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Okay, I'm pretty late to the RC game, and I realize that most of you in here are DIY style, but hopefully there's a place for me to read and learn and share stories of my mishaps. I pre-ordered a DJI Inspire last week. I ended up with a chunk of change from a severance package and have always wanted to get into aerial photography. I do a decent amount of freelance event photography that has helped pay for my camera gear and am planning to learn to pilot the Inspire while waiting for regulations to get sorted out for commercial use. The main selling point of the Inspire for me was the integrated second controller. The business model I'm going to try to set up would be partnering with local videographer friends and possibly wedding photographers to just charge a rental/operator fee and then let them retain the video or photos they take and do their own post work. For things like non-wedding events or real-estate photography I could take and edit my own photos. Even if it doesn't go anywhere as a business because of regulatory reasons I'm just hoping to have fun and use it as an opportunity to share the experience with friends by handing them the camera controls and letting them look around as I pilot. In looking into local regulations I actually found out about this startup in Portland called Skyward http://skyward.io/ It sounds like they're working to build some system of record software to assist in automated UAV flight paths. I'm actually going to a holiday party at their offices today so I'm hoping to learn more about what they're doing and find out what opportunities they're anticipating for commercial drone use. Hope I'm not rubbing anybody the wrong way, I realize I will have my work cut out for me learning to fly a quadcopter and I'm sure you've been seeing an influx of noobs jumping on the phantom/inspire train. If anyone is in Oregon I'd definitely be interested in meeting up to see what you're flying and learn more about the hobby.
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Dec 18, 2014 19:45
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You took a pretty big leap into something you can't really pilot. Get something small, get lots of practice, and hope you have the ability to keep this thing in control. Flying forward is one thing, flying omnidirectionally is a totally different beast.
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Dec 18, 2014 19:54
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Cannon_Fodder posted:You took a pretty big leap into something you can't really pilot. I'll be starting slow in a very big field, I'm in no rush and I have a park a block from my house so I can put in the time weather permitting. everything I've been reading though suggested that DJI has done the best job of simplifying their flight controls and making their quads as user friendly as possible which is why I was willing to pay more for the Inspire than a roll your own solution. I'm not pretending like it won't take a lot of time to learn the ropes, just optimistic that I can learn what I need to fly it safely. MMD3 fucked around with this message at 20:02 on Dec 18, 2014 |
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Dec 18, 2014 19:59
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Dec 18, 2014 19:59
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Which is why I'm not mounting my DSLR on it? I could certainly post an image of a bad car accident and yet I've never totaled my car or killed anyone with it. There are idiots in any hobby or sport that are going to do things wrong right? I was hoping the community here would be a little more welcoming than some of the other subforums on SA.
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Dec 18, 2014 20:10
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I posted that already  This guy either had commercial grade insurance and he's fine, or he didn't and he's an idiot. MMD3 posted:If anyone is in Oregon I'd definitely be interested in meeting up to see what you're flying and learn more about the hobby. I'm not in the PNW but drop me a line, I've been doing this commercially since March. There's one other guy in this thread that I know of who does commercial work, but I'm happy to give you some pointers, tips, advice, whatever. Elendil004 fucked around with this message at 20:31 on Dec 18, 2014 |
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Dec 18, 2014 20:24
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Elendil004 posted:I posted that already I know, I should have just quoted you buddy. Sorry, I dug through a few pages until I found it. 
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Dec 18, 2014 20:28
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DJI is a great way to get started, the quad's drat near fly themselves, and with some common sense you can avoid the "DREADED FLYAWAYS" that common idiots have. I'm probably picking up an inspire over the winter, but it really requires a second operator which I rarely have.
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Dec 18, 2014 20:33
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MMD3 posted:Which is why I'm not mounting my DSLR on it? Not trying to be negative. Was just hoping that you think this all the way through. Crashes happen. To all sorts of equipment. It would be unfortunate for you to experience a hard lose like that simply because a motor failed or a prop came unscrewed. It was already mentioned, but start small. I think the DJI is probably going to give you a false sense of security and when something does happen you won't have the flight time to understand what you need to do in order to react properly.
