Mark Stringer

Sounds like you are OK...the nova compass is actually an internal apm one ... although physically external it is soldered to the controller where an internal one would normally be .. another nova quirk.

Each calibration only takes a couple of minutes. ...everything done in 10 to 15 minutes start to finish

To be on the safe side pop the top off the puck and make sure the compass is secure and square to the quad. Make sure you do it all away from magnetic things like speakers and metal items. ..outside, just you and a laptop is good Dont over worry about the dots just turn as much as you can and get as many dots as possible. Once done make sure you check it against known directions in case it is reversed

5 Caps, 1 Trilby, 2 with Transmitters thinking they were flying it ....it was always going to end in tears

Sorry ... not sure what happened with the link... i know it is not in English but the video shows everything correctly .. just play it with no sound. ..

I have looked at a few but this video seems to do things correctly so hopefully will help **LINK** Covers radio, compass and accelerometer calibration Any questions just ask ... really only takes 20 minutes or so but i can't stress enough the importance of a long usb lead and making sure it stays in place throughout. Also use the "disconnect" button when you are finished

This is where i learnt the most ... starts with the very first version that didn't even have a USB socket **LINK** I started when it was at about 200 pages and read it all probably up to about page 500 as things developed It is now at almost 4000 pages which i guess shows the popularity of this quad. There are references / links in the thread to setting one up with your own radio, the Taranis / teensy stuff and things like that. ... and lots of chances to learn by others mistakes. .. but 4000 pages is way too much for me now. Hope all goes well with the setup

As it is a new ESC i am thinking that you wanted to calibrate that to match the others. I have never done that myself but this video shows how it is done on the cx-20 which is pretty much the same thing. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PtYWjsbsCwA You still need to do the APM calibrations, not forgetting the radio too ...including moving both switches to calibrate the flight modes too. If you move between fields a lot then just give it plenty of time to get its bearing before the first flight. It is sometimes worth powering it up, leaving it for a few minutes then unplug and plug again. This seems to help it get a fix and identify where in the world it is. ... too soon and any problem would have its return to home actually try to return to your previous field / home. An angle_max of 3500 will definitely stop it blowing away in the wind Good luck

There is actually quite a bit to doing each bit .. this is 2 years condensed into one page. . Lots of head scratching and a huge amount if research ... but very satisfying when things actually work .. and I do love the Taranis and use it for just about everything now including as a master for training with my sons DX6i with his Bixler2 Working in a decent arduino based head tracker for my goggles too ... never too old to learn!

But that link from Andy Symonds says there will be a new test with stabilisation enabled. .. just, yet again, doesn't clarify what exactly that means ... i wanted to do my A but starting to wonder if it is worth bothering to be honest

Stabilisation. .. but it doesn't say if that is "stabilised" or "GPS stabilised" ... still not sure which APM mode refers to either but i assume acro or stabilised. I am looking forward to the dead stick landing though

I knew i would have missed at least one. ... Channel 10 - Slide control on the side to tilt the camera on the gimbal up and down You can see that function in the "Green park" video on YT... way too windy between 2 buildings acting as a venturi .... i was flying by sight ... a colleague wearing the goggles and hence the confusion about the camera needing to move up or down. ...another colleague watching on my archos fed via the AV out on the goggles. It fought the wind really well but you wouldn't really know looking at the stabilised video ... which i why i don't believe you can FPV using a camera on a gimbal, unless you really fly by looking at the OSD and not the picture of course

It isn't really so good with a payload .. it really needs better motors and ESC's to carry the weight .. my throttle trim shows over 700 and it should be 500 .., that means it is well overweight and straining everything all of the time. But is is fun and i have learnt so much along the way. You need to work through at least three threads on RC groups to crack everything .... my radio setup for the Taranis is shown across there (though i may have added the odd switch in since then) .. the Teensy is all described and the guy doing the LUA scripts adapted it so that my voltage monitor worked and displayed .. showing the total as well as the voltage of the cell with the lowest voltage. Just about everything else fitted came from Banggood .. goggles, camera, minim osd, teensy, video switch and iLook switch .. the smaller parts costing less than a fiver each in most cases.

Seemed a shame to hit the voltage monitor so i hacked (not very neat - sorry) a hole in the top I will tidy this up one day - but still looks pretty cool So that was about it .. even managed to get the top on I use QR X350 Pro props from Banggood which seem to help with the weight .. anything too much causes too high a drain and end in the "wobble of death" I have adjusted the mid throttle to match the trim throttle after doing a couple of minutes of steady flying as the APM tends to work it out quite well and this really helps transition between flight modes to be really smooth So what do i need all of those channels for? We, off the top of my head they do the following .. each with a voice prompt to remind me of what i just did: Channels 1 to 4 - The 4 basic channels to fly Channel 5 - 2 switches combine to do the 6 flight modes Channel 7 - 1 switch for Return to home Channel 8 - 1 switch for Auto Tune Channel 6 - 1 switch for start / stop video recording Channel 9 - 1 switch to change between FPV cameras. Sure there is something i have missed ... oh yes ... one switch for relaxing background music If i think of anything else i will add it but that is the evolution of my Nova It is a good bit of kit but it is actually under powered once you add a camera and really needs better ESC's and motors plus probably a better distribution board .. but a great into. I will be building a new quad from scratch using decent parts soon ... with an APM controller and using a QR X350 Pro body shell as that holds a nice big battery! Hop this has given a few ideas as to what you can do with an APM quad .. as at just over £150 these days it is a real bargain!

