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Anybody going to E Week at Triple Tree Aerodrome next week in Woodruff, SC? I'll be there with the Extreme Flight guys on the 3D line. It's going to be awesome.
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Sep 23, 2015 21:25
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DreadLlama posted:I've got a 4' x 4' sheet of plywood and plans to drill holes in it at the middle of the edges as follows: - How to talk to a microprocessor's hardware units - How to communicate over SPI - How to communicate over serial or i2c or whatever the quadcopter uses - How to tweak whatever hold-position command the quadcopter has - Rudimentary image recognition (how to get center x and y of small bright areas) - Microprocessor math (avoid overflows and rounding errors, consider lookup tables for trig functions) - Basic control systems theory (how to correct position errors without overcompensating) If you're still excited, it's relatively cheap to get started. Get a flow sensor and an arduino and post in the arduino thread here or the embedded thread in cavern of cobol.
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Sep 23, 2015 21:35
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^^^ I'm sure all of this is doable, but is it certain that GPS isn't accurate enough? It won't be easier to implement from scratch, but there's a ton of ready solutions available. Keeping track of orientation on a quad is such a pain in the rear end. Even with red/black legs, it's impossible to tell which way is which from even like 10 meters, especially if the sun isn't shining on it from directly behind you. I'm sure sticking some LEDs would help, but I feel I need go FPV ASAP. Has anyone used a Mobious for this purpose? I heard it has some latency on the video out but if it's not too bad, it would be nice to only have one camera at least until I start racing or something. mobby_6kl fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Sep 24, 2015 |
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Sep 24, 2015 20:17
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I just recently tried FPV on my quad (the only pictured a few posts up actually) and flying FPV didn't go so hot because the camera I used (a Boscam recorder/action cam + transmitter all in one) would crush the ground into black whenever the sky was in view because the sky was bright  The ground and what's on it would be balanced fine as long as the sky wasn't in view. That was basically a big bust. Latency is no big deal unless you're doing acrobatic flying or racing or something. If I'm just pretending to be a UFO doesn't matter. Oh also mounting that camera to the quad subtly but noticeably changed how it flew, it was noticeably mushier and less responsive.
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Sep 24, 2015 20:23
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Most ideal camera would be a security camera with CCD and wide dynamic range. If you can bear the latency and cost, and want to record your flights anyway, a GoPro does do a nice job with dynamic range. I don't know about Mobius. As far as flight handling goes, any significant weight and balance changes, say putting a camera and gimbal on the nose or packing an Xbox huge battery, would require tuning the PIDs. If you go heavier, it usually becomes sluggish, if you go lighter, it becomes twitchy or starts to oscillate (because the PIDs are tuned to specific conditions). All that of course depends on whether your initial tune was correct to begin with. Combat Pretzel fucked around with this message at 21:31 on Sep 24, 2015 |
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Sep 24, 2015 21:23
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Bought a PDB with dual 12/5V BEC off ebay but it's time to whip out the multimeter cause ain't nothing labelled at all 
some kinda jackal fucked around with this message at 23:35 on Sep 24, 2015 |
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Sep 24, 2015 21:33
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Martytoof posted:cause ain't nothing labelled at all this is how i feel about just about everything fpv related i've bought. documentation is hilariously bad for most products if it exists at all.
