I've wondered the same thing: Have we come too far? I am starting to think that simple is better. I do like DJI's GPS, Attitude, RTH and fail safe features. I also like their plug and fly system. I think they should lock down and improve what they have. MK...tried it...got lost on the instructions...and soldering.... crazy. I quickly sold it on Ebay. I considered Hoverfly until I saw DJI. I would buy Hoverfly if the simplicity of DJI didn't exist. I like that Hoverfly has an OSD integrated into their system. The next couple of years will bring out some serious advances in this technology. It's going to be a question of what do you want your craft to do?
Have we come too far too fast?
- Thread starter DucktileMedia
- Start date
R_Lefebvre
Arducopter Developer
I both agree and disagree that we have come too far too fast.
First of all, I think all these features are a huge improvement over the past. I've been flying RC Airplanes for 20 years. In the past, radio glitches and lost airplanes were a common occurance. It's one thing to lose a $400 airplane, quite another to lose $5000+ worth of AP equipment. I have not yet had to use RTH to save me, but I definitely have used Simple Mode. "Uh oh, I've lost orientation! Which direction is it facing? OK, Simple Mode, pull back on the stick, here it comes..."
Perhaps just to prove the point, my local club wanted me to use my quad to help locate the lost club trainer airplane.
But, where the problem is is two-fold. First, these systems do not always "Just work". If the performance or reliability is crap, what good are they? Secondly, ease of use is a big deal. These systems are bordering on the complexity of full-size avionics, something that people go to school for years to learn. But these prosumer companies don't always do a good enough job documenting the features. Again, even if the feature is great and actually works, but the users can't figure it out, what good is it? The open source systems have a bit of an "out" here, but the closed source systems, charging big bucks, and putting out manuals in Chinglish or Germinglish... it's just not acceptable.
jforkner
Member
It really gets old reading posts from folks who get frustrated because no one has created a tool to enable them to do what they want. It's always someone else's fault that what the user wants has not satisfactorily been created for them. This is not unique to multis, it's prevalent with all new technologies. A manufacturer creates what they think the public wants or will be profitable, and a handful of people get upset because the manufacturer didn't build what the user thought they should.
Well I say, don't use the product. Create your own device to meet your needs. Quit blaming the manufacturer for not having checked with you first before building the product. If the product is inferior and no one buys it…guess what? It won’t remain on the market. If the product doesn’t do what you want, use a different one or work around the alleged deficiency. But for God’s sake, quit bellyaching about it.
Jack
Well I say, don't use the product. Create your own device to meet your needs. Quit blaming the manufacturer for not having checked with you first before building the product. If the product is inferior and no one buys it…guess what? It won’t remain on the market. If the product doesn’t do what you want, use a different one or work around the alleged deficiency. But for God’s sake, quit bellyaching about it.
Jack
R_Lefebvre
Arducopter Developer
So people shouldn't offer criticism? How will the manufacturers know what people want and need, if people don't tell them? Focus groups are notoriously unreliable. Companies really should rely more on direct feedback. And that's the beauty of doing things in software, it's so easy to make changes and push them to your users. It's not like doing a recall on a car.
jforkner
Member
You're right. The operative words, however, are "direct feedback." Not whining on internet forums.
Jack
R_Lefebvre
Arducopter Developer
So consumers shouldn't inform other consumers about the performance of each system? Every person should waste their own money individually? No, I disagree.
People discussing systems, and telling other people what lives up to manufacturer claims, and what doesn't, is one of the best things about the internet. It's not whining. It's criticism.
DucktileMedia
Drone Enthusiast
Jforkner-in fact ,you are right now, whining on a forum.
I think its all part of the whole evolution of multirotors that so many of the new products hitting the market are doing so in a manner that most of us are essentially beta testers. Firstly so many of the new products are coming from hobbyists who come up with a great idea and dont have the resources to go through the type of rigourous testing that large multinationals can do and then the other factor is that there are so many variables between the different builds and components used that it would be incredibly difficult for the 1-2 man operations to be able to test for every combination of components and builds. For the next couple of years I think its going to be par for the course that products will hit the market not 100% ready. People complaining about the problems and discussing the problems will hopefully mean over time the industry will get better at sending completely ready products to market.
