Things I learned at the field today

RTRyder

Merlin of Multirotors
First trip back to the flying field since the first of the year due to it being snowed in and overrun by snowmobiles, felt good to be out and flying again. The weather was a bit iffy when I was packing up the truck so I only took the Hexa and Silver bullet and grabbed the toolbox with all the FPV gear just in case.

There were a couple people there when I arrived getting some nitro helis fired up and ready to fly, first thing up was to be the little Silver Bullet as I really wanted to see how much of a difference there is with the new KK Blue board. I wasn't disappointed and I have to say the new controller rocks, it's so easy to do loops, rolls, flips, whatever you want with it.

The heli guys were impressed, I was tearing up the sky and feeling really confident pushing it to the limit, so here's what I learned...

Loops are a lot easier flying into the wind, rolls get a bit tricky flying with the wind, and left aileron rolls while flying fast nose in towards yourself can make you lose orientation quite easily...

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This is a new record for me, three props, two bent arms, and two, possibly three, motors that will never fly again...

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This thing was smoking when it went in, hit first on the arm missing the motor I think, was hard to tell as I wasn't sure if I was looking at the top or bottom when I made the fatal stick move, then it cartwheeled for a pretty decent distance before it stopped :eek:

Lesson learned, don't get too heavy on the sticks when its windy and you haven't flown for a while, now I get to make a parts order followed by time in the shop making up a couple new arms to replace the bent ones. The new motors are going to have a much heavier case, these Hyperions worked well on the Gaui frame that popped apart when it went in, the alloy arms aren't so forgiving and good old mother earth just rips the motors right off the arms instead. :eek:

Well, it was fun while it lasted, I think I'll build two 350mm quads so I can keep flying after I splat one which always seems to happen right at the end of the first battery pack...

Ken
 

Cabe

Member
That looks way.....way.... to familiar. I am currently without copter due to severe prop attrition. Touch wood (SnapQuad frame :)) no motors or controllers were harmed in the making of my pilot training.

Although the SnapQuad frame is more PVA than Ply now :eek:
 

DennyR

Active Member
Ken

That is a bit of a shame, but onwards and upwards as they say. The next one will be even better. Cumula Granite is not our friend.
 

Cabe

Member
I have considered writing "Gravity, not just a good idea, it's the law!" on the side of my quad for a while now.

This will go along with the moto number and expected prop direction to stop me trying to put my pushers in the wrong place.
 

Droider

Drone Enthusiast
Lessons learned today

Ok heres what I learned...

If you are using blue tooth telemetry on the MK to scope the flight DO NOT have the GPS screen up in MK tools.. It seriously sends the mk into fits as soon as you hit the GPS hold.

I was lucky to survive the wild dance the MK performs.. I intially thought something had gone seriousley wrong with the MK flight board but then realised it was the nav board as when I turned off GPS hold I could fly as normal. It was only when I did my last flight thinking I had a serious issue that I remembered something I had read about the Nav board to make sure the compass board is proerley secured to the nav board. On removal of the painted dome I saw a red and green light on the nav board. Summats up err I thought. So went to MK tools which I had running on my laptop. as soon as I closed the GPS screen the red light went off and she flew perfect and GPS hold was rock solid again...

SO

Lesson one. Dont use the GPS screen in the MK Tools to monitor GSP signals when you are flying with blue tooth modules.
Lesson two. Dont paint your dome so you cannot see the various status lights on the flight controller, nav board and gps board


Best think I found out how to do this weekend
Lesson three . DO USE the micro sim to record your flight from the nav board. Its an invaluable tool for analysing everything from tx/rx max / min signal, battery info, max amps.. just about everything, even max stick movement, speed, altitude, GSP positions, everything..
 

