Hoverfly HFP board died..... feel deserted.

jfro

jfro

Aerial Fun
On my Hoverfly Pro base xy8/avroto 2814's, I switched out my 30 amp Plush ESC's for 40 amp Plush esc's as I thought they were running a tad hot with 12lbs total. Have lots of new gear so was anxious to get it changed over. 1 day shipping on the ESC's became 7 days. Delay #1....

Then swapped them out and went to check everything and boot up, the HFP just started beeping like it was armed. Reseated cables to the HFP and it didn't beep till it was armed (as it should)

Put props on, went for a fly and it flew as expected. Came in to change out the bottom props to 12" from 11" and after connecting the battery, got the beep beep beeps going before it was armed.

Rest of day was spent on phone off and on (last thursday) trying to figure it out with HF tech support. We got the beeping to stop once and it held once on battery restart. On 3rd try, beep beep beep. Couldn't get rid of it after that. Could still arm it and get motors to spin hearing a quick tone change when arming. We agreed not to try flying.

Got instructions how to reset board back to factory settings and during reset got an error on 2nd eprom. Spent another stint with tech support and around 5 it was left that we needed the code writers to figure this out. They call me back on friday morning.

Long story short, I left 3 messages on answering machine at HF friday and 2 today (monday). No call backs.

I had planned on flying for the rest of last week and all weekend. 4 days of no winds, blue sky's and 75-80 degrees. Friggin best weather of the summer and I missed it. Added to my frustration....

Decided this isn't happening again, so am going to build 2nd MR. Not sure what, but I bought the FC and swapped out my HFP today. Did my first flights after dinner in manual mode on my new Naza-m V2 w/ GPS. Didn't fly too bad. Think another partial day of flying might get it dialed in enough to put camera & gimbal back on. Put a 2lb weight on it so I'm thinking I'll be pretty close weight wise.

Now will just have to wait and see what's up with the HFP board. If I can get it running, I'll probably put it back on my XY8 and Naza can go to a smaller 2nd unit.
 

Aerovideo

Aerovideo

Member
That sucks to hear... these are expensive boards and it really sucks when one goes belly up! I've got a HFP black board that has bad gyros, sure wish I had purchased the yellow jacket plan on it... hehe DOAH!

Have to admit I've been eyeballing a Naza v2 myself. A buddy of mine has a v1 and its AH and PH are AMAZING!

The Hoverfly is just soooo easy to setup. Good luck, hope you get it working again!
 

jfro

jfro

Aerial Fun
Bad news, been without a HFP for about 3 weeks. Good news, Hoverfly stepped up and either fixed my board or gave me a new one. It was shipped yesterday, so I should see it in time to mount it and get it ready for the labor day weekend. It's odd because it was working fine, but after changing from 30amp to 40amp escs, I was getting the arming beep beep beeps after connecting the battery, but it wasn't armed. Finally was able to set the firmware back to factory, and it still beeped.

Aerovideo, I just saw your Stanley Lake Spring 2013 video on Vimeo as well as the one with a 1 night flight with sunset. That little Spidex Quadcopter w/ gopro gimbal produces some nice video (probably along with some pilot expertise).

I'm trying to make a decision and build a 2nd MR. Going to be a quad and hoping for 15min+ range flight times with a gopro & small gimbal. I'd be very happy with the type of video that your Stanley Lake video has. Curious as to what type of flight times you get your Spidex config. and with what batteries. I have 5000mah 4s at 1 1/4lbs and 1 1/2lbs. I'd sure like to figure out how to use those and build a 15 minute or more flight time gopro / brushless gimbal unit.

I've been trying to decide between a reg quad with carbon fiber frame w/ some 380-400kv motors and 6s batteries & large props, or something like the new Discovery Pro or something like what you have. I already have a new (not assembled yet) go pro gimbal and just bought the Naza-m v2 /w gps. Put the NAZA on my xy8. Going to try out the gps this week, but so far under manual and ATT mode, I'm not happy with it on my xy8 @ 12lbs. There are some nice features and it flies pretty good, but I get some back and forth on the yaw both while stationary and slow flying. yawing is not smooth and it also drifts when yawing. Spent a couple days tuning and trying prop combos to no avail. Maybe the GPS will eliminate it, but I'm guessing it's either my tuning or they don't like the xy8 setup.

I'm going to try the Naza for a few months on a small quad and if I can't achieve Stanely Lake type video quality, I'll sell it and get another Hoverfly. If Hoverfly could get a GPS module that worked and at a decent price point, they could own the market.....

