XAircraft My Xaircraft SuperX Experience and Observations

VIQuad

Member
Wow, great flying.

Fun to watch.

Which quad is that?....is it just a home build?
 
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Aerovideo

Member
You know considering that I'm waiting for you to do the testing I can't begin tell you how sweet that field looks, especially sitting in my 80 degree office! Its also funny how amazing this footage is compared to the first Gu344 and hoping you were going to clear the fence... Would you fly that fast and low LOS? That's really quite impressive.

I do recall the Gaui days pretty fondly, seems you got a lot better results from it than I did. I just kept crashing, my very first FPV flight with it is still on my youtube channel, fun to watch all 13 seconds of it and remember what I was going through.

I'm actually not a very good LOS pilot, for some reason I loose orientation pretty easy. So no way I could fly low and fast LOS, just FPV. