Introducing: TelemetrEZ

[kaos]

Here is a person using the Smartie board's opinion. I probably never switch to er9X before I find out the Smartie. It is easy, it is plug and play which motivated me to get into er9x. which I am very happy i did. What prevents me from getting into the er9x is the soldering part (at the time). NOw you have 2500 people, most of them are probably like me don't want to do the soldering, if they want to have telemetry capability, they would want a drop in board with little soldering.
now it really come down to pricing. if you make the board 15-20 dollars for me to get telemetry capability with current Tx, I would certainly be happy to upgrade my sp Tx with telemetry. but above that, unfortunately, you are competing with ersky9x for 95 which really gives me a whole lot more and an easy drop in.
when I look at 65-70 for sp + built in T-baord, I will probably never look at it compared with ersky9x board. the price difference is so little while function difference is huge and pure drop in. and that prevents a lot of people from getting into er9x. just like I already decided my 2nd T9X will have the ersky9x baord going in no matter what your pricing (reasonable) is.
I would think you will be better off making a separate cheap T-board for those do want telemetry and already have sp board. and keep the sp board at low price for those who just get into the er9x and really don't have much interest in telemetry in the beginning and later want to have some telemetry function.

For those who don't even think twice making a cpu soldering they are not your customer to begin with.

all those price is just for example, who knows what price you will end up with.
hope this will give you some end users' view.

But I am mad at you for sp being 35.00 now while I paid 45.00.

[s_mack]

Thanks for the input. I pretty much agree with everything you said except that I don't really agree that I'm competing with ersky9x (regardless of the price). Ersky9x is a different beast entirely and I'd hate to think that my products provide any sort of reason for someone to not choose that route. But Ersky9x isn't for everyone. I think most can accept that its overkill for many users, and with that comes certain inherent complexities that a user who isn't going to use the advanced features wouldn't want to bother with, let alone pay for. I have no delusions that my products are superior to Ersky9x... nor are they inferior. They just serve a different purpose. There is some cross-over, sure... but as far as "competition" goes, I can make that easy: if you're considering the features Ersky9x provides... get that! At $95, its a fantastic value for the promise it holds for the advanced user.

if you make the board 15-20 dollars for me to get telemetry capability with current Tx

I do want to be clear that TelemetrEZ doesn't provide telemetry (neither does ersky9x). It just makes the connections easier. The end user still needs to purchase the FrSky telemetry module and receiver, of course.

Yeah, 2.2 is $10 cheaper for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that I'm not supplying the backlight anymore.

- Steven

[kaos]

I don't really agree that I'm competing with ersky9x (regardless of the price). Ersky9x is a different beast entirely and I'd hate to think that my products provide any sort of reason for someone to not choose that route. But Ersky9x isn't for everyone. I think most can accept that its overkill for many users, and with that comes certain inherent complexities that a user who isn't going to use the advanced features wouldn't want to bother with

from end urser/comsumer point of view, you are 'competing'. yes, a lot of people may never use all the functions in Ersky9x board. but as a consumer, if the price difference is so little. one will always choose the one with much more function whether they are going to use it or not. The buyer psychology is " i get a whole lot more with my money". He will think " I can use it later" whether he will really use it or not.

good luck on your plan!


PS: yes, I know you need the telemetry Tx/rx to use.

[ShowMaster]

I think I've seen a reversed biased diode across the input and output pins of the regulator in some schematics. It's purpose was to make sure voltage could not flow backwards through the regulator in case the source voltage became lower than any voltage on the output. Maybe large caps on the output and power removed from the input would cause reverse current flow back through the regulator and damage it? However as MikeB stated we do that now when we use our USB programmer with tx power off.
Maybe steering diodes in the outputs of the two parralleled regulators would work but even with Schottky there is .3v drop.
SM

[s_mack]

I want to correct myself. Previously, I stated that I sold/moved 2500 units. I'm not sure how I confused myself on something I should know so intimately... but after the first batch of rev 2.2 boards are done, I will have produced 2500 units in total. Therefore, current volume sold is approximately 2000 boards, not 2500.

Not that anyone should care Its just a "for the record" so I'm not contradicting myself later

- Steven

[Kilrah]

Still interesting. With 2000 SP boards out, I really wonder about the total number of modded 9xs...

[s_mack]

Usually, a venture such as mine is lucky to hit 10% of the available market. So very rough numbers... that'd mean 20k modded 9xs. Which might not be too far off. My (complete guess of an) estimate is that FlySky has moved between 100,000 and 200,000 9x's and it is reasonable to presume that only a fraction would mod it. But really, who the heck knows.