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Sep 24, 2015 21:38
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Combat Pretzel posted:As far as flight handling goes, any significant weight and balance changes, say putting a camera and gimbal on the nose or packing an Xbox huge battery, would require tuning the PIDs. If you go heavier, it usually becomes sluggish, if you go lighter, it becomes twitchy or starts to oscillate (because the PIDs are tuned to specific conditions). All that of course depends on whether your initial tune was correct to begin with. I figured that out but was hoping I could minimize it; I have a pretty nice system where the camera (which integrates transmitter, etc) is totally modular. Great as a concept for putting it on or taking it off at will, not so great for not throwing the PID poo poo out of whack  e: actually the bigger issue is that the camera looks like it'll suck except indoors so it doesn't matter much that I have a slick swapping system, I'm an outdoors flyer. The Eyes Have It fucked around with this message at 22:26 on Sep 24, 2015 |
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Sep 24, 2015 21:43
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It mostly becomes an issue when rotational inertia is lowered on a well tuned PID, because it then starts to overcompensate. If it becomes more, it'll have a harder time to reach the desired angle. If you feel your drone becomes sluggish, raise the P values. If it suddenly starts to oscillate, your P is too high. Tuning I doesn't that much in autolevel mode, the general rule however is setting it to the same value as P. Fine tuning of I is only needed in acro. --edit: I suppose you could check your firmware whether it has settings banks or something. OpenPilot for instance let's you define three PID settings and mix them with the flight modes. If your firmware does that, you could put different tunes on a switch. Of course, that also requires remote control programming gymnastics to address more than three modes. --edit: God, gently caress your autocorrection, Windows Phone. Combat Pretzel fucked around with this message at 22:43 on Sep 24, 2015 |
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Sep 24, 2015 22:24
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Finally uploaded the video of a night landing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdO3QpTNNk4
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Sep 24, 2015 22:52
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Golluk posted:Finally uploaded the video of a night landing. God this makes me want to try a plane so much. I've been thinking about buying one of those Flight Test speed build kits to make over the holiday season for next year. The monetary investment seems to be pretty tiny to get into planes.
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Sep 24, 2015 23:39
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Well I already tried strapping in my old phone (HTC Desire 8181, 130 grams) and its car holder to the front and it flew ok, there was a bit more oscillation I guess but nothing too bad. But the video was poo poo jello and unusable anyway  I've seen CCD cameras being recommended for FPV, but yeah, I'd definitely like to record anyway for fun or profit, so might as well get a gopro/yi/mobius. Golluk posted:Finally uploaded the video of a night landing. That's very cool. Did you mainly use GPS for navigation, or were the street lights sufficient to tell your way around? Also, how did you get an hour of flight on that thing? I could probably stick my 4ah zippy compact in my AXN but I doubt even that would give me that much flight time.
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Sep 25, 2015 08:18
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Captain Cool posted:Things you will need to learn: I have a CX-20 instead of a pixhawk. I do not know what version of firmware I have and I've yet to solder the 3DR telemetry kit to the board. I do not know whose online instruction guides to follow. I furthermore do not know how to find out such things short of asking here. If I read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microprocessor will I know how to talk to a microprocessors's hardware units? If no, what should I read instead? Also, which flow sensor is best for my application? Can I fit both it and an arduino in a CX-20? If no, may I contact you later about this topic in May 2016?
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Sep 25, 2015 09:13
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Is there a common standard for three pole connectors for RC builds? I'm looking into modularizing things, and instead of janking three bullet connectors of a motor, a single plug would be nicer and cleaner.
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Sep 25, 2015 14:32
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Combat Pretzel posted:Is there a common standard for three pole connectors for RC builds? I'm looking into modularizing things, and instead of janking three bullet connectors of a motor, a single plug would be nicer and cleaner. On my first few builds I soldered servo pins to my ESC motor points and sevo connectors to my motors. Made for easy reversal if my motors were spinning wrong. I don't know if this is a good idea on a larger quad, maybe look into medium sized molex connectors. I'll post a pic later.
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Sep 25, 2015 15:03
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DreadLlama posted:I have a CX-20 instead of a pixhawk. I do not know what version of firmware I have and I've yet to solder the 3DR telemetry kit to the board. I do not know whose online instruction guides to follow. I furthermore do not know how to find out such things short of asking here. quote:If I read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microprocessor will I know how to talk to a microprocessors's hardware units? If no, what should I read instead? quote:Also, which flow sensor is best for my application? Can I fit both it and an arduino in a CX-20? If no, may I contact you later about this topic in May 2016? Are you just trying to hold position? Is ardupilot's loiter not good enough? Are you trying to make your own Airdog?
