XAircraft SuperX

[Motopreserve]

I fly Turnigy Plushes, as well. I burn them in on the bench for 72 hours before putting them in an aircraft, never had an issue to date.

Electro:

can you elaborate on your "burn-in" procedure?

 

[Electro 2]

Electro:

can you elaborate on your "burn-in" procedure?

Bench power supply, external PWM signal source, test motor, (Maybe an actual in-use motor, depending), and away you go. Every few hours you goose it or change speed. The object is to eliminate "infant mortality" or DOA scenarios in the ESC's electronics, so you have some degree of confidence right up front before it's installed in the aircraft build. If you wanted to be *really* thorough, you could prop it up, clamp it in a vice, and run it loaded, too.

 

[Motopreserve]

Bench power supply, external PWM signal source, test motor, (Maybe an actual in-use motor, depending), and away you go. Every few hours you goose it or change speed. The object is to eliminate "infant mortality" or DOA scenarios in the ESC's electronics, so you have some degree of confidence right up front before it's installed in the aircraft build. If you wanted to be *really* thorough, you could prop it up, clamp it in a vice, and run it loaded, too.

that totally makes sense. I've never thought of doing that - but used to do it with hard drives used for recording audio. Better to know it will fail before using it on a session and having it crap out during the "hit" song

 

[Electro 2]

that totally makes sense. I've never thought of doing that - but used to do it with hard drives used for recording audio. Better to know it will fail before using it on a session and having it crap out during the "hit" song

When doing drives for media capture you would want to check write/read speed before and after, as well. The big player in the ESC thing is attempting to restrict infant mortality to the bench and not have it happen in the air.

 

[Motopreserve]

Audio recording, even at higher sample rates, never really pushes a drive as hard as HD video. But much like the ESCs, failure during real "action" produces the same frowns....

much better to be avoided - especially if it can be done easily with a little time on the bench. It's a good tip.

 

[Djin]

You are correct, the FC couldn't care less which ESC you use provided it talks the same language at the same speed. The Chinese ESCs we all know and love (?) are PWM devices that are expecting to see a signal with a value of between 1000 and 2000 which is the width of the signal in the PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) stream that the flight controller outputs on the motor ports in response to the signal sent by the TX. Typically the value is measured in milliseconds and the lower number is of course no throttle and the higher full throttle. Anywhere in between tells the ESC to run the motor at some level of reduced power between 0 and 100, i.e. a PWM signal of 1500 would be mid-stick or hover.

The problem many people think is a compatibility problem and run into is this, if you calibrate the throttle settings of the ESC directly off a throttle port on a RX, then you are telling the ESC that the low and high points are whatever value the endpoints of the throttle channel are set to when you do the calibration. Those values get stored in non-volatile memory on the ESC (an Eprom) which means once the values are written there they stay until either erased or overwritten. Now, if the low throttle value that gets written into the ESC memory happens to be lower than what the flight controller outputs on the motor ports the end result is that the ESCs will never initialize because they are looking for a signal level that is lower than what they are seeing from the F/C thus they think the throttle is not at zero. One of the safety features of pretty much all ESCs is that they will not arm unless the throttle is at zero, so in that case you can see how this could become a problem and lead people to believe either the ESC or flight controller is broken or the ESCs aren't compatible when in fact it's just a matter of mis-calibration.

The true compatibility problem between certain ESCs and flight controllers usually refers to the refresh rate measured in Hz being higher than what the ESC is capable of receiving. Older design ESCs used refresh rates somewhere between 50 and roughly 200Hz, today most flight controllers send out 400Hz signals and modern ESCs are capable of 400Hz or higher although they can process anything below that as well, so an older design ESC where the firmware can only handle refresh rates of say 200Hz or less is going to have issues when connected to a flight controller sending a 400Hz signal out from the motor port and that is what the manufacturer means when they say certain ESCs are not compatible with their controllers. That isn't to say they won't work at all, the problem is that the ESC that can only process 200Hz is only going to process roughly half the commands sent to from the flight controller the rest are lost so the end result should you wind up with that combination is a very wobbly multirotor that defies any and all attempts to make it fly smooth.

Ken

Ken I wonder if you can help me.

