Mikrokopter Mikrokopter GPS & NAVI TIPs

[Drones4You]

This is a very nice video that we want to make for a long time.

Here in Brazil since the first edition of the Cinestar , when the GPS and the NAVI Board were placed like the Mikrokopter and Droidworks , the GPS and the Navi never worked 100%.
The same happened with my Hexakopter XL and several other customers.
In the beginning this year (2012 ) changes were made in the Cinestar , when the GPS and the NAVI were assembled in the boom of the Cinestar ! The GPS and the NAVI started working 100%
Anderson my partner started changing the Droidworks and the Mikrokopter from his Customers here in Brazil , all of them were completed satisfied with the results.

Now , it was my turn to show how to change the GPS and the Navi on the Mikrokopter Hexa XL from our flight school here.

If you are having problems with the GPS and the Autonomous flight , this may be your answers.

 

[Malcr001]

Just out of curiosity before you mounted the GPS on the arm have you tried using this: link or this link ?

I personally have not ever had a problem getting a GPS lock. I can even get it indoors at times but as you said its mostly a problem where you live.

If GPS is that much of a problem in Brazil I would still add the GPS cover.

My MK GPS and navi board is mounted in the middle so I added a copper plate mounted inbetween the navi board and flight controller.

 

[Drones4You]

ello my friend. The GPS Shield we have and use it ! We are even going to make a video about it in a couple of months. One very interesting thing is that when the GPS and Navi are away from the boars (Flight and BL's) the use of the Shield is not that important any more. The signal quality is not much better with it ! Here in Brazil the magnetic field is very weak and because of that even with the GPS Shield the MK sometimes worked other doesn't ! The First Cinestar unities had the GPS like the MK and here in Brazil the system never worked properly (100%) , one guy had the idea of changing the mounting of the GPS and that's it ! It started working pretty well When we made the change on the cinestar , we had the same idea for the MK and , at least here it's working really awesome ! We did the same in several Droidworx as well, for instance if you have 2 or three machines , you can always be changing the GPS and Navi from one to another !
Best Regards Drones4You

 

[RTRyder]

Mounting the GPS on the arm became popular with the Cinestar frames where it simply isn't possible to mount it in the stack if you use the factory battery mounting which is directly over the flight controller electronics. I see no other reason to put it there otherwise, all of my MK have it at the top of the stack and it works perfectly fine that way. If there are issues with the GPS mounted in the stack then you need to be looking at the rest of the system to see where the interference is coming from, it usually comes down to a wiring issue generating large amounts of RFI or an FPV video transmitter that is too close to the GPS unit.

Ken

 

[Malcr001]

RTRyder makes a good point. I personally would not want to mount the MK GPS on the arm because it leaves the board out in the open exposed to potential damage from a crash or if flown out in the rain. Also I just dont think it looks professional stuck on one of the arms.

 

[Drones4You]

Hi Ken

Here in Brazil the Magnetic Field is very low and we reduce the most RFI is possible and the GPS don't work very well. When we mouting the GPS on the arm, it work better.

Maybe where the guys don't have problem with magnetc field as we have here, the change of GPS will don't have the big difference

 

[ChrisViperM]

Brazil and GPS is a different story....even DJI had to come up with a special GPS for the southern hemisphere (Brazil, Australia, NZ....)

Otherwise, once again I like your guys videos....the seasoned players might know most of the stuff, but checking the posts on this forum, there is more and more newbees coming in, and they need all the help they can get.

Chris

 

[Drones4You]

Brazil and GPS is a different story....even DJI had to come up with a special GPS for the southern hemisphere (Brazil, Australia, NZ....)

Otherwise, once again I like your guys videos....the seasoned players might know most of the stuff, but checking the posts on this forum, there is more and more newbees coming in, and they need all the help they can get.

Chris

Thanks my friend , some people doesn't understand or even better , they don't reserch the subject to know why is this happening! The first MKCompass never worked in Brazil , Holger made several changes for them to work. DJI , a few months ago released a new GPS unit to work here as well! My first MK a Hexa XL , the GPS worked 50% of the time , never worked the NAVI Points , before the change! People need information and that's all we are doing , selling our stuff and giving the information for free , different from others that charge for a phone call. Thanks again Best Regards

 

[Bartman]

so the moral is, GPS works fine on the stack North of the equator, south of the equator it may or may not work and putting it on the arm provides marginal improvements, maybe enough for it to work reliably.

mine are fine on the stack also, fwiw, New Jersey, USA.

 

[Mactadpole]

FWIW - I have flown in Ecuador about 60km south of the equator from 190-3000+m elevation with the GPS/Navi on top of the stack and had no GPS problems.

 

[Bartman]

it probably gets worse as you head south and the satellites get farther from view. i never knew it was biased towards the northern hemisphere. is it?

 

[RTRyder]

Perhaps something to do with declination in the southern hemisphere vs the northern. I know there was an issue with GPS in general with the original batch of YS-X6 as you couldn't input the correct number and direction beyond a certain amount, apparently the firmware only took into account settings that you would find in China and anything that exceeded that didn't work. As soon as they fixed that in the code so I could enter the correct values the postion hold on mine started working much better. Similar issue with the DJI Naza, none of the ones I have would hold all that steady until I rotated the GPS unit about 15 degrees to the left to match the magnetic declination where I live, after that they all hold like they're hanging from a rope and RTH always works out to be within a meter or so of the takeoff point.

Ken