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Dec 18, 2014 20:33
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A Yolo Wizard posted:That brainFPV flight controller just got released, seems pricy but I would assume a good option if you want to minimize the stuff in your miniquad further (integrated OSD, sbus without an inverter) http://www.brainfpv.com/products/ Looks nice but $130 is pretty pricey. Seeing how well the naze flies and how cheap it is its hard for me to justify right now. The afromini and minimosd board are about the same size as that with admittedly a little more wiring. Its a bit hard to see in this  LED photo but the afromini and minimosd boards are side by side in the middle of my qav250. This is just after a rebuild and I hadn't tidied up the esc wiring yet. 
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Dec 18, 2014 20:39
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MMD3 posted:Which is why I'm not mounting my DSLR on it? I'm not saying you're dumb, by any means. Still, invest in a little quad and practice with that. You can fly it through/around obstacles in your home and get a feel for how these things handle without wind conditions and testing out multiple orientations, as you won't always be flying forward. I probably put about 50 hours into my hubsan before I went for anything larger and I'm convinced that has saved me a whole lot of money.
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Dec 18, 2014 21:19
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MMD3 posted:Which is why I'm not mounting my DSLR on it? People are reacting that way because you aren't the first person to drop a lot of money on a big expensive quad as their first machine then smash it to pieces. I think the inspire looks like a cool machine and I'm sure you will make great footage with it. If you are dead set on not learning on something cheaper it is your money. Just be aware that when the fancy flight controller gets into trouble the only way to save your machine is to often to switch to manual. Flying these things on manual isn't easy if you have never done it and learning on something cheap and hard to break is generally seen as the best path into flying RC stuff. Plus it is fun as well. The term phantom noob didn't come from nowhere. There are tons of recorded incidents of phantom flyaways and crashes which are mostly pilot error and although often hilarious people are just trying to help you avoid that. When things go wrong they can go wrong really quickly. Knowing how to fly manually can save you a lot of $ and potential injury to those on the ground. Here is a video of my first serious quad crash because of a prop adapter failure : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7kwhtslOYQ&t=77s It was equipment failure and it sucked a lot. In this case there was nothing I could do but it went from going ok to  very very quickly.
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Dec 18, 2014 23:29
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Looks like you had some pretty bad vibrations before it completely failed, or was that normal for that particular setup? There is definitely a perception that quadcopters are easy to fly, and that one can just grab the controls and have no problems. When I first got my hands on the nano qx I was slamming into anything and everything non-stop and had to replace the props after the first day. These are not easy quads to break but if you want to learn there is no easier way than to just practice, practice, practice! I came really close to just buying a phantom, but am really glad I went the progressive and DIY route. I didn't have time to build my QAV250 last weekend unfortunately but I just went on-call for work so this weekend I'll be stuck at home anyways. Still haven't decided on how I'm going to wire everything up, and the Fury PDB coming back in stock isn't helping me make up my mind, although I should really stick to the KISS principle for my first build. Also got my CL-0615-14 motors, and have the parts to build a second micro quad except for the FC. Thinking about the Micro MWC FC so I can have 2 micro quads going instead of moving my nano qx FC around. joe944 fucked around with this message at 02:45 on Dec 19, 2014 |
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Dec 19, 2014 02:31
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joe944 posted:Looks like you had some pretty bad vibrations before it completely failed, or was that normal for that particular setup? Normal for any craft where you don't balance everything.
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Dec 19, 2014 02:50
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I think the bad vibrations were mostly the collet prop adaptor working its way loose. But the props and were never balanced either. That was the first quad I built and it was a good learning experience but I certainly didn't build it as well as I could have. The actual damage wasn't that bad 3 plastic f450 arms and the cheap goodluck buy landing gear and one esc. If 250 size minis had been a thing when I built my first quad two years ago I definitely would have started with one of those and I was coming in from collective pitch helis.