[JohanS]

I'd be interested in buying this board. I love how easy the SP board installation was and would like that for a telemetry enabler (or what to call it) as well. I can solder and follow instructions but having hassle free and time saving solutions trumps cost (to a certain level), for me. Already have the FrSky DJT and the D8R-II Plus RX so all I'm lacking is the radio mod and of course any sensors I would want to use.

Price? Anywhere from $20-$35.

[Rob Thomson]

I was wondering how easy it would be to use the same principle to create additional switches and pots for input sources?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[MikeB]

Steven's proposed board has 10 (i think) spare processor pins brought out to pads to allow for extra inputs/outputs. It would just(!) need coding.

Mike.

[Rob Thomson]

Clever... certainly makes for a very attractive upgrade - at a good price

[s_mack]

Yes, 10 extra i/o with the proposed chip. May be more or less if that chip (which is supposed to be available early July) doesn't actually come to exist.

We may be down to 9 though. I've almost figured out adding in a superior voltage regulator* to replace (well, bypass) the crappy one that's running the radio now. It also provides reverse polarity protection. Due to the 9x layout, that bypass also removes the 9x's ability to read the battery's voltage, so we have to do that with the TelemetrEZ and that takes up one of the i/o. Although, I'll keep the pin connection there so people could choose to have that i/o and not have a voltage readout if the so wanted (or I'm sure some clever firmware person could figure out how to use both, perhaps by alternate polling).

Cheers.

- Steven

* The VR I've currently narrowed it down has the ability to provide 500mA (vs 100mA currently), has a dropout voltage of 0.34V (vs ~2.00V currently), has reverse polarity protection built-in, and has a logic enable. This last feature is important... with some clever arrangement of wiring and the addition of a simple MOSFET, we can reverse-polarity-protect the entire radio (including the RF and jack) without any power waste that a diode would have. More development needed, but so far testing is showing good results.

[Crashj007]

Steve, I'll buy one from you, but I'll have to get another transmitter to use it.

[Tizzy]

Speaking for the "solder challenged", I'd be happy to pay $25 to get Frsky telemetry on the 9x screen. That's about the cost of the FLD-02. I was happy to buy the SP board and get access to new FW without soldering. Even if TelemtrEZ was only available with the programmer for $60-75, I'd buy it and sell my original SP board.

I think there are a sizable number of folks, SP owners especially, that would be interested.

Sign me up!

A novice solderer not long ago, since I bought your SP board a few months ago Stephen, circumstances saw me doing quite a bit of other RC and Arduino soldering so I'm not as "solder challenged" as I was then. As a result I've been looking at adding telemetry by way of the DJT external module and modding the Tx. But as it is now, there are just too many different variations and improvements on that mod and the information available for 'easily' modding the Tx to suit the external DJT module has eluded me. To make a long story short, I'd definitely get a 99% plug&play board from you if the price was right. I'd prefer an SP add-on board myself tho instead of a replacement and I wonder how many of the 2000 out there would agree... That being said, it's a fantastic idea and I'd go for whichever version came out if it allowed me to stick in the external FrSky module, screw the TelEZ board in, solder 1 or two bits, update the firmware and get going... Go for it, I'm a fan already!

[s_mack]

Cool, thanks!

[Wormboymat]

I'll second Tizzys sentiment. If you build it, I'd certainly consider buying it.
I can solder to pads but not really confident soldering to the pins so if there was a bolt-on version I reckon I'd be interested.

[voip4life]

Steve, just bite the bullet and make the boards, I guarantee you that you will eventually sell out, in fact, the sooner you do it the better. I would have never considered soldering my radio had I not been able to first use your SP board to get the first er9x fw on my radio, that's what opened it all up for me. In fact I used your SP board in 3 other radios to get them 'converted' to er9x. So, you are only counting boards in radios, but how many other radios did your board program? Lots more. You can do the same thing for the community with this board for telemetry, I'll get it for at least one radio, I'm just not going to do the intricate solder mods required currently for telemetry, I'm relying on others to solve these issues and will most likely pay those who are solving it (and I know I'm not the only one out there thinking this).

I think many others will be excited about this too that won't post about it, bottom line is many people will buy the board just to try it out. I have two radios and did both versions of fw programming mods, the SP board and the 6 pin solder route.

With the SP board, it took about 5 minutes to install the SP board and upgrade my radio. I next tried the ribbon cable route and spent at least $15 on buying/trying parts, cables, connectors and at least 6-7 hours you-tubing, reading, researching, messing with things (ended up resoldering connectors, recrimping connectors to fix/adjust things) and after it was all said and done I would have happily paid $35 for another SP board. As cheap as many of us are, we have to remember that our time is worth something as well.

