Hoverfly Testing the HoverflyPro with no Rudder control interesting Ehh...

[3dheliguy]

Just a bit puzzled... I Decided to give the hoverflyPro a shoot, but im sad to say this system has a couple Querks and maybe some Jerks... lol... Ok so I recieved my hover fly pro two weeks ago brand new from Hoverfly installed this thing on my CS8, and guess what it took a bit of fiddling with the firmware and setup just to get the thing to talk to the software. Well I guess theres always a learning curve im thinking to myself, so off I go calibrating and reconnecting all through the night to the wee hours and thinking to myself this thing better fly good lol. And keep in mind I just need the thing to fly if I wanted all the bells and whistles well there are crazier systems out there but I heard good things, and a few bad but I figure what the hell its only Half a thousand Dollars. :dejection:

So I get this thing all ready to fly tune it all up motors KW8, ESCs Turnigy Plush, Futaba Radio 8fg, hoverfly distro wiring harness everything done, go to lift it off and Guess what.... THERE IS NO RUDDDDDDEEEEERRRRR!!!!!!

So I go back to my setup menu and double check that my rudder is working perfectly, and it is, I get a second oppnion and im off to the races again. What do you think happen next well if you take peanut butter and apply on bread you get the hoverfly... BUT NO RUDDER!

Now im worried I know I can fly but Damn No rudder that cant be good. Luckily my buddy was there to coach me through the oddness of a flying multi with no Tail LMAO... Awe man, I was ****ting bricks at that point. I kept picturing my multirotor flying off into the sunset.

Anyways, I know you guys out there have been flying this thing a bit... have you ever heard of a hoverfly without a tail??

So im thinking to myself its got to be something I did, so what do I do pull everything apart recheck all calibrations reload firmware, reflash firmware, check wiring harness, check motor direction, check motor angle, check prop balance, check hoverfly screw tightness to the board, check 8fg configuration check motor calibration, check reverese, check everything including where i plug the rudder from my reciever into my board. My transmitter is frequency is set to MLT2, and im not running sbus so you can rule that one out.

The guy at hoverfly seems good, but the ticket thing might take awhile so I wanted to ask around see if anyone was filming without a tail.....

Help appreciated greatly.

 

[Stacky]

The ticket thing is usually much faster than any other vendor so you should be sweet there.
I have had HFP boards for close to 2 years and have built countless multis with the boards in them. Just recently I had a problem with no rudder control and I triple checked everything. It ended up being one motor wired to spin the wrong way and even through all my checks i missed it.
Point is that in all my builds, 99.9% of all my problems have ended up being my mistakes.
I know it wont be feel like Im being much help but I would do a slow and careful step by step check of everything again. In just under 2 years I have had 2 problems with my HFP, one being that my thrust to weight ratio was too low and the other being a flip when enabling auto level nearly 2 years ago. The flip thing was responded to and fixed within a couple of days by HF.
After that my boards and builds have been a dream. My money is on something small in the build process being incorrect.

A couple of things to check.

Have you chosen your flight configuration in the "pro info" tab in the setup software and saved that selection?.
More importantly have you read the manual and release notes?

 

[3dheliguy]

Yes, I wish I had the motor spinning the wrong way I would at least feel as tho I did it, but I double checked and triple and even brought in my local expert. I have been through this thing so many times it's hurts to think about hence the long essay. But ur inspiring me to do it again. I always love to hear success stories, I'm in negative town right now.

I feel like it's another little secret thing that I'm missing just like getting this thing first connected to the computer.

 

[3dheliguy]

O and yes the flight configuration has been saved. I found that out the first time i tryed to toggle between screens kinda didnt save till I hit save lol.

Also if your motor was going the wrong way wouldnt your kopter do some erratic stuff like bank or Yaw extreme to let you know something was wrong.

 

[Efliernz]

O and yes the flight configuration has been saved. I found that out the first time i tryed to toggle between screens kinda didnt save till I hit save lol.

Also if your motor was going the wrong way wouldnt your kopter do some erratic stuff like bank or Yaw extreme to let you know something was wrong.

If you have enough motors, it will fly with one messed up. Not well... but it will fly.

Pete

 

[3dheliguy]

this things flys awesome its smooth aileron roll is nice so is the elevator, but absolutely no rudder its so weird, and no matter what I do it just doesnt seem to give me any, at first I thought it was the my remote checked my setup menu and it was perfect, then I thought its got to be miss wired checked my futaba manual for my frequency and my mode. Then I traced the wire coming out my channel from reciever port 4 on the futaba reciever to find that was perfect to the hoverfly. After that I realigned my motors as they say it is good to do in the manual to resolve any drift so I did, and that didnt help at all either. Kinda Freaky!!! All my switch are working correctly although I think im going to wait till manual mode works before I try autolevel.

