Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator Posted June 10, 2015 Author Share Posted June 10, 2015 Oh I'm really pleased that worked for you Nev. Mmmm, I seem to remember reading something about two AUX2 ports on the MicroWii and only one working if the I2C was connected and then you needed to enable something in the code to make the non-standard AUX2 work. Sorry - that's all a bit vague! I'll see if I can find it again. BEB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator Posted June 10, 2015 Author Share Posted June 10, 2015 Nev, does this help? Or this? I think you will have to use the pin12 version if the I2C is in use (at least that's what I remember!) Notice that if you have to solder new pins in you only need 1 - just for the signal lead. BEB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Elliot Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 BEB Thank you for digging that out for me....I will plough onward Rich Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Bott - Moderator Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 Just thought I'd report that with practice in manual, (or whatever the lowest level of aided help is called) I'm slowly getting to a point where I panic less and am managing to bring the quad back to steady, stationary flight without having to think first. My right thumb is starting to do tiny movements that seem to be holding the quad fairly still, even in unpredictable air. Even my touchdowns are looking a little more gentle. Throttle control is becoming more automatic too, slowly. Still a long way to go though, but it's satisfying that there's a some improvement going on. So as exciting as it it to keep adding new features, I think a good slog at basic practice is where I'll be for a while. It's not easy, this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geoff Hoolahan Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 Posted by Chris Bott - Moderator on 11/06/2015 15:16:18: It's not easy, this. Well rightly or wrongly I finally decided to blame the KK2.1.5 for randomly dumping me upside down onto the grass, so it's trashed. The MultiWii arrived yesterday so I have a lot of catching up to do. So far it's looking good. It's probably down largely to BEB's configuration guides, but it already flies much better (less wobbly, less "bouncing" I've actually strapped a helicopter training kit under it, which saves a few props on landing - except when I forgot, about switching flight modes and flew it in manual! So, 'not easy' but progress. Might even bring this version to the park BEB for a proper pilot to test it. Cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Elliot Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 Well I finally managed to complete the first few programming steps, connect my FC to the gui and set my gear up, calibrate my escs and built the quad.......albeit a slightly bigger framed version. So nothing else for it but give it a go. A bit wobbly in ground effect so open up a bit more and hey presto. Manual or acro mode is a bit lively but angle is easier. Even tried altitude hold mode but that resulted in a bit of random up and down activity..........I think I've read that the altitude sensor needs some foam over the top to damp things down. Anyway I flew one battery through it and it's still in one piece so that's a result Bonus is that all the remaining bits turned up today from the far east so my lads and I can start the really hard bit for me.........sorting the GPS and associated paraphernalia! I have also bought a bluetooth unit so that we can communicate with the quad via phone or tablet........but that's yet another can of worms to open! Thanks for your thread thus far BEB, I'm enjoying learning a lot ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nev Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 That looks good Richard I might have a look at something similar next time. I am tantalisingly close with mine, GPS all ok and registered on the GUI and I found a position on the FC that registers the Aux2 switch, at least it toggles from 1000 to 2000 but at the moment it doesn't switch in the GPS functions, Hold for instance. I think I'll give that a rest for a while and like Chris get in a bit of practice and have a bit of fun. Nev. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator Posted June 11, 2015 Author Share Posted June 11, 2015 Hi Nev, I am in exactly the same position! I've been quite busy at work and not feeling like "playing" in the shed when I get home the last few days. But tonight - all fired up - I got in there. Did the eeprom.clear thing, re uploaded the code. Everything looks fine but two problems: 1. Like you I can't select any of the GPS modes - I've tried on AUX1 and AUX2 - both are working fine, the channel indicators both move and I can select any of the non-GPS modes with either of them. But, equally, I can't select the GPS related modes with either! 2. Although the GPS unit is flashing green (indicating a fix), tests OK on the UBLOX evaluation software and I'm getting no I2C errors - no lat or long appears in the GUI. Very strange. It's definitely communicating because if I unplug the GPS from the FC then the I2C errors come in thick and fast! And if I reconnect it they stop. So, what has Chris done that we haven't? BEB Edited By Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator on 11/06/2015 22:01:27 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator Posted June 11, 2015 Author Share Posted June 11, 2015 Nice one Richard! The F450 is a really nice frame - VERY tough! Flying manual is a challenge - much like flying a helicopter - but practice is the key and steady improvement! And in between you can have some fun flying in "level" and "horizon" modes! BEB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nev Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 I've had that "very strange" feeling all along with my GUI, I have got into the habit of closing it down and starting again after making any changes to make sure everything registers. For what it's worth I have latitude and longitude but still can't get GPS functions on Aux1 or 2 so it can't be that the GPS isn't registering Nev. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Bott - Moderator Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 Guys I just plugged mine in and checked. In the MultiwiiConf GUI, GPS functions don't turn green for me either, when I operate the switch.However, if I use MultiWiiWinGUI - the function does appear to operate. So I think it's just an issue with the GUI. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator Posted June 11, 2015 Author Share Posted June 11, 2015 Well that is reassuring! I was getting very puzzled! I'll try that other GUI tomorrow night Chris and report back if I get a similar result. If so the "proof of the GPS pudding will be in the eating" i.e. fly it and see! BEB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nev Posted June 12, 2015 Share Posted June 12, 2015 Well done Chris, looks like WinGUI confirmed it. Won't get chance to test it live, I need to change a prop or two first from earlier practice. Looks like a rainy weekend so will have plenty of time to fix everything in place properly ( and some prop guards ). Nev. By the way how long did you get out of a 1300 battery in the end. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Bott - Moderator Posted June 12, 2015 Share Posted June 12, 2015 That's good Nev. I have my timer set for 6 minutes, and there's usually a good bit left in a battery. However, this doesn't half seem to give the batteries some stick. It really seems to be finding out my poorer batteries. At least one of which doesn't last 6 mins, puffs and gets quite warm. While I'm here, quick plug for 4props.com. I broke only ACW props recently so ordered just ACW ones from them on Tuesday. (along with some carbon reinforced 2 bladers to try) By mistake they sent CW props which arrived on Wed. I emailed them, out of hours, and had a reply within 30 mins saying they'd send out replacements next day (Thu). Today, double the amount of ACW props turned up, so with the ones they sent by mistake, my stock is now nice and even again. Great service guys, many thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator Posted June 13, 2015 Author Share Posted June 13, 2015 Well I tried WinGui - still no luck. Mega head scratching! Chatted with Chris - compared notes - played around in the UBLOX software checking that the GPS unit itself was still working. PING! Sudden realisation! The GPS Unit is still at 9,600baud!!!! The rather daft thing I'd missed is that you have to set the baud rate to 115,200 THEN apply the text config file! Not the other way round! Er,....obvious really - but sometimes its the obvious that we miss! So, with that done - and using WinGUI I was able to "find myself" - there I a below,...in my shed. So, its back to the original GUI to see if it all works there as well.... (Sorry about the noise in the background there - it was my battery charger power supply's fan!) By bringing in AUX2 I have been able to effectively get 5 different flight modes on the transmitter - across two switches. So I have: ACRO LEVEL STABLE (which is HORIZON plus MAG) GPS HOLD GPS RTH. Not bad at all! To make AUX2 work you run a short servo lead between the pin D12 (right next to the motor connections) and a spare channel on your receiver. Then you have to uncomment the line: #define RCAUXPIN12 in the config.h file. Then reflash the code to the board. Programme your Tx to drive the new switch just the same as you did for AUX1. Well - in a way - that's it! As I said in the video we have achieved what we set out to achieve. The cost breakdown has been: Quad Kit - £62 Multiwii FC - £18 GPS - £12 I2C board - £4 A grand total of £96 - so as promised a "grown up" quad that can do manual, attitude-hold and GPS-hold for under £100! It doesn't have to stop here. I will be experimenting with the GPS hold to see if by tweaking the control parameters we can get a steadier position lock. I'll also be having a look at the mission planning facility in WinGUI to try out waypoint flying with the little quad - that should be fun! And finally I am thinking of an "extra" that could be fitted - but only thinking! I'll let you know how I get on. And of course there are others, Chris and Nev, that now have GPS working (well done Nev!) so I hope they'll keep their experiences coming as they use their quads. And hopefully others as well - Geoff and Richard are catching up fast and wont be long before they have their quads in GPS. If you have had a go and not posted then please do so and tell us about it - it would be great to hear how many X230's and other Multiwii controlled quads are out there - especially those inspired by this thread. I hope you have enjoyed this little project so far! BEB Edited By Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator on 14/06/2015 00:37:07 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Bott - Moderator Posted June 13, 2015 Share Posted June 13, 2015 It's a great little project - thanks BEB. A few observations from my experience so far:- Calibrate Often I was often far too quick to go back to config.h and change something to see what happened. Of course this means un-commenting a line or commenting one out and then uploading it again to the Multiwii FC - simple enough. Of course what wasn't ingrained in me early on, was that this resets any sensor calibration. So after any changes at all make sure to - Set the quad perfectly level, do a "CALIB_ACC", then go through the rigmarole of a "CALIB_MAG". This involves being away from any magnetic influences like cables or buildings, clicking the button on the GUI and then rotating the quad 360deg in all three axes, one at a time. Not doing so has cost me a few props, and one of my prop guards - DOH. I've not done much in the way of PID tweaking yet, but I assume an upload after a config.h change will also reset any changes there, that you've made using the GUI? GPS On to GPS, then. What I think is happening when we load the ublox config into the Crius 06 is this:- We connect at 9600 because we have to. We start the upload, and it gets to the point where the baud rate changes. This actually changes on the 06, so suddenly the PC isn't talking to it and the rest of the config won't upload. So, we change the PC to 115200, the PC and 06 start speaking again, and we can send it the whole config this time. If this is indeed what's happening, it's a bit daft to be honest. But there we are. When it's all working, with the I2C NAV board programmed correctly too, I see the following: Connect quad battery - LED on I2C Nav board flashes slowly while it acquires satellites. Once it has a 2D lock, the LED starts doing two quick flashes with a gap between. This very quickly changes to 3 quick flashes to indicate 3D lock. It's best to wait until you see this before arming the quad. If you arm before this, GPS seems to be ignored throughout the flight. Arming I'm still happy arming mine by applying full right rudder with throttle low. Disarming with full left rudder/Thr low. Is this how most folk still have theirs? Flying Don't try to run before you can walk. Lots and lots of practice of just keeping it in one place, then maybe moving it from one intentional place to another and back will pay dividends later if and when something unexpected happens. Me, I'm becoming more comfortable with mine, slowly. As yet though, only with it facing away from me. My next practice stages, which I've started, will be turning to side on, staying still for a while and then turning back. It's not coming naturally, so I'm having to work at it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Mchugh Posted June 13, 2015 Share Posted June 13, 2015 Chris, BEB, et al. One trick I found while trying to learn to fly one is that to give yourself a more "fixed wing" type flight experience, try the following: Give yourself about 10 metres altitude and then enable BARO or Altitude Hold. Pitch forward: Fly forward, quite slowly at first. Use the Yaw (Rudder) only to drive the machine in the direction you want to go. Stop at hover by releasing sticks. It's very satisfying just flying flat circles by just using Pitch plus a little Yaw. If you feel really good about it, trying flying in circles around yourself, like a control line plane... Or flat Figure Eights... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Mchugh Posted June 13, 2015 Share Posted June 13, 2015 Sorry, but another thought that may help you... Does your GPS module have a memory backup battery? If NOT, you REALLY want to add one. These GPS modules can take MANY minutes to get a lock after a "Cold Start"... I found this out while using a UBlox NEO6 module, part of the FrSKY GPS module in my Riot. It originally took UP TO 10 minutes in a clear open field to get locked. Add a little button cell and.... 45 seconds! Everytime! Hope that helps... Edited By Jim Mchugh on 13/06/2015 14:17:08 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Bott - Moderator Posted June 13, 2015 Share Posted June 13, 2015 It does have a battery already, thanks Jim. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nev Posted June 14, 2015 Share Posted June 14, 2015 I didn’t like having all the electrical stuff waving about in the breeze, apparently they can be a bit prone to tipping over. So I made a cover out of a discarded pot (Aldi profiteroles, other deserts are available) So this is my final version, at least until I can find the little key fob camera and maybe some wider legs, oh and maybe some LED’s so I know which way round it is. Excellent little project BEB. Nev. By the way, the little £2.90 Chinese / ebay prop balancer in the background is brilliant, it’s the only one I’ve had that works properly, including one I made myself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator Posted June 14, 2015 Author Share Posted June 14, 2015 That looks really smart Nev! The cover may well help the baro to not wander around so much as well! I've been flying mine a lot indoors this last week - about 20-30 flights. You're right, it does have a bit of a tipping tendency, especially on landing. The floor where I am flying is pretty rough concrete - its an abandoned loading bay - so it can be tough on "mistakes". But having said that the little quad has proved itself to be very rugged - just a bit of damage to the odd prop really. Its stability on landing would be much improved