3DR Iris+... My experience so far

[sledge57]

Good point about about vertical obstacles, maybe I'll go 50m.

JoeBob, I have all the modes you listed available on my setup except "Stabilize" and now "Auto" because I don't want auto yet.

So that gives me 5 options, I think I'll be ok with what I have until I get comfortable with this.

 

[Old Man]

That bounce goes away if you reduce the descent speed for the last portion of the landing and RTL modes


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[sledge57]

No flying today, but new goodies....

MR Porn (gimbal and FPV tx: installed)

 

[sledge57]

Flew today, and crashed, a small crash (is any crash small?).

Windy again, 15 - 20 they say, we waited for it to calm down and for part of the flights the winds were fine, unfortunately those weren't recorded. I turned the GoPro on so I had video to the monitor but I forgot to record. Oh well, the flights I recorded were a bit windy but in Loiter it held position pretty good. It's weird though not having direct control of the throttle. That will take some getting used to.

What we're doing here is my brother got the bug from me and bought a Dromida Ominus and was flying in a field near this building, he got too high, it was too windy and it flew away.

He thought it was on the roof of this building so I decided to bring the Iris and GoPro and see. We figured if it was up there, then we'd worry about how to get it. Turns out this building is his girlfriends doctors office, we saw him and he said if it's up there bring a ladder and go for it, no problems. As a side note after seeing the Iris+ he's now interested also...

My brother watched the monitor on a tri-pod to see if his quad was there while I concentrated on flying. I was nervous being so close to this building but we did have permission to fly so I went for it.

Alas the Ominus isn't there, my brother wasn't too heartbroken, he just bought a new Ominus FPV yesterday, which we also flew today.

Why did I crash? Brain cramp I believe, had it in "Super Simple Mode" and got confused, not as simple as you might think. I forgot that pulling back on stick makes it return to "home" which is fine as long as you stay near home when you fly and I didn't so it wasn't going where I thought it should, because I moved and I got confused, I'm old I get confused a lot

Here's the video:

 

[Old Man]

Sounds like you're learning about some of the flight modes the same way I did, with similar results

You do still have throttle control in Loiter but it requires a lot more stick input to effect a change. Once it's in Loiter it wants to stay at a fixed position so it rejects or reacts slowly to small changes in stick positions. You flight speed is restricted as well. The default speed for horizontal motion is probably pretty slow .as programmed by 3DR so if you want more you have to adjust it upwards in MP. Attached is a screen shot of where that is done. Remember the aircraft will always accelerate at 1/2 the set loiter speed when in Loiter mode. Since I use Loiter for camera work the speed for mine is not really fast but much faster than default rates. Once you get things dialed in you'll find Loiter to be rock solid for holding a position bith vertically and horizontally. Keep in mind that because of the way throttle control works when you switch out of Loiter for a mode such as Stabilize you may need to quickly adjust throttle to maintain altitude. This is especially true if the aircraft is heavy, like when flying with a camera and larger batteries. You don't have to worry about battery weight because the Iris only accepts one battery type, but you could start adding more video stuff and weight will go up. Flight time is reduced when using Loiter a lot since everything is working harder to maintain a fixed position.

One other very important thing about Loiter. If for some reason you decided to land while in Loiter mode, and you can do that, do not ever, ever pick up the aircraft after landing without first disarming the aircraft or switching back to a non GPS slaved mode, or both. You will probably find yourself holding a frame with four spinning Ginsu blades if you don't disarm and/ or switch modes first.

Both Simple and Super Simple flight modes can be pretty useful, but at the same time very difficult to deal with if you "fly behind the line". When utilizing GPS both APM and Pixhawk establish a home point they remember for the entire flight, regardless of the flight mode selected. If using Simple or Super Simple modes the user should place themselves behind the aircraft, front of aircraft facing "away" from the user prior to lift off. If the user faces the same direction the front of the aircraft is pointing and extends their arms straight out from their sides and looks both ways they can draw an imaginary "line" they do not want to fly behind while in Simple or Super Simple modes. If they do fly behind that line they will discover their controls have reversed and flight control is no longer simple at all.

Both Stabilize and Alt Hold, without the additional Simple or Super Simple modes, are a couple of basic flight modes that should be a "first position mode on every transmitter. I use Stabilize for every take off and landing since there's no slaving to GPS and it functions much like "Manual" does for other controller types.

 

[sledge57]

You hit the nail right on the head regarding "Simple and Super Simple" and when I crashed at the end I was flying behind the line where home was, at which point I was in "Simply Confusing Mode"

I did play with "Simple mode" a bit in the video. You saw where after looking on top of the building I flew a short ways into a field, rotated 90* and flew back to where I was. I was showing my brother how Simple mode worked and it worked rather well then. I have one more channel to play with so I think I will remove Simple and Super Simple from my 3 way switch and set a flight mode on channel 8 with Simple Mode to use when I get a bit away from home and maybe feel disoriented. At least I will have a way to get it closer to home regardless of it's orientation.

