Full Range Devo - which one?

Hi,
I have bought the Devo 7E and in the process of adding mods to it - have upgraded the firmware, bought the A7105 module I will install and need to decide if I do the Diode mod too. Also changed the plastic stick by after market alloy ones.

Looking to get a full range Tx where I can upgrade the firmware but which already has full range module. don't need many function but just something reliable. I have a few DSM/X, futaba FHSS, don't have any walkera Rx, don't know how good they are for range. (need solid signal for 200m and among up to 30 other guys also using 2.4Ghz Tx).

Ideally with telemetry so I can connect a gps module - looking to get boat speed in real-time. I think the devo 10 fit the bill in my limited budget but looking for your feedback

Also what good light Rx full range would you recommend for it?

For my big planes I am using RX1002's with my devo10 tx. Never had any range issues.

The Devo 10 is the best budget choice after the 7e. The 6s is the least expensive of the color touch screen models and the only full range choice in the 7e form factor, but hard to find. I really like mine even though the screen is unreadable in sunlight

Walkera rx's tend to be on the bulky and heavy side. Beyond that, it's hard to recommend one without knowing more about your requirements. In particular, has many channels do you need, and can you use either cppm or sbus instead of a servo connection. For instance, the frsky d4r-ii is popular for mini quads, but you'll need a cc2500 module and the nightly build. Max is 8 channels with cppm, 4 with servo connectors.

thank you both for your response.

I use my Tx for racing sailing model boats where the need is for 2 to 4 channels max really. ETA is a useful feature and I am looking for a system with a strong signal as we're typically 20-30 racing together and it needs to be accurate to 150-200m.

Ideally I would like to put some GPS system in the boat with some telemetry so I can see my boat speed in real time... but don't know how that works yet. what gps module, how do I get the signal back eg to the Tx or a separate screen to see the speed etc...

Now I use a spektrum 5e in DSMX protocol - works ok but has some hiccup from time to time. which is really frustrating when you know few seconds can make a big difference. But no option of telemetry.

On another boat the rules allow for more channels so I can have up to 6 channels used.

Hope this provides more information on what I need.

Cheers

I'm using FrSky D4R-II's in both my yachts - one being two servos and one three. I like it because it has the telemetry Tx in the Rx, so I get both signal strength and battery voltage alerts on my Tx without needing another box. The latest generation of OrangeRx Rx's (like the 620) also do this, though you need to wire in the battery sensor since it doesn't do Rx battery properly.

I'm also working on a sensor build specifically for yachts: roll and leak sensors as well as a GPS. The software architecture should be adaptable to the OrangeRx Rx's as well, but I doubt I'll do that unless I decide I need SBUS for it for some reason.

Be interested in reading about what people are doing with six channels on an RC yacht! Got a link?

+1 Devo 10.

It is my cheaper Spektrum DX8 replacement with better firmware possibilities (DeviationTX).

If your might be considering the Devo 12, it might be worth taking a look at the FrSky Taranis (OpenTX) as you can fully legal fly FrSky D16 within DE/EU (dealers with a proper declaration of conformity) including proper receiver telemetry support.

DEVO protocol is only a 3 channel DSSS. IMHO it is not a full FHSS protocol just like D16 or DSMx.

Thomas

Hey mwm I'll look at your FrSky radio to see. Don't know much about Frsky have to admit.
Don't want to spread across too many Tx brands either. But I like what you're doing indeed.
I am looking to get my boat speed in real time on the Tx ideally but don't know where to start for this. I race IOM and A-class - the IOM only allow 2 channels and no telemetry but for training and testing new sails and appendages it should help. The leak sensor could be good too.

On the A-class some control the main foot tension by a servo attached to the front of the boom with the lines running in the boom. no photos sorry but I know in M or 10R they tend to use more channels than we do. But to be honest it's not the 6/8/10 channels that are needed but more some of the features they have which are not available on 4 channels. ALL TX manufacturers assume that stick radio system is only used for flying and the gun style radio for surface... Just need to look at their website to see. But there is very little for sailors and for people like me who are more into the sailing than the electronics it is a jungle outathere.
Could you share how you'd get the boat speed on the Tx? would be really interesting in that.
Cheers

I like my devo 7e a lot! Range mod, 2x3 switch and antenna's inside, fly mostly Frsky, DSM and use NRF mini quad

I have really the feeling that my Frsky, with the devo 7e feels more locked in and butter smooth servo response, than compared to Samwa/Airtronics with PPM out to Frsky DHT-U.

