Aerovideo
Member
While this is not a step by step setup these are my initial thoughts upon setting up a SuperX.
The Super X comes in an Apple-like packaging which was pretty impressive. The casing is aluminum and looks impressive. It's a little on the heavy side but it's nice and compact and the IO module is a nice feature.
The drawback of the casing is there's no way to bolt it down, instead they use double sided tape to secure the FC down. This seems like a bad idea, my initial placement was off a bit so readjusting was difficult. Would be nicer to just have a way to bolt it down in exact position, oh well. They also have you secure the GPS puck with double sided tape to the aluminum pole, again this seems so temporary.
For some strange reason the cable that is included to power the system has the same JST plug end on it that a battery does, which seemed odd to me. Even if their excuse is that on their own x650 quad the wiring harness is setup this way. So you will need to solder your own power cord unless you plan to fly with one of their setups. Once I had made my own power cable I was able to hook it up to the computer.
I thought I had read somewhere that this supported the Mac but it doesn't. I had to run windows on my Mac to access the exe file on the flight controller. Interesting that there's nothing to install, the FC acts as a storage device with it's own software installed on it, that's pretty cool. I verified quad mode, normal escs, and saw all the gains were set to 1.0, I just left this. Firmware Version 1.08 was installed by Drew from Xaircraft America for me.
On all my other setups I've used the 3 wire servo cable to get power from the throttle channel to my Rx and just had single wires for the rest of the channels. This didn't work for some reason with the Xaircraft IO block. I had to use 3 wire cables on all the channels to get my EZUHF Rx to power up. These wires were included and they are nice braided servo wires which is nice but just a little heavier than it needs to be. I like my single wire Rx cable setups better, but that's nit picking.
Once I got the receiver working I was able to do the RC calibration which wasn't hard just a little weird. Having to hold both sticks and fast toggle the flight mode switch required some finger dexterity but it's definitely doable.
Lastly was the compass calibration. This seems a little more difficult than it needs to be but after several tries of spinning it and turning it I finally got it right, I think. One thing I like about my previous FC is the audible feedback instead of the blindingly bright LED blinking of the Super X which I couldn't see sometimes as it was out of view while rotating in certain directions. Beeps would be nice.
I was then ready to fly, or so I thought
I set it out on the driveway and powered it up. I was presented with a double blinking red LED. A quick check of the manual says this means it's in safe mode or RTH. Hmmm, I like all the switches in my radio to be up/back so I needed to reverse the gear channel so back was RTH off instead of RTH on. After that was fixed I was presented with the double green blinking which meant I was in GPS flight mode. So I had to reverse the flight mode channel as well so default back was manual mode and flipping the switch to the middle was attitude mode and flipping it all the way forward was now GPS mode.
Now I was ready to fly!
I pulled the sticks down and out to arm the quad and the props started spinning, a lot faster than I thought they would. Not sure if I like having the props spinning as an indicator of armed but I guess I'll get used to it.
I raised the throttle and lifted it off the ground in manual mode, tossed it around a bit. Flew some small circles in my front yard and it seemed to perform really well and felt like what I was used too.
I flipped the switch to attitude mode, tried tossing it around but as expected it would level itself out. It didn't seem to fight me like I've seen in my previous FC. The auto leveling was quick and true, no oscillations. This is with the default gains as well as my dial on my Dx8 radio in the middle so basically no adjustment if I understand how this works correctly. So that's good. It did seem to drift around a bit more than I thought it might in auto level mode but nothing terrible. Altitude hold was AMAZING. I had my quad only a few feet off the ground and it held the altitude perfectly, even in the ground effect. This was fantastic.
Finally I flipped the switch to GPS mode and prepared to flip it back really quick if it started drifting towards something. But WOW, it held its spot. I mean held its spot, it didn't move anywhere, STUNNING! I definitely was not used to GPS performance like this. It was crazy good. Granted it was a cold, calm, winter afternoon but still, WOW.
So I'll withhold final flight performance judgement until I get a chance to really open this thing up flying FPV in some fast forward flight and sweeping turns to see how it handles, but initial impressions are quite good.
