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After having lots of annoying little issues with goggles (dead pixels, b/w occasionally when not on the other monitor, etc etc) , I've decided I just want a nice big LCD screen for FPV. I tried a few flights with my little 7 inch monitor on my base station, and I was pleasantly surprised how well it worked out. So the hunt for a nice 12 volt monitor began.

I went through every option I could find online, looked at a few made for car video installs and RV applications, and in the end I just got fed up with my options and went to Target. I went back to the electronics dept. and turned around every TV I thought may work, and my suspicion was correct, there were 2 on the shelf that had an external 12 volt power supply! One was a VIZIO 19 inch LED LCD TV, and was rated at only 3amps! (most I found in this size used more like 70 watts/ ~5 amps @12 volts) I decided to go for it largely based on the fact I could take it back easily if it gave me issues (namely I was worried about the blue screen issues). Upon getting it home I was very happy to find it will show ALL the static from my FPV plane In fact, if I turn off the vtx entirely it will show "snow" for about 3 seconds before going to blue, and the moment I plug in the power to the vtx it starts to show the image even as the camera is still powering up! I was very happy to also find it only pulls 1.5 amps in actual use with a 12 volt (3s lipo) battery, and the screen works with no problem down to 10.5 volts. When the voltage gets too low its starts to flicker for a while before it actually shuts down. I was able to mount it into an old case I had with 4mm screws and spacers... I'm very excited to get out and fly with it!!!!

Hi Aaron!
Thanks for your interesting report!

Your tripod ground station looks great, too! Please tell me, how much does it weight?

I finally got out in between the rain storms and got a flight in with my new monitor, check it out! The monitor is powered by a 3s 3200 mAh pack, which I figure can easily give me an hour, probably over 2 safely with the low draw.

My base station has an old DVD/7 inch monitor which I hacked all the DVD parts from, and flipped it and turned the base around so its a flat screen. It weights under 8 pounds all up on the tripod, and I record with a RJ tech PVR (eh... its only so so, It kills a lot of my video quality). Everything is powered from two 3s 2100 mAh packs in parallel, Video comes from an eagle eyes with two digitally tuned cheap Chinese vrx's (they will pick up anything from 900 to 1300 with the right antenna!), one with a vertical dipole, and the other with a horizontally polarized 8dbi patch. I figured I would get better range with the patch even with it out of polarization, and if I have it horizontally polarized the image will improve when I turn to come home... I dunno how well that works, but so far its doing pretty well for me (been out to 3000 feet without any sign of trouble). I'm using this video combo
http://www.bestofferbuy.com/av-wireless-...15758.html
and this camera
http://www.securitycamera2000.com/produc...01Lux.html

Oh man , That look's like the thing . Nice !

Wow, looks very professional! I really enjoy your video

(05-21-2010 06:57 PM)aaronredbaron Wrote: [ -> ]After having lots of annoying little issues with goggles (dead pixels, b/w occasionally when not on the other monitor, etc etc) , I've decided I just want a nice big LCD screen for FPV. I tried a few flights with my little 7 inch monitor on my base station, and I was pleasantly surprised how well it worked out. So the hunt for a nice 12 volt monitor began.

I went through every option I could find online, looked at a few made for car video installs and RV applications, and in the end I just got fed up with my options and went to Target. I went back to the electronics dept. and turned around every TV I thought may work, and my suspicion was correct, there were 2 on the shelf that had an external 12 volt power supply! One was a VIZIO 19 inch LED LCD TV, and was rated at only 3amps! (most I found in this size used more like 70 watts/ ~5 amps @12 volts) I decided to go for it largely based on the fact I could take it back easily if it gave me issues (namely I was worried about the blue screen issues). Upon getting it home I was very happy to find it will show ALL the static from my FPV plane In fact, if I turn off the vtx entirely it will show "snow" for about 3 seconds before going to blue, and the moment I plug in the power to the vtx it starts to show the image even as the camera is still powering up! I was very happy to also find it only pulls 1.5 amps in actual use with a 12 volt (3s lipo) battery, and the screen works with no problem down to 10.5 volts. When the voltage gets too low its starts to flicker for a while before it actually shuts down. I was able to mount it into an old case I had with 4mm screws and spacers... I'm very excited to get out and fly with it!!!!

I'm thinking of doing a similar setup.. Have you seen any larger monitors??
Do they have those monitors up to 25"??

Thanks

Aaron figured you might like this! 3D printed my own custom TV mount for the tripod.

Now I just need to make it portable with lipos.

Can you offer some advice as to what you did with the connector to the TV and what size lipo you run yours with and run times? (Perhaps you upgraded from the 3200mah or know more about run times now?)

The 200mw system I got from HK stinks so now I need to upgrade to something better because I can't really even drive my trucks around the yard without the feed going crazy.

This is the combo I got:
http://hobbycity.com/hobbyking/store/uh_...amera_NTSC

The RX looks the same as yours from your previous link. Do I need to upgrade the TX to get more range or both the RX and the TX?

Looking great team222badbrad!

3D printed? Please tell us more

(10-06-2010 11:11 PM)Grandcaravan Wrote: [ -> ]Looking great team222badbrad!

3D printed? Please tell us more

I own and operate my own 3d printing company. (Will send you details in PM if you want.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPtkOmP_HoA

I designed the mount on my computer and basically "grew" the TV mount on a 3d printer.

I have also a lot of problem with my tx and i use a 850mw
Its all about tracking and diversity to get it good.
When i look at your video it isn't that bad for 200 mw with a 3dbi antenne.

How is the image of you 19"in the light.
I use a 17" tft vga monitor but its bad in the light