
[1392.48] hydra: Oh dear.
[1392.98] hydra: What did I do?
[1394.28] hydra: I've not killed it.
[1395.58] hydra: Okay.
[1395.98] hydra: I'll come back to that later.
[1397.58] hydra: It's my new project.
[1398.28] hydra: I was going to show you in a minute.
[1400.58] Jack: The power supply testing.
[1405.48] Dominic: Let me show you now then.
[1409.68] Dominic: There.
[1411.88] Dominic: Wait, let me get some more more camera.
[1415.18] Jack: Oh, someone's measuring ripple.
[1423.09] Dominic: So what you're looking at is one of these.
[1430.18] hydra: Okay, which is a new flight controller that booted up for
[1434.78] hydra: the first time yesterday.
[1437.88] Jack: With one of these like VTX and receiver all in one more
[1447.61] hydra: than that.
[1449.01] hydra: Mm-hmm.
[1449.51] hydra: Come on.
[1449.81] hydra: Is it going to focus?
[1451.71] hydra: And on the other side, it's got more stuff.
[1453.71] hydra: Is it going to do it?
[1455.51] hydra: Come on.
[1456.11] hydra: Focus.
[1456.71] hydra: Focus.
[1458.21] hydra: Yeah, there we go.
[1459.51] hydra: There you go.
[1460.51] hydra: So you've got an ELRS chip with two SX1280s and two power amplifiers
[1465.61] hydra: and the TCXO in the middle and you got two little black things
[1468.61] hydra: either side there, which are the stacking connectors and you
[1471.21] hydra: got a button over here.
[1472.71] hydra: You got a Wi-Fi antenna here.
[1474.21] hydra: You got a black box login flash chip expansion for the FC.
[1478.61] hydra: And then the other side, you've got a VTX and an L4 processor
[1484.21] hydra: for doing SP racing pixel SD.
[1487.31] hydra: Nice.
[1488.61] hydra: With the VTX connector there, Wi-Fi connector, Wi-Fi antennas
[1492.31] hydra: and the Gemini ELRS things.
[1495.61] hydra: And that stacks onto the flight controller.
[1498.11] hydra: Then you end up with a teeny tiny little stack that's, you know,
[1500.41] hydra: super thin like that.
[1502.51] hydra: Nice.
[1504.21] hydra: And eight motor outputs.
[1505.81] hydra: It's got CAN on it, so you can do servos and all the rest of it.
[1511.01] hydra: And then yesterday I was making up this little fun jig over here
[1514.91] hydra: for programming it.
[1516.81] hydra: Programming is a bunch more.
[1519.71] hydra: But yeah, that's been keeping me really nice with that for now.
[1523.51] hydra: Yeah, for manufacturing, you just have these sort of pogo pin
[1527.71] hydra: mount things, but I haven't made it.
[1529.21] hydra: Better than nails.
[1529.71] hydra: When you're only doing six, it's like for testing samples and stuff.
[1534.91] hydra: It's like I'm not going through the whole process of making a jig
[1538.41] hydra: up just for six, but so not like a proper jig.
[1543.11] hydra: Yeah, so it's just got a temporary one that hacked up yesterday.
[1546.71] hydra: So but it seems to be over.
[1549.21] hydra: I've got the camera in the wrong spot.
[1550.41] hydra: Hold on.
[1551.31] hydra: There we go.
[1552.01] hydra: That's better.
[1553.31] hydra: That's where it's supposed to be.
[1554.61] Jack: So you're not worried.
[1556.11] Jack: You're still producing something that's analog and you haven't
[1560.01] Jack: gone over to being like, oh, did you order?
[1565.61] hydra: Not for the moment.
[1566.61] hydra: I'm I they've added the OS.
[1570.61] hydra: The VCS code in Express iOS only fairly recently and they use it a lot
[1575.91] hydra: for the little whoop boards and so on.
[1578.91] hydra: That's it's sort of one of its intended sort of markets or use cases
[1584.41] hydra: or whatever on a weak board integrated.
[1587.81] hydra: But it also makes sense if you combine like the OSD with it.
[1592.01] hydra: And also in the face of like the beat of flight devs not wanting
[1596.81] hydra: to merge the experience in pixel state into beat flight self.
[1599.91] hydra: I've still got this code that spent quite a lot of time writing.
[1602.11] hydra: So I'm like, well, I suppose if I write the you are code that allows
[1606.01] hydra: beat of flight to talk to it via you are which is already in beat
[1608.61] hydra: of flight and I now have already and then just make it compatible
[1611.71] hydra: with that and then ship it and it'll still be awesome, but it won't
[1615.91] hydra: be it's not as awesome as it otherwise would be because obviously
[1620.11] hydra: it's held back technically by the you are communication speed
[1625.41] hydra: as opposed to drawing pixels directly to a frame buffer in the
[1628.41] hydra: flight controller code.
[1629.71] hydra: So different catalafish.
[1634.65] Jack: So you're still not too sure about, you know, starting to make
[1639.25] Jack: stuff for digital in mind.
[1647.16] hydra: Yeah, the problem with the digital stuff is is there's probably
[1649.86] hydra: only like one or two chips.
[1651.96] hydra: And I haven't talked to the people that make the chip like
[1655.66] hydra: the what's the open?
[1659.06] hydra: What's it called?
[1661.06] hydra: There's two competing ones and then my brain is not working.
[1665.06] hydra: What's the name of the digital?
[1668.56] hydra: I'm unsure.
[1669.86] hydra: I wouldn't know which one it is.
[1672.06] hydra: No, you got the DJI one.
[1673.26] hydra: You got the other AC zero.
[1674.56] hydra: That's the one I was thinking open VX or but that's the other
[1679.36] hydra: thing open night.
[1680.56] hydra: He was the other one.
[1681.86] hydra: I mean, it's not that one but I haven't talked to the to the
[1686.56] hydra: one that I couldn't remember which I can't remember again
[1688.26] hydra: now.
[1690.26] hydra: I haven't talked to them to see how you know, if you can buy
[1692.76] hydra: the chips from them to make your ad X.
