Skycontroller 2 hack, More signal power, More stability, longer range!

[Giannis K]

Hello there! I am a computer science student in a Greek University, After observing Solaris8x86's booster mods I decided to take a look into them myself, I found something curious while dismantling the sky controller though, The WiFi front-end can do up to 64-120mW per antenna but Parrot has them limited to only 14mW per antenna pair(fun fact, same case for the drone, I will look into that too drone has more power stock but still has headroom for more!) . I dug through the sky-controller firmware for about 2 days and tried to find the most optimal settings and here we are! massive signal boost! No physical modification needed but opening the skycontroller and putting a heatsink on the wifi ICs is recommended by me, in testing they did not get too hot but they were getting warm ish. Following are images of Pes (a software made by said solaris) Just to monitor the power outputs pre and after software mod(drone to controller distance 50cm):

^stock powers before the mod (A0/A1 - 20 dbm, -12 dbm)

^Modified firmware, HUGE BOOST!! A0 -20 => -2dbm, A1 -12 to (+!)2dbm!
If there is interest, I will write a script to mod the firmware, this is the heatsink I added to my skycontroller's ICs (the left black one)

 

[Giannis K]

Here is another instance, Testing here is how well it penetrates a steel baking pan.
Stock:

Modded:

How I tested it:

 

[Giannis K]

PS: I also made equivalents to convert the bebop 2 propulsion characteristics to bebop 2 power and beyond such as making it accept liHV batteries and increasing motor power to beyond bebop 2 power levels, 12.2k default max rpm => 13.4k and telling the firmware it is heavier than what it actually is so it can more easily carry a gopro!

 

[benz]

Plz share ur files.
Thx

 

[flyingblind]

PS: I also made equivalents to convert the bebop 2 propulsion characteristics to bebop 2 power and beyond such as making it accept liHV batteries and increasing motor power to beyond bebop 2 power levels, 12.2k default max rpm => 13.4k and telling the firmware it is heavier than what it actually is so it can more easily carry a gopro!

Your images are no longer visible on your original post. Can you repost them?
Also, can you post your files and instructions about how to do the mod?
Thanks.

 

[anafi76]

Here is another instance, Testing here is how well it penetrates a steel baking pan.
Stock:

Modded:

How I tested it:

Hi this is very very interesting but none of the images are available so theirs no way for us to understand what you have done or replicate it ourselves. this is an amazing discovery that I'm sure many off us want to take advantage of!!!

 

[Giannis K]

Hi guys! Sorry long time no see and no post but I just happened to be on holidays so I had spare time to wipe off the dust from my bb2 and sc2! I continued my reverse engineering effort and documented all my findings on GitHub, The result is a considerable power increase in both the drone transmission power and the SC2 transmission power from the factory 22mw/14mW average per channel up to 500-700mW burst/120mw suspected continuous! This modification requires no disassembly, no soldering and can be done wirelessly with the tool on the GitHub I developed. As you can imagine this makes a sizable range increase but more importantly much more stable transmission!

Here is the GitHub link, I will continue working on this in the following days but even now you can follow along and perform the mod yourselves ! GitHub - GiannisTDM/parrot-bebop2-rf-lab: Software-only RF diagnostics and BCM43526/SKY85803 research for Parrot Bebop 2 and SkyController 2—no soldering or disassembly required

 

[Giannis K]

Small update: Github is now updated with images where the change is measured and is visible at a 5m distance, +16db gain! Also I added a more comprehensive guide on how to do the changes/ use my software for experimentation and modification!