FPV Flying, the Perfect Hobby for Tinnitus?

Hello. I think I have found the perfect hobby for people with tinnitus. It works great for me. This summer I have been building a big quadcopter. This quadcopter have FPV (First Person View) function. It means that I have a set of goggles that I can see whats going up in the air. It doesn't need to be goggles. It can be a TV, or just a small LCD screen.

Here is a video from yesterday evening. I took a ride just before the sun went down. I dared to go 1km away before I returned home. In theory I can go 3km away, I just don't have the balls yet.

1 km chill ride with custom made quadcopter.

Here is another video from yesterday morning. Went up in the hills in Oslo following some people on longboard.

Holmenkollen 15.09.14

Longboard 15.09.2014

It's great fun. I get out of the house, and when I'm flying I never think of tinnitus.

 

Ohh.. Thats some serious nice videos man!

I considered buying one of those quads myself a while back

What kind of quad is it? Dji phantom?

 

No, it's a custom made quadcopter. Made it myself. Much cheaper, and better.

 

Awesome!

I actually made a remote controlled submarine a couple months ago using two ATmega328P microcontrollers in serial connection and some cheap bilge pumps as thrusters I kind of got some inspiration from your project now btw

 

How the fuck do you make a submarine???

 

lol

Its pretty much the same concept as your quad I think, except that the sub is a tad bigger and uses bilge pumps instead of propellers and communicates with the controller through a wire rather than radio waves. Its made out of PVC and metal plating and has a camera attached to it The controller has an ATmega328P microcontroller built in it and the UROV has one as well, and they communicate by sending serial data to eachother (RX, TX) at a given baud rate. The handheld controller is then able to directly switch on and off the bilge pumps that are used as thrusters as they are connected to relays (optical-coupled MOS FETs) which in turn receives their signal from the microcontroller inside the housing of the UROV.

The wire between the UROV and the handheld controller consists of 6 cores, 2 for serial data (RX, TX) between the microcontrollers, 2 for power (12v) and 2 for transmission of video from the camera.

I then wrote a simple program that turns on and off the bilge pumps according to what axis on the joysticks that are being activated.

Something like:
if (joystickRight == "UP")
UROV.down();
...
if (joystickLeft == "UP")
UROV.forward();
...

Where UROV.down() is hardcoded to write digital output (HIGH) to the pins on the microcontroller that are connected to the relays for the two bilge pumps that will thrust the UROV down (sink) in the water.

The handheld controller consists of two joysticks with a push button, a 5" TFT monitor and a power switch. The joystick axis will control the direction of the UROV and the push button will switch on and off a set of two 10w led lights.

Pretty simple actually.. Ill post a picture of it when I have one

I guess it could have some similarities to your quad copter, except that the UROV will operate under water

Those goggles you are talking about sounds really fun though.. Would probably make the experience a bit more vivid

 

Nice one, meeruf. That is sure fun. Having a hobby that you really enjoy is a great way to distract from or beat off the tyranny of tinnitus. My fishing hobby is more traditional but when a mighty king salmon or steelhead is on the run, jumping, splashing, dashing, twisting etc., and you are trying to control the beast, what tinnitus?

 

Some people on this board are really smart!
I'm impressed!

 

1.3 kilometers today.

Long Range Quadcopter 1.3km FPV Flight

 

@meeruf liked this a lot! Did you build this out of your head or is there some guidelines to follow on some site?

 

Thats awesome, I was really into them for a bit. Had a Mini FPV quad setup but ended up selling it in the end..



Maybe I should get back into it, the more hobbies I have to get my mind off the ringing the better.

 

Build it pretty much out of my head. Did a little math on how big props and motors I needed for the weight it was going to be. Then I built the frame based on the prop size.