WiFi FPV on Heng Long tanks?

[Beeg]

It’s a shame, because the picture is impressive. This is a still. The video is of this quality, but maybe 20 FPS.

Is there a setting for lower resolution? If there is I'd think you could increase your frame rate with less lag...

[Toad5150]

Welcome to squawk fluup . Its an excellent FPV set that I think you will enjoy. Loved it on my tanks. More info on this video

Hello everyone, I am new and just bought a 6.0 M1A2 promotion model with the steel gearbox, tracks, drive gear and idler wheel. Looking to do a bunch of upgrades over time including the full metal chassis with torsion. As for right now I am trying to find a decent little FPV camera like the one in this video that I can get a phone receiver for (not a goggles guy yet) Does Heng Long sell upgrade FPV options? I am very well versed in electronics, but just getting into RC's specifically and looking to do the upgrades myself. can anyone recommend a good camera or receiver for the camera in the video?

[karltrek]

Was disappointed with the range. Not with the FPV but rather the tanks. They are low power RC systems so 60 to 80 feet is all you get before the tank stops.

Here was my system set up on my King Tiger.

[SoCalBobS]

Nice King Tiger. Maybe I need one!

I put this FPV setup on my Abrams. i use a one cell battery, which keeps the unit from getting too warm, but limits its range to.....wait for it....60 to 80 feet, same as the radios!

[karltrek]

Nice King Tiger. Maybe I need one!

What!? You don't have one?

[SoCalBobS]

What!? You don't have one?

You're so cruel! 🤣 But then I'd have to get a KV-1 for an adversary, 🤔 but I'd want it to be a KV-2 or a KV-85. If the latter, I'd have to take the 85 turret from my T-34, then I'd have to get a 76 turret for it..and..and...and...stop me! 🤩

[oldwolf]

I just got toucan hobby's fpv camera attachment for HL tanks. It wasn't in their US stock so their predicted arrival time was March 29. Astonishingly, it arrived yesterday!
I set it up in my Challenger 2's driver position. It fit right in and was easy to temporarily secure with blue tac. Completely plug and play for instalation. Camera is tiny, less than pinky fingernail size. The small size does mean it doesn't gather a lot of light. Driving the chally around on the floor of my basement hobby area gave a pretty dark picture but it certainly was drivable using just the picture on my ipad 7. Up in brighter parts of the house it was fine. Outdoors should be no problem at all.
I shot down some paper targets with the airsoft with the tank in the next room. Wifi range faded out about 12 meters away, through two intervening walls. Very little lag. Watching the laser sight red dot appear was mostly a 1 second delay, sometimes two.
I am hoping to put another fpv camera in the commanders sight on the turret and run two cameras. I asked the toucan folks if a second camera will interfere with the first and they said not usually but it can. I have another on order and will experiment. Speaking of interference, there is occasional, momentary interference with the hl transmitter controlling the tank. Once in a while the tank starts to move on its own for a fraction of a second. It hasn't moved more than half an inch but I can hear it start to for just a moment. It is probably not a good idea to place your tank on a table top with the wifi turned on. Fortunately, as far as I have seen, the wifi defaults back to off when tye tank is shut down and must be specifically turned back on the next time the tank is started.

I will post more as I experiment more.

[oldwolf]

A bit more experimentation with the fpv camera. Facing double, sliding, all glass patio doors with dim sun on fresh snow outside made other objects in the room rather dim until I turned the tank away from the bright light. Color seen through the camera is on the warm side, white surfaces being yellow toned.

I tried a small combat scenario using a legodei tank mine set up as an anti-tank gun in a bunker. To make the tank mine hard to kill I attached a 2.5 inch black plastic tube over the IR receiver that registers hits on the tank mine. This forces an attacking tank to have to fire pretty close to right down the "barrel" when trying to knock out the tank mine in the bunker. This forced the tank to maneuver for a clear shot within the bunker"s motion sensing and effective fire range. I ran the entire combat using the fpv camera. The tank started in the dining room, the bunker with the tank mine was set up in the great room and I sat on a couch in the living room, between the two. I sat so that the tank and bunker were entirely out of sight for the entire engagement. There was no problem driving from dining room, through living room and into the great room. Maneuvering for a clear shot at the bunker was challenging. Especially since the tank had to operate more like an assault gun with the fpv camera in the drivers view slot. The bunker managed to kill my tank once. Note that this is something that essentially never happens with bunker vs human, standing, god-like, looking down on the tank and bunker. So much more interesting trying to operate down at floor level while looking out through the drivers viewport!

