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Combat Pretzel posted: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. Wow, I had no idea that was such a pain in the rear end. Maybe D16 is backward compatible? I have no idea, however, my Taranis with 2015 firmware only has the D16eu mode in the Internal RF settings as opposed to D8 and LR12 or whatever that I see most other units support. Might be just the tip, supposedly that makes a big difference but what do I know, I use an ancient Ukrainian iron with a tip so oxidized and corroded it only tins at a couple of spots. Fatal posted: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. A Hakko FX-888d or similar is at least $200 here so yeah, as much as I'd love to, that's not gonna happen. I think I'll pop into the electronics thread for some opinions on cheap junk stations 
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Sep 29, 2015 10:27
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You guys should use the non EU firmware on your Taranis' XJT module, as the EU firmware gimps the transmission power.
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Sep 29, 2015 10:38
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mobby_6kl posted:Wow, I had no idea that was such a pain in the rear end. mobby_6kl posted:Maybe D16 is backward compatible? I have no idea, however, my Taranis with 2015 firmware only has the D16eu mode in the Internal RF settings as opposed to D8 and LR12 or whatever that I see most other units support. Arrest that rear end! posted:You guys should use the non EU firmware on your Taranis' XJT module, as the EU firmware gimps the transmission power. Combat Pretzel fucked around with this message at 12:09 on Sep 29, 2015 |
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Sep 29, 2015 12:06
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Last night right before dusk I wanted to get in a bit of flying to see if a few changes to my quad camera mounting turned out OK. Camera was useless - picture was OK but at such a low frame rate due to low light I couldn't use it to fly at all. Quad was drifting a lot right off the bat. It got dark FAST and taking my eyes off the quad for just a moment (to look at the camera screen to see how things looked) and ruining the little amount of night vision I was using was all it took. I suspected it was maybe already down but "landed" and killed the throttle. It went down in the neighboring unharvested field. In about 10 more minutes it was too dark for anything. But I found my quad. Despite all the "oh poo poo" feelings, I knew it couldn't be just anywhere in there. I walked around in the general direction with my transmitter and based on the displayed packet error % I narrowed it down to a direction and rough area. But it wasn't precise enough to zero in on anything. I couldn't do a spiral search or anything out from that because I couldn't see well enough to do a search pattern. So I took my video monitor and swapped out a crappy directional antenna. I used it like a sonar, waving it around and looking for the signal to clean up. This worked remarkably well - it was easy to sweep the antenna around see the results in the signal - which was on the ground, surrounded by tall grass, and therefore already lovely. I was walking along doing this, getting a solid video this way but worse that way and thinking of all the other things that could account for me seeing these signal changes that had nothing to do with zeroing directly in my model, and suddenly I saw a faint blue blinking glow less than 10 feet in front of me. All in all it was maybe a hundred feet away from the take off point.  That all went well thanks to not losing my head and using what I had on hand I guess but I couldn't help but think that if I had tried to dismantle then re-hook up all the video poo poo to replay the (locally saved, lovely) video feed to black-box it I'd just have been wasting my time. Or if I had a way to read last known GPS coords I'd have also wasted my time trying to put those into my phone or something then play +/-25m in a field. Sometimes you just need an approach that is achievable that you can put into effect NOW.
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Sep 29, 2015 16:14
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^^^ Congrats on finding your model! Flying in the evening is the only chance I have now and there's like half an hour before it goes dark and I can't tell which way is which any more and it sucks. If you have telemetry you could also use RSSI to help locate it. Combat Pretzel posted:Yeah, well, it's infinitely easier if you have the FrSky USB dongle thingy. I didn't want to buy and wait for that one, too. Haven't touched the firmware on it but it does say OpenTX in it, specifically opentx-x9dp-v2.0.9.2-eu from February 27th. So might be a good idea to flash 2.1 on it anyway. Does everyone fly their quads in manual mode? I just can't get into it after trying the Naza's attitude mode, it's just so pleasantly foolproof. I'm afraid I'll now need to build a smaller, cheaper and less likely to break quad to train fully manual flying 
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Sep 29, 2015 20:13
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mobby_6kl posted:Does everyone fly their quads in manual mode? I just can't get into it after trying the Naza's attitude mode, it's just so pleasantly foolproof. I'm afraid I'll now need to build a smaller, cheaper and less likely to break quad to train fully manual flying Depends on what you're using it for, for racing/aerobatics/general loving around, go manual. If you're doing aerial photography, then use all the stabilisation available.
