Head tracker drifting problem, attempted solution.

As I stated in my last post, I thought the problem causing my headtracker to drift was the IPD rods getting magnetized, I changed them, but that didn’t do anything. Even though this didn’t solve my initial problem I thought I’d share this process of opening fatshark goggles. I was warned that it might not be easy and you must be super careful but it was not really that hard process.

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First thing to do in this teardown process in obviously to take the faceplate off. This was almost the hardest part of this process. Carefully pry them off, or watch some youtube video how to take it off properly.

After the faceplate is taken off, obvious next step is to unscrew the screws from the bottom of the goggles. After that is done, the goggles fall into two pieces, top and bottom. Near center of the goggles there are little hooks inside. Press the center of the goggles near nose cavity, they should come apart easily after that. You need to apply some force to them but shouldn’t need to do that too much.

Then the goggles should come apart. LED strip on the right is my custom addition, not part of the goggles. Already visible here is one of the steel rods on which the lens modules move. Those are what we are interested about here.

Unplug flat cables to give yourself some more room to work with.

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Here’s the lens module thing taken from the goggles. Steel rods are now clearly visible and easy to access. With small(ish) pliers the rods are super easy just to pull out. They are not locked in or glued anyhow.

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First one changed! The post I read about this was correct, they are 2.5mm rods. Cut some carbon fiber to around the same lenght and filet the ends a little to make things little easier. Lenght of the rods is not super crucial or precise, they have some room on the both ends. But they souldn’t be shorter than original rods.

Another one swapped.

When putting the goggles back together you need to make sure these little, dials I guess, line up with the lenses. I struggled with them for a bit.

Conclusion

I found out what’s inside my goggles and now I have high end carbon fiber rods, but, they did not fix the problem. I’m starting to think that the head tracker module is just bad or something.

Pan axis still drifts like crazy and I don’t know what to try next. Maybe change the MPU-6050 on the board itself or make one of those DIY versions. I just really don’t like the idea of making one of those DIY solutions because this would have been so clean and easy to use.