Picloc 3x setting experience etc.

DKTek

DKTek

Member
I've not seen the gel yet, have some on the way, but is it sturdy enough to just put the velcro to the gel? How about a plate(mass), cut to size for the PicLoc, that is gelled to the mounting plate and has velcro for easy removal of the PL?

So the end stack would be;
- Mounting Plate
- Gel
- Base plate
- Velcro
- PicLoc
 
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Skysurf

Skysurf

Member
Can someone tell me if the latest firmware allows for different mounting options (other than text facing up)?

I am also curious if George has added the possibility to use a satellite rx with the JR11X.

/Jesper
 

MombasaFlash

MombasaFlash

Heli's & Tele's bloke
EricH said:
MSAflash: Just loaded 53.69 X3. I don't have the issue you experience w/ AUX 1 and PAN. I'm using composite PPM, not spectrum. Must be a bug when you use spectrum.
BTW, I gave some thought about the other problem you had w/ drifting roll and tilt and think it might have to do w/ the 10 turn pot fitted to the AV200. They just don't have enough resolution (I did experiment w/ 10turns at one point). I currently use one turn pots. That's pretty much the only difference left between my set up and your. Hope it helps.

E
Click to expand...

Hi Eric, glad you have joined us. Do your 1-turn pots give you sufficient travel?

I have not been back to try v56 on the AV200 (which has 3 turn pots). All my posts are currently relating to a Pan> Tilt> Roll Copterworks heli gimbal. Different to the AV200 hierarchy and all 360 servos with PL mounted On-Axis. George sorted out the corrupted radio inputs but there are still many things to sort out as the whole mount now meanders and twitches. It was stable with the previous release HD55.

The Pan axis still requires lots of attention. It too is less stable than before and the rate of drift is higher.

The magnetometer continues to be a total waste of space. Regardless of heading when powering up it ALWAYS thinks South is Home.

George (or anyone else who knows), can you please answer these questions:

1. What precisely is the "Process Deadband" option and under what circumstances should it be enabled or disabled?
2. Should "Gyro Calibration On Every Startup" be left enabled or disabled once initial Gyro and Accel calibration has been performed?
3. Tx stick ATV limits under FUNCTIONS all work very well, even bad boy Pan. But ATV's under SERVOS do essentially nothing at all with 360 servos - although they work well with the AV200 style proportional/external pot. arrangement. Should one expect them to work with 360 servos on-axis?
 

G

graham_newton

Member
@ mombasa:

Im am using a AV 200 style mount and am not seeing the problems of jerking that you are reporting.
In fact I seem to be getting my mount dialled in. You should try with your AV200.

I have mounted the PL on axis before and the results were not that good either.

in response to yuor questions:

As far as I have figured out, the processs Deadband box just enables the deadbead setting that you set in the slider above.
So it needs to be ticked. I set it by assembling my whole setup, and connecting pl to the laptop. then I run up the motors and look at the servo output tab.

With a small DB setting the roll and tilt servo signal drifts to one side while the copter is running just below takeoff power.
So I increased my DB untill the servo output remained with in about a 3uS range.
I have quite a lot of vibes getting to my PL so I set the gyro filter to 96 Hz and played witht the DB setting untill I get no drift.

Hope that helps?
 

MombasaFlash

MombasaFlash

Heli's & Tele's bloke
Hi Graham,

Thanks for that input. I have to stick with sorting out the CW mount because that is actually the more important of the two. To be frank, for the AV200 the standard camera control built into the MK FC is perfectly adequate for most 'soft' video applications, is perfectly straight-forward to set up and has no bad habits - other than allowing the horizon to roll slightly during extended sideways flight or 'handbrake turn stops'.

I have experienced the twitching from the get go with FW v.56 with both the CW mount AND the AV200. I am currently losing interest in the 3X and cannot be bothered to lose even more time pissing around with the 3X on the AV200.