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Dec 19, 2014 06:49
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Speaking of balancing things, are those little 10-15 dollar magnetic balancer any good? I'm thinking it would be worthwhile to do on the propellers, and possibly even the motors themselves. A 500mAh battery arrived for my X4. It actually still flew nicely indoors. It certainly felt a bit heftier, and needed about 40% throttle to hover. but still stable, and flew around my basement for almost 12 minutes... Also realized I should really put a set of deans connectors on the cable for the stock charger. Then I can use it on the go, or plug it into my proper charger. Golluk fucked around with this message at 15:12 on Dec 19, 2014 |
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Dec 19, 2014 14:22
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Golluk posted:Speaking of balancing things, are those little 10-15 dollar magnetic balancer any good? I'm thinking it would be worthwhile to do on the propellers, and possibly even the motors themselves. Those balancers work well as long as the prop mounting bit is true. I bought one that the axle wasn't centered that was beyond useless. The replacement was fine though.
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Dec 19, 2014 23:47
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I stuck a set of deans connectors onto the X4 charging cable. Which also made it easy to toss an ammeter in and check what it charges at. Seems to be putting out 125ma, and slowly dropping into a 240mah battery that was sitting at 3.8 volts for storage. Also compared using different USB power supplies. No difference between a 400ma unit and a 1.5a. Which is what I expected. Read some one saying the 2A USB power supplies charged quicker, or puffed their battery. I wouldn't use the stock charger on the 500mah battery, it only put out 140ma to charge it. Again was sitting at 3.8v. I'll just stick to using my B6AC to charge at 1C rate.
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Dec 20, 2014 00:58
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Checking both the prop nuts and, depending on your particular motor hub layout, the shaft-to-hub attachment screws should really be an everytime-you-put-a-fresh-battery-in type of inspection. I found a wobbly prop once because two of the three screws on the shaft mount had come loose. Now I pull all four props every time to check them. I guess I could loctite them, but  .
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Dec 20, 2014 06:48
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Dad picked up a Blade 120 SR today, plus a Spektrum DX4e for $80 total. Holy poo poo that little thing is fast. We bound everything and I just did a bit of hovering and testing the controls, it makes my coax look like a little baby toy. I also really, really debated on getting one of these to toy around with in my room, but I can almost guarantee I'd break or lose it within 5 minutes. Still though, I can't help but think the Faze is incredibly rad for what it is. It's so drat tiny  Anyone got any experience with the Faze, in the off chance I feel like I need some ridiculous little palm sized quad sometime in the future?
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Dec 21, 2014 00:15
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Looks like a clone of the Estes proto X. I've flown mine into a few walls, and only had a prop pop off, but not break. I would go for an SL which has a better transmitter, and swappable batteries. The hubsan x4 is a better quad, though is about twice the size. Still easy to fly indoors. Props are easier to break, but I've only nicked the outer edge so far. Still won't draw blood if you fly it into yourself. I am having bad luck with the Bix3 fpv plane. Changed mode types quickly in base flight. Then powered up the fpv gear, and the servos started going nuts. Quickly pulled power. Tried with out the fpv powered, and it was a bit jittery, also lost an aileron output. Couldn't connect on baseflight or multiwii. Disconnected everything off the board and tried to reflash, but only succeeded in noticing the board was suspiciously warm. I think the serial to USB or the port itself on the chip is fried. Really wish I knew how I managed that. Wiring was the same as usual. The Bixler 2 didn't fair much better. Managed to be 3 feet too low when I attempted a roll over dive into a 180 pull up. Time to glue the front end back on for the 7th time. Golluk fucked around with this message at 00:57 on Dec 21, 2014 |
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Dec 21, 2014 00:53
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Golluk posted:Then powered up the fpv gear, and the servos started going nuts. Quickly pulled power. This happened to me but it was because I hooked up 11.1V to the servos of the p/t/r assembly. Because I am sometimes a huge moron too excited to see something right in front of me.