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Sep 29, 2015 20:28
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Combat Pretzel posted:Yeah, well, it's infinitely easier if you have the FrSky USB dongle thingy. I didn't want to buy and wait for that one, too. The power is cut almost in half. mobby_6kl posted:Does everyone fly their quads in manual mode? I just can't get into it after trying the Naza's attitude mode, it's just so pleasantly foolproof. I'm afraid I'll now need to build a smaller, cheaper and less likely to break quad to train fully manual flying OnymousCoward posted:Depends on what you're using it for, for racing/aerobatics/general loving around, go manual. If you're doing aerial photography, then use all the stabilisation available. I find it a lot easier to shoot AP in full manual control. For FPV miniquads acro/rate/manual is the only way. For both, having to fight your flight controller because it's in stabilise mode sucks. Arrest that ass! fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Sep 29, 2015 |
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Sep 29, 2015 20:48
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Flying full rate mode freaks me out, I don't know how people do it. I can move around fine, but but I like to relax and go into a dead hover every once in a while and I can't do that in rate mode. It's always drifting somewhere. I fly in Horizon mode and I find it gives me a lot of control while still allowing me to recover if I do something dumb. It's annoying when it takes over a bit too much during a bank turn but otherwise I can fly pretty fast and aggressive. Horizon lets you do flips as well.
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Sep 29, 2015 21:21
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32MB OF ESRAM posted:Flying full rate mode freaks me out, I don't know how people do it. I can move around fine, but but I like to relax and go into a dead hover every once in a while and I can't do that in rate mode. It's always drifting somewhere. I fly in Horizon mode and I find it gives me a lot of control while still allowing me to recover if I do something dumb. It's annoying when it takes over a bit too much during a bank turn but otherwise I can fly pretty fast and aggressive. Horizon lets you do flips as well. It just take some getting used to, and once you can do it, you have vastly greater control over your multirotor than if you're using the training wheels. Rate pilots will always be able to fly harder than someone using Horizon, and you can't do any inverted stuff or more complex aerobatics in horizon. It's all about confidence really, I find most people are scared to try rate at first, but after they have flown it for a bit, they don't want to go back.
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Sep 29, 2015 22:14
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Summer's approaching and I really need to learn rate mode, rather than going in circles, but FPV is a bit disorienting for me.
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Sep 29, 2015 22:20
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Open pilot / tau labs has an acro plus mode, where low stick deflection is like normal acro / rate, and high stick direction is "direct actuator output". Does anyone know what this actually accomplishes?
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Sep 29, 2015 22:23
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No one uses OP or Tau Labs, so it's probably a mystery.
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Sep 29, 2015 22:33
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A Yolo Wizard posted:Open pilot / tau labs has an acro plus mode, where low stick deflection is like normal acro / rate, and high stick direction is "direct actuator output". Does anyone know what this actually accomplishes? e: nm i misread
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Sep 29, 2015 22:34
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I'm not sure how someone can gently caress up a simple tool like a third hand, but here we are. That's what I get from buying from Hobbyking.
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Sep 29, 2015 22:38
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Arrest that rear end! posted:No one uses OP or Tau Labs, so it's probably a mystery. I like OpenPilot for tricopters because it lets me customize the servo throw with a wizard and also lets me choose different refresh rates/hz for the servo channel to stop it from buzzing. I'm sure Cleanflight can do this through the CLI but I wasn't about to experiment, that buzzing servo was super annoying. OP 'just worked' with my tris. Cleanflight all the way for quads though, gently caress OP and their stupid PID system. I'll deal with it with tricopters since they're just for the novelty/using up spare parts. I got ESC's in the mail, going to make a 4" hex with Cleanflight. That thing is going to rip. The smallest I can get the footprint is 240mm though >:[ bring back old gbs fucked around with this message at 22:43 on Sep 29, 2015 |
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Sep 29, 2015 22:41
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32MB OF ESRAM posted:I like OpenPilot for tricopters You might be interested in this, it's a fork of cleanflight with some... stuff... done to it for tricopters. Goes way over my head but you might want to check it out.
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Sep 29, 2015 23:00
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A Yolo Wizard posted:Open pilot / tau labs has an acro plus mode, where low stick deflection is like normal acro / rate, and high stick direction is "direct actuator output". Does anyone know what this actually accomplishes? This sounds like self-leveling when sticks are centered and rate mode outside of that. I like using this mode with my quad because I suck and it's easy to reset the orientation as far as which direction is up and avoid a crash.
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Sep 29, 2015 23:33
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Wojcigitty posted:
Wish I could be there, Triple Tree is a great place. I do Joe Nall every year, but I am going to try and make e-week next year as well. Those are some nice looking planes!
