FREEFLY Systems Alta #1 picked up by MRF own Steve Maller

Carapau

Carapau

Tek care, lambs ont road, MRF Moderator
What's velocity clamping? Is this where you get the aircraft up to a certain speed, flick a switch and it stays at that speed? If so DJI already have that on the A2 - it's called Cruise Control in DJI speak. I must admit that I find this feature excellent and very useful in certain situations so it would be great if this is part of the Synapse architecture.
 

Bartman

Bartman

Welcome to MultiRotorForums.com!!
Giovanni59 said:
Steve, that is exactly my contention. I am hoping that there are no issues because if I am going to continue in this business I would need to go in this direction. An analogy would be if I showed up at an architectural shoot with a camera where the shutter was made by one company, the sensor by another, the circuitry by another and all those things were shipped to me and then I installed them all in a camera body that I bought and built by another manufacturer, threw on a lens and started using the camera. And if something didn't work quite right who do I call? Ultimately it is my responsibility. Yes, DJI pretty much builds all their UAVs and are integrated to work with their Zenmuse but they are no Freefly Systems.
I have no problem with the price, I think it is fair.
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John,

Systems integration is a challenge, no doubt, and the RTF systems do make it a lot easier to get going and be successful. It's sad though to see builders being excluded from the flight control systems progress being made. Will we even have a high end flight control system in the future that we'll be able to put on home built multi-rotor helicopters?

drone drones
 

stevemaller

stevemaller

Heavy Lifter
Bartman said:
Systems integration is a challenge, no doubt, and the RTF systems do make it a lot easier to get going and be successful. It's sad though to see builders being excluded from the flight control systems progress being made. Will we even have a high end flight control system in the future that we'll be able to put on home built multi-rotor helicopters?
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That's a question for the market to answer. If there's a market for them, they'll undoubtedly appear. But Freefly's rationale for not putting SYNAPSE out there for builders and integrators is sound in my mind. They have limited support resources, and tons of experience testing SYNAPSE on other folks' copters. In the end they decided that they would get far better results by controlling the environment in which the FC was running. After my limited experience, I understand their decision. When you dig deeply into the ALTA, you'll see that the entire machine, from the frame through the integrated motor/ESC combo, is very highly tuned. And for me, that's a huge win.
 

stevemaller

stevemaller

Heavy Lifter
Carapau said:
What's velocity clamping? Is this where you get the aircraft up to a certain speed, flick a switch and it stays at that speed? If so DJI already have that on the A2 - it's called Cruise Control in DJI speak. I must admit that I find this feature excellent and very useful in certain situations so it would be great if this is part of the Synapse architecture.
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Not flicking a switch, per se.
There are two pots on the sides of the Futaba; one controls vertical speed and the other horizontal speed. They're analogous to the pan and tilt speed controls on the MōVI. Basically, if I set the vertical speed down low, when I start to climb or descend with the throttle stick, the copter will only move up to the limit I set. If I center the stick, the copter stops climbing or descending. The same holds true for horizontal moves.

Quoting from the manual (available on the FF web site):
Velocity and Climb Rate Clamps set the maximum ground speed or vertical speed available in Height Mode and Position Mode. The clamps can be adjusted mid-flight. An analog dial or slider is recommended for the Velocity and Climb Rate Clamp Functions.​
 




MadMonkey

MadMonkey

Bane of G10
stevemaller said:
I have to say it's a weird feeling to move any of the sticks all the way to the stop and have the copter do something not only rational, but beautiful. :D
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This sounds awfully foreign to me... usually it results in a few seconds of terror.

Alta is sounding better and better.
 


J

Jjjkkklll

Member
We finally received ours. Been through various tests and it seems solid. Still very concerned about it only being a hexa, so we'll probably only use it for dslr's for the foreseeable future. It's also great for travel so it will come along as our backup on out of town jobs.

The additional flight options of the synapse aren't really useful in our opinion. If we want to move in any direction at a certain speed we just move in that direction at speed manually. We don't ever like fc's to limit stuff like that anyway though. May be good for some people.

Altitude and position hold are great, which is extremely useful for us while doing high res images (big pano's and stuff like that). This will almost certainly be our go-to for panoramas from now on--instead of the flat 8.

Overall, nice compact rig. You won't see us moving away from our x8's anytime soon though.
 

Bartman

Bartman

Welcome to MultiRotorForums.com!!
what is your background Jjjkkklll? small independent media company? broadcast freelancer? work for a larger studio or production company?
 

J

Jjjkkklll

Member
Bartman said:
what is your background Jjjkkklll? small independent media company? broadcast freelancer? work for a larger studio or production company?
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Background is I'm a big rc nerd. I'm a pilot for a biggish aerial cine and inspection company. Mainly tv commercials and stuff like that. I've never operated a camera in my life. I just fly--for work and as a hobbyist when I'm off.
 



J

Jjjkkklll

Member
SleepyC said:
Can we trade jobs?!?!?
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Haha. It's not nearly as rosy as most people think. Just as challenging and stressful and any other job. Does have perks obviously, but it's far from easy. Definitely more fun flying my minis and single rotors on my own time.
 

J

Jjjkkklll

Member
Pumpkinguy said:
@Jjjkkklll

I think you need to do some load testing. If freefly says this will carry a red, I would have 100% confidence.
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We know it will carry a cine cam. Theres just no reason to use it over our x8's for that payload. We feel there's obviously more redundancy with octos. I also personally don't like collapsible arms or folding props either. The fewer possible points of failure the better imo.

Don't get me wrong, it's nice and I have high hopes. But I just can't see any reason to use it over one of our solid x8's. I've been flying it all day with a mkiii and cp2 and its doing really well though. Love the portability. And it's defitely a sporty little guy. Perfect for a dslr imo.

I figure they'll release an octo next and that should crush everything else if the quality remains the same.
 

Dylan M

Dylan M

Which Switch...
Any pictures of this interesting vibration isolated core? Sounds like a good platform so far, glad to see the portability is as good as promised...
 

Jason S

Jason S

Member
Jjjkkklll at NAB this year they had this beasty hanging above the ALTA. Maybe freefly got something in the works for future upgrades??

Will it get released only time will tell!




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