MK Hexa becomes Droidworx Y6

[ZAxis]

We transplanted the brain of our MK Hexa into a new Droidworx ADX3HL frame and tonight it flew for the first time.
View attachment 4202View attachment 4203
We got a lot of help from various older posts on the forum and used the mixer recommended by Ovdt and used Crtl+Setup in MKtools to get the motors turning the correct way as suggested by Geoff. Figuring out that the lower props had to be on sort of upside down took a few minutes and pictures posted by Ovdt helped here.
Its been a foul day but the wind dropped tonight so we took the opportunity to check how it flies.

It flew surprisingly well according to Lec. The FC parameters were unchanged from those used when it was controlling the MK flat Hexa but we will trim them up. So Nantwich now has two airworthy Droidworx MRs. Next up is to attach the AV130 and go filming but perhaps I should balance the 13x6 props first.

andy

 

[Benjamin Rowland]

Well done! How are you liking the Y6 configuration?

 

[quadcopters]

Looking very good indeed , you guys got this all built up in no time at all well done

 

[Jake Bullit]

Y6`s are brilliant.

Didn`t recognise Lec without his hat

 

[Droider]

Nice one Andy.. you tring to compete with me on the lighting front?

What u upto on saturday?

Dave

 

[ZAxis]

Dave ...

I've not got all the leds on yet !
Tied up this weekend but probably free next.

andy

 

[ZAxis]

Really happy with the y6 config. amazed how it flew without any trimming. It's abit of a different kettle of fish compared with the MK hexa. It was hovering at around 20% power whereas the old hex was more like 60% so I'm going to have to adjust to the new 'power curve' Looking to get it out in the open daylight at the weekend to really see what it can do! Lec

 

[ZAxis]

Confidence level shattered .....
Lec flew the Y6 today to test it under more realistic conditions than just hovering around in the back garden. It all started well, low altitude flights within the garden confines so Lec flew father away and higher. The increased power was really noticeable and handling was not a lot different from the old flat Hexa. The weather was pleasant and wind speed very low. We had a beautiful rock steady position hold under GPS, yipee! So we carried on flying but a few minutes later we hit problems. It looked like the notorious 'uncommanded yaw' effect. At an altitude of say 20m and distance away about the same the Hexa yawed for no apparent reason. Lec struggled to get it back under control and managed to fly it back but it was difficult to control yaw in a clockwise direction yet fine in the anti-clockwise direction. We were flying light, AV130 fitted with no camera but the unpowered HDMI/composite converter/Tx box (190gms) was strapped between the pot side legs to unbalance it a bit. We recalibrated the compass just in case ... has any one else noticed how difficult it is to rotate the Y style frame about its north south axis ? Holding a compass over the top of the dome with the motors running showed no deviation of its needle and so no electromagnet interference. We repeated the flight with a camera mounted, video downlink active and a battery strapped to the starboard legs to rebalance the craft. It behaved in exactly the same way. We had never seen this sort of thing happen with the old frame and motors using the same electronics stack so it did come as a bit of a surprise. We reckon its not due to an unbalanced craft, radio interference, or the overall weight. We stripped the downlink box, its battery and camera off and put the SD card in the FC to do some data logging. Another flight behaved the same and showed no logged errors and BL temperatures up to 78 deg on a few of the motors. We retired indoors to search the forum for clues. Someone suggested setting the Compass Effect to zero, so Lec set the Gyro Effect setting to zero ..... didn't fly too well ... it didn't fly at all ... just flipped over and chipped a prop. We corrected that issue, set the Compass Effect to zero and flew again ... no change. Went back inside, depressed and had a coffee to settle the nerves.
Later as night and temperatures fell we went out for a final set of flights not having changed anything else. The same thing happened. Looking at the flight log later, the BL temperatures were all 10 to 20 deg cooler than earlier so it doesn't look like BL limit problems. As a final check Lec tried some rapid vertical climbs and at the top of them the craft would be yawing by itself quite seriously.
We are now living in interesting times ?

andy

 

[RTRyder]

Confidence level shattered .....
Lec flew the Y6 today to test it under more realistic conditions than just hovering around in the back garden. It all started well, low altitude flights within the garden confines so Lec flew father away and higher. The increased power was really noticeable and handling was not a lot different from the old flat Hexa. The weather was pleasant and wind speed very low. We had a beautiful rock steady position hold under GPS, yipee! So we carried on flying but a few minutes later we hit problems. It looked like the notorious 'uncommanded yaw' effect. At an altitude of say 20m and distance away about the same the Hexa yawed for no apparent reason. Lec struggled to get it back under control and managed to fly it back but it was difficult to control yaw in a clockwise direction yet fine in the anti-clockwise direction. We were flying light, AV130 fitted with no camera but the unpowered HDMI/composite converter/Tx box (190gms) was strapped between the pot side legs to unbalance it a bit. We recalibrated the compass just in case ... has any one else noticed how difficult it is to rotate the Y style frame about its north south axis ? Holding a compass over the top of the dome with the motors running showed no deviation of its needle and so no electromagnet interference. We repeated the flight with a camera mounted, video downlink active and a battery strapped to the starboard legs to rebalance the craft. It behaved in exactly the same way. We had never seen this sort of thing happen with the old frame and motors using the same electronics stack so it did come as a bit of a surprise. We reckon its not due to an unbalanced craft, radio interference, or the overall weight. We stripped the downlink box, its battery and camera off and put the SD card in the FC to do some data logging. Another flight behaved the same and showed no logged errors and BL temperatures up to 78 deg on a few of the motors. We retired indoors to search the forum for clues. Someone suggested setting the Compass Effect to zero, so Lec set the Gyro Effect setting to zero ..... didn't fly too well ... it didn't fly at all ... just flipped over and chipped a prop. We corrected that issue, set the Compass Effect to zero and flew again ... no change. Went back inside, depressed and had a coffee to settle the nerves.
Later as night and temperatures fell we went out for a final set of flights not having changed anything else. The same thing happened. Looking at the flight log later, the BL temperatures were all 10 to 20 deg cooler than earlier so it doesn't look like BL limit problems. As a final check Lec tried some rapid vertical climbs and at the top of them the craft would be yawing by itself quite seriously.
We are now living in interesting times ?