As i had the Taranis and X8R i was able to connect to the flight controller in PPM mode .. this uses just one socket set from the RX to the flight controller and allows full use of the 16 channels on this receiver as the other outputs are all free ... just as well as i needed most of them Again as i had the Taranis i was able to make use of the telemetry from the APM. Some clever guys over on RC Groups have the know how .. but in short terms you take one Teensy board .. wire it up so it connects to the telemetry and receiver and it passes all information to the Taranis via LUA scripts which run on the TX. The Teensy is inside the shell (along with the minim osd and other goodies) Once configured you gets lots of information on you Taranis screen .. even the direction of the quad from you!! The important bit being the hdop .. dont arm and fly until this is nice and low You also get the Flight controller boot and logging information and LOTS more if you want to see it A note of interest here .. if you are plugged into you quad or connected via 3DR and have mission planner open you can right click the screen and add in more columns, including the gps hdop value Now .. as i didn't want to do FPV via the gimbal mounted camera i wanted to add a simple fixed camera to the front ... but wanted to have the option to see either via FPV to make sure any video was framed correctly. So i added a video switch ... and by wiring everything up correctly i used the FPV transmitter to send the signal from either camera and also to always keep the OSD overlaid on my goggles. I wasn't happy with the voltage readings coming from my dodgy soldering so i deactivated that and added a telemetry voltage monitor .. which has a rather nice display! This also goes inside and plugs into the balance lead of the battery pack and the telemetry socket of the X8R. As it has telemetry pass through the Teensy now goes into this so that all telemetry gets passed through to the X8R Another view inside .. getting busy in there ... the small black cable at the bottom left is a video switch to start / stop recording on the iLook, video switch on the left When powered up it is very pretty A view around the other side - minim osd, video switch, video start /stop Video start stop and fixed front FPV camera (seen to the left) More in a minutes.....

Enjoying the gadgets .. and finding the stocks skids more fragile that a microscope slide ... i decided to add retracts I got some ultra lightweight units from HobbyKing for just a few pounds. First i had to trim some plastic off the inside near the centre A square of ply into this area allowed me to simply screw the retracts onto the body So pretty simple... I made the legs myself from Piano wire .. lots of testing to get the angles just right to miss the camera but stay well under the props when they came up .. this worked out quite nicely So piano wire bent and turned to fit the retracts Welded together And fitted into the retracts Maybe not the prettiest but she sits high, is stable and strong as an OX! Painted white and with self adhesive rubber around them to keep it steady on hard surfaces more technical stuff coming next..... Edited By Mark Stringer on 18/03/2016 14:35:13

As i was now powering the Flight controller, X8R, 3DR, iLook and Gimbal from the flight battery i was concerned about drain and effect on the performance .. in early discussions it seemed that as you drain power you could lose the quality of the compass and GPS .. so i decided to add an small battery to the rear door .. just to power the camera and gimbal but good for 2 or 3 flights .. so load was removed from the flight battery As i now had telemetry available i hacked into the iLook camera and fed the minim OSD. In this way it doesn't record the OSD, it only overlays it on the signal back to the goggles Minim OSD initially on rear of the camera ... it is now housed inside the shell An idea of what you get on screen The 3DR radio was built inside too and i added a switch so that it could be powered off. As you can only have one input at a time you cannot use this and the USB port at the same time. Switch is handy on the outside .. i will cover the retracts later .... The aerial is fairly neat at the rear .. note the extra wire at the back - this goes into the balance lead of the battery pack and reports everything back via telemetry .. so i no longer use that trickly little wire on the chip! retracts next .....

I also really wanted to be able to use the telemetry that is possible with APM controllers. Several reasons here: 1. To be able to assess GPS quality .. this is measured in hdop .. the lower the hdop value the better your satellite fix 2. To have the option of planning autonomous missions via my phone or tablet or laptop by adding a 3DR radio link 3. To be able to use "Follow Me" - again via the 3DR radio link 4. To have a decent On Screen Display with lots of information when doing FPV On my controller there were no plugs or sockets so the magnifying glass and soderering iron come out. Resistors in a 10:1 ratio across the power connectors and then off to one leg of the chip on the flight controller gives battery output to the telemetry. The main TX / RX for telemetry is via 2 small resistors on the FC .... lots of fun doing this without scrapping the whole thing! These now allowed me to plug in a 3DR radio or Minim OSD and also passed the battery voltage through to the telemetry part of the APM controller. To ensure the flight controller always had a stable power supply i decided to add an extra BEC to power it. The receiver and 3DR radio would be powered via the built in board but the FC always would get full power via the BEC While it was all open i decided to move the GPS to the top of the shell and cover it in copper tape to isolate it from interference .. especially as i was adding extra electronics to it I also added a brushless gimbal for better quality video but soon realised that FPV via a gimbal is not safe as the video is very stable and you dont know what the quad is doing .. so more extras would be needed! I was getting annoyed with the so called puck that holds the compass - it cracks and moves easily .. which is not good when you compass it in it .. so it had to go. Chopped off . ...add one shampoo bottle and some hot glue and yo have the speed racing cycle helmet ... it is the same height as the top of the shell so you can lay it on its back nicely now more soon .....