by having a wider base I think, maybe a sort of "spider" type thing bolted onto the bottom. Chris's approach to learning to fly it - particularly in manual - is spot on in my experience. Do it just like you would with a heli, start with little "bunny hops" and gradually extend their duration all the time keeping it orientated "tail-in". Once you can manage a reasonable tail-in hover then start to move to side-on (both ways) and finally nose-in. Alongside this you can be practicing some simple forward/backward and side-to-side translations. You will find that as you do that the quad has a tendency to climb or descend - you need to develop the skill of using three controls at once; pitch and roll to control the movement and throttle to keep it level. At this point you will probably want to implement a throttle curve that gives you less sensitivity around the centre, as very, very, small throttle changes can have it climbing or descending. Also, if you use a ratchet on your throttle stick you might want to take it off. I always used to use a ratchet, but since flying quads more I have removed it - its much easier as otherwise Murphy's Law states that one click up will be too much and it will climb and one click down will not be enough and it will descend! The other thing I have done here is to fit a piece of heat-shrink tubing over the throttle tension spring - this gives a nice smooth movement with just the right about of friction for me. To give your practice some focus you might like to download the BMFA A-cert test details for multi-rotors (basically its the same as the heli A-test). This is a good basic training schedule - remember the objective is to fly it all in manual. You will probably find the flat, hovering, turns in the figure 8 the most challenging aspect at first. This is because you now have to fly all four controls at the same time, te throttle to maintain the same altitude, the pitch to maintain a steady forward momentum without running away with it, the yaw to bring the nose round co-ordinated with the roll to correct the tilt as you yaw away from one direction to another. One bonus of all this by the way is that if you do master the quad in manual you will find that all of a sudden you can fly helicopters! I had never flown a "proper" heli until a few months ago when I had a go on a mate's 450 and suddenly found I could fly it with no real difficulty! Within two flights I was nose-in and flying circuits etc. no problem. Just like flying a quad in manual. On the question of arming off the sticks or via a switch. I think both methods have pluses and minuses. The big potential minus folks bring up regarding arming via a stick position is the possibility of unintentionally disarming the quad in the air. But in practice I think the likelihood of this is vanishingly small. You would have to be at zero throttle - almost unknown on a quad as you have no control then! And you would need to simultaineously have full yaw in - I have decided that I'll take my chances on this and I use stick arming even on the big drones at work. It hasn't let me down yet! As I stated earlier I find its better to reduce rates on pitch and roll rather than use expo on a quad - unlike on a plane were I prefer expo to rates! But its a personal thing and you should experiment to find what is good for you. One thing I would say - you will almost certainly find that you don't want to reduce rates on the yaw. Pretty well all quads are much more sensitive in pitch and roll than they are in yaw. This imbalance can be a problem when you come to tackle turning when flying in manual. So I tend to turn the rates up on yaw but down on pitch and roll. As I say, you need to experiment to find the set-up that feels best for you. Have fun that's the important thing! BEB Edited By Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator on 14/06/2015 18:10:36 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geoff Hoolahan Posted June 14, 2015 Share Posted June 14, 2015 Its stability on landing would be much improved by having a wider base I think, maybe a sort of "spider" type thing bolted onto the bottom. My experimentation with this was to use an old 'training gear' from a heli. It does help (me at least), but you still need to come in slowly and level otherwise the 'bounce' will get you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caveman Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 BEB, I've been following this, and I'm quite keen to have go. To that end I've been drawing up a list of items needed. The only item I can't identify, and forgive me if I've missed it in the, lengthy, thread, is the ublox to I2C translator board. Can you give either, a specification for the board, or, a link to where it may be obtained? Thanks GDB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martyn K Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 Just about to place an order with HK. I'll order some spares as well but I don't know what size props to order. Anyone know (quickly) the prop diameter? Any recommended other spares (besides guards) I should order as well? Thanks Martyn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geoff Hoolahan Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 Martyn, you need 5030 and 5030r as a pair. Don't know about HK, but I get these, 3 packs at a time, about 2 days delivery. **LINK** other than props, nothing else seems to break (or should I not have said that!!!) Geoff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.