Remote controlled flying things-Quads, Hex, Octo or anything

[CBRK]

Brilliant, I'll use office type glue stick, it will give me a chance to get the paper off afterwards :-)  CA I fear will mean I'll never get it off and it will wreck the sexy look of the CF :-)

I have another nice surprise, I thought my R800X's where going to not be used once I switched to the Pixhawk (I have two R800X's) but I just discovered that it appears it can do SBUS.  I knew that the pixhawk can take an SBUS signal in and low and behold it worked!!!  So now less of a need for the lemon CPPM receiver but oh well.....  Seems channel 1 to 4 are not what it's expecting, I'll have to tinker with the TX or use RCMAP to fix the channel assignment.

So now I don't know where the Lemon RX will go.....  I guess it can go in the Bixler or another fixed wing when I get around to it.....  Or maybe I'll use it on the Tricopter, just not sure yet, so many choices.....

Beauty of SBUS is that it opens up even more channels, I think I can do 12 or 14.....  Cant see more than 8 in Mission Planner so I will be investigating how to access those additional channels if it's possible.

Turns out even though the GPS packet said it was a M8N, it turns out it is actually a Neo-7N as I had purchased, sigh thought I had a big win on that one.  Lucky I opened it up to check as one of the wires wasnt soldered real well (compass wire).  Was confused as packet said M8N and the plastic case had 7N on it so I just wasnt sure, only way to be sure was to open it up.  Seems it's lacking a rubber shroud on it so that it gets twisting motion from the cable.  I think I'll hot glue it in place to protect it in the future, it could have shorted any number of other wires which would have been very bad....

Guess next months budget will go to a M8N then....  Just noticed I could have chosen the M8N option for a few dollars extra, grrr, why do I see these things afterwards.

Hi, my name is Chris and I'm a RC hobby addict......

[Marschy]

Lol

[Crisp Image]

Critical review of videos follows.
Get rid of the noise. Either drop it off altogeter or replace it with some music. Also they are too long. If a video goes for longer than a few minuets and it is the same stuff people get board with it (that is me).
Your videos are good for you to analize what is going on but to thr general population they are not.
This is my opinion and please dont be offended by my comments. The quality of the image is good it is the editing that lets things down.
While watching tv take notice how long the segments are. You will be suprised how short they are.
The longer the video the longer it takes to upload. Show us the best bits and the crashes then ditch the other stuff. Your hard drive will also thank you for it too.
At least you are flying and not just taking about it!
Regards
Crispy

[CBRK]

Critical review of videos follows.
Get rid of the noise. Either drop it off altogeter or replace it with some music. Also they are too long. If a video goes for longer than a few minuets and it is the same stuff people get board with it (that is me).
Your videos are good for you to analize what is going on but to thr general population they are not.
This is my opinion and please dont be offended by my comments. The quality of the image is good it is the editing that lets things down.
While watching tv take notice how long the segments are. You will be suprised how short they are.
The longer the video the longer it takes to upload. Show us the best bits and the crashes then ditch the other stuff. Your hard drive will also thank you for it too.
At least you are flying and not just taking about it!
Regards
Crispy

Hi,

None taken, I do exactly that for my 4WDing videos (not uploaded) but I generally get about max of 5mins of good usable footage out of an hour from those.  My HDD would be full otherwise :-)  I have significantly less with this (about 15mins in total).  I'll see what I can do when I get a chance, these were more of a quick trim and upload quickly.

Chris

[Marschy]

At least you are flying and not just taking about it!

Hey, I resemble that remark 

[CBRK]

Hi,

None taken, I do exactly that for my 4WDing videos (not uploaded) but I generally get about max of 5mins of good usable footage out of an hour from those.  My HDD would be full otherwise :-)  I have significantly less with this (about 15mins in total).  I'll see what I can do when I get a chance, these were more of a quick trim and upload quickly.

Chris

Ok, I had some spare time and I whipped up a quick video more line with my 4WD endeavors.  The key being that nothing was really framed for anything specific.  I'd also normally spend more time finding some music that I can fit to the frames.