ChrisViperM
Active Member
I guess when Iris started his thread, he just wanted to know what goes through other peoples head concerning all the new technology and how to use it...and so far it has been very ineresting and on a pretty high level. Just a bunch of people with different experiences sharing their thoughts. I have spent half of my life traveling and met so many different people with different cultural backgrounds, but I never went into somones house and called him and his guests "whiners"...
And if I really didn't like it somewhere, I apologized myself and disappeart quietly....
Chris
DucktileMedia
Drone Enthusiast
I was actually hoping to start an international forum war and piss everyone off. It's also on my bucket list to challenge the Klingons for interstellar domination. 
ChrisViperM
Active Member
Stacky, you are right. But wouldn't it be possible for the manufacturers to extensively test their product just with a few selected components and then give a recommonation ?...especially Flight Controls. I think the right way for manufacturers should rather be specialization than hunting for every fish in the pond. At least that's how I do it in my business, and this works very well.
Chris
Chris
Very true but I do think from what I have seen is that many of the FC manufacturers do have some form of recommendation as to various components that will work with their FC.
Open Pilot for example is a non profit setup and they have a bunch of people working really hard to make their FC as good as it can be. They test extensively and I think have done a great job at putting out a FC thats as close to being completely ready for release as possible. I think OP were as close to getting a perfect release to market as anyone could get, but there were still a couple of things that slipped through. Very minor issues I might add but what Im trying to get at is despite the very best efforts nobody at this point can get it perfect. An important thing for us as consumers is working out which companies are trying to get it right and when flaws appear are visibly trying to fix things.
Probably at this point because of all the variables the best way to get a fully tested release to market without problems would be to produce complete setups such as what DJI are trying to do.
The variables list is pretty huge.
ESC's, esc firmware, batteries and which ones are suitable for which build, props and their relevance to not just setup but also flying conditions and flying style, power distribution, frame size, frame configuration, frame weight, frame materials, radio gear, radio receivers, setup software, computer compatibility, gimbals, gimbal controls, motors, flying ability, interference and interaction between electronic systems on board etc etc etc.
If you and I were given the same base recommended components and sent off to build the same type of multirotor we will still end up with different builds that perform differently. Im watching manufacturers trying to react to a huge amount of pressure from the market for all manner of features. DJI have the zenmuse gimbal out and from what i can tell it looks like a really clever gimbal but Im still seeing people complaining.
The complaints and pressure are good things but I think we are still some way off seeing most products hitting the market perfect simply because its a relatively new section of industry and its still being pushed along by hobbyists and the variables are so huge.
Open Pilot for example is a non profit setup and they have a bunch of people working really hard to make their FC as good as it can be. They test extensively and I think have done a great job at putting out a FC thats as close to being completely ready for release as possible. I think OP were as close to getting a perfect release to market as anyone could get, but there were still a couple of things that slipped through. Very minor issues I might add but what Im trying to get at is despite the very best efforts nobody at this point can get it perfect. An important thing for us as consumers is working out which companies are trying to get it right and when flaws appear are visibly trying to fix things.
Probably at this point because of all the variables the best way to get a fully tested release to market without problems would be to produce complete setups such as what DJI are trying to do.
The variables list is pretty huge.
ESC's, esc firmware, batteries and which ones are suitable for which build, props and their relevance to not just setup but also flying conditions and flying style, power distribution, frame size, frame configuration, frame weight, frame materials, radio gear, radio receivers, setup software, computer compatibility, gimbals, gimbal controls, motors, flying ability, interference and interaction between electronic systems on board etc etc etc.
If you and I were given the same base recommended components and sent off to build the same type of multirotor we will still end up with different builds that perform differently. Im watching manufacturers trying to react to a huge amount of pressure from the market for all manner of features. DJI have the zenmuse gimbal out and from what i can tell it looks like a really clever gimbal but Im still seeing people complaining.
The complaints and pressure are good things but I think we are still some way off seeing most products hitting the market perfect simply because its a relatively new section of industry and its still being pushed along by hobbyists and the variables are so huge.
Photronix
Pilot
I would like to add to the discussion with a few cents...
First, Hoverfly started 20 months ago just a very short time after Droidworx starting shipping. When we launched the HoverflyPRO there were some discussions and the MK system and that was about it. So in only 2 years this whole industry was born and it has been driven harder I believe, and in a different way, than any other industry in history. I say this because never before has a company introduced such a highly complex product with the ability to receive an overwhelming amount of feedback in emails, forum posts, skype, etc in just a few minutes after firmware is released. Think about this, weeks and months are spent on a new feature. The firmware is pushed out and customers flash, fly, and then get on the forums to post their impressions. We have literally gotten feedback with in 15 minutes of pushing out firmware that took months to get right. So within a few hours customers are "constructively providing feedback" and suggesting how it should have been done better. I will add that they are also expecting fixes and changes in the same day on firmware that took months to write. The cycle is short which is good for rapid development but the expectations are not in-line with the complexity of the technology. It drives us hard but we actually love it. We have introduced 9 new products in the past 20 months and that is unheard of.
It has been said in this thread and others that companies should not release products that don't work as promised. I agree, the problem is the number of variables associated with all of the different aircraft people want to utilize. When we first released the HoverflyPRO we had a "reset" problem that drove us nuts and I personally lost about a month of sleep over it. We thought OMG its broken! We finally had a customer send us his multi-rotor because we simply could not repeat the "reset" problem. We knew the problem without even plugging the battery in. The entire wiring harness was all cold solder joints and literally insulted with scotch tape...seriously it was a mess. When we did power the system and looked at the power on the oscillosope it was a mess of noise. It was still our fault because I didn't account for this high amount of noise (it was fixed on the next manufacturing run). So my point is the companies and the customers have been on a rapid and steep learning curve in the past 2 years.
I understand that everyone just wants something that works...so they can get the job done. I agree..however everyone in the community has to understand that when you buy or build a multi-rotor today it is in my opinion the most sophisticated and complex piece of technology that you can buy. Now I have built laser dopler phase erbium doped silicon crazy high-tech systems for many years. But trust me the current DSLR carrying multi-rotor is more complex. Our multi-rotors contain over 50 microcontrollers each running their own firmware hopefully in harmony.
We at Hoverfly, I, owe an enormous amount to our extremely loyal customers. Stop by our vendor forum (on RC Groups...sorry Bart) and you will see the most professional, positive, constructive discussions I have seen. I have flown MK, DJI, Arduino based, KK, and others. I have to do this to make sure we are on track. I also do production work myself. In these cases I too "have to get the job done" and if our products didn't perform then I wouldn't get more work. The absolute truth is that I believe to my core that our HoverflyPRO flies smoother and more reliable than anything else on the market. I have thousands of flights and I have never...never had a crash caused by my HoverflyPRO. Having said that...we have our problems too. We introduced our auto-leveling before their was anything, besides MK, to compare it to. It was too aggressive. We changed it so you can smooth it down to that of MK. Our altitude hold works great for some and not as good for others. We are working on this. The HoverflyGPS works great on every multi-rotor we build. On some of our customers aircraft not so good. We are working on this as well. Waypoints? We have been flying this for a while.....its not released. Why? Not sure anyone will be able to use this in the very near future. This feature scares governments and the people they govern. The debate is ongoing.
You as a customer have the ultimate choice of course. When we keep sending our money overseas we give them (and you know who I mean) the advantage. We are a US company that builds its flight controllers in the US and therefore at some disadvantage. I can promise you this...we will continue to deliver if you choose us. Someday when you are on location and something fails you may wish you went with US. I will pick up the phone at all hours of the day to make sure you get the shot. Customer service is extremely important for most products but its crucial for a flight controller because of the level of complexity.
