Posted: 10/15/13
First Person View or "FPV" as it's known in it's simplest form is the act of transmitting a video camera signal from an RC vehicle to a video receiver and viewing that video in goggles or on a video monitor to control the vehicle from the perspective of the driver.We recently teamed up with "CaliDave" and avid FPV'er on a ground based FPV vehicle build featuring our Axial Wraiths to see what kind of FPV fun he could come up with using the stock setups.
Here are his build notes:
For this build I wanted to setup a basic yet fun FPV system on the Axial Wraith since it's such a cool truck and already features a very realistic inside cab and dash. I picked the GoPro camera since it can both record in HD and send the live feed out for the FPV link, and it features a nice wide angle lens that makes for a great perspective inside the Wraith cab.
I worked with Tim @ www.ReadyMadeRC.com to design a camera mount plate that would fit onto the Wraith to hold the GoPro (or other cameras) firm onto the truck to handle the sometimes bumpy ride, and we came up with something that works perfect for a camera mount either just to add a GoPro for simple recording, or for full on FPV.
On the truck side it was setup with the GoPro linked to the ImmersionRC 5.8G 600mw video transmitter and Circular Wireless (CW) Skew Planar antenna to help improve the video link quality cruising around on the ground.
That signal was sent to a 5.8G wireless receiver module using another CW Skew antenna on some FatShark Dominator goggles where I could see the video from the Wraith to drive it.
The 5.8G setup was clean and concise and the small Circular Wireless antenna were easy to tuck under the roll bars to protect them from roll overs.
This made for a "grab and go" setup with the FPV enabled Wraith, radio and goggles… that's it!
Once running in FPV the Wraith was a blast challenging myself to hill climbs and trail running, and even some short course like fun just to try it out.
I also built up a second Wraith kit version and did a custom paint job honoring ReadyMadeRC as a sponsor along with Axial and hit the road for some tandem FPV action with the trucks.
The Wraith's perform great and driving from inside the cab is a total blast. If you've not tried FPV, you should check it out for your ground vehicle. It's a ton of fun challenging yourself with the new driving perspective alone or with friends.
Check out the video! This is exactly what I see while driving the vehicle...
You can get all the featured FPV gear and camera mounting kit from ReadyMadeRC
You can also check more pics, build info and links to the components here
To check out more FPV awesomeness, please visit GroundStationTV
Special thanks to the folks at Axial for the Wraith trucks and support on the build!
-CaliDave