Abercrombie River NP - Silent Creek

Next time I plan to think about my shots, this was more of a put it up and and see what I can grab.  Hopefully before the parts arrive for me to rip apart the tricopter for the new version, I'l get some time on Monday or Tuesday to do some local shooting.  Plan to try some closer in tree work and circular hovering around an object.  I really need to fix the slight low speed yaw oscillation that is present.  Will be better once I get the 3rd axis parts next week or so, will help to remove that all together, I'm really impressed with the brushless motor gimbal mount so far.

I think I've worked out my new design, I plan to make it so that in my normal flying mode the camera wont be able to see the props.  You'll notice on occasions they just sneak into view.

Chris

[Crisp Image]

SUCCESS! The time is 8:50 Sunday and I have been out to the field, had a test flight, came home and modified the quad and am now sitting here logging my flight.
Yes I did fly. I charged my one and only battery (need to do something about that) last night in anticipation for a flight before the wind gets up.
The breeze is a little stronger that I would have liked but not so strong that I could not fly.
Tested today was stabilise, alt.hold, loiter and ......... Are you ready for it? We'll are you? Oh here goes RTL!
I can tell by your gasps that this activity is fraught with danger but danger is my middle name (actually it is Ian but that is not so impressive)!
Even though the quad was dive bombed by a magpie a couple of times and a flock of cockies flew through stabilise, alt.hold and loiter worked a treat. I flew away from myself and then took the chance and engaged RTL. The quad stopped in its tracks and headed for home. When it got close enough I noticed something hanging from the quad. It was the GPS! It still came back and landed. So my modification was to refix the gps down so it does not fall off again.
I am waiting to get to the computer to check my logs and see if there was any problems but Mrs Crisp image is currently researching our holiday activities.
In summary today's flight was a success.
I still need to tune but I need a day without any wind (and more batteries) and then I want to try a mission flight. This should be interesting.
There is no video or photos of the flight today as I don't have a way to capture this on this quad and the rest of my house was sleeping when I went out.
So happy with how it is going. The only thing is the OSD dropped out at some stage while in flight but droid planner continued working.
I need to update some software on my eeepc so I can take it to the field and have ultimate control and logging facilities.

Regards
Crispy


Sent using fat fingers on the iPad thingy

[Marschy]

Excellent Crispy,

How do you rate the flight controller compared to the Naza now you have a successful flight under your belt?

Cheers, Mark

[Crisp Image]

The NAZA is easy to fly and really a totally different experience. The apm tests your skills so much more.
Both are good but in their own way.
Once i get the tuning done it will be different again.
When i get some more flights under my belt and become more comfortable i will look at a new frame and set up.
Regards
Crispy

[Marschy]

I think tuning is the key to getting the best out of the APM.

My Reptile Aphid is quite a nice quad to fly. In comparison the X-mode Alien is a pig, I just can't tune the bloody thing properly. I'm putting this down to inadequate ESC's on the X-mode Alien. Both are running APM 2.6 boards, the Reptile has Multistar ESC's, the X-mode Alien has HK SS30A that I flashed with SimonK, but the HK ESC itself I think is just not up to the task of the firmware.

I've downloaded BLHeli Suite and I am going to reflash the Multistar's on the Reptile to BLHeli, and I'm getting some new ESC's to replace the HK SS30A's.

[CBRK]