Al
Proud President of Hoverfly Technologies
www.hoverflytech.com
First, Hoverfly started 20 months ago just a very short time after Droidworx starting shipping. When we launched the HoverflyPRO there were some discussions and the MK system and that was about it. So in only 2 years this whole industry was born and it has been driven harder I believe, and in a different way, than any other industry in history. I say this because never before has a company introduced such a highly complex product with the ability to receive an overwhelming amount of feedback in emails, forum posts, skype, etc in just a few minutes after firmware is released. Think about this, weeks and months are spent on a new feature. The firmware is pushed out and customers flash, fly, and then get on the forums to post their impressions. We have literally gotten feedback with in 15 minutes of pushing out firmware that took months to get right. So within a few hours customers are "constructively providing feedback" and suggesting how it should have been done better. I will add that they are also expecting fixes and changes in the same day on firmware that took months to write. The cycle is short which is good for rapid development but the expectations are not in-line with the complexity of the technology. It drives us hard but we actually love it. We have introduced 9 new products in the past 20 months and that is unheard of.
It has been said in this thread and others that companies should not release products that don't work as promised. I agree, the problem is the number of variables associated with all of the different aircraft people want to utilize. When we first released the HoverflyPRO we had a "reset" problem that drove us nuts and I personally lost about a month of sleep over it. We thought OMG its broken! We finally had a customer send us his multi-rotor because we simply could not repeat the "reset" problem. We knew the problem without even plugging the battery in. The entire wiring harness was all cold solder joints and literally insulted with scotch tape...seriously it was a mess. When we did power the system and looked at the power on the oscillosope it was a mess of noise. It was still our fault because I didn't account for this high amount of noise (it was fixed on the next manufacturing run). So my point is the companies and the customers have been on a rapid and steep learning curve in the past 2 years.
I understand that everyone just wants something that works...so they can get the job done. I agree..however everyone in the community has to understand that when you buy or build a multi-rotor today it is in my opinion the most sophisticated and complex piece of technology that you can buy. Now I have built laser dopler phase erbium doped silicon crazy high-tech systems for many years. But trust me the current DSLR carrying multi-rotor is more complex. Our multi-rotors contain over 50 microcontrollers each running their own firmware hopefully in harmony.
We at Hoverfly, I, owe an enormous amount to our extremely loyal customers. Stop by our vendor forum (on RC Groups...sorry Bart) and you will see the most professional, positive, constructive discussions I have seen. I have flown MK, DJI, Arduino based, KK, and others. I have to do this to make sure we are on track. I also do production work myself. In these cases I too "have to get the job done" and if our products didn't perform then I wouldn't get more work. The absolute truth is that I believe to my core that our HoverflyPRO flies smoother and more reliable than anything else on the market. I have thousands of flights and I have never...never had a crash caused by my HoverflyPRO. Having said that...we have our problems too. We introduced our auto-leveling before their was anything, besides MK, to compare it to. It was too aggressive. We changed it so you can smooth it down to that of MK. Our altitude hold works great for some and not as good for others. We are working on this. The HoverflyGPS works great on every multi-rotor we build. On some of our customers aircraft not so good. We are working on this as well. Waypoints? We have been flying this for a while.....its not released. Why? Not sure anyone will be able to use this in the very near future. This feature scares governments and the people they govern. The debate is ongoing.
You as a customer have the ultimate choice of course. When we keep sending our money overseas we give them (and you know who I mean) the advantage. We are a US company that builds its flight controllers in the US and therefore at some disadvantage. I can promise you this...we will continue to deliver if you choose us. Someday when you are on location and something fails you may wish you went with US. I will pick up the phone at all hours of the day to make sure you get the shot. Customer service is extremely important for most products but its crucial for a flight controller because of the level of complexity.
Al
Proud President of Hoverfly Technologies
www.hoverflytech.com
Benjamin Rowland
Member
Well said, Al.
The Hoverfly / Cinestar combo flew great on a high pressure shoot for us tonight.
The Hoverfly / Cinestar combo flew great on a high pressure shoot for us tonight.
