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ST16 Controller with other devices?

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Nov 30, 2017
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Has anyone had any success binding the ST16 ground station to other radio control devices? i.e. if I were to build an RC-type car with camera mounted on it, could I utilize this controller? I don't even know where to start! I see a number of people have asked about pairing the ST16 with other drones, but I didn't see anything with regard to devices that stay on the ground. Am I just searching the threads incorrectly? TIA
 
ST16 is using 2.4GHz ZigBee as radio connection. This means you need a ZigBee receiver and a proper device to connect it to. Currently I do not know a working solution. I think about a Raspberry Pi with an SR24 receiver. Maybe I'm going creazy and set-up such a project sometimes.

But also another cheep ZigBee stick could be used (with lower range of course). I'm pretty sure, there is not plug&play solution.
It would be worth to check if the SR24 will be connected to S-BUS mainboards and if so, what happens. I didn't test this.

For the camera connection the ST16 is listening for a WiFi hotspot with IP-address 192.168.42.1. But there is a very limited capability to select a camera.

br HE
 
The ST16 was designed to be used with the typhoon H. To save hassle just go to a model shop and buy a RC car ready to go you get the controller with it
 
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The ST16 was designed to be used with the typhoon H to save hassle just go to a model shop and buy a RC car ready to go you get the controller with it
This was not the question. It is resonable to ask this question. The ST16 was designed to do more than control only the H480. See channel settings. The problem is that Yuneec stop that development at half way. Sad.

To come back to the original question. There are good chances to use the ST16 for other models. Q500 works, Blade 350QX works with a couple of senseless error messages that have to be ignored. And now comes the important point: The Blade 350QX was originally equpped with a Spectrum receiver and Spectrum DX4. But all Spectrum RC did work for that. A simple exchange from Spectrum to SR24 ZigBee receiver without any SW changes made it possible to use ST10 or ST16 as controller.

It stands to reason this also works with other models that have serial receivers. Spectrum receivers would be the first choice to test this.

I don't have any RC equipment other than the models mentioned above, unfortunately. So I could not test. However, this should not stop anyone from trying it.

br HE
 
Hi h-elsner well I just thought it would be a lot of hassle but I suppose if you like to tinker with stuff I tend not tinker with anything that's not broken especially when yuneec is considered lol but hope you get it sorted
This was not the question. It is resonable to ask this question. The ST16 was designed to do more than control only the H480. See channel settings. The problem is that Yuneec stop that development at half way. Sad.

To come back to the original question. There are good chances to use the ST16 for other models. Q500 works, Blade 350QX works with a couple of senseless error messages that have to be ignored. And now comes the important point: The Blade 350QX was originally equpped with a Spectrum receiver and Spectrum DX4. But all Spectrum RC did work for that. A simple exchange from Spectrum to SR24 ZigBee receiver without any SW changes made it possible to use ST10 or ST16 as controller.

It stands to reason this also works with other models that have serial receivers. Spectrum receivers would be the first choice to test this.

I don't have any RC equipment other than the models mentioned above, unfortunately. So I could not test. However, this should not stop anyone from trying it.

br HE
 
I connected the ST16 to an H920 tornado.
Everything is working. But the GPS turns off.
I did not find a solution to put it on
 
Has anyone had any success binding the ST16 ground station to other radio control devices? i.e. if I were to build an RC-type car with camera mounted on it, could I utilize this controller? I don't even know where to start! I see a number of people have asked about pairing the ST16 with other drones, but I didn't see anything with regard to devices that stay on the ground. Am I just searching the threads incorrectly? TIA


I believe it can be done, but will require some amount of programming and additional electronics, over and above normal RC-type car stuff. It isn't easy but I believe it is doable.

This thread has some information about decoding the serial protocol of the yuneec receiver.

Eventually I was able to program a microcontroller to take the output of the yuneec receiver (often found on ebay for <$10) and output a PPM signal that can be interpreted by a lot of different flight controller boards. This code could be modified to output discreet pwm signals to drive an RC car. Someone else in that thread also had some info about sniffing the zigbee signal which might make it possible to use an off the shelf zigbee module as a receiver, rather than a surplus Yuneec receiver.

I also had what appeared to be some success converting the Yuneec serial output to SBUS but I never really tested it much and never posted it. That probably wouldn't help you for a ground RC car unless it was also incorporating a flight controller board for some reason..

Controlling the camera is another challenge. The CGO3+ camera has its own serial interface that has to send out a specific initialization sequence at power up. After that it requires "Mavlink like" messages to be sent with the pan, tilt, and yaw commands. There are still a lot of messages that are sent back and forth to the camera that I don't understand, but to just move the camera this thread has some test code that seemed to work (again using an additional microcontroller):

That camera output code would need to be merged in with the receiver decode code in the other thread.

I think all the information is there, and eventually I want to get around to doing something like this myself in addition to other uses for the ST16, but who knows when.


Dylan
 
Well this project was way out of my league! Thanks for the help guys. I ended up just buying an airplane controller to control the car, pan/tilt operation and a separate camera that connects back to my phone via wi-fi. Few-hundred bucks for the whole setup and learned quite a bit about RC in the process. Fun hobby!
 
I purchased an ST16 just to mess with to see if it could be used for my helicopters and airplanes. It can, BUT.....
The receiver is not the only part needed. It plugs into the speed control module which has a control module plugged into it. All have to be present for all to work, no one piece can used separately. Best bet would be to find a real rc receiver that will communicate with the tx.
Anyone who has messed with rc knows the receiver is what everything plugs into, so where do you plug servos into on the SR24? We need to find out what receivers could be used. I wish I was wrong, I really wanted to use this for all my aircraft.
 
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You will always need a processor connected after the receiver. ST10/ST16/ST24 will send binary messages to the receiver. It is not the same as standard RC controller. Even if you find another ZigBee receiver (which I think it will not be the case) with PWM output for servos, speed controller etc. you need a programmable processor to convert binary messages to PWM signals. It is easier and cheaper to use a SR24 followed by a converter as dylanfm has done.
Modern RC receiver have the same technology (receiver + processor) in one case.

br HE
 
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