The PL does react quicker and holds the horizon better under stressful conditions but the aggravation of the incessant bugs with every firmware release makes it arguably more trouble than it is worth for the AV200.
 

E

EricH

What goes up...
MSAFlash: Pots I use are these: http://rs-particuliers.com/WebCatalog/Potentiometre_Lineaire_7_8__1_Tour_5k-6930733.aspx
I played w/ the gearing ratio to achieve best mechanical set up.
Regading your question about "Gyro Calibration On Every Startup", It should be selected. Check the video "general" on on rotorpics. At 3'15, there is a screenshot of what it should look like.

George: Like MSAflash, I would like to get a description and explanation of the use of some functionalities: Gyro dead band, Gyro sample rate and accelerometer correction influence.

Gyro dead band, I haven't seen any difference w/ different settings. But then again, I'm not sure what to look for!

Adjusting the other 2 and changing the mounting arrangement of PL have cured the drifting issue of tilt and roll in flight. Current setting at 256Hz and high. But what exactly does it represent?

E
 
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MombasaFlash

MombasaFlash

Heli's & Tele's bloke
This is mainly for George's benefit as emails with URL links to private, explanatory videos have presumably been lost within his email mountain. The video below is NOT supposed to be a public denunciation of Picloc. It is here so that George can hopefully get to see it, hopefully be able to gauge what might be going on and hopefully, ... fix it ... dammit!

 
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GeorgeM

GeorgeM

Member
Thanks for posting this video.

Mombasa... finally I get to see and appreciate the notorious twitch !!

OMG !!! That's a Mega Twitch !!

Please measure the voltage present on the Picloc servo outputs ( Plug in a servo lead in Servo Output 6 and measure inline with a voltmeter. )
I suspect the long cables are playing about with the supply voltage arriving in a relatively high impedance state compared to a direct connection to Picloc.

Is the notorious twitch present also when No Receiver is plugged in ?? ie.. Just Picloc self stabilizing in autonomous mode without any RX connected ?


The mount looks like its very responsive, and that's why the acceleration and smooth do not do too much to the setup.... It's already fast enough and the auto-scaler inside Picloc is happy with the fast mount.

The Wondering about of the Roll axis ( and probably the tilt too ) ...... I will contact you with instructions on how to get rid of this nuisance.

Let me first try to replicate your settings and then I'll email you.

Thanks !!

George.
 


yeehaanow

yeehaanow

Member
I will post a comparison to the raw file sometime but I am really honing in on the picloc setup and the weak links have always been the servos, gear ratios, and pots. Every improvement on the mechanical side seems to be met and exceeded by the picloc... and it wants more....:)
Here's a video with a little (5-6%) post smoothcam.
Since this test I have increased the voltage to the servos from 6v to 8v (spektrum 6040) and threw on a 140mm lens (on the gh2, which is like a 70mm on full frame). I'm going to have to do a flight test because it was virtually rock solid on the bench. I couldn't believe it! Dare I say zenmuse-like?? Don't quote me on that. :)
The only thing left to change is to increase the roll gear ratio. Acceleration will accomplish the speed I need but it will feedback and oscillate with the vibration damping system.

 
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MombasaFlash

MombasaFlash

Heli's & Tele's bloke
GeorgeM said:
... finally I get to see and appreciate the notorious twitch !! ... I suspect the long cables are playing about with the supply voltage ...
Click to expand...

Hello George,

In order to reduce unnecessary bulk, and avoid having too many cables in the large loop to accommodate Roll movement, there is just one 3-way cable supplying power to the 3X. All other 3X outputs and inputs have just the signal wire. The 3X is not directly powering anything. The servos are taking power from the same 4-call Ni-Mh pack, but direct from the Rx. This means that power does not have to negotiate long cable runs and puts servo power cable at no more than a standard servo cable's length - with a small 2-3" extension on each for easier maintenance because the Rx is housed in a semi-sealed box. Only the signal wires travel the full 50cm length from Rx to 3X and back.

