How to deal with orientation?

R

r4nd0m

Member
I have flown my F450 now for roughly 20 batteries and think it is an awesome kit ... however I find it a bit difficult when the quad is getting lets say like 60m out in regards of orientation, especially when at eye-level ...

I have seen the LED strips, that might help but I wonder how you guys who have mounted them, added them.
Did you put strips on all sides? just front and back?
Do they shine across, so lets say I was looking into just putting strips on the back, would there be any "crosstalk" so orientation could be mistaken?
Is the difference between the VU and the LED strips still visible enough?

Let me see your comments on this.

Thanks
Sev
 

DucktileMedia

DucktileMedia

Drone Enthusiast
Aint that the truth! The thing is impossible to tell which end is which. I think you need FPV or a huge orange ball on one end. But I feel your pain.
 

R

r4nd0m

Member
its not pain really but you always hesitate to go further and have your finger on the bailout switch, just in case ...
 

D

Dewster

Member
I use the WKM flashing LED on the rear of my Hexa. I also have red LEDs on the front. It makes it easier to determine orientation. Plus I can see my landing gear orientation at distance. I mostly fly, up, forward, or backward to maintain orientation at distance. I haven't played around with the Course Lock feature too much, but intend on using it for distance flying.
 

R

RTRyder

Merlin of Multirotors
On my small aerobatic quads I use an orange pingpong ball strung between the front two arms along with brightly colored props on the front motors and black props on the back, even with that when doing flips and fast moves it can still be a challenge to find the front end but with enough practice it gets a lot easier.

On the bigger and slower FPV/APV multis I have I use strips of different color LEDs front and rear, currently I think 6 of the fleet have the LED setup. The F450 I use white in the V between the arms on the front, one strip down the inside of each arm, and blue in the rear setup the same way. On the MK Hexa I have two green strips on the back arms that flash and a single red strip down the front arm, all on the bottom of the arms as this one tends to fly high.

I have a 600mm quad with a WKM controller that has red on the bottom of the front arms and blue on the bottom of the rear and each arm has a sleeve of clear shrink wrap over the LEDs which carries some of the light around the arm, makes it a really good setup for night flying that way.

Probably the best method for maintaining orientation is concentration and a LOT of stick time. I find that the only time I rely on the LEDs these days are when flying at night, the rest of the time I'm fully into flying and aware of which direction the multi is going and which direction I'm about to make it go. Staying one step ahead keeps me aware of where the mutli is and what direction its pointing in, and in the rare instance I get brain fade and lose orientation I just jiggle the right stick a bit and see how it responds to figure out what direction is front. Have to be quick doing that, sometimes it helps to grab some extra altitude at the same time just to get a little breathing room and if it's going to crash anyway an extra 20 or 30 vertical feet aren't going to make that big of a difference... ;)

Ken
 

M

Mihnea de Vries

Member
I have the LED flash on the front. When the copter is to far to see the position i use course lock or home lock function switch or i hit failsafe switch and copter come home. You can also use FPV but this can be even more confusing until you get use to it or you are in a place you don't know very well.

For safety, when in doubt, hit fail-safe switch!
 

Macsgrafs

Macsgrafs

Active Member
I have 2 x 12v car LED's on the front arms & orange LED strips...still cant tell what way around she is at a distance!!!!!

Ross
 

R

r4nd0m

Member
interesting feedback so far, thanks guys ... definitely some things to consider ... not sure about the FPV really, though I could think it must be good fun ... and seems to be quite affordable as well ...
 

DucktileMedia

DucktileMedia

Drone Enthusiast
wouldnt you want the bright ball on the rear? Assuming it's flying away from you most of the time. Then again, if you fly nose in on the way back I guess I can understand. I would never turn it around when I cant see it personally. Need to hang a beach towel from that thing!
 

R

r4nd0m

Member
actually I have the small mounting platforms front and back - and on the back one I have mounted the VU. what I had in mind initially was possibly adding a white table tennis ball above it so the lights from the VU so it develops - I currently have the issue that I cant really see if its yellow/orange or red for example ... and in regards of orientation as I wrote earlier it fades quite easily ... to be honest I dont think you need to fly it oriented and you could still fly it tail in all the time but it would be nice to find a solution to fly it 3rd person without having the issue of orientation ..
 

S

sotomatic

Mad Scientist
If you're using the Naza kit then the course control and return home options aren't really there for you. In that case I would say go ahead and grab some LEDs of different colors. One for left, one for right, and maybe put your Naza LED at the back so that even if there is "crosstalk" you could tell which side was the back. You can't really go wrong with the LED's. They're cheap, easy on the battery, and freak out your neighbors at night.
 


O

OneSkidShort

Member
I use two smaller diameter pool noodles on each skid of my hexa, one red and one yellow. I also have 20 white LED's on top of each of the noodles. The two front arms have 20 green lights underneath each and the other 4 arms have 20 red on each.

During the day it's easy to see your orientation because the noodles really stand out. At night, well, let's just say there's no problems seeing exactly what it's doing. The white lights you can only really see when taking off and landing but it serves the purpose as you can't overly see the red and green, but the landing zone is very, very well lit. :nevreness::nevreness::nevreness:

The extra joy comes from seeing the panic on some people's faces when they think they've had a close encounter of the first kind :frog: :frog: :frog:

Bill
 

A

a944734

Member

Attachments

  • trex_700.jpg
    trex_700.jpg
    120.4 KB · Views: 357

Bowley

Bowley

Member
orange ball on front, when all else fails, I fall back on my fpv monitor for a few nerve racking seconds!!:nevreness:
If I dont have that I tend to just poke a few commands in and see what its doing.
 

Efliernz

Efliernz

Pete
Orange ball on the backfor me! It appears I may be special here!

Stacky and I had a shoot last weekend where I took my new HFP 660mm quad (without lights) to approx 250' flying LOS. I was looking straight up (mouth open and all!) and I could see it well. The weather was perfect - blue sky and no wind and I was in Stab mode so it really was straight up, pan left, pan right and down again.
I trying my modified eyetop mono-screen glasses it it was perfect. I could look right (to see the screen) when I needed to check the framing of the photo.

Pete
 





You must log in or register to reply here.
Top