DucktileMedia
Drone Enthusiast
So far you guys talk the talk AND walk the walk. there is always going to be room for improvement but your point is taken. I personally apologize for occasionally stirring the pot. So far I really love the way you guys are backing yourself with customer service that is unmatched and a product that is obviously built as well as a piece of electronic equipment can possibly be manufactured. I'm also glad you explained the complexities as i had no idea there were so many processes necessary to accomplish the task.
Lanzar
Member
I would like to give +1 on this post. You guys explained and tuched every part off multirotors questiones and problems.
I am aware of price dumping with kopters that were baught with mommy money but they will rethink the whole thing when they have a first crash.
Let me do one story:
We lost one job due to that we were to expensive (for 3 day shoot the difference was maybe 2 3k euro) and the guy that got the job, did not finish it. First kopter fell down and broke the red camera. Second copter could not even lift it so he went home with a loss of all expences and a total damage on his kopter and the producer was left without any footage from air and a broken RED. This is why the ones that hire or should always check if the client can pull it off. And i must say that the pilot is the boss on the shoot. If he feels that it is not safe to do it he should abort or try to find another solution. There is a difference in flying 5kg payload in mexico, dubai, jakarta, germany, sweden ...
Temperatures, moisture, preshure, winds are all factor in this. Termperature on controlers (esc) rises expotencialy with outside temp. Depends on payload and setup but just to show an example on how this goes.
That means on a sunny day with temperatures from :
20 deg outside: 30 deg motors and 40 esc
25 deg outside: 45 deg motors and 55 esc
30 deg outside: 65 deg motors and 80 esc (close to limit for most models)
35 deg outside: 80 deg motors and 100 esc (no safe flying for most models)
Dji in manual is like mikrokopter. THis is manual, no help from presure sensor, smart electronics so its like clasic hely.... So u need to be skiled on quad to make it fly, hexa and okto are easyer to fly in manual but still hard for someone that is used to atti mode.
I am aware of price dumping with kopters that were baught with mommy money but they will rethink the whole thing when they have a first crash.
Let me do one story:
We lost one job due to that we were to expensive (for 3 day shoot the difference was maybe 2 3k euro) and the guy that got the job, did not finish it. First kopter fell down and broke the red camera. Second copter could not even lift it so he went home with a loss of all expences and a total damage on his kopter and the producer was left without any footage from air and a broken RED. This is why the ones that hire or should always check if the client can pull it off. And i must say that the pilot is the boss on the shoot. If he feels that it is not safe to do it he should abort or try to find another solution. There is a difference in flying 5kg payload in mexico, dubai, jakarta, germany, sweden ...
Temperatures, moisture, preshure, winds are all factor in this. Termperature on controlers (esc) rises expotencialy with outside temp. Depends on payload and setup but just to show an example on how this goes.
That means on a sunny day with temperatures from :
20 deg outside: 30 deg motors and 40 esc
25 deg outside: 45 deg motors and 55 esc
30 deg outside: 65 deg motors and 80 esc (close to limit for most models)
35 deg outside: 80 deg motors and 100 esc (no safe flying for most models)
Dji in manual is like mikrokopter. THis is manual, no help from presure sensor, smart electronics so its like clasic hely.... So u need to be skiled on quad to make it fly, hexa and okto are easyer to fly in manual but still hard for someone that is used to atti mode.
Last edited by a moderator:
Sorry to further a divergence from the topic - but...
Temperature rise will not be exponential - the energy input is constant (assuming a hovering state). What you are observing/describing is a heat build-up due to inadequate cooling. Newtons law of cooling states that "The rate of heat loss of a body is proportional to the temperature difference between the body and its surroundings." So, yes, as the ambient temperature rises so the heat dissipation for any given input will slow down proportionally, not exponentially. I suspect the apparent disproportion in temperature rise will be due to the insulation qualities of (relatively) static air - without air movement you are forming a "hot jacket" for the ESC: as the heat of the surrounding air is increased, so the heat loss slows even further. Increasing the dissipative area/qualities (with a heat sink, for example) and increasing the airflow (by positioning) would restore normality to the situation: the increase in ESC operating temperature would be roughly equal to the increase in the ambient air temperature.