A Suggestion

[MMESSITER]

I have a suggestion for a new chip:
For the last three years, I have been flying RC Models controlled by my “LockDownRadioControl” radio which uses a Teensy 4.0 in the receiver plus a MLO1SP4, which is a chip from EBYTE that incorporates the NRF24L01 plus. The combination is fabulous. It just works - up to two kilometres away. But it’s slightly too large for the very tiny models.

So my suggestion is, rather as someone once did with an Arduino nano, perhaps a chip could be built which would incorporate both a Teensy 4.0 as well as an NRF24L01 for communication? That would facilitate really tiny RC receivers that work really well!

 

[BriComp]

Do you mean a chip or a PCB assembly?

 

[MMESSITER]

Do you mean a chip or a PCB assembly?

I mean a tiny circuit board with all the needed bits on! - instead of two boards. Pardon me - I was unclear earlier.

 

[MarkT]

That's a recipe for a rather deaf radio. Keep transceivers away from heavy EMI (such as a 600MHz processor), best to be on a separate PCB, and screened from it. The RF noise floor can be as low as a few nanovolts from an empty sky at a low baud rate.

 

[MMESSITER]

That's a recipe for a rather deaf radio. Keep transceivers away from heavy EMI (such as a 600MHz processor), best to be on a separate PCB, and screened from it. The RF noise floor can be as low as a few nanovolts from an empty sky at a low baud rate.

Fair point! Hadn’t thought of that. Currently these are rather well separated- and the EByte transceivers put a full Faraday cage around the nRF24L01 too. I suppose that’d be harder on a smaller scale.
I’ll live with things as they are - working rather well!

 

[MarkT]

BTW range depends on bandwidth and wavelength too, 2.4GHz isn't the best frequency for long range with its fairly short wavelength, and being full of WiFi and microwave ovens, but line-of-sight is the easiest situation with no path losses other than inverse-square.

 

[MMESSITER]

Indeed - I’m quite surprised it works so well. Modellers expect FHSS between 2.401 and 2.482 GHz so that’s what I did. The Teensy 4.x is so quick my code need not be terribly clever. It’s plenty fast enough! The needed range is really only to the limit of eyesight. We must see the model to control it. Hence 2km is plenty. I can’t see a model clearly even at 1 km!