Hoverfly Hoverfly PRO/GPS radio mix challenge!

[Bartman]

Hi everyone,

I was just in the shower thinking about my helicopters and I remembered something Al said not too long ago that GPS performance can be improved by upping the auto-level gains a little (lowering the radio values). In between shampooing my hair and washing the wax out of my ears I thought that if a mix could be programmed, maybe switching to PH could bump the auto-level gain just enough for GPS to work better.

Anyone feel like taking on the challenge of testing this out? I'm not sure if mixes even work this way but I think it's possible. It'll be the closet thing to having radio tuning of the GPS settings. On windy days you can tweak the mix to tweak the GPS performance (I hope) and vice-versa on calm days..

Bart

 

[Stacky]

I was asking HF when their GPS board would be back in stock in an email this week and they told me hopefully by the end of the month for the board and that they were testing some new antennas but antenna availability might also be a factor. Wish I could help with mixing but thats all voodoo to me.

 

[Efliernz]

Anyone care to send Stacky or I a GPS board, I have a spare HFP quad for testing!

Showers are awesome places for brain storming! I keep telling my bosses that sticking people in a room and telling them to come up with an idea doesn't work! No I don't want to shower with my team mates :dejection:

I have multiple setups already programmed for my DW Hexa depending on the payload and weather. As I fly Futaba 2.4, the RX is programmed to any of my TX model memories... so I just choose the model/setup for the conditions and I don't need to rebind the RX.

Pete

 

[Webheadfred]

GPS performance can be improved by upping the auto-level gains a little (lowering the radio values).

Uh.... I may be all messed up.... I thought RAISING the radio values raised the gain? I'm pretty sure the mix could be enabled.

 

[Bartman]

Uh.... I may be all messed up.... I thought RAISING the radio values raised the gain? I'm pretty sure the mix could be enabled.

I'm sorry if it's confusing Fred. I think of raising the numbers on the radio (more positive and more negative) as lowering the gains as it makes the heli less twitchy. So by lowering the numbers and making the heli more agressive it might make GPS PH more effective.

PH performance was really good last night in relatively calm air. Having flown in wind using PH, it wasn't horrible, it held itself in one spot, but it could have been better. Maybe this trick with the radio will offer some improvement. I'll have to give it a look today sometime.

Bart

 

[Webheadfred]

Hmmmm Interesting. On my radio, Futaba 8fg, I have the gains set to 65. If I raise it to say, 75, it becomes more twitchy. Lower, it becomes less twitchy and then mushy. Maybe that's why all my channels have to be reversed.

So you're suggesting to program a mix so when you enable PH, it'll bump the gain to a predetermined amount. It could be done. I have in the past put the gain on a knob and adjusted on the fly to dial out the twitchiness. I suppose on the same token, I could dial in and out gain while in PH to see if that improves the hold.

I'm in the process of mounting the new brushless gimbal so it may be a day or so to sort through all this in the air.

 

[Bartman]

Fred,

Can you explain how you put the gain on a knob? Did you just reassign channel 5 to a knob and it became adjustable? I didn't think of that......but it's worth a try....a simple idea now that you mention it

 

[Webheadfred]

Well... I'm at work so I'll have to look when I get home but basically... The channel for gain is linear as is all the others. I just assigned one of my knobs to that channel. By turning the knob, essentially you're changing the gain. On my 8FG radio... There is a 'Servo' page so you can see visually the result of any input before you fly. So I did the mix (or whatever you call it) and I watched the Servo screen to see that it's doing what it's supposed to do... And then flew. It worked perfectly. I got the gain to where it was flying like I wanted it. After I landed, I revisited that servo page and noted the number on the gain channel. I them manually put that in and zeroed the knob. Voila!

 

[Bartman]

Great idea Fred, thanks for the explanation. I'm just swapping out my JR 9503 for a Hitec Aurora 9 so I'll be in the radio book tonight and will look into copying what you've done. If the auto-level gain does in fact influence GPS performance then this might be a workaround to giving the GPS more control in windy conditions.

Can't wait to see if this actually does anything.

Bart

 

[DucktileMedia]

The JR is not so good at allowing you to assign any channel to ANY control. The Futaba 8fg I think will let you assign anything channel to anything which is great.

 

[JZSlenker]

Bart, you will love the hitec! You can power the rx directly from your flight batteries and have the voltage show on the TX.