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Sep 25, 2015 15:07
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Combat Pretzel posted:Is there a common standard for three pole connectors for RC builds? I'm looking into modularizing things, and instead of janking three bullet connectors of a motor, a single plug would be nicer and cleaner. There are a few but they are not used very often. Bullets are far more common for whatever reason. RJX MT60 is probably overkill for small quads: http://www.helidirect.com/rjx-mt60-3-poles-connector-for-motor.html Micro deans would work well: http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXKX41 However neither of these can be easily reversed which is p dumb
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Sep 25, 2015 16:05
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mobby_6kl posted:..... I mostly relied on the GPS for how far out, and how high up am I. As you say, there are enough street lights, well lit shopping areas, and parks that make good landmarks. The plane itself ways 1.3kg fully loaded. Power plant is a Turnigy Aerodrive SK3 2836 1040Kv motor, with an 8x6 prop, powered by a zippy compact 4S 4000mAh battery. I can easily cruise around at 30% throttle, which pulls ~4 amps on the ground. Likely less when its actually flying. So theoretically it can cruise for an hour (4Ah/4A=1h). I was playing around with thermals a bit when I hit an hour, but I also wasn't strictly trying for flight time either.
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Sep 25, 2015 17:30
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 Breaking in engines for an event this weekend. Finally got them ready for the end of the season. Oh well.
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Sep 25, 2015 19:43
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Wojcigitty posted:RJX MT60 is probably overkill for small quads: http://www.helidirect.com/rjx-mt60-3-poles-connector-for-motor.html Wojcigitty posted:However neither of these can be easily reversed which is p dumb Combat Pretzel fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Sep 25, 2015 |
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Sep 25, 2015 19:58
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Another option is Anderson power poles which are single conductor connectors that snap together like Legos after you get the terminal and wire in them. You can easily make three-up motor connectors with them. They need a special tool though.
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Sep 25, 2015 20:03
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Captain Cool posted:Are you just trying to hold position? Is ardupilot's loiter not good enough? Are you trying to make your own Airdog? I want to be able to put a flight drone on the ground in front of me, and have it ascend vertically to an arbitrary height, rotate 360° while shooting a panorama, and then ascend to another arbitrary height and shoot another panorama. I do not need to go fast. I want my drone to sit in space as though placed on a solid surface. Ideally I would be able to drive around on my boat while the drone maintains a precise fixed position some arbitrary distance above my boat. Ideally it would be able to land on my boat on its' sheet of lightbulbed plywood in spite of wind or waves or my being en route somewhere. I just want to be able to say, "Here's the boat. Fly above it and take pictures. Then land on it."
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Sep 26, 2015 05:41
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Do we really need to reiterate this... More things that can come unplugged, is worse, than soldering.32MB OF ESRAM posted:On my first few builds I soldered servo pins to my ESC motor points and sevo connectors to my motors. Made for easy reversal if my motors were spinning wrong. I don't know if this is a good idea on a larger quad, maybe look into medium sized molex connectors. I'll post a pic later. Servo connectors are not designed for significant loads. IIRC, their maximum limit is something like 4 amps. More connectors are bad on a flying thing. Wojcigitty posted:Another option is Anderson power poles which are single conductor connectors that snap together like Legos after you get the terminal and wire in them. You can easily make three-up motor connectors with them. They need a special tool though. They can be soldered, or crimped. If you want to permannatly join connector configurations you slide roll pin in between them. I really like the anderson powerpoles. The only time I'd consider it, is on a single motor (read airplane or helicopter) rig, or a flying camera platform. Anythign that ~might~ crash frequently is going to get soldered in my hangar.
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Sep 26, 2015 09:31
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Given how much force it takes to plug and unplug XT60 connectors, it'll probably be the same in the MT versions. I don't forsee them getting loose on motor vibrations. If at all, it'll happen when trying into a tree.
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Sep 26, 2015 20:05
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Nerobro posted:
Haha suck ittttttt  : This was a tiny little 2s .8g 7a ESC. Still a bad idea but I didn't know any better. Also I found out this fits pretty well so now my 250 looks like this:  Has anybody heard of Kinexsis? My local shop had 4 little 10a Kinexsis ESC's so I bought them to try with some 1306 3100kv motors. All the copyrights on the packaging is for 2015 and kinexsisrc.com redirects to Horizon Hobby. They make pretty good stuff right? But the KXSS2401 10a ESC isn't listed anywhere. Google finds a .pdf of the instruction booklet and that's it. What's up with Kinexsis, is it brand new or something Horizon tried out but they sucked so now it's buried? EDIT: Looks like they have a page for it after all: http://www.horizonhobby.com/kinexsis-10a-indoor-flyer-esc-kxss2401 bring back old gbs fucked around with this message at 05:49 on Sep 27, 2015 |
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Sep 27, 2015 04:14
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Servo connectors are great for 2s <7A power systems. Easy to reverse and easily interchangeable.