[1697.46] hydra: But to be honest, I'm not it doesn't excite me that much to
[1700.96] hydra: be honest.
[1702.16] hydra: Maybe but they are coming down in price.
[1705.16] hydra: I mean, there was a new one.
[1706.06] hydra: I came out fairly recently.
[1708.66] hydra: Didn't it a few days ago?
[1709.86] hydra: It's been announced which is like a race version of it which
[1713.66] hydra: has got sensible like voltage inputs and the price wise.
[1718.46] hydra: It looks pretty good for a for a VTX system.
[1722.56] hydra: It's like 60 bucks.
[1723.56] hydra: I mean, we used to pay like 60 bucks for like an Emotion.
[1725.86] hydra: I'll see one back in the day.
[1726.76] hydra: Didn't we say that?
[1727.66] hydra: Yeah, I know and that was that was that was 10 years ago.
[1730.26] hydra: We've had inflation since then.
[1731.56] hydra: So if you live look at it from that point of view, it's like
[1734.96] hydra: well, actually it's not too bad.
[1737.66] Jack: Yeah, still got a 500 quid worth of race.
[1744.16] hydra: Yeah, but you know, like you pay like 400 quid or whatever
[1749.66] hydra: for Dominators or whatever back in the day.
[1755.86] Dominic: True.
[1756.26] hydra: So, you know, race 3 VTX.
[1761.97] hydra: I think it is.
[1762.67] hydra: Is it this one?
[1763.27] Dominic: Yeah, 70 bucks is Clive.
[1765.97] Dominic: Clive.
[1766.47] Dominic: Yeah, race V3.
[1768.77] hydra: Race V3.
[1769.47] hydra: Yeah, bring it up on the screen share thingy.
[1773.17] hydra: But yeah, that's quite small.
[1777.87] hydra: Nice people people still running.
[1781.07] Jack: I thought yes, the new one is that I was going to say.
[1783.47] Jack: Yeah, because the other one seemed that people were having
[1786.27] Jack: to like run backs on them with them and stuff like that.
[1788.97] hydra: Sorry, this one.
[1789.57] hydra: This one you don't this got a more.
[1792.97] hydra: It's got four to 12 volts, which is very good.
[1796.17] hydra: So you run out of 5 volt back or 9 volt back or whatever
[1799.57] hydra: like that.
[1799.97] hydra: No problem.
[1801.07] hydra: Which is good.
[1804.79] hydra: It doesn't say how much juice it wants.
[1807.59] hydra: No, but it wouldn't be on that.
[1809.19] hydra: I mean like you don't really want to have like giant switching
[1813.39] hydra: regulators and massive inductors and all the rest of it on
[1816.09] hydra: something that's doing video transmission and RF signals.
[1819.69] hydra: Yeah, you want to do the same board really.
[1822.19] hydra: Yeah, so it's better on somewhere else like yeah on the
[1827.39] hydra: ESC basically the noisiest bit put the bag on the ESC.
[1832.79] hydra: Like if you wanted to fix the world properly, you'd have the
[1837.19] hydra: OSD built into the camera or the VTX transmitter.
[1841.79] hydra: You would have your four-in-one ESC with a single MCU on
[1845.89] hydra: it not for MCUs like we have today.
[1848.09] hydra: So there's only one bit of firmware to upgrade and then
[1850.59] hydra: you'd have space for more BEX on ESC.
[1855.29] hydra: Right and then you only got what action to the flight controller
[1859.19] hydra: and then everything would be fine.
[1864.36] hydra: But yeah, that's that's the ideal world solution.
[1867.86] hydra: You heard it here first.
[1869.06] Jack: Yeah.
[1870.46] Jack: Yeah.
[1870.66] Jack: Why is that with the whole like individual ESC?
[1874.06] Jack: I suppose that's a legacy thing for having individual ESCs.
[1879.26] Jack: Not sure.
[1881.06] hydra: Well, there's a few reasons.
[1885.16] hydra: One is that one motor requires various different hardware
[1889.96] hydra: resources from the MCU.
[1892.86] hydra: And if you're using a cheap MCU they A don't have enough
[1896.16] hydra: hardware resources like comparators inputs and you know
[1900.06] hydra: time of channel outputs and things like that and B the
[1904.86] hydra: price it has to be super low C if you try to do four motors
[1911.16] hydra: on one you would need a beefier CPU to do it all because
[1914.36] hydra: instead of using a cheap one to do one your net is now got
[1916.76] hydra: to do four.
[1918.46] hydra: So it is a more complicated prospect in terms of software.
[1922.06] hydra: So they just have four MCUs but it's not the right solution
[1928.06] hydra: because it you know, it's much more of a problem the
[1930.16] hydra: communication interface between the flight controller and
[1932.96] hydra: the ESCs now you need some crap protocol like D shot dare
[1938.76] hydra: I say it crap protocol.
[1942.96] hydra: I mean it's better than PWM but it only exists because we've
[1947.86] hydra: got ESCs like four in one ESCs and separate ESCs which only
[1952.76] hydra: have one sort of signal input.
[1955.36] hydra: Yeah, so there's a few different use cases that have to be
[1958.26] hydra: solved in terms of like fixing the ESC problem.
[1960.36] hydra: There's the single ESC on an arm solution.
[1964.06] hydra: So you need a protocol for that you need the solution for
[1970.16] hydra: single MCU before motor for motor outputs on that MCU which
[1976.06] hydra: is like, you know, the usual four in one boards.
[1979.76] hydra: And then you've also got things where the motor that you see
[1985.26] hydra: is very far away on a really big frame and you have to solve
[1989.96] hydra: that as well because those ones really don't like noise
[1992.86] hydra: because the motors that they use are like massive and chunky
[1996.16] hydra: and the signal controls them has to travel a long way.
[2001.76] hydra: So, you know, I've been I've been talking to people about
[2003.36] hydra: various different solutions regarding all this a while back
[2006.16] hydra: ago before I started doing this currently.
[2011.16] hydra: No, it's not that it's can FD looks like the sort of workable
[2015.46] Jack: solution really for it all based on like the the cambas on
[2021.86] hydra: cards with a noisy hand leads but can can bus V1 has it's
[2029.56] hydra: limited in the amount of data you can send to it.
