Hello, can someone please help me out? I started working on a custom standalone thermal camera for the mavic 3 and I’m having a little bit of trouble getting the camera to work with my fpv monitor.
As a test, I tried connecting this axis flying 640 thermal camera to the av in port of my 3d robotics monitor. I used an aux cable that I spliced to connect the cameras video wire to the monitor and its ground/power wires to a lipo battery.
When everything was connected, I just heard a clicking noise coming from the camera, and it started to warm up, but no picture on the monitor itself. I switched through different channels but no thermal picture in any.There was only a red light on the pass through board. It did briefly display a blue light a couple of times. But I had to hold the wires up to the battery a certain way to get that blue light to come up. Even when that blue light came on i didnt see the picture on the monitor change. I believe this board is to allow you to run the daytime and thermal camera simultaneously. I tried connecting the camera to the monitor without the board and had the same issue. I also tried running the daytime fpv camera as a test using the same configuration but I couldn’t get that to work either.
I have some other parts that may help in getting me set up? I have a raspberry pi, a black sheep video transmitter and receiver. Can i get the camera communicating with the monitor with that hardware?
Can someone please help? I’ve watched some videos to try and understand how to set this up, but there’s always slightly different hardware configurations or some information is skipped. I’m completely new at this so any help would be appreciated.
I’m not very knowledgeable about FPV, but your project is intriguing! I’m currently designing a bracket to allow the DJI Mini 4K to use the Mini 4 Pro camera. Please keep us updated—I’d love to see your progress.
@Laken
I’m curious about how that will work! Isn’t the Mini 4 Pro camera significantly heavier than the 4K’s gimbal? Wouldn’t that affect balance and battery life?
Ren said: @Laken
I’m curious about how that will work! Isn’t the Mini 4 Pro camera significantly heavier than the 4K’s gimbal? Wouldn’t that affect balance and battery life?
The camera on the Mini 4K has a bulkier mounting bracket compared to the Mini 4 Pro. The Pro is only slightly wider, so I just need to extend the dampener mounting points. It fits well physically with little extra weight. Both drones have the same takeoff weight, so the difference isn’t much. I just need to find a way to force the drone to recognize the new camera.
@Laken
How do you plan to make the Mini 4 Pro camera work? The core board isn’t compatible with the 4’s gimbal or camera assembly. Installing Mini 4 internals is pricey and heavy.
Barrett said: @Laken
How do you plan to make the Mini 4 Pro camera work? The core board isn’t compatible with the 4’s gimbal or camera assembly. Installing Mini 4 internals is pricey and heavy.
I have to sort out the software; I’m essentially writing it from scratch to get everything to work. It isn’t functional yet, but I believe it will be eventually. This is just a project to explore my capabilities with no set end goal, haha.
@Laken
Yeah, the connectors just aren’t compatible. The Mini 4 Pro uses a two-in-one ribbon cable, which is vastly different from the two smaller ribbons used by the Mini 4K for the gimbal and camera. What you are trying to do is like putting an excavator engine in a Corolla.
@Barrett
I’ve figured out how to mount it with minimal alterations. The ribbon cable can be spliced, provided you have a wiring schematic. It’ll be soldered directly to the board, bypassing the connector. It might be a bit heavier by a couple of grams in the front.
@Laken
Whatever, man! Update me on how it goes. I just hope it doesn’t end up on the marketplace as a failed project for like $200. You realize you’ll need to reprogram the whole flight controller and ESC to support the gimbal, right? Unless you have some secret software that can modify the core and effectively turn it into a Mini 4 board, it’s impossible. DJI isn’t keen on people tinkering with their products.
Laken said: @Barrett
Dude, relax! I have the resources to experiment. I just like tinkering with things.
I don’t mean to be rude, but this seems like a very difficult challenge. If you manage to pull it off, you’d have to be a genius or something. I’d be blown away if it worked.
I was able to get the camera working last night.(screenshot of it working above)Got a pretty decent picture and connection was steady.
I rewired the aux cable so that its ground wire is combined with the negative wire from the camera. I’m going to order some pin connectors so that I don’t have to hold the wires to the battery by hand. But yeah, it’s working
Now that I have confirmed the camera to be working, I will try to set up a wireless connection next.
The issue likely lies with the connection or monitor settings, especially since the camera heats up but shows no image. Make sure the power supply is between 3-5V and use an RCA cable for video connection. The evidence suggests selecting AV IN mode on the monitor to display the camera feed. To connect your Axis Flying 640 thermal camera to the 3D Robotics monitor, ensure a 1S LiPo battery supplies the camera with 3-5V. Connect the camera’s video output wire to the center pin of an RCA plug and the ground wire to the outer part, then plug it into the monitor’s AV input (yellow RCA). Set the monitor to AV IN mode, and remember that thermal cameras may require time to calibrate. Check the monitor for a MODE button to select inputs, as it may have defaulted to built-in receiver mode. This is essential if changing channels didn’t help, as channels typically refer to wireless reception, not AV input. Thermal cameras often click during calibration, which is normal, but it might take a minute to see the image after powering on. Let me know if I can help!
You have all the parts to make it work, assuming the camera isn’t fried. I doubt the spliced AUX cable will work; it took me 30 minutes at Microcenter to find the proper analog video (RCA?) dongle. It’s almost identical to a normal AUX cable, but I think it has an extra section on the pin or maybe one less.
