Hello!
Has anyone attempted to add reach on to the Solo platform yet?
I am going to give it a go in the coming months, adding it as a second GPS or swapping it for the NEO-7 on board Solo.
Anyone know (cue Emlid) if I create a (DF-13 to Molex Clik-Mate) wire that can plug right into the Solo companion board GPS plug, would that work?
That would be pretty painless, but if not it will be a secondary GPS with data logger.
Feel free to jump in. I will update any progress.
Cheers!
Hi,
A very interesting project indeed! Since Solo has a Pixhawk inside I do not see any reason why it should not work. You can try connecting Reach as the second GPS through the accessory bay connector.
The only thing would be that Reach requires modified Pixhawk firmware to be able to work with it.
If you intend to use Reach for mapping, it will be just fine as a datalogger and will require minimal modifications to the Solo.
There is a toss up here between mounting everything Reach independent of the solo and the attempted integration. I believe using the accessory bay breakout board at all voids the warranty so if doing that for the camera trigger then why not edit the firmware? 
Will the specifics of the code that will be edited be released? So that it is possible to easily identify and make the same changes to just that part of Solo code.
Also, will the same changes to Pixhawk allow telemetry through Solo_Link wifi?
Still in the tossing ideas around stage for the next couple of months.
Source code will be released very soon. There should be no issue with the telemetry.
What is your final goal with Reach integration?
My goal is an accurate light weight mapping drone on the solo platform.
Reducing the # of GCPs required for modeling DEMs from photogrammetry.
Basically, creating a mapping platform as good as (or better) Sensefly’s eBee RTK, at a fraction of the cost.
Reach is the leader in development, support, weight and cost right now for L1 RTK in my opinion. I am excited to get into this project.
What kind of camera are you going to use? I find particular interest in QX1 and potentially Reach could be able to trigger it via Wi-Fi, while collecting timestamps and corresponding names of the pictures. Integrating that would be the holy graal for mapping. The issue is with getting the flash sync pulse from that camera, it will require hacking the flash and I had not yet got a chance to try it.
The QX10 is the #1 candidate as of now. Camera/focus trigger can be easily soldered. The QX1 is a better option for quality but it is heavier than the QX10 even before a lens.
Pixhawk is good at triggering by distance right now via relay switch on Aux and would be even better at it if using Reach data. The main aspect of convenience would be getting the Reach positions in the log files to match up with time stamps in the EXIF photo data in post.
Reach with APM/Solo is only capable of providing 1m accuracy at best because of the float vs integer issue here. If 3DR does eventually fix this Solo will probably be the first to get support.
Thanks for the link! By the time I’m ready it may very well have been resolved.
@matthewbrooks @Mayehem this issue with float in APM is only related to drone navigation and has nothing to do with photo coordinates, track in Reach will have centimeter-level accuracy.
Is there an update on this? I would love to be able to integrate REACH into a Solo, and get that kind of accuracy! GCP’s are such a time consumer…
We are working on this. You will need a camera with a hotshoe adapter to be able to precisely georeference pictures on SOLO. After that you will simply supply power from Solo to Reach and it will log GPS data and timestamps of pictures.
Great, and keep up the fantastic work! Well priced technology like this really makes a big difference in developing countries, and even in developed ones! 
Can we look forward to some instructions on how to do this? 
For sure! Will you be open for beta testing on your Solo? 
I sure would! I think you have my email address from my profile, or just shoot me a PM over the community site
I also have a 3DR Iris+ that I use. It has a Pixhawk as well, but I think it might be a little different from the Solo Pixhawk.
Appreciate it, will contact you as soon as we have it working. It will not require a connection to Pixhawk, just to the camera. What kind of camera do you use for mapping?
I have been using a Canon S100, with CHDK installed, and triggered by Pixhawk based on GPS position. I use the Tower Android App for survey missions.
I also have a GoPro 4 Black, and some MapIR cameras. I prefer the Canon because of the picture quality.
I would definitely be open to suggestions, if that camera is not appropriate.
If you are using the CHDK KAP Script with your S100 then the script generates a log with the shutter release time to ~10ms accuracy. In theory that combined with the logs from the Reach should give pretty good geotagging accuracy. Have been waiting for the apm integration to give it a try…
Using the latest KAP script 