SUCCESS! The time is 8:50 Sunday and I have been out to the field, had a test flight, came home and modified the quad and am now sitting here logging my flight.
Yes I did fly. I charged my one and only battery (need to do something about that) last night in anticipation for a flight before the wind gets up.
The breeze is a little stronger that I would have liked but not so strong that I could not fly.
Tested today was stabilise, alt.hold, loiter and ......... Are you ready for it? We'll are you? Oh here goes RTL!
I can tell by your gasps that this activity is fraught with danger but danger is my middle name (actually it is Ian but that is not so impressive)!
Even though the quad was dive bombed by a magpie a couple of times and a flock of cockies flew through stabilise, alt.hold and loiter worked a treat. I flew away from myself and then took the chance and engaged RTL. The quad stopped in its tracks and headed for home. When it got close enough I noticed something hanging from the quad. It was the GPS! It still came back and landed. So my modification was to refix the gps down so it does not fall off again.
I am waiting to get to the computer to check my logs and see if there was any problems but Mrs Crisp image is currently researching our holiday activities.
In summary today's flight was a success.
I still need to tune but I need a day without any wind (and more batteries) and then I want to try a mission flight. This should be interesting.
There is no video or photos of the flight today as I don't have a way to capture this on this quad and the rest of my house was sleeping when I went out.
So happy with how it is going. The only thing is the OSD dropped out at some stage while in flight but droid planner continued working.
I need to update some software on my eeepc so I can take it to the field and have ultimate control and logging facilities.

Regards
Crispy


Sent using fat fingers on the iPad thingy

Hi,

Well done, yep trusting the RTL can be a big leap, but once you have a good GPS lock and the compass is dialed in then it's pretty straight forward.    I've used it a couple of times and it was pretty good, I'm surprised it didn't climb up initially as the default RTL alt is 15m.

I've done a couple of dozen missions, all with manual takeoff's most with auto landings.  It's pretty accurate.  You'll start to tinker with some of the variables.

My advice is keep the missions simple at first - such as a small square pattern, a basic circle, etc.... 

Oh, I'd stay avoid the Follow Me until you really trust it, and I would slow it's speed down before trying that one :-)  I had to quickly turn off the auto mission on one such attempt.

Its a fun extension to the hobby.

Regards,

Chris

[CBRK]

I think tuning is the key to getting the best out of the APM.

I'd agree make sure you try the autotune feature, it's pretty good.  I have tuned mine but be aware it only tunes the pitch and roll at this stage.  Just hook up CH7 to a switch and follow the websites instructions.

[Crisp Image]

Just put the battery on charge again for another flight this afternoon hopefully before I go off to work.
I will keep the mission short and sweet to begin with. but that will be later this afternoon. After the battery is charged I will have a snooze before work.
Might even set up a mission for this afternoon.
Crispy

[CBRK]

Just put the battery on charge again for another flight this afternoon hopefully before I go off to work.
I will keep the mission short and sweet to begin with. but that will be later this afternoon. After the battery is charged I will have a snooze before work.
Might even set up a mission for this afternoon.
Crispy

Hi Crispy,

Good luck with it, I'll be doing some more flying tomorrow morning, I'll be running the APM through it's paces doing some automated flights around a local oval.  I'm yet to try Region of Interest to get the camera to point to a particular spot I think I'll give it a go :-)

I'll send the little package tomorrow so you should get it in a few days time.

I'll check out the video I did and see if there is anything useful on it and if there is I'll post it up.

Chris

[Crisp Image]

Didnt end up flying before work. Will have to wait for another day.

[CBRK]

Well just to make everyone else jealous, i've just returned from a nice morning of flying.  Wind was starting to pick up as I arrived so it got progressively worse.

I tried to do some AP shots today, or aerial videoing.   Not just random whatever I capture but specifically to try stuff out.  Wow, I learnt a good lesson today, with all these wide angle lens you need to get close to objects.....

I'll be posting a very short video later today as I might just have 1 min of okish footage out of nearly 25 mins of aerial footage.

I missed my best shot which was a random dog trying to jump up to the tricopter, would have looked magic looking down but I forgot to turn the camera down - was busy keeping the tri high enough so the dog couldnt reach it but not too high (6-10m) as it was around the time the wind picked up even more.....  I was in stabilise mode as the owner approached to within 5m of it, I had to say "hold on let me move it well away from you".  I'm sure if the tricopter had been at 3-4m the dog would have reached it and taken me down, and ate it for breakfast (he was a decent size) 

Also did some more automated missions, I had a very happy grid pattern thing going on, I've done those before so nothing major there.  I also did a circle around a location facing it, it did reasonably well considering the wind, although I was surprised the turns where less smooth than I thought it would do.  The ROI test didn't work at all, what I've read was you fly to a waypoint and then plug in an ROI, then fly to the next waypoint it should remain pointing at the ROI, it should point at that location but mine flew to the location instead, so somethings not right there..  I'l have to look at the logs to work out why.