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RTRyder

Merlin of Multirotors
Lesson two. Dont paint your dome so you cannot see the various status lights on the flight controller, nav board and gps board

I recently found another reason to go along with this, to be able to see if any of the magic smoke is escaping...:eek:

Ken
 

Droider

Drone Enthusiast
What I learned yesterday. DO NOT rush!
I forgot bits and bobs that cut my flighing time in half!

Compiling check list will post soon for comment and additions.

Trying check list out today coz no wind and Mr Sun is burning away the clouds :D
 

Droider

Drone Enthusiast
So what I learned today was dont get all carried away with yourself after a few successful flights.. I flew five packs on a beautiful morning.. No wind, blue skies just brilliant. Pack six... she flew like Icarus in to the sun.. AHHHHH lost her, orientation gone, vis gone, not a clue were she was. If it had been a couple of week ago I would have dropped the throttle and paid the price. BUT after reading and practising the flight school by Recce, I kept my calm, hit come home and squinted my eyes until the buzz of her over head slowed my heart rate down.. I landed her and sat down for a while to get my breath back... Lesson two.. into the pre flight check list add the following "BE AWARE OF MAD DOGS' I had a Jack Russell think my ADX3 was a 'lawn mower on speed' according to its owner.. apparently it hates lawn mowers and the buzz of my ADX3 must have kicked it off in to kill mode. Lesson 3.. always make sure you have enough left in the tank incase sico jacks are hiding in the grass! Here endeth the next lesson!


https://sites.google.com/site/mkokto2/home
 

Crash

Defies Psychics
Lesson one. Dont use the GPS screen in the MK Tools to monitor GSP signals when you are flying with blue tooth modules.

That is a little known 'feature' of the firmware.

That got me thinking - was the MKs reaction similar to when you had the problem with the SD card?

BTW, Another thing you don't want to do is to click 'write' in the settings screen when in flight.
 


RTRyder

Merlin of Multirotors
The Silver Bullet flys again! Before I left for Texas I made up two new arms for it and swapped out all the motors and ESC's. I got a couple test flights in before I had to leave and it's almost as good as new. What I didn't realize when I bought new motors was the Hyperions I was using are around 1500 KV and I replaced them with motors that are around 1100 KV, very noticeable difference.

With the same size props and the same battery packs it still performs well but just doesn't quite have the insane performance it did with the Hyperions. I may cut another set of arms a bit longer so I can move up to 10 inch props from the 8 I'm using now and that would likely get it back to where it was, or at least a lot closer than it is now. Other option is to simply get another set of motors with a higher KV rating, I paid $11 and some change for each of the ones I have now, so it's not like buying another set is going to break the bank, then I'd have almost enough bits left over to build another little quad, or I could just put the Gaui 330X back together with the slower motors.

Might have to buy a couple more RX's soon the multi rotor fleet seems to be growing lately...;)

Ken
 

Droider

Drone Enthusiast
What I learned today is that you can get to 120 meters up and still get down!

I knew I had to get high to get everything in the shot that the owner wanted. He id thinking of putting a few shed loads of solar PVon the commercial park roofs and wanted me to get an ariel so he could get it assessed.

How I did it.

Got my throttle curve up on my TX. I have two point on there one which is just about lift off with the camera on board and one is my hover fully loaded. On my Jeti box I got the altitude window up. when I got to 100m I throttled back to my hover position with just PH enabled. Wind was about 8 to 12 mph. The wind gusts lifted her to around 120m but by that time I was concentrating on taking the pictures at different camera nick positions. When I thought I had captured whatI needed I slowly lowered my throttle to my number 1 setting and observed the decent rate which was a tad slow so I decreased the throttle to just a fraction below my number 1 position and sure enough she came back down at a nice steady speed without any wobbles at all..

The ONLY thing that was wobbling was me knees!:)

Job done, client over the moon..

