Hoverfly New Hoverfly PRO Firmware v4.6


Stacky

Member
Hi George, very happy to see the battery voltage looked at. Im having one problem in the setup of it though.

Whn I connect the HFP via the USB, turn on my radio and then connect to the setup software the setup clients top tab which shows the setup softwares measurement of the voltage it is saying 12224.0v I have tried a couple of different batteries, 3s and 4s with the same measured voltage. I measure the battery with my multimeter and input that but the adjustment isnt big enough to cover the big difference that the setup voltage measurement is showing.
There will be something daft I am doing but have followed the steps through a couple of times and cant work out what Im doing wrong.
Cheers
Mike
 

S11D336B

George - Hoverfly
Set your voltage correction to 0.0 manually, then click save. Now try the help button. I've updated the instructions to reflect this.

Hi George, very happy to see the battery voltage looked at. Im having one problem in the setup of it though.

Whn I connect the HFP via the USB, turn on my radio and then connect to the setup software the setup clients top tab which shows the setup softwares measurement of the voltage it is saying 12224.0v I have tried a couple of different batteries, 3s and 4s with the same measured voltage. I measure the battery with my multimeter and input that but the adjustment isnt big enough to cover the big difference that the setup voltage measurement is showing.
There will be something daft I am doing but have followed the steps through a couple of times and cant work out what Im doing wrong.
Cheers
Mike
 
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Stacky

Member
Thanks George, that worked perfectly. Look forward to getting to fly with this in a couple of days. Cheers
 


Stacky

Member
Ross I think carefree mode is where you dont have to worry about the orientation as the sticks will do the same thing no matter which way the craft is pointed. So if you push your forward stick the craft will always move forward even if it has spun around a little.
 

DucktileMedia

Drone Enthusiast
Wouldn't this feature require that the mag issues be sorted out first? I'm feeling a little left out of the loop here. Is the external mag out yet? How would the carefree mode work if the position hold is off by 30-40' on my Heli? I know everyone has varying results with the gps hold but this would seem to be dependent on that performance wouldn't it?
 

JZSlenker

Yeah, I can blow that up.
Yes, the external mag is out. Read the release notes. I just bought two of them. Spark fun only has 48 in stock. Get them quick.
 

DucktileMedia

Drone Enthusiast
I was having trouble loading the page on my iPhone. I see now. Looks like a real science project! So much for keeping the Heli looking "pro". It looks like I have to take the GPS board off then since the Hoverfly pro won't arm without the GPS initializing. Hmm. My biggest caveat with the GPS is having to wait 4 minutes to establish satellites. I fly for 5 minutes when I do a shoot. Ugg. Sorry to be a whiny bastard this morning. Maybe I need to get out of bed before I start posting stuff. :)
 

S11D336B

George - Hoverfly
You really shouldn't have to wait 4 minutes to get a fix. The HoverflyGPS does take a little longer to get a fix because it requires 5 satellites before telling you it has a fix. Typically I get a green light in under one minute. 4 minutes sounds like either a bad mounting location, or a bad GPS antenna. I highly recommend using the longer cable to get the GPS antenna away from other electronics.

One time, I had the GPS antenna mounted directly on top of the HoverflyGPS. I was never getting a fix. Moving the GPS antenna to one of the arms using a 15cm or 30cm cable got my fix times down to < 1 minute.

About being able to arm until the HoverflyGPS is initialized. This doesn't mean you have to wait for a GPS fix to arm. It just means you have to wait for the HoverflyGPS to stop flashing purple and to to Red before you arm. This happens within a couple seconds after the HvoerflyPro is ready to arm. So it doesn't really represent a significant constraint.

I was having trouble loading the page on my iPhone. I see now. Looks like a real science project! So much for keeping the Heli looking "pro". It looks like I have to take the GPS board off then since the Hoverfly pro won't arm without the GPS initializing. Hmm. My biggest caveat with the GPS is having to wait 4 minutes to establish satellites. I fly for 5 minutes when I do a shoot. Ugg. Sorry to be a whiny bastard this morning. Maybe I need to get out of bed before I start posting stuff. :)
 

DucktileMedia

Drone Enthusiast
Ah, good to know about the arming, thanks for clarifying. My antenna is on the arm as far as the longest wire included will go. I love you guys but I have to say all these fixes that we are supposed to go hunt down from other places makes this a "science project." If it needs a 15cm cable it shoudl come with one. it comes with a really short one as well which is not ever supposed to be used. The external mag is the fix for the radius error but we have to go hunt one down and solder the thing together. As you mentioned in another thread how you thought the motor manufacturers should include a nylock with the mounts instead of the standard nut.... it's the same thing. Your sales will jump through the roof when you guys finally figure out that making things look good AND work well is the winning combo. As it stands now you guys have the lead with the best flight controller available. I am a loyal customer and have sold off everything with a made in China sticker on it. But what concerns me is that in order to make these other features work I will need to turn my pro looking rig into a ball of experimental wires. At the end of the day i would rather have nothing except a flight controller as a result of this. As anyone using DJI knows, every time a new firmware comes out, it puts your stomach in a knot wondering if you should take the risk or not. Most of us dont need IO/Carefree,POI,RTH,waypoints. They are features that sound nice but also add areas to go wrong. When shooting things on a set with lots going on it is nice to have simplicity. The only added feature I like/want is that RTH. Which does work really really well even with my 30'+ position hold. I think Hoverfy's selling point is simplicity, smooth flying and really good wind performance. Things like the AH, IMO, should be taken off a switch and just made automatic. Less is better. However DJI is doing their AH is perfect. No switches, it's always on. No one really needs to hold altitude, they just want it to stabilize the throttle such tat the heli doesnt jump around too much. It should always have manual override to prevent things like what happened to my arm. the frustration comes with the fact that you guys are so close to having this american made perfect controller. But then you send out these science projects. It's like going to Fry's with a shopping list instead of just putting it all in a nice tightly wrapped box.

