THP Entry: The Everything RC Transmitter

OSRC With few exceptions, most of The Hackaday Prize are things we really haven’t seen much of before: base-3 computers that have been relegated to the history books, extremely odd 3D printers, and fancy, new IoT devices are the norm. The OSRC is not a new project to us. (UPDATE: Looks like they deleted their project page. Here is a snapshot of it from the Internet Archive) We saw it once in 2011 and again a year later. What makes the OSRC an interesting project for The Hackaday Prize isn’t the fact that it’s the most advanced RC transmitter ever created. Creating that was evidently the easy part. The OSRC could use a big financial kick in the pants, and if [Demetris] wins, we’d guess he wouldn’t be taking that ride to space. Rather, he’d be taking the cash prize to get his ultimate transmitter into large-scale manufacturing and out into the wild.

While at first glance the base model OSRC seems expensive at about $6-700 USD, consider this: a six-channel transmitter from an excellent brand costs about $120 USD. Nine channels will run you about $400. The OSRC is a forty channel radio. The sticks are capable of force feedback, and of course the ‘pro’ model of the OSRC has that wonderful screen, capable of displaying video from an FPV camera, a GPS/map overlay, or an incredibly extensive telemetry display. There are multi-thousand dollar avionics for real airplanes out there that have a smaller feature set, and that’s not hyperbole.

A few months ago, [Demetris] was interviewed by the awesome people at Flite Test. That (highly suggested) video is embedded below.


SpaceWrencherThe project featured in this post is an entry in The Hackaday Prize. Build something awesome and win a trip to space or hundreds of other prizes.

25 thoughts on “THP Entry: The Everything RC Transmitter

  1. Still don’t understand.
    Named “open source RC”, this is not open hardware, only the soft is open. But it don’t work on most of the used protocols. 2X, devo, walkera, husband, Jpod aren’t here.
    So it’s a RC, ok, but to control what? Not my planes, not my cars, not my quads.
    So for the price, i take a taranis or 9XR, give it an open firmware and a multiprotocol module like http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2165676 for a total of less than 150$…

  2. oh, its that guy that setup webshop and started selling this thing before he even had anything working (he listed some chinese transmitters with no license and preorder for a case with android tablet crammed inside?), later got kicked out of all crowd funding sites, set his own crowd funding site (with hookers and blackjack no doubt) and failed again.

    Three years and still no video of a working prototype :) just some moving sticks and clips of people talking about shape/look/feel, not functionality.

    Now he takes preorders for Mark2 :D there was never mark1 to begin with. Claims $400 on flite test clip, lists over $2000 on his site.This smells just as bad as SOAP router.

      1. Good product? What kind of application requires 40 channels, force feedback, and can justify a $700 cost? What actual problems does this product solve? I mean, yeah, it’s cool and all, but at the end of the day, I’m left asking…. why?

        1. The applications where it would be really awesome are not for standard RC plane/copter use. If you want to manage an entire fleet of planes in the air, then this remote would be cool. I understand most people would have no interest in this, but for those who want to experiment with swarm robotics or many other complex tasks, this remote could be an awesome tool.

          1. No, really no…
            40 channels means 1 receiver have 40 outputs FOR 1 vehicle… Not a swarm…
            Hobbyking have some at different price range. Good for battleships or rc aircraft carriers…

            This controller meanwhile is full on vaporware… Really steampunk as it runs on hot air…

            Hackaday might end up in the wrong side of the law if they continue to promote these near scams…

  3. Nice try rasz_pl but i think people are smart enough to figure out who is “as bas as SOAP” and who is not :) I think you forgot the flying unicorns and the devil under my cape but other than that a very creative post, i give you that. Very pleasing to hear this kind of comments after working on something for 3 years and giving out the designs for it for free. Thank you!

    1. Hi Demetris,
      I’ve been interested in this since I first saw it back in 2011, and I do think that you’re quite genuine. However hidden in rasz_pl’s message there is a grain of truth, it actually would be nice to see some videos of something working.
      I am grateful for your hard work, and I hope that you’ll be able to bring your really very clever product to market.
      :-)
      Shannon

      1. There are plenty of videos of showing it work. I even took a plane with me to fly in the initial video. There isn’t any hidden secret here guys. Remember that i am doing it all my self and simply don’t have time to show every single feature as it takes lots of effort to make even a single video. I show a bit of the UI and go through the features in plenty of videos. I think it would be quite stupid to think that after developing the mechanics, electronics and the code, making a video of it, posting it online along with a rich documentation, the thing wouldn’t actually work. download the code and go through it. Download the schematics and if you can read them then go through them. Any technical person wouldn’t need more than few minutes to figure this one out. Once again thank you for all your support and hope that my project is of use to everyone if it gets chosen by the competition to win.

        1. Awesome project, amazing accomplishments! I wish you all the success in the world. Sounds like you have had a rough go of it but you have the persistence to make something of your product. Take all these comments to heart, you’ll learn how to make everyone happy and your project will succeed.

        2. Have you considered closely incorporating a few more people in the design process? I know you are short of resources and there are plenty of qualified engineers and technicians that would surely like to help get this product to market.

  4. It looks like an swesome rig, it’s just application limited. There are some amazing RC planes out there, some huge scale stuff with a gazzilion telemetry channels and such, so what is this buying them? A jack of all trades, but a master of none most likely for something they spend years maybe setting up, but fly for a fraction of that time.

    Military/police bots already have things like force feedback and video telemetry built in by multibillion dollar defense contractors and they aren’t going to trust “nobody company” to build controllers for their BOMB disposal robots or flying (possibly crashing) drones…

    So that leaves the mass hobby market, which you could likely lump the readers of HaD into, there are plenty of high quality (yes, quality, I own a few) chinese made Tx’s out there that can do amazing stuff out of the box, better stuff with aftermarket open firmware, and you can expand on most of them with all kinds of telemtry / FPV kit that can be between cheap and limited to “the sky’s the limit”, and you aren’t stuck with any one thing, you can mix and match for way cheaper than this. And headsets are the way of the future for FPV, FAA be damned! In the real world, screen on controller open to sunlight fails hard!!!

    There is a problem with throwing everything in including the kitchen sink, what if I don’t like the faucet anymore? what if the pipes start leaking? You then have a really fancy and expensive paperweight when the cheap chinese controllers can handle most everyones needs.

    This would of course be able to go after the big brand names that have been around for years that make super whiz-bang controllers that nobody buys anymore because there is no need.

    Just the way it is…

  5. A 9x or Taranis with separate fpv module has the same usability to 99% of people as this radio. I realize this unit has many more options but “law of diminishing returns, I won’t use half that crap.”

    I would jump much higher if someone offered a different 9x shell. I’m thinking an enlarged bottom with bezel and room for a standard size backlit screen for fpv use, some room inside for fpv gear, might as well mold in room for a usb plug (or other standard, for flashing software), molded a/v plug receptacles, offer some different tx antenna options (like a delete since we all use modules), a back brace that doesn’t interfere with tx modules, room for a bigger batt. FPV electronics would be completely separate, just sharing a power source from the tx unit. It could be offered as a “shell kit,” buy the kit and swap your switches, gimbals, and circuits into it from your existing 9x. It would be so much better than dremel and velcro which many of us are doing now. I’d probably pay as much for that shell as I did for the entire radio.

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