 

[kloner]

He came by my place and i for the life of me couldn't figure this dam thing out. Hovers so nice and smooth. i held it powered up and yawed it around and there was no response from the motors,,,

what diagnostic test shows yaw?

 

[3dheliguy]

Klones to the rescue. We both lost our Marbles on this one...

 

[Stacky]

I do remember a yaw problem I had a while ago which turned out to be a faulty radio tx. Have you tried setting it up with a different radio and tx?. Worth a go?

 

[kloner]

setup shows the yaw stick sending a command to yaw... the gyro doesn't even try to do anything with it when the craft is rotated running....

 

[3dheliguy]

I was thinking of this as a possibility, but this radio was working with the last kopter. I will have to....Pow WoW... on that one tho.

 

[redridinghood]

If you have a different FC try it on your setup to see if the problem persists. Even with the best QC some people still get a lemon.

 

[DucktileMedia]

Try this. Take your props off. Switch another channel like elevator for the rudder. When you power up the motors you would be able to hear the speed change when you turn rudder. Now try to see if you get a sound change from the switched channel. Maybe plug it direct to a servo to make sure it does actually function smoothly.

 

[3dheliguy]

For some reason I get no pitch change within the motors for controlling purposes while on the bench, I have tried to get it to speed up and slow down like it should when simulating real flight but its weird in that it doesnt change pitch yet when I fly the craft moves well. So I'm afraid That trick isn't going to work for whatever reason with the hoverflypro I think it's this new firmware. I made sure that I tested that channel with a servo to see if it's getting signal, and it moved just fine.

 

[Webheadfred]

On the Futaba 8FG you can go to the servo page and watch the little graph to see if your transmitter is indeed transmitting a rudder input. There are so many things on that end which could be the issue. Check there. It could be that...

 

[3dheliguy]

Yes, I like the servo page for checking that my switches and stick movements are working to the desired end points.

 

[DucktileMedia]

i think you are right actually. the HFP doesnt allow full control until you get a few feet off the ground or something like that. I had some really weird hoversport issues where the heli would get to 1-2' off the ground and just jump to 10'. The sport has nothing but manual so I have no idea what happened and Hoverfly had no answers. What was weird was that I tried putting on smaller 8" props and the problem went away. Even more weird was that the 9" props I had before flew perfectly the first 2 days and then all of the sudden things went haywire. So who knows what the hell happens to these things. I still think that the nature of dealing with mass manufactured highly sensitive electronics is just prone to having erratic problems from unit to unit. The question is whether a lemon is identifiable immediately or if it takes time to show it's weakness. this theory may be total hogwash, I have just seen so many erratic behaviors over the years that didnt stem from crashing that I have to believe there is something else to blame.

In general it's good to learn how to vaguely diagnose problems. We learn the very basics of flight and what are required to make things fly. Like a car engine, it needs air, fuel and spark. So one can use a process of elimination to narrow down the possible areas of failure. I would say starting with your radio is #1. I would then check everything, lipos, loose wiring, loose motor bells, vibrations, software setup, esc settings, etc. The other thing to pay attention to (not saying you havent) is the consistency of the problem. Is there ever any rudder twitching at all or is it just solid smooth without any input control? It is a weird problem no doubt.

 

[gotaerialllc]

i Had this exact problem, my helicopter would lift off but i had no rudder. My problem was i had 2 esc's plugged into the wrong spot. This was clearly my mistake.

Could you post some photos of your setup, maybe some fresh eyes can help?


wac

 

[Stacky]

I have done the same in the past.

One quick point, its the weekend so you might not get a response from the HF team till Monday.

i Had this exact problem, my helicopter would lift off but i had no rudder. My problem was i had 2 esc's plugged into the wrong spot. This was clearly my mistake.

Could you post some photos of your setup, maybe some fresh eyes can help?


wac

 

[JZSlenker]

What Iris points out is true. Bench testing will not help diagnose your issue. HFP needs to be in the air for everything to work correctly. You can't hold it in your hands with the props off and get an accurate idea of what is going on either. I'm sure when you figure this out it will be something other than the FC. With so many components needing to work together it doesn't take much to get some weirdness. Good luck.