Things They Do Not Tell You
- Thread starter ChrisMohrSr
- Start date
ProPilotWannaBe
Member
This is teamwork at its best!
ChrisMohrSr
Member
That sounds fine Ken. I have the original shipping material so there should be no problems. Let me know what it should cost to ship it back to me.
chris ken did same for me . sort of .. i had a board that i couldnt get working for the life of me .. he steped up said send it to me and we figure it out.. never done this before .. what did i have to lose .. nothing..
he not only told me ahead of itme tho lucky .. that the board i got was probley no good.. my fualt for sort of doing samething.. buy cheap buy twice type of thing..
the man steped up big time and sent me a board back that works great.
he didnt have to do that at all .. i trust him 1000% ... heck maybe next summer god willing bein he lives about 3 hours from me . i met up with him and by him a few coffees and he teach me more on this awsome hobby ..
ken is a stand up guy .. no worry chris ..
he not only told me ahead of itme tho lucky .. that the board i got was probley no good.. my fualt for sort of doing samething.. buy cheap buy twice type of thing..
the man steped up big time and sent me a board back that works great.
he didnt have to do that at all .. i trust him 1000% ... heck maybe next summer god willing bein he lives about 3 hours from me . i met up with him and by him a few coffees and he teach me more on this awsome hobby ..
ken is a stand up guy .. no worry chris ..
Bartman
Welcome to MultiRotorForums.com!!
Attachments
Perfect, as long as I have the radio you plan to use I'll be able to get everything setup and dialed in. I seem to recall you mentioned you will be flying a GoPro on it. Which one (Hero HD or newer Hero 3 size) and how are you planning to mount it? I have both the old and new GoPros so I'll be able to put one of mine on to make sure the balance is correct and the PID settings match how it will be flown.
Don't worry about shipping cost to send it back, if you absolutely have to know it should be pretty much the same cost as shipping it out...
Ken
ChrisMohrSr
Member
I have the GoPro Hero 3 Black Edition, one of the reasons I have no money to spend, but I feel that its worth it to do the best you can. I have not yet made any plans for mounting the camera because I was too concerned about getting the machine off the ground considering my experiences with my quads. Chris has sent me money and I hope to pick it up tomorrow. I say hope because I recently had a Urinary Tract Infection which was cleared up, but it seems as if it might be returning. I have an enlarged prostate gland so that doesn't help.
I shall start taking the props off tonight and begin packing up my bird for traveling.
I shall keep you informed of my progess.
The postman delivered the 550 today. Took it out of the box a while ago and had a look, the component parts are definitely decent gear with one notable exception, the radio is complete crap. First thing I noticed about the radio was the lack of any form of external antenna, that tells me that even if it did work half decent the range would be extremely limited and the potential for this hex to go out of range and just keep going is extremely high. Easy solution, the radio got replaced with a DX6 Spektrum I had sitting on the shelf for, well let's just say a long time. I bought this radio when I first started flying RC Helis and used it maybe three times before I decided it wasn't quite what I needed and it got replaced with a DX7. Reality is I only bought the DX6 because the DX7 hadn't been released yet, so that gives you a clue as to just how long ago that was.
The DX6 is not an i version, just a plain old DX6, but, it's essentially a brand new DX6 with hardly any use on it, (a new/old radio or is that and old/new radio???). Not sure if any of the modern receivers are compatible with this setup but I still have the original that came with it and that's all we need to get this hex flying. So, out with the whatever it is that came with the 550 and in goes the DX6, now we have some workable gear.
Plugged the board into the computer and connect to it with the Multiwii GUI. The board is actually a decent one, the same as this... http://witespyquad.gostorego.com/flight-controllers/multiwii-pro-2-0-flight-controller.html so it has a pretty good set of sensors on it, I actually have one on a DJI F450 frame. Firmware is the latest 2.2 so that's good to go, although the settings that are on the board looked a bit odd. Got the radio setup and working properly, charged a battery, added a power lead for my connectors, put the props on and took it out back during a break in the torrential rain to see if would fly.
Yup, it flys, but as I suspected the settings on the board are WAY OFF. It wobbles and weaves and was quite a handful to keep it more or less level and that's with autolevel turned on, I can tell it's going to take a set of fully charged batteries and an hour or two at the field to get this thing dialed in to where a novice can fly it. Had Chris managed to get it in the air as-is it would have been a guaranteed crash, and a quick one at that.
So we have progress but the fun is just beginning. Weather here is pretty wet and soggy, quite a contrast to the sunny 100 plus degrees I've been in all week out in Phoenix. If things dry out over the weekend I should be able to get this bird out to a field and see if I can make it behave, stay tuned...
Ken
The DX6 is not an i version, just a plain old DX6, but, it's essentially a brand new DX6 with hardly any use on it, (a new/old radio or is that and old/new radio???). Not sure if any of the modern receivers are compatible with this setup but I still have the original that came with it and that's all we need to get this hex flying. So, out with the whatever it is that came with the 550 and in goes the DX6, now we have some workable gear.
Plugged the board into the computer and connect to it with the Multiwii GUI. The board is actually a decent one, the same as this... http://witespyquad.gostorego.com/flight-controllers/multiwii-pro-2-0-flight-controller.html so it has a pretty good set of sensors on it, I actually have one on a DJI F450 frame. Firmware is the latest 2.2 so that's good to go, although the settings that are on the board looked a bit odd. Got the radio setup and working properly, charged a battery, added a power lead for my connectors, put the props on and took it out back during a break in the torrential rain to see if would fly.
