Taranis X9D Plus 6 Position Switch Mod

I’m currently building a 650 size aerial photography quad with a Pixhawk controller & discovered via a Painless360 video on YouTube that a common approach to switching between the multiple (more than 3) flight modes common to a Pixhawk AP setup is to install a 6 position switch into a Taranis using the spare port S3. This has the benefit that you don’t need to combine two of the normal switches on the Taranis, which just sounds confusing to me.

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HobbyKing ‘Spec FPV250’ Build

After some simulator time in Liftoff & FPV Freerider using my Taranis, learning how to fly rate mode, I bought a Fat Shark FPV setup to go on my ZMR. I figured having a second frame with no FPV gear on would be nice, so I could be reckless without worrying about breaking the VTX or whatever, so I grabbed the cheap ‘Spec FPV250’ kit from HobbyKing.

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I was attracted by how simple the kit looked, what with the (almost) one-piece frame & bullet connectors on everything. But the design of the frame, which has almost no ‘internal’ space, meant that it was actually a bit of a pain to build while trying to keep components safe from crash damage.

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The receiver’s antennas were a particular problem. Ideally they should be vertical, but I couldn’t think of any way to mount them vertically where they wouldn’t be at risk of damage (mainly from being pushed into the props) in a crash. In the end I resorted to mounting them horizontally along the rear arms, which isn’t ideal when it comes to maximizing reception, however as this is going to be a purely LOS frame I don’t imagine I will ever fly it far enough for this to be an issue.

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Still going to do a range test before I fly it though! Hoping for some dry weather (& free time…) this weekend so I can go maiden it in the park :)

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DSCVR from I AM Cardboard

My DSCVR arrived from I AM Cardboard in HK the other day. It’s a plastic Cardboard viewer, but unlike other plastic viewers (Homido, Freefly, ColorCross, etc.) the DSCVR is actually a ‘certified’ Cardboard viewer because it sticks to Google’s design guidelines well enough.

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Freefly VR

I’d been wanting something more durable to carry around & demo some of the Cardboard stuff I’ve been working on & opted for the Freefly VR. It doesn’t include any Cardboard style input (either v1 magnet or v2 button) but I’m planning to get a Bluetooth remote & use it to trigger the same events as screen presses would. More thoughts on this headset in this thread on /r/GoogleCardboard, but in short I’m quite happy with it.

Obligatory bokeh.

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