Mark Stringer

One thing i did notice is that keeping moving helps as well as changing modes. There us also a throttle trim value that the apm calculates itself ... setting the throttle mid value to that works great as it compensates for the extra weight of the camera etc I need to look in mission planner to get the right value names but they are something like that. ... it should be 500 by design (unloaded ) but mine went to over 700 fully-loaded .. very bad Helps avoid prop wash when changing flight mode

Pete .. angle max makes a world of difference believe me ... pilot velz only has affect in certain flight modes if i remember correctly so i have never changed it. The props makes a big difference, as does weight. I suspect that extra weight overloads the escs and as the battery runs down they give up a bit...maybe as they overheat. ..and you get that drop. As it rides its own prop wash you get the "wobble of death" ... one of my videos on YT shows one .. it suddenly recovered a foot or so from some rocks. I have had little success with CF props but standard QR X350 PRO props from Banggood are my current choice. A decent battery also seems to make a difference. Chris. ... mission planner is essential. .. don't accept a firmware upgrade and don't run the calibration wizard. . ..just do all calibrations one at a time ... use a really long usb cable, preferably taped to the quad so it doesn't move as you calibrate. I have never done the inflight calibration but have setup auto-tune as a flight mode ready for fine tuning later. GPS lock comes from leaving it on the ground until you get a solid green light .. you can't tell just how good that is without telemetry ..or take the laptop outside and leave it plugged in just to see the status. The full parameters section in mission planner has the angle_max value. .. change from 2200 to 3500 You could try swapping the esc with the one opposite ...just in case the board is at fault Taranis is a radio system .. open source software ... you need to be a bit techy but wonderful once you get to grips with it ... i get 16 channels to play with and all setup on the pc ... speach too so i know what each switch does. ...

AH, so the dust hasn't settled yet ... but great to get some conversation going on the topic APM in acro it is then ... i think ...maybe Thanks all ... i guess i expected it to all be ironed out by now and an easy question that i had missed the answer to in the pages of MR regulations ... but clearly not as yet

Now that time has passed and the dust settled. ...can anyone (preferably an examiner) tell me what mode you need to be in to take the A cert with a quadcopter using an APM and / or a CC3D flight controller I would like to get my A and will build a quad to do it. I have both controllers to hand and will probably use the APM as i love the functionality with GPS, 3DR and telemetry to my Taranis but need to be sure it has a suitable flight mode available fir the test. Thanks

One more thought ... how do you know the esc has gone? Did it smoke or is it just playing up? It can do odd things if a connection to mission planner goes wrong. There have also been at least 3 different versions of the escs so try and get a match if you can..

She is fine as she comes stock apart from the maximum angle that was set as 20 degrees by default. That 20 degrees meant any sort of breeze can blow it away ... my "wont come home" video shows that. ..a change to 35 made a huge difference (via mission planner) and she was a treat to fly after that. The white tx is good for about 300m and the older one doesn't reconnect if it goes into failsafe / out of range so make sure you have a good gps lock before taking off as it will "return to china" if not After my first fpv that went out of range i was left watching her do her own thing all the way back .... fortunately she landed within about a foot of the take off point but i changed to the Taranis after that Of course these days you wouldn't be able to fly that far with all the regulations anyway Good luck and enjoy

There is also a HUGE thread on rc groups about the cx-20 which is the same as the Nova. .. I learnt a lot from it and now have so many mods on mine it amazes me that it still flies! There is custom firmware to to keep it up to date without loosing the telemetry from the apm controller Great expandable bit of kit ... mine now has 3dr wireless telemetry, retracts, brushless gimbal, 2 cameras with video switcher (one on the gimbal and one fixed for FPV, battery monitoring, full telemetry to a Taranis with the LUA scripts for display via a teensy on board, HUD via a minim osd, 8 flight modes via the Taranis. .. i love it - LOL! I am modellermark on there if you want to search my posts and modellermark2 on YouTube to see a few of my early flights. .. do set your anglemax to 35 ....It makes a world of difference

After years of the big local store offering which are very slow and generally rubbish i got my son one from banggood. It has a brushed motor but does use a lipo battery, is 2.4ghz with steering wheel transmitter. I got a set of 3 extra batteries to and charge them with an imax as it is quicker than the provided one. The car has a real servo for steering, 4 wheel drive with front and rear differential units and will go very, very fast!! Amazing for 38 pounds including postage and about 15 pounds for the extra batteries ...less any discount you may find (usually you can get at least 5% off most things)... just received our second one so that we can race each other. Should have bought 3 as everything on their site gets cheaper if you buy 3! It will take between 1 and 4 weeks to arrive but BG have never let me down and have great customer service too. Hope this helps ... here you go: http://www.banggood.com/Wltoys-A979-118-2_4Gh-4WD-Monster-Truck-p-916960.html Batteries i got were 17 pounds: http://www.banggood.com/Wltoys-Balance-Charging-Set-74V-Charger-3Battery-Charging-Cable-p-924324.html Edited By Mark Stringer on 24/10/2015 15:34:15