Yup, it flys, but as I suspected the settings on the board are WAY OFF. It wobbles and weaves and was quite a handful to keep it more or less level and that's with autolevel turned on, I can tell it's going to take a set of fully charged batteries and an hour or two at the field to get this thing dialed in to where a novice can fly it. Had Chris managed to get it in the air as-is it would have been a guaranteed crash, and a quick one at that.
So we have progress but the fun is just beginning. Weather here is pretty wet and soggy, quite a contrast to the sunny 100 plus degrees I've been in all week out in Phoenix. If things dry out over the weekend I should be able to get this bird out to a field and see if I can make it behave, stay tuned...
Ken
ProPilotWannaBe
Member
You're the man, Ken!!!
Beachbum55
CoolAir
Following this thread, great stuff! Good luck to both of you.
ChrisViperM
Active Member
Hey Ken....that sounds absolutely great. I can imagine that Chris is already as much exited as in the night before his first date.....:tennis:
Great job.........
Chris
Great job.........
Chris
ChrisMohrSr
Member
All Support Is Sincerely Appreciated
Thank you for your support, Beachbum and thanks to anyone I failed to acknowledge.
Thank you for your support, Beachbum and thanks to anyone I failed to acknowledge.
Spent a bit more time with it this morning. Since the configuration settings were suspect I connected the Multiwii board to the computer, erased the eprom, and then compiled and loaded a fresh copy of Multiwii firmware V2.2. A quick test flight with the default settings was night and day, it actually flys fairly well now. Brought it back in the house and connected to the GUI, changed the basic settings a bit to firm it up in the air and also enabled the mag and carefree mode. Another test flight and it lifted off nice and smooth, still a little unsteady in the air with a bit of wind blowing but that can be tuned out of it. The bigger concern at the moment is how it reacts in carefree mode. The mag chip is on the flight controller sitting directly above the lower frame plate which is also the power distribution board. I ran into this problem with the same board on an F450 frame, the magnetic field generated by the current flow in the power distribution causes the mag to loose its orientation and the result is carefree and other functions like GPS postion hold are erratic at best. No GPS on the 550 but our novice pilot will most likely want to take advantage of carefree so it's important that it work reliably.
One fix is to disable the onboard chip and connect a remote mag on a breakout board via I2C connection, the latest versions of this Multiwii board do just that by moving the mag chip to the GPS board and it works very well. I just happen to have a breakout board with mag but not sure I want to complicate the setup by going that route, I'm going to look at some other options first like potentially raising the board up and away from the PDB as far as possible and putting a piece of G10 covered with copper foil in between to dampen the interference as much as possible.
Bottom line is it will be possible to get the 550 flying well enough for Chris to be able to do what he wants to with it, its just going to take a bit of time to work out all the details that the manufacturer didn't fully account for in their "design".
I'm going to think about this for a bit while I do some work on my new 3D printer, later today I'll try a couple things to resolve the mag problem and see how it reacts.
Ken
One fix is to disable the onboard chip and connect a remote mag on a breakout board via I2C connection, the latest versions of this Multiwii board do just that by moving the mag chip to the GPS board and it works very well. I just happen to have a breakout board with mag but not sure I want to complicate the setup by going that route, I'm going to look at some other options first like potentially raising the board up and away from the PDB as far as possible and putting a piece of G10 covered with copper foil in between to dampen the interference as much as possible.
Bottom line is it will be possible to get the 550 flying well enough for Chris to be able to do what he wants to with it, its just going to take a bit of time to work out all the details that the manufacturer didn't fully account for in their "design".
I'm going to think about this for a bit while I do some work on my new 3D printer, later today I'll try a couple things to resolve the mag problem and see how it reacts.
Ken
ChrisMohrSr
Member
Hi Ken,
Your knowledge of this technology blows me away. I wish I had the patience to learn this technology. Patience I once had long ago. Back in the fifties I was pretty good with vacuum tubes, resistors, capacitors and inductors. I built my own black and white television set (black and white was all we had in those days) and in those days circuit boards were mostly used on premium equipment. Most things were built by soldering each component individually. But now my hands shake a bit at times. Not good for soldering a circuit board. And, as I said, my patience for that sort of thing is mostly gone.
Anyway, you're doing a remarkable thing and when I win the lottery you and Chris will be at the top of my money distribution list.
Chris
ProPilotWannaBe
Member
Ken, Chris, I'll throw out another thought... Ken, if you can't sort out the Carefree mode for Chris with this Multiwii, I'd be willing to chip in $75 or so for a Naza Lite + GPS, or some other FC that would offer a good GPS/Carefree mode for Chris. I would like to see Chris enjoy his flying and be able to use his MR in a more enjoyable manner, especially if he is wanting to do some photo or video.
ChrisMohrSr
Member
Hi ProPilotWannaBe,
You guys leave me speechless. I thought I was friendless. Well, I'm not anymore.
Chris M
ChrisViperM
Active Member
ProPilotWannaBe
Member
Glad we could prove you otherwise.
Nah, actually the real reason is because we all need an experienced MR pilot in Homeland, California, in case we get a customer project there. So practice up and make us proud!
(Of course, totally joking! lol)