[2033.66] hydra: Whereas can FD can send eight megabits per second and then
[2039.16] hydra: on top of that, you know out of that eight megabits per second
[2041.96] hydra: you have to like have the can overhead protocol overhead
[2045.16] hydra: itself, but there is enough bandwidth to do it at a rate
[2047.56] hydra: which is good enough for what we need to do, you know,
[2050.86] hydra: comparable to like D shot 600 kind of rates that kind of
[2053.36] hydra: thing and if you're sending like one frame to one other
[2057.46] hydra: one four in one ESC and you can send all the data at the
[2060.96] hydra: same time in a very short packet and then you can get a
[2063.56] hydra: lot of those packets out and it uses a differential signal
[2067.86] hydra: signal like USB USB cables can be fairly long because they've
[2072.36] hydra: got like a positive rail and a negative rail on the signal
[2076.06] hydra: and it's the voltage difference.
[2077.66] hydra: That is what is read at the other end of it.
[2082.06] hydra: So if the voltage isn't, you know, at the right threshold
[2084.26] hydra: at the other end because the cable is really long or whatever
[2086.86] hydra: it doesn't matter.
[2088.66] hydra: It's the voltage difference is what matters and can FD is
[2091.56] hydra: the same.
[2094.66] hydra: LVDS SCSI was the same ages ago.
[2097.26] hydra: I think that's that's the one that's the one of the things
[2101.76] hydra: that made SCSI, you know in server racks and things like
[2106.86] hydra: that more more viable.
[2109.46] hydra: Yeah, yeah, viable as well.
[2111.46] hydra: Yeah, the twist cables and stuff.
[2115.06] Jack: Yeah, yeah, and like ferrite cores in the middle of them
[2119.26] Jack: and stuff.
[2122.56] Dominic: Where's with like old SCSI and IDE IDE 40 pin connectors.
[2126.96] Dominic: Oh, yeah, IDE you get up there like I know.
[2134.36] hydra: Oh, yeah, say hey use the right technology for the right
[2137.86] hydra: application.
[2138.76] hydra: I think is is Mr.
[2141.16] Jack: Clean fly.
[2142.46] Jack: I remember when you finally got D shot to like sync with the
[2148.96] Jack: packet the sort of your there was like a short little video
[2153.36] Jack: that you did zoomed into oscilloscope and you were like,
[2157.96] hydra: what was that for fixing some kind of bug or something?
[2161.06] Jack: Yeah, well, it was just like discarding packets that that
[2165.76] Jack: weren't synced with the loop time.
[2168.86] hydra: I think oh, there was something to do with that.
[2171.46] hydra: It was about how with the refresh rate or something.
[2176.06] hydra: Yeah, that's a long time ago.
[2177.86] hydra: That was yeah.
[2179.96] hydra: Yeah, so yeah, because you got synchronous signals and
[2184.26] hydra: asynchronous signals was the PWM is asynchronous.
[2189.66] hydra: Whereas the D-shirt is synchronous ideally to the loop
[2193.86] hydra: of a loop rate of the of the quad basically of the flight
[2198.16] hydra: control.
[2198.76] Frank: This episode was recorded in front of a live online audience
[2201.86] Frank: downloaded and edited to make sense when it played audio
[2204.76] Frank: only sensors to please the iTunes people hosted on the
[2207.86] Frank: internet forwarded through to your podcast provider downloaded
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[2214.16] Frank: thanks to our patrons consider joining them and you'll also
[2217.56] Frank: get other online benefits.
[2219.36] Frank: Find out more at patreon.com forward slash let's drone out
[2224.46] Jack: any any regrets of stuff that you wished you did but you
[2229.06] Jack: didn't get around to doing
[2232.06] hydra: regard what we
[2233.86] hydra: What are we talking about here?
[2236.26] hydra: Any regrets?
[2237.76] hydra: There's probably a lot of things I could have done better.
[2242.56] hydra: There's probably a few things that
[2246.56] hydra: I don't know should have jumped on earlier.
[2249.86] hydra: I didn't see the potential didn't see, you know, it's hard
[2253.96] hydra: to know because when you got so many things been thrown
[2256.06] hydra: at you by so many people is it's hard to go.
[2258.26] hydra: This is a killer feature.
[2259.36] hydra: Everyone's going to want that.
[2261.76] hydra: Yeah, who knew that flashing your ESCs was such a killer
[2265.36] hydra: feature that everyone just put a beat file on it because it
[2268.16] hydra: had that on it first.
[2269.46] hydra: Who knew who knew?
[2272.16] hydra: You know, I feel that box logging was good.
[2274.06] hydra: So I said yes, let's have that.
[2276.56] hydra: Time cop if you ask the same question to time cop he'd
[2278.96] hydra: probably say go probably should have merged that bloody
[2282.06] hydra: black box logging stuff before.
[2283.46] hydra: Mr.
[2283.66] hydra: Clean fly did it.
[2285.96] Jack: Yeah.
[2288.26] hydra: That was a game.
[2289.16] hydra: That was a game changer.
[2289.96] hydra: That was
[2292.66] Jack: right.
[2292.96] Jack: I just being able to see what your card is actually doing.
[2298.06] hydra: I had to raise
[2300.56] hydra: a raise an issue on it on a GitHub project that I found
[2303.96] hydra: recently because I'm programming Rust these days.
[2307.16] hydra: Randomly, I searched for black box logging on like crates
[2312.46] hydra: to IO or something and it turns out there's a Rust implementation
[2317.56] hydra: of a black box log
[2320.46] hydra: library so that you can suck out the information you need
[2323.26] hydra: from a log and it's all written in Rust which is really nice.
[2325.66] hydra: I'm like great.
[2326.66] hydra: So I looked at the read me page and I doesn't mention anything
[2329.46] hydra: about clean flight and like Nicholas Sherlock's black box
[2332.26] hydra: code or anything like that.
[2333.26] hydra: So I raised an issue or something.
[2334.46] hydra: You need to update your attribution list a little bit and
[2337.66] hydra: they did.
[2338.26] hydra: It was great.