I think I'm going to need more of these!
The Super X comes in an Apple-like packaging which was pretty impressive. The casing is aluminum and looks impressive. It's a little on the heavy side but it's nice and compact and the IO module is a nice feature.
The drawback of the casing is there's no way to bolt it down, instead they use double sided tape to secure the FC down. This seems like a bad idea, my initial placement was off a bit so readjusting was difficult. Would be nicer to just have a way to bolt it down in exact position, oh well. They also have you secure the GPS puck with double sided tape to the aluminum pole, again this seems so temporary.
For some strange reason the cable that is included to power the system has the same JST plug end on it that a battery does, which seemed odd to me. Even if their excuse is that on their own x650 quad the wiring harness is setup this way. So you will need to solder your own power cord unless you plan to fly with one of their setups. Once I had made my own power cable I was able to hook it up to the computer.
I thought I had read somewhere that this supported the Mac but it doesn't. I had to run windows on my Mac to access the exe file on the flight controller. Interesting that there's nothing to install, the FC acts as a storage device with it's own software installed on it, that's pretty cool. I verified quad mode, normal escs, and saw all the gains were set to 1.0, I just left this. Firmware Version 1.08 was installed by Drew from Xaircraft America for me.
On all my other setups I've used the 3 wire servo cable to get power from the throttle channel to my Rx and just had single wires for the rest of the channels. This didn't work for some reason with the Xaircraft IO block. I had to use 3 wire cables on all the channels to get my EZUHF Rx to power up. These wires were included and they are nice braided servo wires which is nice but just a little heavier than it needs to be. I like my single wire Rx cable setups better, but that's nit picking.
Once I got the receiver working I was able to do the RC calibration which wasn't hard just a little weird. Having to hold both sticks and fast toggle the flight mode switch required some finger dexterity but it's definitely doable.
Lastly was the compass calibration. This seems a little more difficult than it needs to be but after several tries of spinning it and turning it I finally got it right, I think. One thing I like about my previous FC is the audible feedback instead of the blindingly bright LED blinking of the Super X which I couldn't see sometimes as it was out of view while rotating in certain directions. Beeps would be nice.
I was then ready to fly, or so I thought
I set it out on the driveway and powered it up. I was presented with a double blinking red LED. A quick check of the manual says this means it's in safe mode or RTH. Hmmm, I like all the switches in my radio to be up/back so I needed to reverse the gear channel so back was RTH off instead of RTH on. After that was fixed I was presented with the double green blinking which meant I was in GPS flight mode. So I had to reverse the flight mode channel as well so default back was manual mode and flipping the switch to the middle was attitude mode and flipping it all the way forward was now GPS mode.
Now I was ready to fly!
I pulled the sticks down and out to arm the quad and the props started spinning, a lot faster than I thought they would. Not sure if I like having the props spinning as an indicator of armed but I guess I'll get used to it.
I raised the throttle and lifted it off the ground in manual mode, tossed it around a bit. Flew some small circles in my front yard and it seemed to perform really well and felt like what I was used too.
I flipped the switch to attitude mode, tried tossing it around but as expected it would level itself out. It didn't seem to fight me like I've seen in my previous FC. The auto leveling was quick and true, no oscillations. This is with the default gains as well as my dial on my Dx8 radio in the middle so basically no adjustment if I understand how this works correctly. So that's good. It did seem to drift around a bit more than I thought it might in auto level mode but nothing terrible. Altitude hold was AMAZING. I had my quad only a few feet off the ground and it held the altitude perfectly, even in the ground effect. This was fantastic.
Finally I flipped the switch to GPS mode and prepared to flip it back really quick if it started drifting towards something. But WOW, it held its spot. I mean held its spot, it didn't move anywhere, STUNNING! I definitely was not used to GPS performance like this. It was crazy good. Granted it was a cold, calm, winter afternoon but still, WOW.
So I'll withhold final flight performance judgement until I get a chance to really open this thing up flying FPV in some fast forward flight and sweeping turns to see how it handles, but initial impressions are quite good.
I think I'm going to need more of these!
