Slashdot Mirror
Windows CE R/C Transmitter
Si24601 writes "Futaba has released details of a new radio transmitter, the 14MZ, that incorporates a 640x240 colour touch screen, runs Window CE and uses a Compact Flash card. As someone in the midst of building a semi-autonomous model yacht, this screams to be used for telemetry feedback. Fly RC Magazine has a review of the 14MZ."
Marty: "you've got that thing hooked up to the...car?"
My only question is can I stick a digicam on my gas powered R/C plane, and get the live video feed from it right there on the R/C controller?
The possibilities boggle me (somewhat evil) mind...
Why do I need a GUI on a device that requires that I dedicate my full attention to something *else*.
If I am watching the screen, my aircraft is headed for the lake.
Not everything electronic in the world needs a display.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Music can be played (Windows Media), and voice commands can be assigned to switches, e.g., "flaps up"
:)
I would find it incredibly distracting trying to fly my plane and hear someone nearby have "what's your vector Victor" come out of their remote control everytime it updates the screen
Wow, this sounds really nice. It's not uncommon to use one controller for many R/C devices. Normally you'd create a profile for each R/C device you intend to control, then switch profiles using an special interface or switching cartridges. Hopefully this will allow improvements to the management/switching of these profiles.
1. This thing runs WinCE?
2. Why WinCE? Linux could do so much better.
3. Anyone try this with a modded Linux XBox?
4. Why Linux? BSD could do so much better.
5. Why BSD? BSOD could do so much better.
6. In Korea, only old people BSOD.
7. In Soviet Russia, BSOD blue screens you!
8. Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these!
9. Profit!
Well, not really because it has two processors: one fore Windows CE and non-critical processes. The other is made by Futaba and controls flying the plane.
The SmartYacht detects the R/C Coast Guard helicopter and knows how to outrun the R/C Coast Guard cutter as it races the miniature illegal drugs to the 2" high drug lord standing on the shore.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Ouch. When it screams, I WinCE.
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
As someone in the midst of building a semi-autonomous model yacht, this screams to be used for telemetry feedback.
As someone who has read that sentence six times and still has no idea what it is you're exactly trying to do, I wish you the best of luck with the Windows CE installation.
Now you won't only be crashing because of wind, visibility, or crashing into another plane (didn't happen to me personally, but happened at the club I belong to, and I was there), but now your RADIO can crash too!!
I can't see this as a good thing. I'll stick with my older Futaba radio. It does what I need, and has never shown me a blue screen of death.
Erioll
Flying Model Airplanes for 9 years
TowerHobbies (www.towerhobbies.com) had this listed yesterday for a little over $2k. A little pricey for me. As a long time rc pilot, I love the features. Give it 5 years and every computer radio will have this kind of technology.
In any event, the most useful R/C plane telemetry generally isn't visual -- it's audible. You're too busy looking up at your plane to watch a display on your radio (looking at your radio while flying is a recipe for losing your plane), but a variable pitch tone that's telling you if your glider is gaining or losing altitude can be very useful in determining if you're still in that thermal. Full scale glider pilots use the same system, but of course in that case it's not done via radio.
Again, looking at your radio in flight is very bad, especially if several people are flying at once or your plane is way up there. MANY times somebody has looked down at their radio for some reason, and looked back up and never found their plane again. Or looked back up, found their plane, and kept flying it for a while longer but then realized that it wasn't obeying their controls anymore. (Eventually, they learned that they `found' the wrong plane up in the sky and that their plane had crashed shortly after and they didn't even notice, because they were `flying' something else.)
So, instead of yelling, "Dead stick!" you'll be yelling, "Blue screen!"
Too late to be known as Bush the First, he's sure to be known as Bush the Worst.
My only question is can I stick a digicam on my gas powered R/C plane, and get the live video feed from it right there on the R/C controller?
As I read it this is strictly a transmitter. There's no receive channel. The whole second processor/WinCE/display business is just control-panel candy, utterly useless for any feedback (though perhaps handy for giving you information on reconfiguring the controls or what they're INTENDED to do on the craft you're currently controlling.)
So no remote-vision. No "semi-autonomous yacht" either, unless you are willing to run it with no feedback from it.
It may make it easier to operate the controls, automate some standard complex functions (i.e. "pull out of spin" button), or synthesize controls that do coordinated operations on multiple control surfaces. But that's about it.
If it DID have a return channel - especially a TV image from a forward-looking camera - that would be a quantum leap. (Such a channel could carry a lot of telemetry back, too, and could easily be augmented to do just about anything you wanted.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I fly with an RD8000 http://www.airtronics.net/RD8000.htm/ which can be bought for less than $300 including a _complete_ flight pack.
My RD8000 can do just about any imaginable mix for aircraft and helicopter use you can think of. If you really need a step up from there the Airtronics Stylus, JR 10X, Futaba 9Z are great, then there is the Multiplex truly high end.
I see the 14MZ as a flashy, marketing exersize so Futaba can claim to be an industry leader again. Most people flying R/C recognize Futaba as a good sport radio but JR is what all the top national pilots fly (unless they are sponsored). I would argue that there are features that even Hitec and Airtronics offer above Futaba, features that Futaba still does not incorporate.
Such as, you say: My Airtronics can transmit to _any_ brand 72mhz receiver, positive or negative shift, PCM or PPM. Hitec has an option to _easily_ change the frequency you are going to transmit on.
Bottom line, there is a lot more to radios than a fancy color screen. If you want that, add a USB uplink to your radio and have it programmable via a PC, liek the high end JR equipment.
WinCE interface is a gimick - IMO
...yup...