As far as landing in Loiter Mode, that whole video was done in Loiter and landings were UGLY. I'm a bit gun shy about Alt-Hold still since that's what I was in the 2 times it tried to flip on takeoff. Up until now the only successful flights have been in Loiter. Yesterday was too windy for me to try Alt-Hold again with the camera and gimbal mounted but we wanted to find the missing quad if we could so....

I'm going to remove camera gear for the next few flights and work on flying in Alt-Hold and other modes (on calm days) and try to autotune also.

Need to read up on the difference between Stabilize and Alt-Hold again. I may set up the 3 way for Alt-Hold, Loiter and Stabilize. I really like how Simple it is to change flight modes in Pixhawk, actually it's very simple to change anything, which can be both good and bad

As far as my DJI vs 3DR score card, if I get some good flights in Alt-Hold then I'd say 3DR/Pixhawk will have a solid lead for me. In fact selling my NAZA 2 FC and putting a Pixhawk on the Hex is not out of the question...

There is one thing I saw in a 3DR video that confuses me though. They say the Iris + (Pixhawk) auto corrects compass cal as you fly but in poking through the parameters (where it's good and bad that it's so simple) I discovered that COMPASS_LEARN is disabled. So is that the parameter that it uses to auto calibrate the compass or is it something else?

Searched the forums for quite some time yesterday and never did find a satisfactory answer.

P.S. I did clean that finger print off the GoPro lens, surprised no one mentioned it. Got to learn to keep my fingers away from it or find a way to cap it until it's time to fly.

 

[Old Man]

Alt Hold and Stabilize are quite similar (leaving Simple and Super Simple out of the set up ). The only difference is that Stabilize will not maintain a constant altitude. You have to handle that with throttle input. For all intents and purposes it's the 3DR version (name?) for the Manual mode that DJI uses. It's a lot of fun and if you can maintain your orientation with the copter when in manual you are fully controlling the copter, not an automated mode in the flight controller. Alt Hold takes some of the work out of it for any given reason you desire.

If your copter was flying well in Loiter it will fly well in Stabilize and Alt Hold. Read the Wiki again for the flight mode required for Auto Tune. It's critical you use the correct mode and follow the published procedure for that.

Keeping one of the flight modes linked to the Simple set up is a good thing as long as you don't come to depend on it for all your flying. It's much too difficult to mentally switch control inputs when the copter is flown "behind" the take off point. As you've probably noticed, "Simple" mode uses an imaginary line that extends outwards to the sides from the take off point. For visual reference let's call everything ahead (in front of the copter) of the line "North", everything behind that line "South", and the line extending left and right from the T/O point as "East/West". Left/right/forward/back are always referenced to that imaginary line regardless of copter orientation. So if the copter is ahead of you and to one side when you pull the stick back it will fly back on a southerly path that directly intersects the East/West line established at take off. Super Simple takes that a step further and uses the exact take off point as the return point reference. If the copter is out in front and off to one side and you decide you want it to come back to you (standing at the take off point) all you have to do is pull straight back on the pitch stick and it will come directly back "south east" or "south west" to the take off point. So it will fly itself back to you on a tangent (radial?) to make the path a straight line to the exact take off point. You've already found out about control reversal when you cross the line defining the take off point Don't feel too bad, you are not alone in that.

One really nice thing about APM and Pixhawk if you get yourself in trouble going "behind the line" or anywhere else in Loiter mode, using or not using Simple or Super Simple modes. Just center the sticks and leave them alone. The copter will stop in a few feet and hang out maintaining position while you decide how you want to proceed. If you've got the battery remaining you can work on figuring out how the controls need to be handled a little bit at a time, or you can switch to a mode that does not use the two simple modes and fly back as you would in a more manually controlled mode such as Stabilize or Alt Hold. Or you could just land where it's at. I didn't mention RTL because it's too obvious and cheating

As you are discovering, Pixhawk is waaaay different from the DJI controllers. You just have to go slow and learn the differences a little at a time. Good to hear you getting some air time in now. I'm waiting for when the light to comes on to see the tally on that score card reverse the previous trend. I have a hunch it will ultimately be heavily weighted in favor of the Pixhawk not too long from now. Good call on learning the system without carrying the camera and gimbal. Makes repairs a lot cheaper if needed.

 

[Gary Seven]

Hello @Old Man. I'm curious about something. From all the reading I've been doing the last couple of months and from all the threads I've been following, I was under the impression that 3DR Stabilize mode was analogous to DJI's ATTI mode. I always found Manual mode with my DJI Naza-M F450 quite a handful to control, even with the gains turned down a bit. Are you saying that the 3DR Stabilize mode is the same?

Just wondering (taking in all I can before I take delivery of my Iris+ from the UK in about three weeks).

 

[Old Man]

To use the term of politicians, I misspoke. your comparison of Stabilize to Atti mode is correct, and my apologies for the mistake. 3DR stuff is pretty easy handling unless placed in an acro mode.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[sledge57]

Thanks for all the advice. My plan is to have Alt-Hold when 3 way is all the way up, then Loiter in middle position and Stabilize when the 3 way is all the way down. Then I'll most likely put Loiter again on channel 8 and Simple Mode too. That's for when I feel I've screwed up and need to just take a breath and fly back to where I can better see how I'm oriented.