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Sep 30, 2015 00:26
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porksmash posted:This sounds like self-leveling when sticks are centered and rate mode outside of that. I like using this mode with my quad because I suck and it's easy to reset the orientation as far as which direction is up and avoid a crash. its not horizon mode, but yes its a similar setup (in that the flight mode changes mid stick, not that there is any self leveling) Arrest that rear end! posted:No one uses OP or Tau Labs, so it's probably a mystery. im about to
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Sep 30, 2015 00:42
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porksmash posted:This sounds like self-leveling when sticks are centered and rate mode outside of that. I like using this mode with my quad because I suck and it's easy to reset the orientation as far as which direction is up and avoid a crash. Rate mode will force you to learn. I'm currently averaging about 1 prop per pack, but the Morphite is designed to take a beating, but my flying is rapidly improving.
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Sep 30, 2015 00:46
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I have TauLabs on my drones, but never tried Rattitude/Acro+ mode. --edit: First complaint about these DYS ESCs I've gotten. When they're powered up, there's slight initialization delays between all four of them. That makes me already suspect. I suppose I'll be saving up for these KISS ones. Combat Pretzel fucked around with this message at 11:29 on Sep 30, 2015 |
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Sep 30, 2015 00:55
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Combat Pretzel posted:I have TauLabs on my drones, but never tried Rattitude/Acro+ mode. You mean the little song beeps they make when you plug in the battery? Sometimes my ESC's do that as well, but I just unplug/replug the battery and they all sync up the 2nd time. No idea why that happens or if it even matters. What's the opinion on Flip32 boards? I'm thinking about trying one out. I like that they are all pins, not little JST connectors
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Sep 30, 2015 18:39
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32MB OF ESRAM posted:You mean the little song beeps they make when you plug in the battery? Sometimes my ESC's do that as well, but I just unplug/replug the battery and they all sync up the 2nd time. No idea why that happens or if it even matters. I have three of them. I like them. They're drop in cheap replacemetns for the naze32. I really wish I could order them without pins.
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Sep 30, 2015 19:03
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Combat Pretzel posted:I have TauLabs on my drones, but never tried Rattitude/Acro+ mode. Forget about the KISS ecs's they spontaneously combust. I have had two do it randomly on arming.
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Oct 1, 2015 03:06
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ive heard good things about the new 30a ones
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Oct 1, 2015 04:15
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helno posted:Forget about the KISS ecs's they spontaneously combust. KISS 18A are absolutely fine if you treat them properly. I have used 19 and I have had one burn, which I was running way over spec on 2208/6x4.5/4s. I'm running the 30A ones on my 250 and they work great. Best ESCs on the market, but they're also tiny sensitive miniatured boards running at extreme switching speeds, and therefore are much less tolerant of bad handling and soldering.
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Oct 1, 2015 07:37
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helno posted:Forget about the KISS ecs's they spontaneously combust.
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Oct 1, 2015 11:10
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subx posted:Wish I could be there, Triple Tree is a great place. I do Joe Nall every year, but I am going to try and make e-week next year as well. Actually that's in NH. I had plans to go down to Triple Tree this year for eweek. Me and a buddy loaded everything into his trailer, we were going to drive down in his X5 and then camp in his dad's RV. Then they cancelled RV hookups due to weather so his dad pulled out. His wife whined about him driving ~15 hours each way for a rainy event so he pulled out. My dad and I said gently caress it, loaded everything into our van and hit the road. 30 minutes in we smelled coolant. gently caress. Ordered radiator, replaced radiator. Checked the website which said that the event was pretty much cancelled due to rain. gently caress. Will make it to Nall next year though. Maybe Frosty Dog this winter too.
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Oct 1, 2015 11:34
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Arrest that rear end! posted:KISS 18A are absolutely fine if you treat them properly. I have used 19 and I have had one burn, which I was running way over spec on 2208/6x4.5/4s. I'm running the 30A ones on my 250 and they work great. Best ESCs on the market, but they're also tiny sensitive miniatured boards running at extreme switching speeds, and therefore are much less tolerant of bad handling and soldering. What is the benefit of using a 2208 2300 vs an 1806 2300 (Or whatever your chosen KV is)? If they're both spinning at the same speed why would you want to go with the heavier motor?
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Oct 1, 2015 15:59
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The 2208 will have larger and more reliable bearings, and a larger motor shaft that's less likely to bend. I'd want to throw them on thrust stands to see what the efficiency is though...
