Mark Stringer

I have added a gallery and started a thread covering what i have done with mine ... will complete it as i get time It is here   Edited By Mark Stringer on 18/03/2016 13:28:51

So next i wanted to do some FPV so i got a set of Skyzone goggles (as they have variable lenses - eye distance apart - so they would fit perfectly) and a Walkera iLook camera. The camera is really nice .. does video or photo (selectable before takeoff), records to a micro SD card and has the FPV transmitter built in so nice and neat. It also has a switch available so that you can start / stop recording or take photos via a transmitter switch. It is not GoPro quality but OK for me ... they do a Plus version which is supposed to be better quality. So now i could play FPV - awesome! On an early FPV flight i went out of range of the stock transmitter - fortunately, having it well setup, and always giving it lots of time to get a really good GPS fix, it came home all on its own and landed/ disarmed with 2 feet of where it took off. But this dd make me nervous as i realised that the TX did not reconnect when something went wrong (this may have been fixed in newer versions) and if it didn't have a good fix it could have done a "Return To China" instead! When analysing the logs i also found that it showed changing flight modes during the flight .. which i hadn't done. A check showed it happily doing it all on its own .. see my short video on YT showing this. So the radio had to go .. i had a short spell with my DX8 but then Christmas came along and Santa bought me a Taranis .. life hasn't been the same since more soon ....

As i have been discussing my Nova on another thread i thought it may help to show a few pics and give a few words about its evolution I do have videos on my YT channel if you want a look - i am modellermark2 on there. I had it 2 years ago as my first quad and have had great fun with it -learning most from a thread on RC Groups about it and the CX-20 which is pretty much the same thing. The new version has improved ESC's and a flight controller that has plugs for telemetry and the like but mine had none of this so was a great challenge .. and yes, i know i have got carried away but have loved learning all of the technology and just how much you can do with it....the primary thing being that it has an APM flight controller and that is what really makes the BIG difference. So it started off all stock with a Wingcam HD strapped to the camera mount Now - while i was waiting fo rit to arrive i read the 200 pages of the forum to learn about it .. so was fairly prepared when it arrived and before it went into the air it was plugged into a laptop and via the Mission Planner software it was calibrated fully including the radio ( but not using the wizard as it can mess it up - reversing the compass etc... and not upgrading the firmware as the Nova and CX-20 do not use stock APM firmware so you can lose you telemetry - custom firmware links are on RC Groups that do work with it) This was a good start for playing in the back garden but when i went out to a large flying field on an evening when there was some breeze it tried to escape - see my "Quanum Nova won't come home video" So it was pluggd back into mission planner and i changed the angle_max from 2200 to 3500 (this changes the maximum angle it will go to from 22 to 35 degrees) and the next night tried again .... what a difference!! It was great!! - see the video "just having fun" to see just how much faster it went with no affect by the wind. more soon.......