It's funny I've had RC EVERYTHING it seem, gas planes, electric planes, electric helis (never really got good with them) , sailplanes, gas cars, electric cars (and a Rock Crawler I still have and competed with) gas boats, electric boats, sail boats, even an RC Combat ship (armed with CO2 powered BB guns designed to sink other ships and be sunk) and god knows how many versions of Real Flight I have (yes I have 7.5, got it for MRs)

All this RC crap and I still get confused flying a MR when it's nose in (no issues with any other RC toy except helis). I was racking my brain one day trying to figure out my issue and it hit me. When a plane is flying towards me the elevator stick is still normal, not reversed and in a quad everything, except the throttle, is backwards and this is where my biggest struggle flying MRs comes from, trying to un-learn RC planes!

I definitely don't want to rely on simple or super simple but it's nice to have at the ready when a brain fart appears (happening more all the time, 58 tomorrow)

I know Autotune needs to be performed in Alt-Hold and hopefully the weather and my life will play nice and let me do this.

I think you're right about the Score Card, right now my experience with both products is about the same and I expect to really like the Pixhawk in time. Of course now I want to break out the Hex and give it a fair shake too.

BTW I re-edited the video using GoPro Studio (never used this SW before) so I took down the original and put up the new one.

 

[Gary Seven]

To use the term of politicians, I misspoke. your comparison of Stabilize to Atti mode is correct, and my apologies for the mistake. 3DR stuff is pretty easy handling unless placed in an acro mode.

You crack me up. You should run for office!

 

[Bartman]

great conversation so far. i'm keeping an eye on it but trying not to learn too much so i can do the Iris+ review without knowing much more than any other user new to 3D Robotics.

hoping to fly it today and then time to dig in and learn the finer details.

 

[Old Man]

You crack me up. You should run for office!

Gary,

Being straight up I find the use of the word "misspoke" by politicians to be deplorable, especially when you know they were originally lying. As for me, It's been over a year since I walked away from DJI stuff and flat forgot the name of DJI's Atti mode and confused it with manual. So I screwed up

Sledge,

We share the orientation and control reversal issue. Like you I've flown fixed wing forever and became accustomed to the reversal of ailerons with planes flying towards me. I suppose breaking the habits learned with fixed wing RC when flying MR's is sort of like teaching a full scale pilot how to fly RC. That's more than twice as hard as teaching someone that has never flown anything before. The full scaler no longer has the sensory inputs they had in the full size to help them out and they get confused. MR's are like anything else, the more you do it the better you become at it.

 

[sledge57]

great conversation so far. i'm keeping an eye on it but trying not to learn too much so i can do the Iris+ review without knowing much more than any other user new to 3D Robotics.

hoping to fly it today and then time to dig in and learn the finer details.

I'm looking forward to read what you think and what you learn.

 

[Gary Seven]

Gary,

Being straight up I find the use of the word "misspoke" by politicians to be deplorable, especially when you know they were originally lying. As for me, It's been over a year since I walked away from DJI stuff and flat forgot the name of DJI's Atti mode and confused it with manual. So I screwed up

@Old Man Once again my attempt at humor fails when vocal inflections and facial expressions cannot be transferred over to a text based medium. My whole reason for my post to you was because I saw the word "politician", nothing else. In NO WAY was I trying to call you out on the DJI/3DR thing...for Petes sake!
BTW and FWIW, I find your posts in general completely helpful and almost always above and beyond the norm here.

G7

 

[JoeBob]

The Simple Modes complicated things for me. I started using them when I first moved to Pixhawk. After clipping a tree and a few other close calls, I moved back to normal orientation.
In wide open spaces and non-FPV flight, I'm sure that Simple Mode would work fine.
But my reflexes are slow enough without having to insert an additional boxcar into my train of thought.
I'm drifting toward a tree. Which stick do I move in what direction? Depends on what flight mode I'm in. In Simple Modes (assuming that the launch point is set and I haven't moved my position or the radio's orientation) move the stick away from the tree. You gain confidence and come to rely on that movement. Which totally betrays you when you fly in any NON-Simple modes that require orientation.
Conclusion: If you decide to start with Simple Modes, you need to plan to stay with Simple Modes.

 

[Old Man]

Gary,

I knew what you meant and saw the humor in it. I really did. No issues, no worries, no problem. Happy Monday!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Old Man]

Simple Mode -You gain confidence and come to rely on that movement. Which totally betrays you when you fly in any NON-Simple modes that require orientation.
Conclusion: If you decide to start with Simple Modes, you need to plan to stay with Simple Modes.

Probably too much and unearned confidence. I completely agree with you. Simple modes quickly become a crutch that easily gets in the way of things.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Bartman]

Simple Mode is necessary for my two-to-three axis trick that I'd like to try with the Iris once I have it flying.

 

[Old Man]

I need to go and read how you did that. The two to three trick is something that would be super effective using one of the simple modes. Now enough of the lamentations about work and house showings. Go have some fun and fly. Keep Stabilize mode on the switch for take off and landings. If and when GPS fails, Stabilize doesn't.