I just bought some new jeti hicopter esc. These are non programmable and have fixed endpoints (1.05ms - 1.8ms). I have a Futaba 8FGS radio. The default throttle end points were;

135 100(1.1ms) 100(1.9ms) 135

Connecting the esc directly to the Rx required the lower throttle limit in the Tx to be lowered to 112(1.05ms) befoee ESC would arm. I changed the upper one to match the upper limit of 1.8ms so i ended up with;

135 112 70 135

I get a smooth throttle response when connected directly to the Rx. Now once i connected to the SuperX it won't arm at all. I re-did all Tx calibrations with the SuperX. Any ideas? I'm thinking the SuperX has a lower pwm limit it can't go below?

 

[Djin]

Don't worry solved it. There was no voltage being supplied on the red wire from the FC.

 

[Dhardjono]

Can any one no the reason why my copter with super x is drifting toward the left it feel like the motor 1 & 4 is spinning more thus the drift i try soft ware delete and re installed but no luck any help here.

 

[kloner]

post your logs....

 

[X650Mouse]

Can any one no the reason why my copter with super x is drifting toward the left it feel like the motor 1 & 4 is spinning more thus the drift i try soft ware delete and re installed but no luck any help here.

Check the trims on your radio

X

 

[Dhardjono]

Yup it's at 0 I have to put the trim too the Wright too male it stay in one place. Any other suggestions Kloner. The osd.middle level line give me a slight slant to Wright I think gyro I must show you after putting in wave 400 it started to the Wright than I put back to 650 pro it did the same.

 

[kloner]

logs uploaded to http://log.xaircraft.com and get us a link to them

 

[Dhardjono]

here's today log - http://log.xaircraft.com/#2014_05_17_232232.750_138.1.03.25 ignore first 7 it was flwon indoor but i had the trim tothe right all the way to keep it from drifting to left. look at the picture of the osd 650/v4 is on a table

 

[kloner]

your motors are not straight, #3 is off alot#1 is pushing back just a little but will need a new log looked at to verify all them lines stay together better on motor output.... two of the four will oppose the other two as it fights or yaws, but they should intersect and look like a rainbow line...

 

[Dhardjono]

Yes thank Kloner but how t fix this problem i just bought the kit esc (650 pro kit) and the motor is close to the kit it's 3110 780 kv it new and if you see that picture the copter was level but on osd is not.

 

[Motopreserve]

Yes thank Kloner but how t fix this problem i just bought the kit esc (650 pro kit) and the motor is close to the kit it's 3110 780 kv it new and if you see that picture the copter was level but on osd is not.

Check all the motors with a level - or Kloner has a video somewhere how to get it close using a straight edge. Then once the tyre all level, you'll have a better understanding of which motor is doing what. You can use an app that has a level if you have to. Make sure they're all level relative to the center/FC position.

 

[Dhardjono]

Thanks Motorpreserve i just did that and alsways do that still goes to left i even bought a new v2 controller change receiver to another one this is my 3rd superx first time it's doing this. Is trhis a run away or pilot error i put it on gps it went backward i quickly throttle down

this was yesterday 650 is code Update i just reinstaled thecf folder the gui too now it working better just little going to the left but that maybe level need to be adjust more.

 

[Motopreserve]

So far in my experience you really need to have the motors perfectly level for the superx - and also the CoG spot on. It really doesn't want anything out of whack. All FCs probably want this - but it seems to me the superx is more sensitive, certainly more so than multiwii.

I didn't understand your post - did it do the same drifting with the New SuperX? So it does it with multiple versions of the same FC?

 

[Earl E Adobtr]

So far in my experience you really need to have the motors perfectly level for the superx - and also the CoG spot on. It really doesn't want anything out of whack. All FCs probably want this - but it seems to me the superx is more sensitive, certainly more so than multiwii.

I didn't understand your post - did it do the same drifting with the New SuperX? So it does it with multiple versions of the same FC?

Motopreserve, I'm presently running SX with motors turned out 5 degrees for added yaw authority on an asymmetrical spider quad set to Standard X. It handles extremely well with proper battery/motor/esc combo. It does drift left after takeoff but once it "finds" it's spot the rest of the flight is normal. I just let it do it's thing then begin the flight - takes about 5 seconds. It's always done this, even brand new with "normal" frames. I just chalk it up to another one of those idiosyncrasies all fc's seem to have. To me it's the best, least time consuming, flight controller out there at the moment so happy to put up with it.

 

[Motopreserve]

I would imagine if your motors are equally angled it may negate the issue. It seems to me that would eliminate 1 (or more) motors working harder than the others to keep equal level. I think the superx has a hard time with motors out of "sync" with each other by a certain amount. See Kloners vibration issues a ways back with his motors only a small amount out of level. My experience has been similar.

Or maybe my version sucks and yours is fine running on 3 rusted motors and broken props.