tinyOSD — 0.4g / full betaflight integration / early preview demo

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you.

By | May 24, 2017

The last weeks have been quite busy, the move is still not completed and most of my gear is still in cardboard boxes — phew…

Nevertheless I found some time to work on my tinyOSD project. Once assembled this thing weights only 0.4g. The best part: It does not use this glowing hot max7456 chipset! Instead of wasting 120mA idle current as the max7456, my board draws ~10mA under full load. The current prototype measures ~11 x 11mm.

Keep in mind that this is an early prototype. Custom animations and pilot logos work, the sticks can be rendered nicely as an overlay and I can fit at least 35 x 13 characters on the screen using my custom font. I wrote some preliminary betaflight integration code, you can already do all the stuff that you are used to do with the recent integrated osd solutions. The thing will be easy to integrate, the only connection required is a single uart port.

I just uploaded a short demonstration on my youtube channel:

The recording/youtube compression makes it look quite bad, it looks way better inside the goggles. Future revisions will also fix some flickering issues.

This OSD is just a small step to the main project: A 16x16mm OSD/VTX combination with full betaflight integration, channel selection and pitmode. I have some more fancy stuff in the works — stay tuned for more!

24 thoughts on “tinyOSD — 0.4g / full betaflight integration / early preview demo

  1. Victor Johansen

    I am very interested in this. Even just the osd would be great. Any idea when we might buy one? I just love what you are doing. You are taking Tiny Whoops to a whole new level. As soon as I can get a few bucks together I’ll get the 2S ESC. One thing where can I get the 2mm screws and the standoffs. I’ll look through you BOMs to see if I can find them. Also if I add the OSD to the stack does it come with long enough screws. Thanks again.

    Reply
    1. fishpepper Post author

      I bought my screws on aliexpress.com. Search for M2 nylon screws.

      Reply
  2. Luca

    So are you using a sync separator as well as and F0? or can it all be done with just the single chip? To create blacks are you using a FET to ground, or is there some other way to do it?

    I’ve been looking at non-character based osds recently and then you post this!

    Reply
  3. Fernandez

    Maybe all external, could be hooked over SPI bus to the main CPU, and configured betaflight?
    CC2500, Midelic released code, so betaflight firmware control the SPI direct, no more sbus. Also he mention the cc2500 is smaller than cc2510.
    For the Richwave VTX, to control the PLL, could also be over SPI direct to main cpu, (and save a button?). (I think has been done code exist)
    Than use one UART for the OSD!
    I like you projects and always read with interest your blogs !! This OSD is so small that the wire to connect it weights more….

    Reply
  4. ben

    Awesome project! I would really be interested in building some of these micro OSDs. Do they work on 5v or 3.3v (5V would be better in my case)?

    Any plans to let someone else manufacture them or publish the design/code? Would really love to see the later.
    I could probably help out with some graphics code.

    Reply
    1. fishpepper Post author

      Those work on 1-2S. I am not sure yet, I might sell licenses or opensource it, we will see 🙂

      Reply
  5. AA

    Is it possible to use the STM32F4 cpu (or F7) and cram everything on a single board? (Normal Flight Controller, OSD and RX). I mean all 3 using same F4 cpu.

    Reply
    1. fishpepper Post author

      I do not think this makes sense. There is the BrainFPV fc that does something similar. But it looks like they switched to an external FPGA for the osd stuff recently (not 100% sure).

      Reply
    2. Andy

      I am quite sure that it would be possible to run the OSD/FC and Radio on one MCU with ample mcu cycles to spare I ported ArduPilot to a flight controller with on chip OSD using STM32F4. I see no reason that you couldnt also port cleanflight/betaflight etc. ( You probbaly dont need higher performance mcu than STM32F4 but if you do move to STM32F7 or STM32H7)
      https://github.com/kwikius/ardupilot
      Info on the hardware
      http://discuss.ardupilot.org/t/ardupilot-flight-controller-with-on-chip-osd/11583
      You can see the result flying here
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W2tuAwxyDI

      I really like the fishpepper projects and since I acquired a chuck glider I thought about converting it to FPV, and a single board with FC/OSD/RC would be a lovely project.

      Reply
  6. Arne

    Love it. Very nice to see your 16x16mm portfolio grow. Looking forward to building a quad with your components soon.

    Reply
  7. Kyle Wineinger

    This is awesome! I love flying my pepperf1sh, and look forward to getting the 2s ESC. I’m curious what power your vtx will be? Just 25mw or will it be adjustable or 200mw? So far 25 has been fine, but I was curious.

    Reply
    1. fishpepper Post author

      For the 16×16 size 25mW is enough 😉

      Reply
  8. montis

    Unbelievable and revolutionary! I’m holding the breath 🙂 Where is my microscope…?

    Reply
    1. fishpepper Post author

      Thanks! I do not know where your microscope is but mine is in one of those cardboard boxes from the recent move *g*

      Reply
  9. Adrian

    The last paragraph really thrilled me! The only reason I didn’t put a tinyFISH FC on my Quadcopter yet is the lack of a Betaflight-OSD but hearing your plans I can’t wait to see what you’ll do next. Keep up the great work – you are really pushing the hobby forward!
    Being into electronics myself I absolutely admire you! That stuff really cutting-edge and you deserve (even) more recognition.
    Best regards Adrian

    Reply
  10. s4v0

    Wow that is very impressive 10mA 🙂 i used to boil eggs with my OSDs 😀 and please consider adding L-band to the vtx channels like 53-5500MHz 🙂 i have that eachine vtx03 and never worry about blowing others while pluging and unplugging battery 😉

    Reply
  11. Peter Newman

    Another great project Simon. Thanks for all you hard work and sharing with the Open Source community.

    Reply
  12. Hamza M

    Love everything you’re doing for this hobby ! Can’t believe others haven’t come up with this sooner !

    Reply
  13. Arne

    If I would take a guess, the better STM32 processor have fast enough ADCs and DACs to do all the OSD stuff in software.

    Reply
    1. fishpepper Post author

      You do not need that much fancy hardware, a stm32f0 is enough 🙂

      Reply
      1. Arne

        Rethinking about what you really need. Orginally I thought you need to a full ADC -> Chip -> DAC signal pat but you need to passthrough the signal, detect the framing and replace the passgraph at certain times with your own output. Yeah you don’t that super good hw 🙂

        Reply
    1. fishpepper Post author

      A supersecret osd chip. No, just kidding, it’s a low end stm32f0 😉

      Reply

Leave a Reply to fishpepper Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *