Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Cheap OSD for the FPV Quad

I wanted some type of On Screen Display (OSD) for my first try at a FPV aircraft. Knowing your flight pack voltage and direction to home would be very helpful. I just didn't want to spend a ton of money on one.

So, I ordered the Hobbyking G-OSD II.



Roughly $40, so not too expensive, and it seemed to have the basic capabilities I was looking for. Plus, there exists a community out there that has some aftermarket software to improve the capabilities. Stock it doesn't have a "return to home" arrow- but the free CL-OSD software does. The trick is that the re-flashing process takes a bit of hacking to do. The G-OSD unit from Hobbyking doesn't come with a pre-installed header to attach your AVR programmer. To get around this, you have to cut off the head shrink and solder your own header in place to a set of small solder pads on the circuit board. I'll find out shortly if my soldering skills are up to the task! 

See SubSonicHobby's post here

And the full CL-OSD page here

Solder Pad labels from CL-OSD wiki
So, I eagerly cut open the package for the G-OSD, and guess what? The actual G-OSD unit is missing! Great Q/C, Hobbyking. The cables, manual, and GPS unit were all there but that's it. Hopefully Hobbyking's customer service will move faster than their usual glacial pace.

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