Look forward to seeing some more of your videos.
[h=1][/h]
 


jfro

jfro

Aerial Fun
kloner said:
everything your complaining about with naza is gains.... move the yaw gain
Click to expand...

It's not like I haven't been trying and testing.

I'll put it back on a dial and keep trying. Got a day or two before HFP is back. Have most of the parts for a new quad. Just need to decide the frame and motors.... Will put the Naza on that after I put the HFP back on my xy8.
 

kloner

kloner

Aerial DP
they can get confusing. Atti gains as both can greatly increase and decrease yaw from over gaining and hunting atti, can look like a loose yaw.

Try yaw on a dial and atti on another. too high and hunting can look like low gain. usualy theres a sweet spot of like 10 when it really tightens up. Yaw is almost always the hardest to tune cause it can be from props not as balanced as they can, motor bearings not the best they can be, etc.
 




gtranquilla

gtranquilla

RadioActive
I've been looking for this info for a couple of weeks now..... My aerial videos of a golf course are "sub par" because the MR yaws left and/or right when there is wind..... more when a cross wind. Props and motors are very well balanced. Motor bearing seem to be very good...... will keep working on it I guess.
kloner said:
they can get confusing. Atti gains as both can greatly increase and decrease yaw from over gaining and hunting atti, can look like a loose yaw.

Try yaw on a dial and atti on another. too high and hunting can look like low gain. usualy theres a sweet spot of like 10 when it really tightens up. Yaw is almost always the hardest to tune cause it can be from props not as balanced as they can, motor bearings not the best they can be, etc.
Click to expand...
 

Aerovideo

Aerovideo

Member
jfro said:
Bad news, been without a HFP for about 3 weeks. Good news, Hoverfly stepped up and either fixed my board or gave me a new one. It was shipped yesterday, so I should see it in time to mount it and get it ready for the labor day weekend. It's odd because it was working fine, but after changing from 30amp to 40amp escs, I was getting the arming beep beep beeps after connecting the battery, but it wasn't armed. Finally was able to set the firmware back to factory, and it still beeped.

Aerovideo, I just saw your Stanley Lake Spring 2013 video on Vimeo as well as the one with a 1 night flight with sunset. That little Spidex Quadcopter w/ gopro gimbal produces some nice video (probably along with some pilot expertise).

I'm trying to make a decision and build a 2nd MR. Going to be a quad and hoping for 15min+ range flight times with a gopro & small gimbal. I'd be very happy with the type of video that your Stanley Lake video has. Curious as to what type of flight times you get your Spidex config. and with what batteries. I have 5000mah 4s at 1 1/4lbs and 1 1/2lbs. I'd sure like to figure out how to use those and build a 15 minute or more flight time gopro / brushless gimbal unit.

I've been trying to decide between a reg quad with carbon fiber frame w/ some 380-400kv motors and 6s batteries & large props, or something like the new Discovery Pro or something like what you have. I already have a new (not assembled yet) go pro gimbal and just bought the Naza-m v2 /w gps. Put the NAZA on my xy8. Going to try out the gps this week, but so far under manual and ATT mode, I'm not happy with it on my xy8 @ 12lbs. There are some nice features and it flies pretty good, but I get some back and forth on the yaw both while stationary and slow flying. yawing is not smooth and it also drifts when yawing. Spent a couple days tuning and trying prop combos to no avail. Maybe the GPS will eliminate it, but I'm guessing it's either my tuning or they don't like the xy8 setup.

I'm going to try the Naza for a few months on a small quad and if I can't achieve Stanely Lake type video quality, I'll sell it and get another Hoverfly. If Hoverfly could get a GPS module that worked and at a decent price point, they could own the market.....

Look forward to seeing some more of your videos.
Click to expand...

Sorry for the delayed response... but here it is :)

Unfortunately I only fly for about 6 minutes with my Spidex quad that shot that Stanley Lake video you saw. I have a minute maybe two to spare but not much. It also depends on how aggressive I fly so I've set my radio timer to 6 minutes to be conservative. However, I'm not flying with nearly the size battery you mention. I only have 3300mah 4s batteries on that spidex quad.

The new brushless gimbals are nothing short of amazing and allow me to fly in much higher winds and still get some passable footage which is nice. The Hoverfly Pro flight controller in manual mode does fly really smooth and doesn't seem to have the yaw issues I've seen in other videos. Of course 3 axis brushless gimbals will fix that too.

That's cool that Hoverfly was able to hook you up, wish I was able to sweet talk them into fixing my broken board... hehe

I recommend the Hoverfly for smooth video though.
 

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