[2339.26] hydra: Me.
[2340.86] hydra: I'm like I said, I'm sure Nick would appreciate it.
[2343.86] Dominic: Yeah, open lager.
[2346.76] Dominic: That's it.
[2348.36] Dominic: Credit where credit's due and all that.
[2350.26] Jack: Yeah.
[2352.16] Jack: That's awesome.
[2353.96] Jack: No, I just I just wondered like yeah, just you know, the
[2356.96] Jack: sort of like implementations because like, you know, yeah,
[2361.16] Jack: I mean you had all sorts you had like the painless like
[2364.86] Jack: nagging you to make a wing only flight controller and now
[2368.76] Jack: like Maytech and you know, like, you know, I had one
[2375.16] Jack: you had that triangle thing and it was like, well, it was
[2378.86] hydra: a flight control in the shape of a wing.
[2381.46] hydra: Yeah, I should probably actually like finish that or something
[2384.86] hydra: like do an H7 wing one or something.
[2387.86] hydra: I've got a bunch of sitting in my box of parts down there.
[2391.26] hydra: Say do it man.
[2392.96] hydra: I would test him.
[2394.96] hydra: I've got I've got to finish this thing first.
[2397.56] hydra: It's like there's only one of me.
[2398.96] hydra: I am going to time to do all the things.
[2401.46] hydra: So right now.
[2402.26] hydra: I'm in VTX land trying to understand the ERS VTX SPI
[2408.96] hydra: implementation and I'm using the DAC and it looks like there's
[2413.06] hydra: a bug in it and it's not setting the threshold voltage correctly
[2416.96] hydra: which means I'm not getting the right milliwatt outputs on
[2418.96] hydra: my VTX.
[2419.56] Jack: That should be digital analog.
[2424.76] hydra: Yeah, all this stuff.
[2426.16] hydra: That's what I'm doing today.
[2427.86] hydra: I'm so fun.
[2429.86] Jack: So that's what the power the emerging RC power meter.
[2436.06] hydra: That's exactly what I was doing on my desk.
[2438.06] hydra: Yes, I'm just base basic measurements to start with.
[2441.66] hydra: I'm only getting like 9 milliwatts out of it.
[2443.86] hydra: I'm like, that's not right.
[2445.86] hydra: And then if I put flip into this other mode on the transmitter,
[2449.36] hydra: which I know is not configured correctly, but I'm just gonna
[2451.26] hydra: want to get ballpark figures before I can calibrate it either
[2453.76] hydra: up or down, right?
[2455.46] hydra: And I'm like flipping to the other mode and I'm only getting
[2458.86] hydra: like 45 milliwatts out of it.
[2461.96] hydra: I might I mean it's usable, but it's supposed to be about 250.
[2466.36] hydra: So why and I think the reason is because the bias threshold
[2472.56] hydra: voltage not threshold voltage bias voltage is not being
[2476.66] hydra: output correctly.
[2477.96] hydra: I think that's the root cause of it.
[2480.66] hydra: After digging around in the code base.
[2484.26] hydra: But there's another buggy beater flight that like I came
[2487.56] hydra: up today.
[2487.96] hydra: I'm just like why why why so I'm like my understanding of
[2491.86] hydra: the VTX code and in the LRS was you have an LRS RX that's
[2496.86] hydra: got a VTX on it and then it talks to the flight controller
[2500.66] hydra: using a you are with crossfire on it and then the transmitter
[2505.06] hydra: has got the VTX admin thing on it and you go send VTX and
[2508.56] hydra: it would change the the VTX on the LRS thing.
[2511.06] hydra: No, go on what the backpack or not the backpack backpacks.
[2516.26] hydra: So it if you had a backpack it would send that to the backpack
[2520.16] hydra: and then change for the goggles right but it's supposed to
[2524.36] hydra: send the VTX channel over the air to the receiver and then
[2527.36] hydra: the receiver supposed to take the channel and then do something
[2530.06] hydra: with it my understanding does it would talk directly to the
[2532.66] hydra: VTX because it's on the same MCU but it doesn't which is
[2535.16] hydra: really weird.
[2535.56] hydra: So I'm going to probably have to write this code.
[2539.16] hydra: But what it does what it actually does it takes it then
[2542.46] hydra: creates an MSP packet and sends that to the flight controller
[2545.46] hydra: over crossfire.
[2547.46] hydra: So it embeds it in crossfire which is weirder again and then
[2550.06] hydra: the flight control handles it and then sends more MSP back
[2553.36] hydra: to the LRS receiver which then processes that back and then
[2557.76] hydra: sets the VTX right so it's really convoluted the way the
[2560.46] hydra: way it is set it takes ages you press then VTX and it goes
[2566.66] hydra: and then the channel changes.
[2567.76] hydra: I'm like why okay not to my slow pass the parcel would be
[2573.16] hydra: nice to improve that a little bit.
[2574.66] hydra: But you know, we'll see what we'll see what we can do.
[2576.86] hydra: But you know, at least you can do it for your handset.
[2578.36] hydra: So instead of pressing a button on it.
[2580.56] hydra: Yeah, true.
[2582.36] hydra: So yeah, so I'm working through all that at the moment.
[2584.36] hydra: So because I want this thing to be able to be used as
[2587.16] hydra: standalone because I think that's it up here.
[2590.46] hydra: Yeah, I made these nifty little carrier boards this thing.
[2595.96] hydra: So that's a little carrier board.
[2598.86] hydra: I world and I and this has got a back on it basically and
[2603.36] hydra: it's got four PWM outputs on it and this thing plops on
[2608.76] hydra: here somehow.
[2611.26] hydra: And then you sold a.
[2613.36] hydra: And then there's one on each corner as well for each PWM
[2618.26] hydra: output and then you could use this in a wing for instance
[2621.76] hydra: or glider or something like that or an FPV car and then
[2625.36] hydra: you wouldn't need a flight controller.
[2627.76] hydra: But in order for that to work, I need to change the VTX
[2629.86] hydra: channel from the transmitter.
[2632.96] hydra: This is the flight controller.
[2633.86] hydra: That's the whole point.
[2635.36] hydra: Yeah, that's the whole point.