I have now spent about 15 hours researching telemetry stuff, I have the DJT, FLD, and even the bluetooth module, and have bought all this with the hopes of integrating it all in the radio somehow, but can't get passed the solder work. Had you had a board out already, I would have bought a couple by now and been using it. But I am not going to do any risky soldering like that and I continue to wait for someone to solve the problem that many of us have that just want EZ telemetry. I've been looking at the ersky board but it seems to only be in the hands of the 'programmer' types right now and still requires a lot of hacking/programming knowledge..I could be wrong, no offense to anyone, but it's still to complex for me.

So get to it, start taking pre-orders and see what shakes out.

[Rob Thomson]

My 'big' thought on this board that would make it a killer product...

Put the new 'sound system' chips on to it. End result...

pogo board that gives you telemetry, potential additional inputs, and wav sound files.

[s_mack]

and costs too much

I should have 25 prototypes ready in about 3-4 weeks. I'd like to get them in the hands of people that have some electronics know-how and, especially, reasonable AVR firmware skills. The firmware will be opensource, but I'm not a firmware guy! The basic function will be super simple... just process to the two button inputs, take in the telemetry UART, and spit out both by UART to the radio. But really, as its essentially a co-processor... it can do so much more with some imagination.

[jhsa]

could it provide more eeprom to help the Mega 64?? store models and settings?

[s_mack]

Yes. In two ways:

1) the chip on the telemetrez has eeprom. OK, not much... but some. This could, in theory, be used for models and 64 could communicate and get the data as required.
2) the chip has extra i/o which can be used for... well, anything. So it would be easy (hardware wise) to add an eeprom chip if even more space is necessary.

- Steven

[Romolo]

I think that if this board will provide the same features of the SP board + telemetry/sound interfacing will be a commercial success.
at least if it's possible to work as usbasp programmer...

[s_mack]

The prototypes are now in production. The prototypes, which will cost north of $30 each to produce PLUS soldering time, will be available for $20 including shipping. For anyone that is a primary developer of one of the 9x fimrware packages, I will provide a unit for free if there is a commitment to adapt their firmware for use with the TelemetrEZ (and, hopefully, might help develop the simple initial firmware for the TelemetrEZ itself).

It is not a requirement that you have an SP board. It is a requirement, of course, that you have some sort of programmer (obviously).

Some notes about the prototypes:

• All components for operation as a telemetry adapter and superior voltage regulator will be soldered on the board
• The headers for the connections will be soldered on the board, and plugs and some terminals will be provided. Wires will not, so you'll have to crimp your own. I couldn't get prototype quantities of the harnesses produced and they are too tedious and time consuming to make them all by hand It will be WAY easier to just pop out the very few wires and move them over to new connectors then to make full jumper harnesses (pictures will be forthcoming when they arrive).
• While sound, EEPROM, various sensors and switches can be added... that's not the purpose of the board. That will be up to each end user to determine what they want. The board will provide for a convenient interface, of course

Attempting to be a be-everything-device for everyone is exactly the definition of "feature creep" and all it means is that everyone pays for something they don't want. It also means MONTHS of extra development times. Its not going to be combined with an SP board. The SP board is a working design that sells well and is highly regarded, so I don't think I should mess with it... but also developing a new kit that is combined with the SP means current SP owners have to re-buy what they already have to get the new functionality. And for really no reason - there's VERY LITTLE cost savings putting it on the same board. And future SP owners will be forced to pay for additional functionality they don't necessarily want. Those that want an "everything" device should just buy the ersky, right?

- Steven

[jhsa]

if it's really possible to have more eeprom, then maybe you should have it ready for all the users.. I'm pretty sure everyone will welcome the feature....

[s_mack]

Everyone? I'd venture a guess that most people... probably by far (like > 75%) use a single model. Er9x can hold ~ 8 models. That's probably good for 90% of users, so I'd estimate really that very few people would get additional use out of more eeprom. But force everyone to pay for it? It can be added relatively easily and inexpensively on an individual basis. Say I'm wrong... say everyone does want more EEPROM. OK, how much? 4kb? 8kb? 16? 64?? 1M??? where do we draw the line?

Anyway, for the example of EEPROM, its built-in to a limited degree. The TelemetrEZ functions don't require any EEPROM so 100% of it could be used for model storage. The M64 has 2Kb of EEPROM. I don't know how much is used for model storage, so I don't know how much space is required per model (I'm sure that info is somewhere). The TelemetrEZ chip would have 256 bytes available. That's 1/8th the size of the m64 eeprom so at the very minimum that should add 1 more model.

