Martyn K Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 Thanks Geoff Managed to zoom in on the parts photo for the quad and spotted 5A3 so guessed on the size. Ordered 5030 plus guards as suggested. I am happy with stabilisers Chris.. So.. its on order. A nice little holiday project - make a change from peanuts (model aircraft) and programming mini sumo robots Martyn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Rogers Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 I managed to get my position hold and rth functions working yesterday having erased the eeprom and reloaded the program. I had 11 satellites in veiw this time. It was calm yesterday so I'm just hoping it will still work on a windy day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator Posted June 17, 2015 Author Share Posted June 17, 2015 Hi Caveman, You can get the I2C board here - £3.29 on ebay! I bought from this seller and delivery was fine. BEB PS - Nice one Martin! Edited By Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator on 17/06/2015 20:11:33 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caveman Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 Thanks very much BEB, all items now ordered. I'm really looking forward to having a go at this, it's something quite different. If I can get it all working properly I'll mount my Mobius on it for a bit of aerial photography. On the asumption that it will take a while for all the component parts to arrive, and I've got some substantial domestic DIY to complete, it will be a few weeks before building can begin. So, those of you with all the answers and experience have a few weeks grace before I begin pulling my hair out (what's left of it) and bombard you with questions - stand by! Cheers GDB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Bernard Posted June 22, 2015 Share Posted June 22, 2015 Well I have joined in as well now, and after a promising start things are going downhill rapidly. I bought the Crius package that had everything other than the FTDI board - but it did include a Bluetooth module and with that I was able to connect to my laptop and phone and had great fun moving the board and watching the sensors while I waited for the FTDI board to arrive. That arrived today and so I plugged it in waiting for the PC to find the drivers. It didn't. Eventually it decided what the board was and loaded the drivers - which didn't work. I tried again with drivers direct from the FTDIChip website. They didn't work. To cut a long story short it turned out that the latest drivers didn't work with Windows 8, but by loading some old drivers - success! OK - so at last I had a USB connection, and bit of 'eeeee-oooowww'ing around my head showed that the board was talking to the configurator OK. So on to business - load up Arduino and change the settings in config.h as recommended. Click on upload... Sync error ! Tried a few times before I realise I still had the Bluetooth module plugged in, and this stops the FTDI board working. Try again - success!! Upload OK !! Close Arduino - start up configurator and connect the comm port and ... Nothing - there is no data being sent out of the flight controller board. The board is live, and it is responding - the blue light flashing when it gets moved out of the level setting - but nothing coming out. Tried the Bluetooth connection - still no sensor output. Tried Bluetooth via the phone - connects OK, but then get 'No data received'. So 5 hours spent on this this evening to no avail so off to kick the dog! If anyone has any bright ideas I would be glad to hear them! Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Bernard Posted June 23, 2015 Share Posted June 23, 2015 Well out of desperation I loaded all the software onto my desktop and repeated the exercise. This time no problems with the USB interface, but the config program would not run until I added a different Java library to the Windows path. So loaded the Arduino, changed config.h again, complied, uploaded - and bingo! It's now working, so whether it is a Windows 8 issue (my laptop) I don't know. My desktop is Windows 7. Anyway, cooking on gas again, so now to try and get the GPS hooked up! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Bott - Moderator Posted June 23, 2015 Share Posted June 23, 2015 Well done Colin. I've no idea what your sentence about Java means, but well done for getting up and running. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Bernard Posted June 23, 2015 Share Posted June 23, 2015 Java is a programming language that the MultiWii Configurator uses. In doing so it calls the bits of the language it needs from your PC. In this case I got a message saying that the Java program it needed did not exist at the folder shown in the error message - even though if I opened that location in Windows Explorer I could see it there! A bit of Googling showed that this problem had cropped up before and the answer was to add another folder to the Windows path. If anyone hits this problem let me know and I will supply the technical details of the fix. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nev Posted June 23, 2015 Share Posted June 23, 2015 Well done Colin. Most of my problems seemed to be getting the laptop to talk to the versions bits, it can be a bit frustrating, the rest of it is easy. Until you get to the flying stage anyway Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martyn K Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 My final part arrived this morning (GPS module) from the Peoples Republic.. I'll make a start when I get the Kwik-Fli finished, possibly sooner as I am on Holiday in 3 weeks time.. Martyn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Bernard Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 Has anyone else hit a 'progam too big' issue when uploading to the board? Now I have all the basics working, I am adding the other bits that I got, the GPS and an OLED display. When I made the changes for the GPS and uploaded, I got a message that I was running short of space, and then last night after changes to activate the OLED display I got a message that the program was too big! Will try again later today. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator Posted June 24, 2015 Author Share Posted June 24, 2015 It is very tight on space Colin. In my current configuration - with GPS and the standard flight modes - there are literally just a couple of hundred bytes left! And all the locally defined variables etc have to use that. It could be that with the OLED its just too big. BEB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Rogers Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 Hi Colin, I an using the Crius 2.5 board with Bluetooth, OLED display, GPS and battery monitoring and the program fits okay but I am using Multiwii version 2.3 whereas the latest version is 2.4 which may be bigger. I can also report it is all working well with 2.3, hope this helps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caveman Posted June 27, 2015 Share Posted June 27, 2015 Hi All, Just got my quad built. Tried a few flights this evening, which resulted in 5 broken props!! I guess I'll have to order some more pretty quickly as I'm now on my last set! My last flight, in angle mode, ended with the quad disappearing over the garden hedge and colliding with a small copse of trees! It took ages to find it, and then I had to lash two long bamboo canes together to reach it. However, no damage, other than, yet another, chipped prop! I was actually more successful in manual mode! I'm going to have to devise a way of indicating which is the front of the machine and make some sort of feet, to make it more stable on the ground and when landing. Incidentally I'm using an Frsky D4R-II receiver in CPPM mode, so only one lead between the receiver and the FC. It seems to work well and, even allowing for the warning fro Frsky about it not being reliable when 8 channels are in use, it will provide the 6 channels needed for this project. Just got to get in some more practise, order some more props and wait for the GPS equipment to arrive from China. Then the fun starts all over again......... Cheers GDB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Elliot Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 With both sons now at home we set about assembling and programming all our bits. Everything went together fine and after many re reads of lots of posts on here we got all the bits up and running as far as we could tell. Like others we ran into issues with the switch enablments showing as active on the GUI but flight tests have revealed all to be working fine. Position hold, return to home and even landing mode work fine (although the landings sometimes include a bounce or two). My use of a larger 450 frame seems to have resulted in a slightly easier to fly model, both my sons (13 and 18), who don't fly anything else rc, were off the buddy lead in angle mode after a couple of flights . There is the advantage of just hitting the return to home switch if they get in trouble. I've also added a bluetooth unit which enables me to connect to my Andriod device using an app called EZ-GUI. This should allow quick alteration of thing like PID settings, control rates and switch allocations at the field without connecting to a laptop, as well as being able to check GPS functionality and recording a log of the flights. As far as I can glean from reading other forums, mission planning is not possible with our setups.....but I can live with that.....we should be doing the flying after all !! As a Lads and Dads project this really has been a great success and has got them out and about with me doing a bit which was the idea from the outset for me.........they are even asking me if we can go flying which is a first!! So many thanks BEB for putting the effort into this thread and to all the rest of you who've chipped in with advice and tips to get us out Quadding.......off to build ourselves a camera mount next. Cheers Rich Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Bernard Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 Well I carried out the first real test flights today with mixed fortune. On the positive side I found it reasonably easy to fly and had no trouble navigating it around my small lawn. However I did have a major issue on power, or lack of it. I am using the stock motors and props from HK that came with the X230 frame. I found that it would only climb to around 4' and hover for around 5-10s and then it drifted back to earth for a rest. I had to reduce the throttle to a minimum for 5s and then I would be able to take off again. (This was on freshly charged LiPos - tried 2 of them. Also 2 of the motors were running extremely hot - too hot to touch - and after 10 mins of this flying was finally curtailed as one prop simply helicoptered out of the motor, taking the shaft with it, to land at my feet - the multicopter quite happily landing with just 3 working props. So a change of motor me thinks and I will copy Chris and order some of those DYS motors. Challenges - but good fun, and a change from throwing the Wot4 around! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Rogers Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 I had been finding that when descending fast it was sometimes hard to recover even with full throttle. Having Googled a bit I found Vortex ring state which seemed to explain it. I now try moving out of my prop wash which seemed to help a lot, but today I removed my prop guards and it now seems less prone to it. Rich- Is landing mode just natural skill or have you attached an ultrasonic range sensor? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator Posted June 30, 2015 Author Share Posted June 30, 2015 Great to see so many of you making good progress with your mini-drones! Martin, its possible that you entered vortex ring state - although not likely unless your rate of decent was very high indeed! Also in VRS it isn't so much that its hard to arrest the descent and needs lots of throttle - it's that it is basically impossible to arrest the descent no matter how much throttle you shovel in! VRS is basically the rotor equivalent of a stall. Its more likely that you are encountering a classic MR problem. As your quad flies the props push air downwards below the quad. If you descend into this air then the props have to work much harder to generate lift - as they start their work on air that is already moving downwards - so they have to accelerate it to an even higher speed than normal to create the momentum exchange that we call lift. So the props need to speed up basically. This is why descending a quad to a landing is quite tricky - at least in manual. As you start to descend - all is well, you achieve a satisfactory rate of descent. But as the descent becomes established then you run into this "downward air" problem and your rate of descent increases as your lift decreases. So you need to add throttle (sometimes a surprising amount) to hold the rate descent at the lower level that you want. Then when you get withing 18" to 2 foot from touch down - all descent stops and the quad hovers! This is because you have entered the ground effect and the downward air from the props is hitting the ground and supporting the quad on a cushion of air. So you need to throttle back again to actually land! As you fly more you will find that the stability of the column of downward air beneath the quad has a big influence on the behaviour of your quad. In gusty conditions for example the wind can suddenly blow the column out from under the quad - result your lift suddenly increases and "up you go"! You reduce throttle, the wing gust subsides, the column moves back under the quad and,...."down you go". For this reason it can be very challenging trying the maintain constant height in gusty conditions. Quads seem to be more susceptable to this effect than helicopters - probably because their "column" is in fact 4 small columns easily displaced rather than one big column that is more robust. Also, when you move from the hover into horizontal flight you move the quad off the column and so it climbs. This is why when transistioning to horizontal flight you usually have to put the throttle down a notch. But, just to make things really complicated you might be transistioning downwind - so the wind is blowing the column out from under the quad but you are flying into the region the column has moved to! Who said flying quads was easy! BEB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Rogers Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 It's certainly a steep learning curve, I think i need to get my x5c out again and try and master nose in flying, luckily its so light it is pretty robust. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaunie Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 Is everybody else getting their quads coming in from HK? I ordered mine on the 14th May and I've still not got it! Shaunie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Bernard Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 Ordered mine 11th June and it was delivered on the 15th from the European warehouse Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Rogers Posted July 7, 2015 Share Posted July 7, 2015 My RTH function had been working fine, when activated the quad was tuning to face me, returning and then turning back to face its original heading. On the next outing it did not turn to face me but did return. I thought it could be a magnetometer problem so recalibrated it but it made no difference I had not reloaded the code so can only assume the eeprom has become corrupted when I changed the auxiliary switch settings. Has anyone else had anything similar or eeprom corruptions? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Meade Posted July 7, 2015 Share Posted July 7, 2015 Martin - I see you are using a Crius AIOP flight controller. I've found that depending on which mode I was in before using RTH determined on whether it turned to face me before coming back. Note that for me this nuance disappeared once I started using MegpirateNG firmware instead. If you have any doubts on EEPROM contents, it's always best to re-flash your firmware onto it again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pat (rActive) Harbord Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 It's alive! - Just made first tentative hovers (indoors with horizon mode on) - I'm going to enjoy this, love the sound. Props arrived from HK yesterday, which meant I have had loads of time to setup and configure the board. Really need to wait for the wind the calm down before getting outside and really working on the PID settings. Rx is an Orange R615X connected PPM with only one lead for all channels and aux. This makes for a very tidy installation Can't make too many assumptions about stability as I'm either in ground or ceiling effect in the lounge - but directional stability is pretty good - just a bit of drift to the back and right, easily controlled with a dab of opposite stick. I'm running a F450 clone frame - with the Multiwii 328p FC - generic red 20Amp SimonK esc's - 920Kv 2212 motors - 9443 props - I've got GPS components ready to go on once I've found a PC to borrow as I can't find a config app to run on the mac. ££'s to date - around £120 Thank you BEB for driving this thread and for all contributions that have allowed me to stalk around in the background gleaning the necessary info to get up and running. Ultimate aim is to get a camera hanging under it as I have a potential commission to shoot a friends engineering facility - I can already see this could be a slippery slope, Shahid Banglawala's heavy lift series looks alarmingly relevant all of a sudden. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martyn K Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 I started mine last night as well. Got the soldering out of the way. A couple of questions. How are people connecting the deans connector? I have soldered mine directly to the power distribution board but I am not sure that is such a good idea. Where do the ESC's go? T the moment, mine are tie-wrapped to the distribution board as I think that the combined length of motor and ESC wires will be long enough to get to the motors. However, I am bothered about cooling or overheating,, Cheers Martyn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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