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Sep 27, 2015 04:28
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DreadLlama posted:I want to be able to put a flight drone on the ground in front of me, and have it ascend vertically to an arbitrary height, rotate 360° while shooting a panorama, and then ascend to another arbitrary height and shoot another panorama. How about Ardupilot, a floating quadcopter, and a fishing net?
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Sep 27, 2015 05:41
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DreadLlama posted:I want to be able to put a flight drone on the ground in front of me, and have it ascend vertically to an arbitrary height, rotate 360° while shooting a panorama, and then ascend to another arbitrary height and shoot another panorama. You might want to look into this system: http://precisionlanding.irlock.com/ Its a IR beacon the drone will home in on for landing.
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Sep 27, 2015 12:19
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voCkW6U0gSM
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Sep 28, 2015 09:34
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So my X8R doesn't bind to my Taranis in D16 mode. Apparently this is some firmware mismatch bullshit due to EU versions of the Taranis, thanks to some EM emission poo poo rules from Europe. loving great. --edit: Also, looks close enough to my Inventor drawings.  Bunch of minor SNAFUs, like a few holes not lining up perfectly, because the measurements online weren't accurate, accidentally mirrored the screw holes on the motor mounts and should have put some access holes for tools. Combat Pretzel fucked around with this message at 15:44 on Sep 28, 2015 |
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Sep 28, 2015 15:04
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I discovered the same D16 crap when I was looking to buy the Taranis and receivers. You'll just need to flash either the tx or rx so they're both pre or post-2015 regulation. I suggest pre, as the Taranis with the latest EU firmware limits it to only D16 and no other options. How's that soldering station? I need to buy something in addition to my weakling 25W iron that won't solder the fat wires to connectors and I was considering some that look just like that.
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Sep 28, 2015 19:48
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Eh, I have an EU Taranis but with OpenTX, and a receiver shipped from Hobbyking's HK warehouse. I eventually managed to flash the RX with the EU firmware. However that required some gymnastics, since I don't have the FrSky USB thingy. Essentially you drop the firmware files onto the SD card of the Taranis, solder some adapter cable, then flash ErSky9x onto the Taranis, then attach your RX' smart port to the Taranis's JR pins and write the firmware. Then rollback the Taranis to OpenTX. For some reason the developers of OpenTX don't want to add that feature, despite working fine in ErSky9x. As far as D16 only goes, what do you mean? I shouldn't be able to bind any D8 RX at all?`I have a V8R7-II on my 250, which is D8 and works. That solder station is some cheap poo poo that's sold under a variety of labels on Amazon DE. It does apparently do 58W, tho. I kind of hate it. Not sure if it's the whole station or just the drat tip. Or the tin, which despite 2.5% flux doesn't really flow. I hate soldering. v v
Combat Pretzel fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Sep 28, 2015 |
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Sep 28, 2015 21:34
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For soldering stations it's really worth it to get something like a Hakko FX-888d or 951. Its a tool that should last forever. Be really weary of knockoffs though, if it's cheap it's a knockoff, buy from authorized retailers only! Good soldering irons heat up fast, hold their heat for a long time and have tips that don't corrode instantly (a typical reason why people hate soldering, the tips corrode and don't transmit heat well). Basically, you get what you pay for with soldering irons, I cheaped out and bought a knockoff station and have since purchased a 951 (through tequipment with coupon code at the eevblog forums), this thing is just amazing and well worth the cost.