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Oct 1, 2015 16:16
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32MB OF ESRAM posted:What is the benefit of using a 2208 2300 vs an 1806 2300 (Or whatever your chosen KV is)? If they're both spinning at the same speed why would you want to go with the heavier motor? So motor selection goes something like this: The prop, kv, and battery voltage all determine roughly how much current the motor will try to pull. The size of the motor will determine roughly how much it can sustain without turning into a block of charcoal. A 2208 2300 kv motor with 6x4 props on 4S will pull about as much current as a 2204, all else being equal. The difference is that the 2204 can't really handle the extra current and will get really hot, fall off its efficiency curve, and not deliver the power to the prop, and probably burn up. So, if you aren't happy with the power of a 2204 on 3S with a 6x4 at 2300kv, and bumping up to 4S will smoke the motor, you should bump up to something like a 2206 or 2208.
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Oct 1, 2015 16:35
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Yeah. Kv ratings only tell you the rpm without load. Once you add load the RPM curve changes, so a larger motor will be able to handle more load than a smaller motor, given the same Kv rating. A bigger motor with lower Kv should be able to handle wattage via voltage or amps.
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Oct 1, 2015 20:55
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If you were thinking about building something large and covered with sensors and telemetry for stabilization and wanted also to put a big heavy zoom lens camera on it and just have it loiter in the sky and look at things - not move around much but also be able to maintain position in the wind, what kind of motors would you use?
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Oct 1, 2015 21:51
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DreadLlama posted:If you were thinking about building something large and covered with sensors and telemetry for stabilization and wanted also to put a big heavy zoom lens camera on it and just have it loiter in the sky and look at things - not move around much but also be able to maintain position in the wind, what kind of motors would you use? I'd buy the new Inspire 1. DJI just released a new model with a super fancy camera. http://www.dji.com/product/zenmuse-x5s
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Oct 1, 2015 22:11
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the matrice 100 is dji's development platform if you are interested in sensors and such
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Oct 1, 2015 22:31
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DreadLlama posted:If you were thinking about building something large and covered with sensors and telemetry for stabilization and wanted also to put a big heavy zoom lens camera on it and just have it loiter in the sky and look at things - not move around much but also be able to maintain position in the wind, what kind of motors would you use? A long stick.
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Oct 2, 2015 01:04
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CrazyLittle posted:A long stick. That's the thing I keep coming back to. My interest in flight drones would be well-satisfied by a kite and a camera. But it's hard to get something as heavy as a camera aloft. I tried back in the 90's when disposable waterproof film cameras were a thing. They can't get off the ground. A kite big enough to float a camera would probably need like 6 people to launch. As for DJI / NAZA , I will not use a thing that someone else can turn off without my permission. Long poles are a hobby of mine. The best I can do is shimmying up a white pine. They drop their lower limbs regularly, unlike cedar species which retain dead branches and require underbrushing. White pines can grow to be more than 70 meters tall and are an ideal place to put a camera - if you never want to get higher than 80 meters. (And aren't terrified of climbing up trees like a normal, sane person). Flight drones are the best way for looking at stuff. Let's say my flight drone gets pretty good at staying on target due to a combination of gps and a mouse-based flow sensor. What kind of software would you need for an APM drone to communicate with an android (or other) phone about gps coordinates for "follow me" purposes? DreadLlama fucked around with this message at 04:27 on Oct 2, 2015 |
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Oct 2, 2015 04:11
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Actually a friend of mine does kite AP around the SF Bay Area and his kite is a fairly vanilla looking kite... that's just 3'x3' across. He's lifting an automated gimbal with a Canon Powershot on it, so it's possible. He's also mentioned using helium weather balloons to do the same thing, but the cost has of helium gas has gone up a lot.
CrazyLittle fucked around with this message at 04:45 on Oct 2, 2015 |
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Oct 2, 2015 04:43
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I would be very interested in reading your friend's blog and/or website.
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Oct 2, 2015 05:38
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So i think i want to get into this hobby, and i'm particularly interested in FPV Mini-Quad flying. Please critique my plan: I currently have a Hubsan X4 107C, which I'm learning to fly with and to gauge my ongoing interest, all good so far... Next Stage is to purchase and build this kit from HobbyKing: - HobbyKing_Spec_FPV250 - £72.59 Extra parts required to finish this kit are a Flight Controller, and a transmitter. - AfroFlight Naze32 Acro - £16.49 - Turnigy 9X - £39.59 At this point i should have built a nice working 250 quadcopter, learning as i go along on how to build and tune it etc... Final stage of the plan would be to add the FPV gear. For which i'm thinking of getting this: - Fatshark Attitude V2 - £197.34 (This comes with a camera and video transmitter) I think this overall plan should give me good overall knowledge on quads, and a mid spec fpv-quad, for not too much cost. The kit would be upgradeable over the long term if i decide to take the hobby any further. Any parts I've missed, or anything else stupid with my plan?
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Oct 2, 2015 11:59
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