October 16, Friday

Our new Caddx Tarsier v2 camera just arrived and we tested it out. According to the manual provided, there were a few ways of powering the camera:

  1. Soldering a connection to a 4.2V battery,
  2. Connecting it to a 5-12V power source via the cable given
  3. Connecting to a 5-12V power source via the USB port in the camera

We tested out Option 3 at home, where the camera was connected to a plug via the USB port. However, when contemplating on what power source to use when mounting the camera on the blimp, we eliminated Option 1 which was to solder a connection to a 1S battery since the manual specify the changes to the camera’s functionality if the voltage supplied drops below 4.2V. Additionally, we did not want to use a 2S battery for Option 2 as the 2S batteries available to us were very heavy. The best option we thought of was Option 3 – connecting the camera to a powerbank via a USB cable. This would allow for a constant input voltage of 5V. Luckily, Tony had a functioning lightweight powerbank (56g) that he was willing to let us use. We subsequently mounted the camera and the powerbank above the camera to the front of the blimp temporarily using tape.

Powerbank holder

A new battery holder, in this case, power bank holder, was designed and printed afterwards. It has a half-covered bottom such that the USB port is available for access closer to the camera.

Later in the day, we ran into further complications. When we tested out the circuitry in the morning, all the motors were working fine. However, when they were tested again in the afternoon with no changes to the circuit at all, the receiver turned off just a few seconds after the throttle was turned on. Even after disconnecting and reconnecting the circuit, the receiver failed to light up at all. As we had previously faced a similar issues, where we then proceeded to resolder the wires, we thought that the issue was no longer due to the connections of the wires. We figured that there was an issue with the ESC, and that we would probably need to abandon it in favour of one of the spare ESCs we had just purchased. We decided that we would change the ESC the next time we meet.