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RTRyder

Merlin of Multirotors
I'm finding the Vario A/H works really well on the AD-6 heavy lifter, midstick holds it in place perfectly and the rate of climb or descent is determined by how far either side of midpoint I set the throttle. What I do now is takeoff, get it roughly where I want it to stay, turn on P/H and vario A/H, then just tweak the stick a bit over 1/2 throttle and let 'er go. The Canon SX 200 is currently using CHDK set to take a shot at 2 second intervals, so I just do a couple elevator rides up and down the GPS position with different angles set on the camera platform. I usually wind up with somewhere between 60 to 150 shots which barely puts a dent in the free space on a 4 GB memory card, and then just go through them and pick out the best shots. I always take a look at the entire set using the LCD on the camera before I pack up and head out just in case something went completely wacko and I didn't get any good shots which is a lot easier to do than you might think, just set the camera for macro mode and take off expecting to get some great aerial shots... don't ask... ;)

Ken
 

Droider

Drone Enthusiast
MMM check list springs to mind there Ken.. I did two flights on the commercial park coz the first one my camera was still in preview mode from the pervious flight and it dont take photos while in preview mode!
 

Droider

Drone Enthusiast
Nose in Hovering

After many hours sat in my garage flying first my Blade mCX2, then my MCX both coaxial helis, I tried the Blade 120SR.. I thought if I could fly this nose in I would have a fighting chance with the MK. anyhow.. went out tonight with the MK and found a real easy way to nose in hover. GPS Hold. I flew the MK to about 20ft above a briar patch (just in case) turned on position hold and yawed the MK to nose in. It was very easy to just practice and if it went pair shaped I just let go of the stick and waited for the PH to kick in. After two flight packs I went free flight. Great I found that I could do it but every now and again I lost it, but would get it back by really concentrating. After another two packs i was flying circuits VERY VERY slowly with PH switched on swapping from nose in to tail in. Anyhow thats how I have started the process of nose in hovering and flying circuits with my MK.
 

RTRyder

Merlin of Multirotors
After many hours sat in my garage flying first my Blade mCX2, then my MCX both coaxial helis, I tried the Blade 120SR.. I thought if I could fly this nose in I would have a fighting chance with the MK. anyhow.. went out tonight with the MK and found a real easy way to nose in hover. GPS Hold. I flew the MK to about 20ft above a briar patch (just in case) turned on position hold and yawed the MK to nose in. It was very easy to just practice and if it went pair shaped I just let go of the stick and waited for the PH to kick in. After two flight packs I went free flight. Great I found that I could do it but every now and again I lost it, but would get it back by really concentrating. After another two packs i was flying circuits VERY VERY slowly with PH switched on swapping from nose in to tail in. Anyhow thats how I have started the process of nose in hovering and flying circuits with my MK.

Nose in on a multi that autolevels isn't even a challenge, it does all the work! Once you can do it with confidence on the Gaui then you've got it down. ;)

I used my little 350mm KK quad for nose in practice, squirrely little beast in tail-in, really makes you work learning nose in but I got it down pretty quick that way. Now I'm working on maintaining position and level doing very slow piro's with it which is way harder than you might think on a KK though very easy to do with an MK.

Try this, put it on the ground facing you (nose in) and take off that way, hold it in a hover for a bit, then rotate out to tail in and fly away, then do it again but rotate to tail in using the opposite direction, and be prepared to drop it in the dirt a few times before you get it down.

Ken
 

Droider

Drone Enthusiast
Ill get there Ken.. been taking off today at greater distances from the ADX and standing to either side of it.. Its coming!
 

aerialshots

New Member
keep thinking that you are in the cockpit looking forward then you can fly sideways as well. at least you are flying something much more stable than a heli.
 

matwelli

Member
happy to hear i am not the only one with hover issues...but even side on gets me at the moment

RC flying wing at 120 mph towards me, no issue, wings fly in one direction, and pull back on stick is still safe.

but these quads..... i noticed my control throws get bigger when i am side on or trying nose in, and that gets me into trouble, need to learn to settle down.
 

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