[2637.46] hydra: So yeah, I've got some work to do there.
[2640.16] hydra: Turns out more work than I thought I was going to have to
[2642.86] hydra: do probably should have investigated that a little bit
[2646.26] hydra: more before I designed the PCB, ordered the expensive PCBs
[2649.76] hydra: and assembled them and everything.
[2650.76] hydra: But you know, live and learn.
[2655.66] hydra: It's fun.
[2656.56] hydra: But now I've built the carrier boards, the flight controllers
[2658.36] hydra: for them to all stack into the design is kind of fixed and
[2661.46] hydra: I ran into this really annoying problem in the ESP date
[2665.36] hydra: sheets.
[2667.06] hydra: I'll show you this.
[2667.56] hydra: It's really funny.
[2668.56] hydra: I can't believe I screwed it up quite so badly as I did.
[2671.16] hydra: But how the how the mighty a fool.
[2677.56] hydra: It wasn't good when I found out.
[2678.96] hydra: I'm like, no, no, no, no.
[2682.86] Jack: Any any questions for Mr.
[2684.86] Jack: Clean Flight put it in chat and we'll in the last 10 minutes
[2688.16] Jack: we'll quick fire some questions for you.
[2690.86] hydra: Here we go.
[2691.26] hydra: Here we go.
[2691.96] hydra: Let me do a screen share.
[2694.76] hydra: Present screen share.
[2697.46] hydra: Don't show these tips again.
[2698.36] hydra: Go away and then pick the thing.
[2701.56] hydra: Is it that?
[2701.96] hydra: No.
[2702.76] hydra: This technical reference mode.
[2705.06] hydra: No, no, this one we should we should allow mode.
[2711.36] hydra: Okay, so this is the data sheet for the CPU and you're like,
[2716.86] hydra: okay, so I've got a pin and this is what you do with it.
[2718.96] hydra: I've got a pin and this is what you do that you got a pin
[2721.56] hydra: and this is what you do with it, right?
[2723.16] hydra: And you're like, okay, cool.
[2725.06] hydra: All right, great.
[2726.56] hydra: So, you know, I've got some pins like maybe I don't know.
[2734.26] hydra: Let's let's let's pick this one this one.
[2736.46] hydra: So it's got GPIO.
[2738.26] hydra: It's got SD command.
[2739.56] hydra: It's got a cable select 0 for SPI and it's got some other
[2744.06] hydra: stuff on it and you are one.
[2745.26] hydra: It's like fine.
[2745.96] hydra: Okay, I'll use that pin in my design.
[2747.46] hydra: Everything's fine.
[2748.86] hydra: And then you go and then you go also down in this thing
[2753.46] hydra: and you see this.
[2754.86] Jack: Oh God, that's looking really kai kai.
[2758.86] hydra: Right.
[2759.96] hydra: You see this this this is a this is the schematic of it.
[2763.46] hydra: So you got CPU in the middle you got CPU in the middle and
[2767.26] hydra: then you got a crystal up here and then you've got some
[2769.06] hydra: capacitors over here and you've got a flash chip over here
[2771.26] hydra: and you think okay, that's how it all fits together.
[2772.76] hydra: And that's why you do the signals, but I'm not using the
[2774.76] hydra: flash chip so he could ignore that and then he like hold on
[2777.16] hydra: a minute.
[2778.46] hydra: I thought the Pico had a had a crystal built-in.
[2781.26] hydra: Why are they showing me a crystal that's on the outside
[2783.16] hydra: of the chip?
[2784.86] hydra: You're like, okay, that's a bit weird.
[2786.86] hydra: So then you scroll down here and then it's got another peripheral
[2789.16] hydra: on here like and then now it's talking about PS RAM.
[2792.06] hydra: It's like my PS RAM and then you're like, well, where's the
[2795.46] hydra: crystal gone?
[2796.16] hydra: It was connected to these pins here.
[2797.46] hydra: And where's the caps gone?
[2798.36] hydra: It was now it's just nothing's connected.
[2800.16] hydra: What's going on?
[2801.16] hydra: What's going on for in chips?
[2803.06] hydra: So it turns out no, no, it turns out that this crystal is
[2806.86] hydra: inside the chip.
[2808.16] hydra: It turns out that this flash chip is inside the chip and
[2811.46] hydra: it turns out that these choruses capacitor things over here
[2814.06] hydra: are inside the chip.
[2815.26] hydra: But the diagram hasn't got a nice clear indication with a
[2817.76] hydra: little dotted line around it to say that these are internal.
[2822.16] hydra: Right?
[2822.86] hydra: So then you like how down a minute might so and at this
[2826.76] hydra: point I design the PCBs rooted the layout sent all the files
[2830.76] hydra: off to China weighted ages paid for delivery paid for a
[2834.06] hydra: reasonable size batch of expensive six layer PCBs, which
[2837.36] hydra: you can't get in like one or two quantities.
[2838.96] hydra: You have to buy like 250 of them or something like this,
[2842.06] hydra: right?
[2842.76] hydra: Shipped them assembled them on the P on the pick and place
[2845.06] hydra: machine, which took like two days to do that flapping about
[2847.76] hydra: with that for ages put it in round the ELS code on it, you
[2851.26] hydra: know, got the code on it and it booted but then it would just
[2854.56] hydra: go into a boot loop.
[2855.96] hydra: I'm like hmm and then one of the guys in the ELS channel
[2859.26] hydra: goes what pin what pins what pins are using for this?
[2862.06] hydra: I'm like these ones is like and then he pointed at something
[2865.26] hydra: in the in the in the reference manual, which I missed because
[2871.56] hydra: there isn't, you know, like a little asterisk next to some
[2874.46] hydra: of these pins that says the pins IO 1617 command o'clock
[2881.16] hydra: SD0 and SD1 I used to connect to the embedded flashing could
[2883.56] hydra: not be used for other purposes.
[2885.36] hydra: So what was happening was that as soon as I tried to talk
[2890.56] hydra: to the SX1280 for the ELS it would like toggle the CS pin
[2895.06] hydra: on the SX1280 or whatever and then like overwrite the signal
[2899.86] hydra: going to the internal flash and then the flash will be then
[2902.66] hydra: reading the code from somewhere else and then they would just
[2904.96] hydra: go that's not code and reboot.
