Year 2022 - New Board Simple Designs (SimpleFC and SimpleESC)

Finally had send this latest version for PCB fabrication. I had been busy recently but able to fork out some time to continue this hobby.This year new objective 2022 is to make this one work better than previous version. What I had done: I separated the ESC with Power Supply section to one board For the FC board, just plainly MCU, Gyro, Receiver. Now my custom receiver is upgraded to ESP12F. Sounds like expressLRS, but is not. It was my long time ago receiver until now. It was running on atmega328 but I had migrated to this ESP32 and now shrinking it. Also using E01-ML01 as the receiver (NRF24L01P compatible) I call it SimpleFC because I want it to be simple and clean. So, this round I had removed BARO and also using STM32F411CEU6 microcontroller. How I did that? I reverse engineered from the code. Based on the code, I mapped back the pins and build backs the schematic. Is a pretty fun process. Of course now is year 2022, we need USB C. I had found pin layouts from USB C pins and successfully linked it back to the board. No longer need to carry another USB cable for that. I know some are using WiFi cheap for flashing but I still prefer to have cables. Both the board sizes are: 37mm x 37mm with 1mm thickness and 4 layers. Interested? Support me via -> https://www.buymeacoffee.com/bertfpv/schematic-for-simple-fc-simple-esc You will be able to download the schematics. ...

March 15, 2022 · 2 min

Diversity VTX Receiver

Recently flying my nano quad, felt a bit scary without a second receiver on the goggle. I had to keep moving my head to get the best reception for the video feed. Finally, I learned about the little display thing on every one’s FPV goggle is actually dual RX5808 receiver with some firmware that keep switching to the best video feed signal. My Eachine EV-100 having dual antenna but is not a very good in handling diversity. I found a few good opensource projects and saw their designs very good but I need audio output as well for the receiver so decided to make my own version. The board already sent for fabrication and now left the firmware to be developed and make it working. I had already tested the tv composite output is working and is very fun to built this diversity vtx receiver. Wish me luck! ...

September 19, 2021 · 1 min

All-in-One FC – BertFC Version 1.0 – Part 3

Had done all my testing and flying on this version. Found some bugs and fixed it. The problem was during 3.6v and above the output will be getting higher linearly. So I had added a diode with a 0.6v forward drop voltage. This enables it to have a stable output at 3.3v. This board design is only meant for 1S. Meaning operating voltage is in between 2.0v ~ 4.2v. Higher than that you need to modify the buckbooster part into a 3.3v LDO as well as the 5v power line to a 5V LDO. I modified this from OMNIBUSF4PRO to my custom made version. I removed SDCard as the blackbox to save more space for the All-In-One board. ...

August 26, 2021 · 4 min

All-in-One FC - BertFC Version 1.0 - Part 2

Finally I am able to make it work on the ESC and flashed INAV into it. Testing out the functionality and the thrust power. The good news: IS WORKING! I am going to solder the rest of the components and make it fly…. Stay tune….

August 6, 2021 · 1 min

All-in-One FC - BertFC Version 1.0

Finally have the full confidence that this version will be working well. As I am using the previous design as RnD and finalized the ESC is working and also corrected a few mistakes that I had done on the previous version. This coming version will be having: 4-in-1 ESC with 5A on each channel (Good enough for a small 3-inch quads) DSHOT600 is supported BLHeli_S or BlueJay firmware are supported STM32F405RTG6 as the heart of the Flight Controller With a few serial ports for GPS OnBoard OSD SBUS protocol Baro onboard MPU6000 Gyro Current Sensor 3.3V buckbooster for all the ESCs, STM32 and etc 5V buckbooster for VTX, Cam and GPS Theoretically should be able to run from 2.0v ~ 4.2v. Yes, only 1S battery 32.5 x 32.5mm **Why I build these?**The reason building this is to understand how the whole quad system works. This let me dive deep into every aspect. I learned about ESC, ESC firmwares and also understanding how the ESC MOSFET works. The interesting part of this FC is low power. Normally FC using the cheaper version of the buck converter. I am trying to use a decent powerful buckbooster converter and hopefully this will let me to fly my quad for more than 20 minutes on single cell. All these ideas came from DaveC FPV which he had built a very nice Nano Long Range Quad running on 1S. This is the video -> < I would like to buy those FC but I just want to have something that I am able to build and opensource the schematic to everyone and build one for yourself. Once I am done, I will start to share out the schematic. Just need to make sure is working before sharing out. ...

July 26, 2021 · 2 min

Custom Radio Controller Transmitter

Since day one I am on this RC hobby, I never had any aftermarket Radio Controller Transmitter. I had bought a broken Futaba Radio Controller and stripped off all the components inside the case and just left only the toggle switches and the gimbals. I linked them to my arduino nano for the first version that I have. I was using a very long antenna to maximize the 2.4G range. ...

July 11, 2021 · 4 min

How To Flash BLHeli_S Firmware To EFM8BB21F16G

During the first time when I got my 1st ESC set up, I was stucked for a while and having a question in my head, " How do I flash in the firmware?". I am a pure Linux user. I don’t use Windows systems. Well, thanks to Google and I am able to find out a few ways. Somehow ended had to use the Windows Application and get the work done. In future, I will try to convert it to Linux when I have the time. ...

June 22, 2021 · 3 min

What I Am Planning

Well, this site is to share all my RnD work to everyone who likes to build things from scratch. I am building drones since 6 years ago till now. At time my first drone was a big giant bird. I was using 500 X-Mode Alien Multicopter 500mm Quadcopter Frame. I picked that frame because the FC was just an Arduino running on MultiWii and some custom made receiver. Yeah, I am building everything my own even the receiver and transmitter. I developed the firmware for the receiver as well as the transmitter. Is using custom data packets using nRF24L01 modules. Now I am using EByte module which is identical to nRF24L01 and with more power you can go with. The fun thing of this hobby is letting you to build everything by yourself. Is a lengthy and long way to learn everything but is worth it. Trust me, is worth it. You will learn the electronics part, mechanical part and firmware developments. You can just buy DJI and fly but it will not last. You will get bored and forget about it. Building it your own will just let you keep this hobby non-stop on going to build more and more things on it. I will slowly share out all the things that I had built for this project from Custom Radio Controller, Receiver, FC and ESC. In order to learn more, you need to share more to others ;)

June 22, 2021 · 2 min

My Current Project – RnD on ESC – Day 2

Finally came to an end where I need to redesign the schematic again for lesser components and trying to get power source from FC rather from itself. The whole idea is to cut costs and able to build it easily. Below is the diagram currently I am working on and going to test out the firmware on BLHELI_s with the version O_H_5 but with some minor modification on the code. I had accidentally swapped the pins at the MOSFETs side. Lets see how it goes once the board is back from JLCPCB. ...

June 22, 2021 · 2 min

Added GiT Repository Server

Finally added a new repository server to my site. This will store all my source codes for the FPV related projects here. Freely shared to everyone to rebuild it. I will constantly update it. Stay tune. https://git.bertfpv.com/explore/repos

June 13, 2021 · 1 min