Oh another thing is I'm used to the mission showing at AUTO on the OSD, for some reason it was only showing AUTO when I had it set to a standard waypoint, if it was a circle (LoiterT) then it displayed at LOITER, had me confused for a minute.  Guided still displayed as GUIDED.

My lemon receiver arrived while I was flying, holy crap they are tiny.  I'll post a pic later on with a ruler next to it.  I'm rethinking my sbus solution as it's is so small it isnt funny.  The satellite is even smaller, hmmmm, I may put it on the quad to open up the extra channels, oh damn this is making the decision so much harder.  Sigh.....

Chris

[Marschy]

Check out the new look and feel arducopter website.

http://copter.ardupilot.com/

[CBRK]

Check out the new look and feel arducopter website.

http://copter.ardupilot.com/

I can live with it :-)  Only noticed the change once I hit the table of contents page (which is where I go to most of the time).

[Marschy]

Hopefully the pages have been brought up to date. I haven't checked yet.

[CBRK]

Hopefully the pages have been brought up to date. I haven't checked yet.

I think we just broke it :-(  Getting 503 service unavailable messages.  Must be in the middle of updating it as we are trying to use it :-)

Chris

[CBRK]

I think we just broke it :-(  Getting 503 service unavailable messages.  Must be in the middle of updating it as we are trying to use it :-)

Chris

It's back!!

I've decided if the weather is ok tomorrow I'll try some more mission stuff, I'll plan some out tonight and put them on my phone so that I can upload them when I'm up there.

Hoping my CF sheets arrives tomorrow, sadly I think my CF square tubes are a few more days away.  At least I can get all the CF plates done up over the next day or so.  I'm going to take my time on these, I wan to get them right.  My 7mm Plywood plates have done me well but there was a slight build imperfection, I had some of the tail boom drill holes out by a couple of mm's and there was a slightly non square cut so it looks odd and the tail boom is not square to the frame (maybe part of my oscillation issues).

I've decided to modify David's template, I'm again going the coffin shape but I want to add 2cm to the length so mount all the electronics and it means one less cut of the CF, which is a good thing.  I originally added the 2cm to the front but I'm thinking since I'll have the gimbal projected off the front I might add the cm's to the rear instead, that way I will balance it out a bit more.  At present I have to mount the battery such that over 1/2 of it is out past the rear of the center point to help balance out CoG.  It would also free up room for the gimbal mount to spin around fully once I get the 3rd axis board and motor.  It would allow for shots pointing down and backwards (and not getting the battery mount in the view).  Also I'm making the battery tray closer to the frame, it should make it more rigid and keep it out of view of the camera when it's pointing backwards.

Chris

[Crisp Image]

Which version of Droidplanner are you using?i have the origional one and cant load missions from it that i  can see.

[Marschy]

Which version of Droidplanner are you using?i have the origional one and cant load missions from it that i  can see.

1.2.0

[Marschy]

The HKPilot micro power distribution module arrived today, so I've pulled everything apart on the ZMR250 (again) and I've rearranged the ESC's (again).

This module really saves a lot of space and weight compared to the normal APM power module. I've not bothered with heat shrink over the ESC's this time. The heat sink is on the other side of the ESC and is what is in contact with the carbon fibre frame. I've put hot glue around the heatsink to keep it in place, hopefully it wont get too hot that the glue will melt.

[CBRK]

Which version of Droidplanner are you using?i have the origional one and cant load missions from it that i  can see.

I'm using 1.2.0, works for me.  I have even drawn up several missions in it but it's a pain in the backside on a phone (Samsung S4), I have also loaded missions using my Tab too, a Samsung Tab 3 10.1.

Can load missions and can retrieve them too.