Anyone ever did latency measurements on deviation?

www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2492021

Rare sale on devo 6s. Cant beat the price. Its full range, compact, unique, and works awesome with deviation with that touchscreen

mwm wrote: The latest generation of OrangeRx Rx's (like the 620) also do this, though you need to wire in the battery sensor since it doesn't do Rx battery properly.

Not to call you out Mike (and technically you're not incorrect) but just want people to know this; no "sensor" is needed for battery pack voltage on the new OrangeRX's, they have a on board vdivider (5S for sure confirmed by me, speck's state up to 6S input capable). Really can't fault them for how you wire it or for trying to charge $8 for a "sensor" / cable, do FrSky rx run directly off 2-6S pack voltage and measure from the main input (serious question)? I run DSMX (all oranges and one OE spektrum) and don't currently have a CC2500 but I'm not as impressed with "flight log" signal data as I'd hoped, it's not reall just "their version of RSSI" as it was originally explained to me and really not all that helpful. I set an alarm to trigger =>1 hold and =>71 losses but that doesn't really tell you how strong your signal is. Watching antenna fades is useless.

Anyway you don't even need a satellite 3-pin cable if you don't mind soldering one wire to the receiver (from BATT+). Also, the temp "sensor" is just a standard K-type mini T-couple.


I'd LOVE a way to get GPS data into my OrangeRX's and would gladly work on a port and/or offer help in any way I can (i.e. buying parts for testing or whatever). BTW can FrSyk do GPS telem to the devo?

With DEVO rx's I prefer the 1002 thanks to the 2 long antenna wires - I can locate them far apart and perpendicular to each other easily.
The best way to secure good reception with diversity.

With spektrum units, I am using dual satellites for the same result - DSM2, DSMX whatever - perpendicular to each other.

Small rx's have 2 small antennas with dual receivers, close to each other (rx601) OR a single dipole (spektrum) built in.

I suggest you to do the same on water - go for good diversity and you will not have issues.

+Cereal_Killer - I'd much rather you call me out I'm wrong than let others think I'm right and find out the hard way! I don't have one of the new OrangeRx's, so I have to go by what HK (and other users) tell me. I plan on ordering one to play with next time I place an order from HK, but that hasn't happened yet.

The FrSky Rx's have two ADCs in them. By default, AD1 is hooked up to the internal voltage for your Rx battery and has the appropriate voltage divider for that. The D4R-II's I use run on 3.5-10 volts, so best stick with 2S packs or 1S LiPo's (I use LiFe Rx packs with mine). Neither AD2 nor AD1 hooked up to an external pack (not possible on the smaller Rx's, as they only have the AD2 connector) have a voltage divider. You either buy one from HK for a couple of bucks, or build one following +SebyDocky's video or the FrSky telemetry wiki.

Since my yacht's don't have a flight pack, just an Rx pack, I get all the battery info I need with no extra connectors. That the Rx voltage on the Orange Rx's doesn't work means I'd need to wire my Rx pack into the flight pack connector to get that. I've got a roll sensor for the yacht that uses a DAC to output the roll a a voltage going to AD2 on the FrSky Rx for now (and AD2GAIN in the Deviation telemetry lets me calibrate it to ~0.1volts/degree), which pretty much makes the OrageRx's non-starters for this.

I set an alarm trigger on RSSi for 42dB, as recommended by FrSky. Better yet, I can tell that the antenna placement on my Orion has issues, because I see a 20dB drop when I turn from running away from me to running across my line of sight. I haven't seen (or looked for, to be honest) an explanation of how I'd use the FliightLog data to tell that kind of thing, but given that you've got more information, I'm pretty sure you can.

For GPS data and the OrangeRx, I'd start with the thread on RCGroups about reverse engineering the data protocol used by Spektrum telemetry system. They may know if the OrangeRx telemetry will work with the Spektrum GPS unit, and possibly have put together code to let you connect an NMEA GPS unit (about $10 with a very short antenna) to one. While I'm not planning on porting my code to work with Spektrum, I'm building it so that should be straightforward. Making it work for aircraft is liable to be harder .

+glx, I don't have boat speed on the Tx yet - I'm still assembling the sensor hardware. However, that data is available from relatively inexpensive GPS units, and I've got one of those for this. I have code that sends it to the Rx to send to the Tx, and the Deviation builds that support FrSky also support this telemetry, though you probably want to get my test builds instead of the nightly. I don't yet know whether it will get a usable lock when on the water, or if it's sensitive enough to register a yacht's speed. If not - it uses a standard protocol, so I can try a better GPS unit!