as for waiting 4 minutes, it sounds like some people are waiting hours! the field i fly at barely gets cell phone reception and is pretty clean of any obstacles. I do have a massive amount of motor wires spilling out of the sides of the heli as there is no other convenient way to organize them. But most every multirotor has many wires emanating fromt he center of the heli outward. This should be taken into account when designing sensitive electronics that reside within inches of all of this. making ESC's that have all the wires coming out one end would solve a lot of this.

Is there a way to use DJI's gps/mag dome on the hoverfly? As much as I hate DJI, they do make it look pretty.
 

JZSlenker

Yeah, I can blow that up.
I book shoots based on my footage, not on what my bird looks like. It doesn't seem like that big a deal to me to have to solder a few things to get an external compass. Just my .02$
 

ovdt

Member
HoverFly is very close to my next choice of flight controller.

Will sell my DJI W-M stuff which is sitting on the shelf since it hit the market for the first time. I have never been happy with it. After selling this, I will be definetely trying HF.
 

DucktileMedia

Drone Enthusiast
I expected someone to make this comment. it has more to do with the fact that the reason the ext. mag is there is to fix something that didnt work right to begin with. So the fact that we not only have to buy it extra but locate and assemble the components is amateurish. Plus, I do take pride in my bird looking nice. The gopro3 may take nice video and pics but if you show up on a job with a quad and a gopro no one is going to take you as seriously as when you show up with an all carbon, black sleek hightech looking drone. It's no different than a realtor pulling up in a Ford Pinto. Most of us, unfortunately, put a lot of value on looks. Now someone shows up with a beamer and you somehow think "wow, this person is successful at what they do." There is obviously no real logic behind this but it is human nature. no different than when a baby is attracted to the hot chick than the fat chick. Discovery channel did a whole documentary on this. the GPS receiver alone is the worst looking thing on my whole heli. I agree looks are only skin deep, or in this case carbon deep. but i really dont want to have wires dangling off of a boom 15" in the air because it gets the mag out of the EMF. just saying. Why can DJI do this and make it look nice? C'mon team America, let's wipe these patent stealing bookworms off the map. Just think of me as the ******* team manager. I'm on your side, just pressing to beat the competition in every way.


Video even has lyrics so DJI can read it.
 
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Aerovideo

Member
Best theme song EVAR!

So I loaded 4.6 onto my HFPro quad and did a couple of test flights and all seemed well. I do believe Altitude Hold did work better and was smoother although it was a VERY gusty day today so it was tough to really judge.

I also loaded it onto my HFPro + GPS quad but didn't get a chance to fly it due to weather.

I'm hoping this helps the roll oscillation I see in all my quads, like the gain is too high but only in certain maneuvers.

Now if we could only get 4.6 onto the SPORT board that would ROCK as I have 2 more multicopters with Sport boards on them :)
 

Stacky

Member
One thing I did find with AH on the previous firmware but havent checked it this time is using the closed foam to protect from the sun just wasnt enough. When I have my board fully protected from sunlight the AH is really good.
 

Efliernz

Pete
Stacky

I had a reliable +/- 2' from the AH on the VM-6 Friday night. I'll have to start again once I've flashed the new firmware but it was really good.
I am flying a green-board with a black thimble-sized dome over the sensor (hot-melt glued!) with six 1mm holes drilled thru the lower sides of the dome.

I got a large number of "oh... ah's" from the observers. It was so damn smooth. There was a DW AD4 their with a Naza too... it was so loose compared to the HFP :D

Pete
 

Bluerex

Member
How low can I go?
I have found that I need to have the Alt Hold gain wound down to almost nothing (11x) to avoid slow motion kangaroo action.
At the recommended 23x I was having to cope with extreme climbs and sudden drops as soon as I flicked the switch (I now test with Pool noodle landing gear :) - it makes the bounces much cheaper)

C
 

PaNt

Member
Best theme song EVAR!

So I loaded 4.6 onto my HFPro quad and did a couple of test flights and all seemed well. I do believe Altitude Hold did work better and was smoother although it was a VERY gusty day today so it was tough to really judge.

I also loaded it onto my HFPro + GPS quad but didn't get a chance to fly it due to weather.

I'm hoping this helps the roll oscillation I see in all my quads, like the gain is too high but only in certain maneuvers.

Now if we could only get 4.6 onto the SPORT board that would ROCK as I have 2 more multicopters with Sport boards on them :)

you only did the update or you did the setup again??

Thank you..!
 

Efliernz

Pete
I suggest doing the AH test up at at least 20-30' - then you have room to switch off if it is getting too low.

Pete
 

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