At the point that my tank was killed I discovered that the fpv wifi gets shut off when the tank is killed. To me, this is great. It forced a much longer delay before being able to essentially respawn to continue the engagement. Recconecting the wifi is entirely done with transmitter and smart phone, so no need to obtrusively walk up to the tank but it enforces enough time and effort before restarting to make it clear the tank really lost. Upon getting things up and running again I was able to maneuver into position to kill the bunker while only taking a few more hits. Definitely the best solo combat scenario I have been able to set up so far.

[UltraVargen]

Sounds like you had a great experience!

Wifi to me means internet. Does it actually use your cell's internet connection somehow or does it just mean that it has a direct connection to your cell using a wifi signal?

Edit: Ah from your second post I gather the latter.

[oldwolf]

Sounds like you had a great experience!

Wifi to me means internet. Does it actually use your cell's internet connection somehow or does it just mean that it has a direct connection to your cell using a wifi signal?

Edit: Ah from your second post I gather the latter.

The fpv camera and its attendant small circuit boards seem to act as a wifi network that you can connect to by opening settings and then wifi on your phone or tablet. Then you just choose that network and once your phone or ipad, etc has connected you just open the app that you have down loaded and press the start icon. Assuming a second camera doesnt cause problems, I think I will use my ipad for the tank commanders camera and my iphone for the drivers camera.

[Rubicon99]

The fpv camera and its attendant small circuit boards seem to act as a wifi network that you can connect to by opening settings and then wifi on your phone or tablet. Then you just choose that network and once your phone or ipad, etc has connected you just open the app that you have down loaded and press the start icon. Assuming a second camera doesnt cause problems, I think I will use my ipad for the tank commanders camera and my iphone for the drivers camera.

Hay guys the FPV is a great topic but would be better served discussed in a separate thread of its own. Hidden in this thread many folks will not see it. So how about starting a new thread specifically for FPV and moving the conversation there.

[oldwolf]

Hay guys the FPV is a great topic but would be better served discussed in a separate thread of its own. Hidden in this thread many folks will not see it. So how about starting a new thread specifically for FPV and moving the conversation there.

Maybe all we covered on fpv here would be better moved to the thread that socalbob linked to above. But I have no clue how to do that.

[oldwolf]

Posting my next post on fpv cameras in my HL Challenger 2 here. The right place this time. Hopefully an admin will eventually get the other related posts transferred to this thread so all is in one spot.

My second tiny fpv camera arrived and I installed it in the tank commander's primary sight. It fits in quite nicely. I now have the commanders view on my ipad and the driver's view on my iphone. Looks to be laggier with the two cameras running but no noticeable interference between the two. Combat between two tanks using this set up would likely be a comedy of errors but I think it could be done. Not that I know anyone nearby that is into the hobby, lol. For solo scenarios I am likely to set up when the weather improves this should work fine.

One thing I notice is that one of the circuit boards attached to the cameras has a flashing red light when it is running. The first one I set up is buried in the hull and out of sight. There are enough openings in the turret for the light to noticeably leak out and be a bit annoying. Sometime I will have to open up the turret again and cover the light. Not right away though, tomorrow I will experiment some more. Fun stuff.

edit: wow, they got moved already. Great work admins!

[UltraVargen]

oldwolf Sounds like great fun. Is there the option to record the incoming video footage?

[oldwolf]

oldwolf Sounds like great fun. Is there the option to record the incoming video footage?

I think so, at least there is a symbol on screen that looks like a video camera. I am guessing it records video when pressed. One more thing to experiment with. :-)

[SoCalBobS]

oldwolf Sounds like great fun. Is there the option to record the incoming video footage?

I tried that, but could never find the file! of course, on an iPhone it's nearly impossible anyway.

[oldwolf]

Here are a couple pictures showing how unobtrusive the cameras I am using are. One in the drivers view port and the other in the commanders primary sight. The actual lens is only about 3 mm across, so it could probably hide behind an opening that small if needed.

[oldwolf]

I tried that, but could never find the file! of course, on an iPhone it's nearly impossible anyway.

I tried taking a video and it worked fine. To my utter astonishment, the first time I tried it asked for permission to put the video in with my photos on my ipad and there it was when I went to watch it. Like you, I had expected it to be un-findable! Later on I will post one. Not the rambling mess i made just trying it out.

[UltraVargen]

Those are indeed very small. Looking forward to seeing some footage. Very curious about the quality.

[oldwolf]

Those are indeed very small. Looking forward to seeing some footage. Very curious about the quality.

I get an error when trying to upload a video. Here is a simple pic from tank commanders camera to give an idea of picture quality. FOV is pretty narrow.