The voltage of the whole circuit measures 5.3v with a freshly charged battery pack when active. When airborne this would be a constant and unvarying 5.5v with the onboard generator.

Just for the exercise I bypassed that custom wiring loom and used eight individual 3-core radio cables for everything with the servos being powered by the 3X. It did not change anything. The twitching and the hunting was still there.

I powered up the 3X with a separate battery (without the Rx) and had it feed the servos with standard 3-way cables and the Tilt and Roll were still hunting, but I did not see The Twitch. Mind you, as soon as I saw the hunting I turned it all off so perhaps The Twitch would have appeared if I had been more patient.



053.3X-wiring.jpg


043.LVRS+Picloc3X.jpg
 
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S

Skycopter.nl

Member
Again Picloc FAILS.... :(

The first Picloc we had was having the known issue with the USB connector that isn't perfect mounted on the board I think, so George has send us a new one that haven't got this problem.
After tuning the Picloc with the new firmware, all was working perfect! Horizontal was perfectly on level.

BUT, after a bit tuning, save to EPPROM, pressing disconnect button and remove the USB cable PiclocToolz failed, and trying to restart the Picloc by plug in the USB cable, only the White led stays ons, no blue or green leds are on like it normally does.
After a few seconds also the White LED turns off, when pushing the USB cable a little bit to the outside of the Picloc, the Blue, Green and White LED are flashing, like normal...
I try'd to re-solder the joints, make sure if all connections are right with a Multimeter, all these test are good! So I don't know what the problem is with the PicLoc... :(

When comparing the first and second Picloc I also expected a strange difference between them.

Picloc 1 : 3 contacts are soldered together

View attachment 3834

Picloc 2 : 3 contacts are soldered seperate of each other.

View attachment 3835


EDIT:
Resoldered the USB socket from PicLoc 1 solved the connection problem, I will test if it will hold his memory setting.
 

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MombasaFlash

MombasaFlash

Heli's & Tele's bloke
With this unreliable weather I decided to see how the 3X would handle the 2-axis mount on a Raptor 50. I decided to use FW v.E055 as HD55 has known issues with proportional servos and v.56 just isn't behaving.

The 3X had to be mounted lengthways due to lack of space. I knew this would not present a problem as Toolz has selectable orientation under OPTIONS. I have to assume that EVERYBODY mounts their 3X horizontally because I have never seen any reference in this thread to the following 3X behaviour.

Basically, the Arrow towards Tilt orientation option does not work at all. Something does change but whatever it is, it is not useful. PL gets totally confused over which axis is which and is always at odds with the Tx sticks. It compensates the Roll when it should be compensating the Tilt, and vice-versa.

So I tried HD55. No change. Next up was v.56.

Aha! the Tilt and Roll panes under SERVOS swap positions, with Roll now being listed first. But other than that it still compensated the wrong axis. AND ... it TWITCHED AND HUNTED. WTF?

Why the hell is nobody else reporting this hunting and twitching with FW v.56 ? I have it regardless of the camera mount. The Copterworks gimbal, the AV200 and now the 2-axis Raptor mount as well.


Yesterday I had another go at v.56 on the CW mount. Just always the same. One other really annoying 3X habit is that occasionally when saving to EEPROM the Tilt axis suddenly goes for a 360. This chafes and damages the roll axis servo cable if you don't get to the power switch AND yank out the USB in time.
 
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E

EricH

What goes up...
Hi,

MSAFlash: I saw you video and I now understand your frustration. I don't have anything like that w/ ver 56.70 and can't really suggest much. George, Where are you??

About the Pan axis going for a wild spin after Eeprom save, I have the same issue IF it is in stabilization mode (AUX 1). Make sure you select go home before hitting eeprom save and you should be OK.

Cheers,

Eric
 


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