[2907.96] hydra: I'm like bollocks.
[2909.46] hydra: Excuse my French.
[2910.56] hydra: Oh dear.
[2912.36] hydra: So yeah, new PCB revision time.
[2914.16] hydra: That was.
[2915.96] hydra: No, 600 dollars of just PCBs in the bin.
[2921.96] hydra: They're still in China at the moment.
[2923.56] hydra: I don't even have them here because they're supposed to be
[2925.26] hydra: doing the assembly over there.
[2926.26] hydra: They just I just sent like three or four PCBs here.
[2930.06] hydra: And I just say no term in the bin can't do anything with them.
[2933.86] hydra: Don't and the stencils that go with them for the solder paste.
[2936.76] hydra: You got to get new ones of those as well.
[2938.16] hydra: Oh dear.
[2939.26] hydra: But now the problem now is that there were six pins that I
[2943.86] hydra: used which you can't use for anything else, but I've used
[2946.76] hydra: those in my design and my design relies on those now.
[2949.76] hydra: It's like now what am I going to do?
[2952.76] hydra: So I've got you running out of pins.
[2955.06] hydra: Yeah, there are no there are no free pins.
[2957.16] hydra: There's no free pins.
[2958.46] hydra: Oh no.
[2960.06] hydra: So I've got a I've got to do either I to see IO IO expansion,
[2965.16] hydra: but that's latency issues involved in that or one of the guys
[2968.76] hydra: in the ERS channel came up with the idea of a shift register.
[2971.06] hydra: So I've got to do that.
[2973.16] hydra: But unfortunately the devs have talked about it and they decided
[2976.06] hydra: they don't like the idea.
[2976.96] hydra: So I'm like, so I don't know whether that's ever going to be
[2980.06] hydra: merged into ERS if I go that direction.
[2982.16] hydra: So yeah, but there's still other stuff on it to test.
[2986.16] hydra: I haven't made a final decision yet, but I don't really want
[2989.76] hydra: to fork and run my own fork of ERS for my own stuff.
[2992.96] hydra: But you know, don't do it if I have to if I have to if I have
[2996.96] hydra: to I have to you know.
[2999.66] hydra: Oh stuff for a shift register because there's no real there's
[3005.72] hydra: no real solution.
[3007.02] hydra: It's like wait a year use a new CPU with more pins on it like
[3012.12] hydra: the S3 or something.
[3013.42] hydra: I could possibly do that.
[3014.62] hydra: But you know, I want to get this thing done shipping.
[3019.12] Dominic: Now right, so yeah, you know, what are you going to do?
[3025.82] Jack: Never mind make a wing make the wing flight controller.
[3032.39] Dominic: I'd love to give out a bash.
[3034.29] Dominic: Well, I mean part of the other problem is that you know, I've
[3038.79] hydra: got my flight controller that the thing plugs into right and
[3042.59] hydra: that that works is perfectly fine.
[3044.29] hydra: And then I've also got my carrier boards, which I just had
[3047.19] hydra: in my hand a minute ago.
[3048.09] hydra: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know it's disappeared now.
[3050.49] Jack: Are you dropped on the floor?
[3052.49] Jack: Probably remember because you went on.
[3058.19] hydra: Yeah, so I got so I got I got the accessories and the ecosystem
[3061.79] hydra: is ready for it now.
[3063.59] hydra: And I spent ages writing the OSD code as well.
[3068.39] hydra: Oh, yeah, because you look screen share that as well.
[3070.49] Jack: Yeah, you've fixed the whole OSD thing where you've got to
[3075.49] Jack: like clear the chip and then flash it set, you know, flash
[3080.99] Jack: the flight controller separately.
[3083.39] Jack: I think there was a bit of a song and dance with the one
[3085.59] hydra: that those people well, there was a bug in beat of like
[3088.89] hydra: a figure eight to where it was a raising the flash chip when
[3090.79] hydra: it wasn't supposed to be a raise in the flash chip even
[3092.79] hydra: when the little thing that says full chip arrays was turned
[3094.89] hydra: off do not go.
[3096.19] Jack: Yeah, yeah, sometimes I just think they do that.
[3099.49] Jack: Anyway, I think old Chris G had that a little bit of an
[3103.99] Jack: issue with that.
[3105.09] hydra: Yeah, we can let me do a present thing share screen.
[3110.99] hydra: Do do do do do do there we go.
[3113.29] Jack: Can you add it to stream or if I go click that button just
[3117.79] Jack: down here?
[3119.19] hydra: I don't know.
[3119.99] hydra: I think you have to do it.
[3120.89] hydra: Maybe don't want to ask.
[3123.89] hydra: There you go.
[3124.69] hydra: Yeah, that's it.
[3126.09] hydra: So if I don't know whether people know here anyway, but
[3130.29] hydra: there's a GitHub repo which has got the pixel OSD code
[3136.39] hydra: and schematics and everything like that on there and the
[3138.59] hydra: flight controllers that it was it was put on right and the
[3143.29] hydra: original prototype was running on an L4 and then I moved
[3145.99] hydra: it on to the H7s right but now it's all going back the
[3150.89] hydra: other way on to an L4 again and here's the new prototype
[3157.99] hydra: with the H because of the B2 flight maintainers don't want
[3163.19] hydra: to merge into B2 flight.
[3164.19] hydra: So now I have to do all this stuff.
[3166.39] Dominic: Dead bug mate.
[3167.79] Dominic: I have not seen that in a long time the other day.
[3172.69] hydra: So the wires 0.1 millimeter thick wires and the pitch on
[3179.99] hydra: that component is 0.4 millimeters between each, you
[3185.19] hydra: know, like the middle of one pad to the middle of the
[3187.59] hydra: next pad.
[3188.99] hydra: So yeah, it's quite small component to be fiddling about
[3191.89] hydra: with but it it was the first time that I was quite happy
[3194.59] hydra: with that.
[3194.99] hydra: I made a dead bug for ages.