andy

Disconnect the navi board from the FC by removing the two ribbon cables and try flying it on just the flight controller with no nav/GPS. I had a similar problem on my AD6 and the yaw went away with the navi disconnected which tells me the compass was likely the problem. Cleaned up some wiring, moved a couple things around, and did a full calibration and it was better but still twitchy on the yaw, again it went away with the navi disconnected, so now I think it may be a problem with the batteries I was using causing magnetic interference. I later reverted back to .82 firmware and it improved noticeably, then I swapped the MK stack for WKM and pretty much forgot about it.

Ken

 

[ZAxis]

Ken ...

Good idea, remove a few more variables. We'll try that.

thanks
andy & lec

 

[Droider]

Ken ...

Good idea, remove a few more variables. We'll try that.

thanks
andy & lec

AHHHHH feckin MK..I had the same issue today.. flying fine, started to swing her around and after half a pack got anti clock Yaw.. Dropped her into the long grass to see a message on Jetibox motor restart... NEVER seen that before.. spent all day trying to get it sorted.. then just flew 6 packs on the WKM Y6 and 4 on the WMK 450 and enjoyed every minute.. Not so with the MK FC.. flew two pack and no problem but I was a bag of nerves with so much money up in the air.. wondering what was going to happen next!

Andy/Lec I have a commissioning sheet u may find useful but as for unexplained MK issues who knows what the answer is...

Dave

 

[ZAxis]

Dave ...

We're both well and truly 'rabbit holed' - new definition for the urban dictionary.
You said you were upgrading to v0.86 flight control. Did you ? I'm thinking about dropping back down to 0.84 as an experiment.
We got no error messages at all and it flew beautifully in every other aspect. Going to dig through the flight log for clues.
The uncommanded yaw was a problem under certain conditions but the inability to yaw clockwise was always present once the uncommanded yaw happened.
We did set the Compass Effect to zero to hopefully disable any compass input to the control laws but it had no effect.
We're still running our 3900mAh Lipos from the old frame. Changing them changed nothing.
Were you running a full stack or FC only ?

I might try dancing around it chanting 'WooKong ..... Wookong .... Wookong' to drive out the devils.

andy

 

[Macsgrafs]

I've only ever flown with 0.86 & havent had any problems...from what I can see. Apart from a slight wobble in PH.

Ross

 

[Droider]

Dave ...

We're both well and truly 'rabbit holed' - new definition for the urban dictionary.
You said you were upgrading to v0.86 flight control. Did you ? I'm thinking about dropping back down to 0.84 as an experiment.
We got no error messages at all and it flew beautifully in every other aspect. Going to dig through the flight log for clues.
The uncommanded yaw was a problem under certain conditions but the inability to yaw clockwise was always present once the uncommanded yaw happened.
We did set the Compass Effect to zero to hopefully disable any compass input to the control laws but it had no effect.
We're still running our 3900mAh Lipos from the old frame. Changing them changed nothing.
Were you running a full stack or FC only ?

I might try dancing around it chanting 'WooKong ..... Wookong .... Wookong' to drive out the devils.



andy

And Bell me its easier..
PM sent

 

[plingboot]

you could always drop holgar an email, i'm sure he'd reply quick sharp with a definitive solution… :upset:

… so, how long until we see another hexa having a wkm transplant?

 

[ZAxis]

Plingboot .... WK just threats at the moment.... scare the MK blighter into submission

Ken ... disconnected Nc and GPS .... yaw still happens

Dave ... beginning to think at least part of the problem is the extra power taken through the BLs compared to the original motors. Its not all compass/magnetic interference induced.

andy & lec

 

[Droider]

Plingboot .... WK just threats at the moment.... scare the MK blighter into submission

Ken ... disconnected Nc and GPS .... yaw still happens

Dave ... beginning to think at least part of the problem is the extra power taken through the BLs compared to the original motors. Its not all compass/magnetic interference induced.

andy & lec

Is it all the time or is it at a certain time in to flight? I have flown mine loads since with out the issue.. another mystery!

I am using the Axi equivalents to the TorxPower motors as I had them before the TP release. I am spinning 13x5 APC thin electrics as test props.. Had some good results also with 12x5. I have some Xoer 13x5 carbons but am relly reluctant yet to put them on until I am confident in the MK system.. Just to many unexplained stuff.. Just a thought have ou trued it with out the sd card? How did u format it? I did have an issuse ages ago and it was firmly and squarely down to the SD card.. think the vid is still on youtube..

Dave

 

[Droider]

3 Am light bulb moment

Plingboot .... WK just threats at the moment.... scare the MK blighter into submission

Ken ... disconnected Nc and GPS .... yaw still happens

Dave ... beginning to think at least part of the problem is the extra power taken through the BLs compared to the original motors. Its not all compass/magnetic interference induced.

andy & lec

You have a motor allocated incorrectly on your distribution ring

http://www.multirotorforums.com/show...led-Yaw-SOLVED

Dave