Hey @freefoil looks very interesting. Is that 3d printed Gen2 style? Could you share some more details on the build?
Also, do you mind sharing what is the full white board model on the 1st pic?
Thanks,
Jordi
Yip 3d printed in petg. 2 piece system, sealed battery plugs into ESC/mast mount.
All electronics potted.
I will post photos at some point of the bottom side if anyone is interested.
The white board is a midlength I made a few months back for myself. Its 5’9 x 18.5 x 65 liters.
Yup please, post as many pics as possible.
Wanna open a thread about creating a Gen2 and I’ve gone a slightly different route with ali casing. Would be nice to compare all ideas on the forum!
Thanks,
Jordi
Also built an under board setup and have connectivity issues too. Solved them by having a longer antenna, going to top of board
Yes thats my plan now. Gonna get a U.fl to SMA connector and have an external antenna permanently mounted to my boards that plug into the sma each time i set up.
Seriously curious how FD got there system to use your board as an antenna. I had a patch antenna radiating out into the tracks but obviously wasn’t reliable enough.
Hi,
LoRa module at 433Mhz improves the behavior in the water, but is NOT the magic solution in all conditions.
In my project of remote controller I have implemented the parallel trasmition of throttle value by the double channel. On the sd card of the receiver the program take note about this every second, and you can analyze the result of ride. Generally the number of signal lose of the 2.4GHz is more than 433MHz.
But to be clear with you I suggest to improve your system by a good antenna.
I tried to make a double passive antenna with succes, not directly connected with internal receiver
In your application with the box under water, I suggest to try to make a coaxial cable with 2,4ghz antennas in both sides. One antenna in contact with the box (on the side where is located the internal antenna ) and the other one on the nose of the board, where you can bring near the controller. The system works much better during the take off with water and waves that cover the board.
By this way the propagation of the radio waves is improved by the easy trasmition line very close to the transimtter and receiver
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This idea with antenna to antenna and no connector seems like a very interesting thing to try. @freefoil how confident are you with a antenna connector and water?
Thanks for your response,
I actually did try make a passive antenna repeater. I bought one of those car antenna kits and cut off the sma connector and stripped the shield back exposing about 28.5mm of active element i then ran that into the tracks and printed a TPU block that slid into the track system perfectly. The active element was hot glued into a slot of the tpu block to keep it right at surface level with board. This passively butted against the 2.4ghz pcb antenna of the receiver that is positioned over the track.
It definitely made some difference but not enough to not get drop out while trying to get on foil. As soon as the signal drops out it failsafes and I go flying over the nose.
I might try reposition the pcb antenna and use a dipole instead to the middle between the tracks. I will then route out a hole in the matching area of the board to remove the carbon and fill it with glass instead. Same on the deck at the nose.
See my post above on success of repeater. For the connector under water I cant see it being too big of an issue. Its not like theres current that will short. I dunno
I suggest you to try with 32mm of exposing of active element on cable with impedance of 50 ohm.
cheers
Thanks I will give that a go and report back.
FD gen2 users continue to face connectivity issues, despite the company’s bold claims. They’ve resorted to inventing their own workarounds, and one of their main criteria when choosing a board is whether it will provide reliable connectivity.
This situation has shifted the focus of equipment selection: now, choosing foil sport equipment revolves around foil-assist capabilities, rather than the original purpose of assisting foiling.
Everyone has similar problems with full carbon tracks like Armstrong and signal penetration.
I wonder if FD is using diversity dual antennas on their rx’s to get good penetration into the board.
I think the reason for the track foam inserts is to create a seal and force the signal to go into the board instead of escaping.
Some folks have even poured expanding foam into the bolt slots of the FD base unit to create a seal. Apparently this improved connectivity significantly.
is to displace water where the signal suffers a large loss, thus enabling a low-loss path through the board.
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Thanks that totally makes sense.
Someone reported having to fill their carry handle up with foam to get a good connection which confirms what you are saying.