[3196.99] Jack: Mate, I have not seen one of those since the 80s and here
[3199.99] hydra: it is and here it is working last week or whatever maybe
[3202.89] hydra: two weeks ago, three weeks ago on the L4 again and then
[3205.99] hydra: that same code is now what's running on the new little
[3209.09] hydra: circuit board, the new ELS board.
[3212.39] hydra: So yeah, so that was that was pretty cool getting that
[3214.19] hydra: running but there's a lot more to do it because the moment
[3216.39] hydra: it just draws pixels, but it's completely static at the
[3218.89] hydra: moment doesn't go anything else.
[3220.39] hydra: But the point is that the output signals work, you know,
[3223.19] hydra: this stuff.
[3225.84] hydra: That's the important stuff.
[3228.44] hydra: That's it.
[3228.84] hydra: That's a video frame where the bits in the middle, you
[3234.14] hydra: can't see it.
[3234.54] hydra: Oh, yeah, these bits here.
[3235.84] hydra: This is the pixels of the test pan being drawn and this
[3240.64] hydra: is the sync.
[3242.14] hydra: This is the color burst.
[3243.44] hydra: This is the image data and these are a couple of pixels
[3246.94] hydra: and then it starts the next frame.
[3248.84] hydra: Nice.
[3249.54] hydra: That's sort of what it looks like.
[3252.14] hydra: NTSC, never the same color.
[3255.54] hydra: Yeah, that's the test pan and that's some, you know, you
[3259.94] hydra: can't do that on a max 7456 overlays, overlaid text and
[3265.84] hydra: your dreams drawing on top of graphics behind it, you know.
[3272.74] Jack: That's the devil work that is.
[3275.84] Jack: It's magic.
[3277.34] Jack: What's with the test pattern?
[3278.74] Jack: Is that just a giant X or something?
[3280.94] hydra: It's just a bit of simple code that I could just throw
[3283.54] hydra: together.
[3283.94] hydra: So it drew something different on every single line.
[3286.14] hydra: I didn't spend more than about two minutes writing that
[3288.14] Dominic: test code.
[3291.64] hydra: Yeah, it's throwaway code.
[3295.94] hydra: But it's useful for making sure there is something to
[3298.54] hydra: look at that's different on every single line of the
[3300.84] hydra: display, looking at the weird sort of edge cases, you
[3305.24] hydra: know, where the pixels are next to each other.
[3306.74] hydra: You can look at the slew rate of the black versus the
[3312.34] hydra: white signals to see whether the black pixels end up
[3315.64] hydra: being slightly longer than the white ones or whatever,
[3318.04] hydra: you know, you can go to town and try to get the timing
[3322.24] hydra: right on this stuff.
[3326.04] hydra: All synced by an internal crystal.
[3331.54] hydra: Sort of there is an internal crystal on the L4 because this
[3335.54] hydra: one's on the L4.
[3337.34] hydra: The other stuff we were looking at was for the ELRS.
[3341.24] hydra: That was for the SX-1280s, the RX receivers.
[3345.54] hydra: So there's two processors on that board, one for the OSD
[3350.04] hydra: and one for the VTX and 2.4 gigahertz control link.
[3357.14] hydra: Yeah.
[3358.24] hydra: Yeah.
[3358.54] hydra: So two bits of firmware on it, which is fun.
[3362.64] Jack: Nice.
[3363.14] Jack: Anyway, there we are.
[3365.24] Jack: Right.
[3365.74] Jack: Well, unfortunately, that is all we've got time for.
[3369.24] Jack: No one put any questions.
[3371.84] Jack: I think they just wanted to hear what you've been up to.
[3375.74] Jack: Yeah, what's the best things to follow you on to keep
[3379.14] Jack: up to date?
[3381.04] hydra: I'm very active in the ELRS hardware dev channel, if they're
[3384.24] hydra: curious.
[3386.34] hydra: Quite active in there these days.
[3389.64] hydra: Yeah, with all the random goings on in my life as well in
[3392.64] hydra: the spam channel on there too, sometimes.
[3396.54] hydra: That's probably the best place or on the SP Racing Discord
[3399.64] hydra: server.
[3400.44] hydra: There's not much chatter on there at the moment because there's
[3405.34] hydra: not too many issues that come up with the products that makes
[3407.94] hydra: so there's not too much support to do, which is nice.
[3412.74] Jack: Thank you for everything you've done for the hobby.
[3420.04] Jack: We do appreciate it.
[3421.84] Jack: Even though sometimes the windgy ones make it seem like no
[3425.84] Jack: one appreciates anything.
[3427.14] Jack: But, you know, well, there are some people just as little
[3431.94] hydra: bonus extra time that appreciate things a little bit more
[3434.54] hydra: because the other day, I don't know whether anyone knows
[3438.44] hydra: about this YOLO flight controller project.
[3441.54] hydra: No, but this board.
[3446.24] hydra: Is a flight is the YOLO sort of chonker H735 based one.
[3453.04] hydra: But the B flight maintainers couldn't get it working.
[3456.24] hydra: So CR teensy sent one to me and it works yesterday.
[3462.74] hydra: So I got two flight controllers working the same day yesterday.
[3465.64] hydra: I got my own got my own flight controller work in the afternoon
[3468.14] hydra: and I got this one working in the morning.
[3470.54] hydra: So they appreciate my work.
[3474.34] Jack: Ben Scarborough says.
[3476.64] Jack: Yep.
[3476.94] Jack: Thanks.
[3477.34] Jack: You personally got me off the ground at London Aerospace
[3480.64] Jack: and never look back.
[3482.34] Jack: Just enjoying the drone talk.
[3484.14] Jack: No questions needed for the past.
[3486.94] Jack: Yeah, I don't know.
[3487.54] Jack: Where has the hour gone here?
[3488.94] Jack: Yeah, I do a radio show on the Thursday night show and
[3500.24] Jack: I will be on from 11 till 1 in the morning.
[3505.94] Jack: So if you if you guys like 80s new retro wave music come
[3512.24] Jack: and join me on that.
[3514.14] Jack: Unfortunately because Steven's not here and I'm busy doing
[3517.34] Jack: that we can't do a bonus pod.