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Sep 28, 2015 21:51
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Per some recommendations, to use both in the downright cheap $145 Eachine Racer 250 and since I have 2 other Kickstarted Drones on their way (Hexo+ and PlexiDrone) with both are designed to fly through an app, but have the option of using a Receiver and becoming remote control drones as well so I went with the recommended FrSky Taranis X9D Plus. Figure I should go with a good remote for the long run as I don't see myself dropping this hobby anytime soon. Picked it up with a case and charger from GetFPV.com with no tax and free shipping for less then other places were selling it when shipping came into the mix. Will need to read up on what all I can do with this thing but I look forward to digging in and seeing how this handles vs the DJI's simple one. One thing of question, I do enjoy the center spring for both throttle and steering on the DJI remote, is that not a thing on any of these other remotes and the left throttle stick is always a dead stick up and down? Personal Review of the Eachine Racer 250 writeup will follow once I get everything up and running. So far it looks like a decent piece of kit for the price and really does come nicely prebuilt right out of the box.
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Sep 28, 2015 22:31
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You can download the OpenTX Companion application and tinker with hypothetical setups, if you're bored. It even has a Taranis simulator.
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Sep 28, 2015 22:43
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What would you guys value barely used Phantom 3 Advanced at? Thinking about offloading mine because other hobbies have monopolized my free time (what little I get with a 7 month old son). Comes with a custom foam hard case that has wheels and and nice handles. Bought it new in box from Amazon a few months ago. No crashes or damage of any kind. Only flew it ~5 times. Might throw it up on CL or SA mart if anyone is interested.
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Sep 28, 2015 23:13
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Rallos posted:What would you guys value barely used Phantom 3 Advanced at? Thinking about offloading mine because other hobbies have monopolized my free time (what little I get with a 7 month old son). Comes with a custom foam hard case that has wheels and and nice handles. Bought it new in box from Amazon a few months ago. No crashes or damage of any kind. Only flew it ~5 times. Might throw it up on CL or SA mart if anyone is interested. If I could offload the P2 and P2V+ I have on had I would love to pick that thing up. An Inspire 1 is more what I would love to get but it does sound like the P3A has a lot of the good features... Grrr I don't need any more drones until I do though. Good luck Selling it. Id say you might just look for $100-200 less than what you paid because its flown but undamaged. :/
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Sep 28, 2015 23:15
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Captain Cool posted:Looks like Ardupilot could do this, without the moving base station. Airdog and Hexo+ could if they allow some camera commands, but without the precision on landing. Landing on a moving target appears to still be an active research topic. I don't think a mouse sensor and a novice programmer are going to be able to pull it off. I have considered doing this and posted about it, and discovered but two float frames: The Lotus whose camera bubble appears insufficient for a gimbal, and The Mariner which is $500 for the frame only, while optical flow kits are only $20 on E-bay. Flight drone will be smart rather than waterproof. I've got a different question: I figured out why all the apm guides didn't make sense to me ImplicitAssembler posted:Erhh, you plug the cable from the telemetry module into one of the telemetry ports. That link you posted is for pixhawk. My flight controller looks more like this one:  http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/adding-3dr-radio-telemetry-to-the-quanum-nova-apm-powered-copter I am very much looking forward to cutting off a perfectly good press-fit connector and soldering directly to a tiny, fragile, expensive board. Thanks, Obama. But now I know where the connections go. I hope that Vcc is +5v Speaking of part diagrams, say I want to install a mouse-based optical flow sensor. Here is a diagram:  Do you reckon I can use B3 for the purple one and the power/ground? A3 is busy. Also SCK and SCLK are the same, right? DreadLlama fucked around with this message at 00:39 on Sep 29, 2015 |
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Sep 28, 2015 23:44
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DreadLlama posted:That link you posted is for pixhawk. My flight controller looks more like this one: No, the link is for ardupilot, and there's a APM 2.X guide right here: http://copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/common-3dr-radio-version-2/#connecting_to_apm2x
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Sep 29, 2015 01:14
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Sorry, my bad. I should have said, "that is not a guide for the version of APM that the makers of the CX-20 used." I will solder the telemetry and see if it works. If it works, I'm installing a mouse sensor. Do you think I can use the B3 pins on the CX-20 board where the APM diagram calls for A-3? DreadLlama fucked around with this message at 03:06 on Sep 29, 2015 |
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Sep 29, 2015 02:54
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