Adding an external EEPROM would be possible but a little tricky. Again, I don't have the firmware knowhow... but the UART pins and the SPI and I2C pins are shared (and in use by the telemetry and the communication with the tx). So adding more EEPROM would either mean figuring out a time share scheme on those same pins (or simply halting telemetry when eeprom needs to be accessed), or using a software implementation on other available pins, of which there are 10. I'm sure it can be done, and if the "beta testers" (who I'm counting on to also be developers to some extent) can figure out how best to add it... then we can decide if its worth the cost increase to everyone, regardless if they need it.

[jhsa]

Steven, I don't know much or even nothing about this programming thing. I just go by what I read here. As far as I know and someone correct me if I'm wrong, eeprom as well as flash is getting tight because many new features configurations must be stored in it. that might mean less models could be stored on the radio. For me at the moment that is ok because I have 2 radios but many people own only one and would also like to have those new features. That's why I posted that idea here. I would most certainly also get one of those boards (must start saving), also because of the extra pins. that could mean perhaps more switches? I don't know what "damage" that would do to the flash cos I'm not a developer. I just see it from a user's point of view. If it would be possible to have more eeprom or even (even more unlikely, Hint, Hint.. ) SD Card support, why not?? I believe that the stock 9x still has a lot to give. And you made it also possible, with your SP board, for many people to have er/open9x on their radios, when otherwise they probably wouldn't because they don't have the skills, or have no fun to doing it themselves..
As I said, I have no idea if any of the above is possible. But if it is, why not?? Of course it will have to be rentable for you..

Joäo

[Rob Thomson]

This all becomes economy of scale. If this board costs more than $50 to make, you may as well buy the ersky9x board and get a more powerful system!

[s_mack]

(Rob posted before I finished this post... I completely agree!)


Why not? Cost. Complexity. Longer development time.

SD Card support is "expensive" (its all relative). We're probably adding $10 to the price just with that. So no way. Most of the limitations on features is the flash, not the eeprom. Adding flash isn't as easy. Its not any more difficult electronically... but the firmware would have to be changed to support it. Think about it... adding physical space doesn't magically change anything. The firmware has to continue to support people that don't have the extra hardware. So really, a whole new branch of firmware would have to be developed specifically for the more capable hardware. I don't see that happening really. Its kind of like adding a bunch of rooms onto your house and not moving any furniture in. You have the extra space, but if it can't be used... what good is it?

Yes, switches can be added with the 10 available gpio. What you can DO with those switches depends on the people that help develope the TelemetrEZ firmware as well as the 9x firmware. The possibilities are there, but I'll have to leave it up to people to run with it.

At its core, TelemetrEZ will do its job - allow adding telemetry easier. VERY little firmware changes on the radio side will be necessary (it will have to be adapted to pull out the button signals from the telemetry stream rather than reading them direction from the i/o). Additional possibilities will require more adaptation. The good news, of course, is its all opensource so people should be able to figure it out relatively quickly.

I wish I had more skills on the firmware side of things.

- Steven

[jhsa]

Yes you're right Rob.. we would just have to see what would be worth it or not.

In my case I like the idea of hacking this thing the most we can.. I find it fun and exciting. This was always the heart of this project. To make something that actually works out of something that didn't do much otherwise.. And the developers themselves wouldn't be doing this if they didn't feel the same way, I guess..
Anyway, these are only ideas, some are valid and some probably not. But what the heck, if we don't have them, probably nothing that seems crazy at first would have been done so far..

Joäo

[MikeB]

Any extra EEPROM is not that easy to use. At present, because it is allin the M64, you can read and write it using a programmer. You just plug in to your PC, run eepe/companion and read/write. Any external EEPROM will not be accessible that way, so will be difficult to integrate in to the existing concept of the radio.

Steven is absolutly correct, just do a board for a specific function, the SP board is like that, the voice board I designed is also like that. This new board makes it much easier for users to connect up the telemetry. Even using the extra 10 pins is open to question. Someone might want 10 switches, someone else might want an extra, dual axis stick for FPV camera control, others might want a couple of rotary encoders. It all takes time to implement and test.

I am tending towards the view that we are hitting the limits of the stock board, and while some enhancements may still be possible, we do have the ersky9x board available. To make good use of that, it needs time spent getting its code enhanced. So while er9x will continue to evolve, ersky9x will end up being much better, simply because the board it runs on is so much better.

Mike.