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Dec 21, 2014 01:25
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Golluk posted:I am having bad luck with the Bix3 fpv plane. Changed mode types quickly in base flight. Then powered up the fpv gear, and the servos started going nuts. Quickly pulled power. Tried with out the fpv powered, and it was a bit jittery, also lost an aileron output. Couldn't connect on baseflight or multiwii. base flight? Are you trying to use an afro mini as a flight stabilizer? How are you feeding the system 5v power for the servos and FPV gear? If you put >5v into the Afro Mini, you probably fried the CPU
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Dec 21, 2014 02:55
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Acro Naze32 (full naze less baro and mag). The FC is getting 5.5v from the BEC on the ESC. I'm using a separate 5/12v power supply (RMRC one) for the Minim/cam/Vtx, with just the RX/TX for serial between the FC and OSD. I double checked the voltage coming off the Tx of the FC was only 5v. Supposedly the board voltage regulator can take up to 16V on recent revisions. However, a number of the "5v" pads are wired directly to the servo rail, and will then also be 16V. One of which is the +ve pad on the receiver header. The one thing I can think of, is I'm using a custom firmware that changes the M2 output to an aileron output. Which might be the one that wasn't working correctly. I suppose it is possible Baseflight overwrote some settings and changed it back to a motor output. Though I was under the impression that usually just killed the servo.
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Dec 21, 2014 03:42
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mashed_penguin posted:Looks nice but $130 is pretty pricey. Seeing how well the naze flies and how cheap it is its hard for me to justify right now. The afromini and minimosd board are about the same size as that with admittedly a little more wiring. I like the prospect of stacking all the main stuff in them middle of the system (especially with somethin like the brotronics UHF Receiver - I'll probably use that on a future build). theres also this i just found out about http://www.multirotorsuperstore.com/fpv/fpv-osd/osdoge.html . direct connection between that and the naze32 is cool but the price is annoying. someone needs to just make a 3d printed frame that lets you put a minimosd into a 36x36mm form factor (like an sim card adapter)
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Dec 21, 2014 05:23
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Golluk posted:Acro Naze32 (full naze less baro and mag). *etc* A Yolo Wizard posted:theres also this i just found out about http://www.multirotorsuperstore.com/fpv/fpv-osd/osdoge.html . direct connection between that and the naze32 is cool but the price is annoying. someone needs to just make a 3d printed frame that lets you put a minimosd into a 36x36mm form factor (like an sim card adapter) Yeah, I'm running a brosd, and have a couple more osdoge coming when they ship. It's just a minim in 36x36 form, with passthru pins to naze boards. Just mounting a minim on 36x36 wouldn't accomplish the same thing. Perhaps a piggyback board? But then again you're just duct taping holes in the titanic at that point. He probably lost money on the brosd, so this time the price factors in real costs and margin for distribution. 3DR charges $50 for their APM-OSD (the original minim) anyways, so this isn't that much more. Consider how much Eagletree costs too. CrazyLittle fucked around with this message at 06:14 on Dec 21, 2014 |
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Dec 21, 2014 05:59
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I finally took my Quadcopter outside. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXhfNnl_jbg It doesn't turn very fast....
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Dec 21, 2014 09:39
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Nerobro posted:I finally took my Quadcopter outside. Hah I thought it was onboard video so I kept skipping ahead till you took off then realized my mistake when you flew the quad in front of the tripod.
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Dec 21, 2014 16:45
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Elendil004 posted:Hah I thought it was onboard video so I kept skipping ahead till you took off then realized my mistake when you flew the quad in front of the tripod. I thought the exact same thing 
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Dec 21, 2014 18:43
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A Yolo Wizard posted:I like the prospect of stacking all the main stuff in them middle of the system (especially with somethin like the brotronics UHF Receiver - I'll probably use that on a future build). Cool thing about the osdoge is it has all the onboard power filtering etc you would need. By the time you combine that and a naze it isn't that much cheaper than the taulabs brain. However it should be much simpler and tidier than normal minimosd + naze setups. I'd love to see someone take it to the extreme and make a fully integrated quad electronics board. The gemini is probably the closest at the moment. I imagine something like the qav250 fury pdb could be taken further to include flight controller & escs . Then you would just need to plug in your camera vtx and rx.
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Dec 21, 2014 18:43
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slidebite posted:I thought the exact same thing It's only a little after noon today.. I could mount a HD camera and give that a spin today.
