Mikrokopter: Basic GPS, Altitude Hold, use

[FlyEYE]

A few simple questions

For Position Hold, do you also have to activate Altitude hold?
For Come Home, do you also have to activate Altitude hold?
When in Position Hold, Coming home or Going to waypoints, if you "take over" the sticks and then let go, does it continue on it's way, immediately or with a delay?
Any dangers to watch out for when doing this? Thanks.

 

[RTRyder]

A few simple questions

For Position Hold, do you also have to activate Altitude hold?

No, position hold will work fine without altitude hold

For Come Home, do you also have to activate Altitude hold?

No, it's not required but highly recommended to use altitude hold while the GPS is navigating due to the tendency of the to MK drop in altitude as it moves from point to point.

When in Position Hold, Coming home or Going to waypoints, if you "take over" the sticks and then let go, does it continue on it's way, immediately or with a delay?
Any dangers to watch out for when doing this? Thanks.

The behavior in straight position hold depends on the stick threshold setting, if set to 0 it will always immediately try to return to the GPS coordinate where position hold was set. If set to higher than zero it will stay where you move it to once it has been stationary for an amount of time determined by the stick threshold setting.

Other than changing Yaw I haven't tried to override the direction when the Mk was moving between waypoints or coming home. Personally I think it's probably a bad idea to change anything other than yaw in those situations due to the possibility of confusing the Navi or F/C and having BAD things happen...

Ken

 

[FlyEYE]

Thanks, I did experience a drop in altitude with Come Home, however it wasn't that far away.
Does the MK remain "pointing" in the direction in which it was pointing when Come Home/Waypoint navigation is turned on, except if you change yaw?

Always thinking of ways to avoid BAD things happening

 

[RTRyder]

Thanks, I did experience a drop in altitude with Come Home, however it wasn't that far away.
Does the MK remain "pointing" in the direction in which it was pointing when Come Home/Waypoint navigation is turned on, except if you change yaw?

Always thinking of ways to avoid BAD things happening

Yes, it maintains the orientation it had at he start of the route unless you yaw it to another, then it will maintain that orientation. Typically what I do is get it to the altitude I want and set altitude hold, then start the route while watching live video feed from the GoPro camera, I can then yaw the MK to have any orientation I want as it moves from point to point or just use the visual to maintain a straight ahead orientation in the direction of travel.

Ken

 

[FlyEYE]

I've been using Vario alt hold and am going to try out the standard (Ceiling) altitude hold.

If I turn it on, do I then have to give it throttle to hold that height. I.e. is there no altitude hold at heights other then the ceiling.
So along that same question, when coming home if I flick the standard altitude hold on then flick coming home would I expect it to drop in altitude unless I've added throttle.

 

[RTRyder]

I've been using Vario alt hold and am going to try out the standard (Ceiling) altitude hold.

If I turn it on, do I then have to give it throttle to hold that height. I.e. is there no altitude hold at heights other then the ceiling.
So along that same question, when coming home if I flick the standard altitude hold on then flick coming home would I expect it to drop in altitude unless I've added throttle.

Yes, using standard A/H you need to give it throttle to hold it against the ceiling, otherwise it will hunt up and down depending on how much of a breeze there is. Also correct that if you don't add some throttle when engaging C/H it will drop a bit as it begins to move.

If I'm using standard A/H, I just push the throttle up to 3/4 to full depending on the load being carried and the weather and leave it there, that way it compensates for any potential drop in altitude.

Last time I flew the Droidworx I used vario with motor stop lockout and it worked perfectly, I think I'm going to leave it that way for a while. One thing that is crucial to having vario work right is to make sure the throttle setting is high enough in MKtool so it will stay steady at mid stick. If you use vario and find the MK is not maintaining altitude at mid throttle, you probably need to increase the setting until it does.

Ken

 

[jappie911]

Hi,

I have always wondered if it is possible to increase the speed of changing height when in Altitude Hold Vario-mode ?

Sometimes it might come in handy to have it a bit faster..