BTW, I like deviation for yachts because - at least with the advanced gui - the assumption about aircraft mostly go away. Except for naming, and even that's partly right. I do wish my 3-servo boat had a "jb" and "main" channel, a I never remember which is which (hmm, another reason to add a "boat" model type). But at least the mixer is agnostic about craft type - it doesn't have any wired-in ideas about what kind of mixes I might want, or what my trims would be used for, so I had no trouble setting up the left stick trims so that vertical was on the vertical input, but horizontal was on the jib output only. Etc.

Hey Mike you probably have seen my post on dual stick to control both main & jib together like the robbe module but on a 2.4GHZ. I gave up on that as though few people have succeeded in installing it in some 2.4Ghz Tx system it was very diy by people who clearly know electronics -which I'm not part of- and the handful of commercial viable ones were also diyer making their mods commercial but the price was really prohibitive.

I have not however given up on the 2 winches which I need to control Main and jib individually and together like when rounding the leeward mark for eg. but now I will try to play with the left and right sticks to control each winch and the left/right of the right stick for rudder.

I'm looking at gps units for the quads as there must be a solution for us sailors to find a solution to get our boat speed. I presume it would be calculated by a unit (maybe part of the gps) that calculates the time it took between 2 gps location to get the speed and this continuously each second or so which should give us our boat speed. This will depend on the accuracy of the gps (WAZ protocol I think not sure). But then how to get this figure and send it back to the Tx or phone by another transmission protocol to be shown. That I don't know if it exists today... must be cos I've seen some telemetry unit giving speed for rc cars and rc speedboats and I presume this is how it is done???

But you guys here are talking more on the Rx side right - I take it the Devo10 would be a good Tx to do what I need but I need to figure out the speed element as discussed above first before I go and buy it.

I'm with you on the deviation for our rc boats cos we can customise it to be more 'boaty' style than any other.

One feedback for walkera which would be sweet is to be able to rotate to some degrees the steering sick unit so in case of mode2 the right one as the thumb works more at an angle then purely left & right. But that's me being picky... I believe one of the latest futaba now has this feature, but at over $300 the Tx no thank you.

Some of the flight controllers have software to output telemetry data for a Spektrum or FrSky telemetry system, so you could just use that. The problem is that deviation's telemetry code for both seems a bit wonky at best. Since I'm building a custom telemetry hub, I could add a wifi module and use that to talk to a mobile device, but I'm not sure I want to have to deal with another box while sailing. It also means needing a custom app to use it. Upside is voice feedback and the ability to examine the data at the pond. Have to think about it. Certainly an option if keep having issues with the telemetry system.

The actual GPS units used in the quads are the same ones I'm using, I'm just buying them on breakout boards instead of flight controllers. I figure doing that will make it easier to add the custom hardware I want to use.

thanks - from your feedback I'm now looking at frsky telemetry products but there is very little on how they connect to each other... as if we have the induced divine knowledge of how to use these products... any good place/site that explains telemetry and how to use it?

at first glance I like the frsky telemetry as they do a telemetry screen which is very handy to add to the Tx now I need to work out how all of this works together. like would this work with the Devo 10 and do I need a telemetry module to add to the Devo ... and more. not easy to understand for a sailor like me who's not a electronic engineer

Yup, FrSky is short on documentation. I use the EFlight Wiki page on FrSky telemetry: www.eflightwiki.com/eflightwiki/index.php?title=FrSky_Telemetry

Indeed, A simple diagram linking each modules and how it works together would be enough to start with.

each sensor or module seem to connect to a telemetry hub but then do you connect this to a Rx with telemetry (which not only receive signal from the Tx but send signal out to telemetry module of the Tx) ?
or the telemetry module is the one sending the signal to a module attached to the Tx which feeds the info to the display screen. If so how does that module attached to the Tx gets power via a mod to the Tx to get the power from the Tx batteries?

Would be good to find out ... I'm surfing youtube and other place to figure this out but I can't believe there is so little about it. Yet there are so many telemetry modules out there

Unlike older systems, the FrSky telemetry hub doesn't need data from the Rx. The telemetry radio is built into the Rx, and it communicates with the Tx. So all you need to do is get data into the Rx. On the sensor hub, it's the "data" connector. The Rx connector varies depending on the Rx you have. On my D4R-II's there's only one connector, and it needs the two lines labelled Rx & Tx on it. You may need power & ground from an Rx servo line as well.

was looking at the frsky DHT diy kit to install in the Devo 7E as it has a full range capability, gives access to telemetry via the external LCD but has anyone plugged in that modul on a Devo 7E to see how to connect it???
I'll have to do a job on the antena whic his fine but where to do connect this module inside the Devo?