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Dec 21, 2014 19:16
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Nerobro posted:I finally took my Quadcopter outside. The default yaw rate on the Naze is stupid slow. Adjust your end points on all RC channels until you hit 1000/2000 on the receiver tab of baseflight, go to the PID tab and increase your yaw rate (mine is set to .70). Edit: it also sounds like there are some oscillations when you punch it, increase your TPA and you can fix that. i own every Bionicle fucked around with this message at 19:20 on Dec 21, 2014 |
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Dec 21, 2014 19:18
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mashed_penguin posted:Cool thing about the osdoge is it has all the onboard power filtering etc you would need. By the time you combine that and a naze it isn't that much cheaper than the taulabs brain. However it should be much simpler and tidier than normal minimosd + naze setups. I'd love to see someone take it to the extreme and make a fully integrated quad electronics board. The gemini is probably the closest at the moment. I imagine something like the qav250 fury pdb could be taken further to include flight controller & escs . Then you would just need to plug in your camera vtx and rx. I don't see why you'd want to integrate ESCs into the flight controller board. 4-in-1 ESCs alone have a terrible record of being useless after one ESC blows. The Gemini is the best compromise, with the motherboard.
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Dec 22, 2014 08:15
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Wojcigitty posted:The default yaw rate on the Naze is stupid slow. Adjust your end points on all RC channels until you hit 1000/2000 on the receiver tab of baseflight, go to the PID tab and increase your yaw rate (mine is set to .70). I will be doing that. It's amazing how bad the documentation on these flight controllers are. Just in general finding out anything beyond "this will make it fly." Is like pulling teeth. My Second and third flights also ended in breaking the bird. First flight on sunday I ran into a pole, and the second flight I lost orientation while quite high, and brought it down very fast as to not endanger any property that I didn't own. I'll post videos from those later, once I remove the boring bits. Everything is repaired now. Next time it's going to be with goggles. Also, between the three flying sessions, I've been able to figure out what sort of runtime this thing will have. It looks like with the current setup, I'll get 10 minute flight times. ... On a battery that has less capacity than the one in my cellphone. (I have a big freaking battery in my cellphone.. but the point stands.)
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Dec 22, 2014 17:52
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Nerobro posted:I will be doing that. It's amazing how bad the documentation on these flight controllers are. Just in general finding out anything beyond "this will make it fly." Is like pulling teeth. Yeah it seems to be the nature of these super fast moving (development wise) little open source projects. There are so many forks and improvements that it seems to only make sense if you have been in that area for a while. Naze is built on MW, so if you know nothing about MW, starting with the Naze will leave you slightly in the dark. And whenever somebody makes a nice write up to explain everything, it's obsolete in a year.
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Dec 22, 2014 18:07
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on the left posted:I don't see why you'd want to integrate ESCs into the flight controller board. 4-in-1 ESCs alone have a terrible record of being useless after one ESC blows. I don't mean have them as part of the controller board so they can't be removed. Have them soldered on as daughter boards so you can just desolder if you need to change one. I've seen crash pics of the gemini where the escs ejected from their mount in a crash. If they were soldered on they wouldn't do that but could still be removed and replaced if one blows.
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Dec 22, 2014 18:27
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Would the Hubsan X4 be a good choice for a complete RC novice looking to get something fun for under $50?
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Dec 22, 2014 19:13
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Yep. The X4 is great. Make sure to get the RTF (ready-to-fly) version so it comes with a transmitter, though.
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Dec 22, 2014 19:15
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mashed_penguin posted:I don't mean have them as part of the controller board so they can't be removed. Have them soldered on as daughter boards so you can just desolder if you need to change one. I've seen crash pics of the gemini where the escs ejected from their mount in a crash. If they were soldered on they wouldn't do that but could still be removed and replaced if one blows. 
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Dec 22, 2014 19:35
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I really do like the Gemini. It seems smaller than 250 class. Wojcigitty posted:Yeah it seems to be the nature of these super fast moving (development wise) little open source projects. There are so many forks and improvements that it seems to only make sense if you have been in that area for a while. Naze is built on MW, so if you know nothing about MW, starting with the Naze will leave you slightly in the dark. And whenever somebody makes a nice write up to explain everything, it's obsolete in a year. All of the tutorials are very.. low level. "click this, click that, set X value." They miss virtually all of the concepts that would make understanding things version to version more simple. I'll need to re-check, but TAS is there, with no explanation of what it does, or what a small, or a big change might be. Whole numbers? tenths? hundredths?
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Dec 22, 2014 21:54
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