[3519.64] Jack: But I really want to do a bonus pod with you.
[3522.54] Jack: Mr.
[3522.84] Jack: Clean flight and I don't know whether you're free next week
[3525.54] Jack: and we can talk about like clones Radio C like the thing
[3530.84] Jack: is I've always wanted to talk about Radio C but obviously
[3534.74] Jack: like I love fab because like, you know, but equally like
[3539.84] Jack: some of the bullshit I'd love to just do like I sort of
[3543.04] Jack: like off the record like this is what happened.
[3546.34] Jack: I've got a folder of like the Radio C drama and I'm wondering
[3551.84] Jack: would you like to go through it with the patreons?
[3554.94] hydra: Who else is going to be on there?
[3558.04] Jack: It can't be just me.
[3559.04] Jack: Probably just me and you.
[3562.84] hydra: We need to get more other Radio C people related people.
[3566.34] hydra: Who else is there?
[3568.14] hydra: There's no customers or customers.
[3571.94] Jack: What other people are there that you clone projects from and
[3578.84] Dominic: who else like you can't get trappy off trappings.
[3585.14] hydra: I don't know you'd have to go back on the internet way back
[3587.84] hydra: machine or something like that and have a look and see what
[3590.04] hydra: how many products were claimed.
[3592.34] Jack: What like, you know, I know like Radio C archive nest or
[3598.84] Jack: whatnot, but just like any one fight.
[3601.64] hydra: Can you not find Radio C dot code at UK on the internet archive
[3604.24] Jack: then I don't know.
[3605.24] Jack: Yeah, you can I think you can pull some images or whatever.
[3611.17] hydra: Yeah, so you can look on there and see what else there was
[3614.47] hydra: that might be a fun exercise.
[3616.07] Jack: Yeah, I know but yeah, I just love to some of the stories of
[3620.17] Jack: like, you know, my Radio C battery strap is by most prized
[3627.27] Jack: possession.
[3628.37] Jack: I've got one.
[3629.17] Jack: Someone personally sent sent one to me.
[3633.37] Jack: I know I just like man.
[3636.37] Jack: I'm annoyed because fab took like my Radio C shirt.
[3639.87] Jack: I had like the polo Radio C shirt would have loved to have
[3642.87] Jack: still had that.
[3644.77] hydra: Yeah, yeah, I'm sure we can arrange something, you know,
[3651.07] Jack: the Sony CC D600 camera.
[3656.37] Jack: I wish I still had one of them.
[3658.37] hydra: Oh, yeah, the old board cams.
[3659.47] hydra: Yeah, I was using a board cam as a I've got this one board
[3663.47] hydra: camera.
[3663.77] hydra: It's really annoying for OSD stuff because the video signal
[3666.57] hydra: voltage like goes all over the place.
[3668.27] hydra: It's a nightmare.
[3669.27] hydra: So the OSD system has to track the voltage level and if it
[3673.37] hydra: doesn't then you lose sync.
[3674.87] hydra: So it's a good test even though it's crap.
[3678.17] Jack: Yeah.
[3680.07] Jack: Oh my god, but yeah, I just kind of I don't know if he'll
[3683.57] Jack: be up for it next week.
[3686.07] Jack: Maybe we could do it, but I honestly I can't think of anyone
[3690.17] Jack: else other than like it's worrying like saying Matt Hill
[3696.47] Jack: Matt Hillier like is worrying like saying names out loud.
[3702.07] Jack: Maybe we get Tony on Tony remembers Radio C days.
[3705.27] hydra: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah tone would be good.
[3709.37] hydra: Yeah, yeah, maybe about paint maybe painless 360 as well.
[3714.47] hydra: He might not pay this is why is he cuz you've been threatening
[3718.77] hydra: to get me and painless on the show at some point for ages.
[3721.07] hydra: So that needs to happen at some point, doesn't it?
[3722.87] Jack: Yeah, well the thing is it's like an after-hours bonus pod.
[3727.17] Jack: So it's like maybe the whole stream about Radio C.
[3730.27] Jack: It'll be fine.
[3732.27] Jack: He can't just like maybe it's better off like sleeping dogs
[3737.07] Jack: lie, you know, maybe maybe I don't know but like just it's
[3742.27] hydra: an idea isn't it?
[3743.27] hydra: You know, you can put it on a backburner and come up with
[3745.37] hydra: some more material.
[3747.77] Jack: I know still there we are.
[3750.47] Jack: I just think I think I think the patreons deserve it does
[3753.47] Jack: they keep this show running?
[3755.37] Jack: Yeah, any any views expressed by any guests or personal
[3758.77] Jack: may not reflect the view of others.
[3760.97] Jack: Thank you to all our wonderful patreons you're there.
[3763.57] Jack: Mr.
[3763.77] Jack: Clean flight.
[3764.37] Jack: Thank you for sponsoring us.
[3767.97] Jack: You've you've been listening to let's try now.
[3770.97] Jack: We've got wonderful patreons.
[3772.97] Jack: Maybe we could do a really sort of juicy patreon stream
[3775.87] Jack: for you guys as a massive.
[3777.47] Jack: Thank you.
[3779.87] Jack: If you are listening to this on your favorite podcasting
[3783.67] Jack: platforms audio only do you think about going to the patreon
[3787.97] Jack: let's try now and supporting us because that helps cut
[3791.77] Jack: out all the rude words we say and bits of quiet and technical
[3795.47] Jack: issues.
[3796.27] Jack: And if you're listening to this editor, thank you very much
[3799.77] Jack: your lovely wonderful service and making this sound half
[3802.97] Jack: decent.
[3805.57] Jack: And we have been joined by the wonderful.
[3807.77] Jack: Mr.
[3808.07] Jack: Clean flight.
[3808.67] Jack: Thank you very much.
[3810.17] Jack: You're welcome.
[3810.87] Jack: Thanks for having me on and I've been bright until I fly
[3814.87] Jack: and go self time cop.
[3817.17] Jack: Thank you.
[3817.57] Jack: Good night.
[3823.07] UNKNOWN: Thought I'd cheer you up.