Custom made FPV Ground station

Hi All!  Well this is my first actual articale on FliteTest, although not my first RC project.  Thought I'd put up my FPV ground station project so others can maybe get some inspiration and some ideas!!  I know I personally always like to see how creative other people are, and part of what I built here came from my own ideas, but also ideas of things I've seen and liked.  So with that said, here you go.

First off, while I did have a original ground station, it was cluttered with wires, I was using a laptop as a secondary monitor which was horrible because the battery life was only like an hour.  Add on top of that the boot time for the PC and well, it isnt good.  Plus I had no sunshade, so you could never really use the screen.  I always fly with goggles (and at the moment am waiting on my new Headplay HD's!!!! WAHOO, but that is a side tangent) so the screen is really only for spectators or in case something goes horribly wrong with my goggles.  I had more or less the following requirements when building my station.  I am a software engineer, so I always approach problems like software; requirements gathering, design, construction and testing

Requirements: 

1. Ease of use
2. No exposed wires or clutter to get accidentally caught on anything
3. Must be able to house all my equipment in one place
4. Needs the ability to power multiple devices from the same battery
5. Must have a sunshade for whatever type of 2nd monitor I go with
6. Should look cool :)

I then needed a way to route power from the main battery to all these devices!  I decided to go with a more non-permanent installation.  I could of easily soldered everything, but then if I want to add something or remove it, its a nightmare.  I went the road of what we typically do with fuse boxes.  Simply run all positives to the LEFT and all negatives to the RIGHT.  They are isolated from each other with no chance of touching.

I also labeled each and every wire, since it gets quite confusing in there :)  Each switch has three wires:  Power in, GND and Accessory out, all labeled for each accessory in the same manner so they are easy to spot and route.  I used the typical wire crimp ends to connect to the switches for nice snug fits and opted for some electrical tape in RED to secure the connections so no chance of coming undone.

Here is a side pick of my voltage meter which I also got off Ebay for like 5 dollars.  The PVC threaded tube you see is what I ultimately screw a PVC pipe into which my Immersion RC UNO 5.8Ghz receivers sit atop.  There is one on the LEFT and one on the RIGHT.  That box to the back is my Eagle eyes diversity setup.  The idea is to get the UNO's as high as I can reasonably get them and as far apart as I can.  WAAAAY better signal and range that way.  The red wrapped wire with barrel connectors is the power to the UNO's

Here is a bottom view of the main board.  I opted for some LED strips underneath.  I do alot of night flying and at my field, there are no lights.  SO once I'm done, I am usually fumbling for a light to make sure I havent left anything behind (from experience :( )  So this way, I can light the entire ground with these high intensity LED strips and voila, LET THERE BE LIGHT!

This is one of the two UNO's.  This one has the bluebeam mad mushroom antenna on it, which might I add, does the job extremely well.  Been out over 1.5km on a 5.8Ghz 600mW setup on my TBS Disco.

This is the second UNO with a IBcrazy 5 turn helical.  As with any helical, I find this guy taking the brunt of the work from the mad mushroom when I'm doing those 1.5km flights.  Although when just cruising around, the mushroom is taking the signal.  I know all this from watching the Eagle Eyes unit and its switching.

Just a pic of both of the UNO's side by side.  In the background, you can see the two posts that they screw into.  There is a 3 foot pole these units sit on top of with about 18" or so separating them from each other

Now I start to build the main unit.  First off, I am not good with wood.  As I said, I am a software guy, not carpenter.  SO this is my best attempt at building the main box to house all the wires etc... Bottom is made from 1x3 I think and the top is some type of corrugated plastic from Home Depot.  Comes in white and I just used plastic paint on it.  Top is held together with hot glue (as you can tell LOL) and the bottom screwed together.  That small piece of plastic on the table will cover that small right chamber and house my LED volt meter and the 5th silver switch which came with my switch panel from Ebay which I will use for the LED's underneath the unit

Unit most finished and put together.  For those interested, its a 5" monitor from Ebay.  NOT a FPV montiro so it does go Blue screen, but I didnt need to spend 100 on a monitor since as I said, I fly goggles.  This is just a backup.  I paid like 20 bucks for it and it works awesome.  Runs off 12 volts.  Actually all these accessories run off 12volts (UNO's, Monitor, volt meter and switches, Eagle eyes, LEDs)

Finished product from front view

Finished product from back view.  The pink and green wire is the main power lead to the 3S LIPO.  The red wire is the power wire to the UNOs.  I havent plugged in the RCA video cable to the eagle eyes yet, but you get the idea

Whole unit done and powered on.  As you can see, the switches light up, another cool factor, but it also helps to know which accessories are powered on.  Main power switch lights up as well in RED.  In this pic, only the monitor and LED's are on.  The LED's are super bright, so this pic doesnt do them justice.  Bought the LED's off HobbyKing.  They are standard turnigy LED strips that run off 12v

Just another view, this one with a little less glare since the LED's are now off.  Hope you guys enjoyed taking a peek.  Havent flown with the setup yet, as I live in CT and weather is just now getting good, but I did fly with the more "legacy" setup last year and it works great.  Just added some components this year and cleaned it all up.  Happy flying everyone!!!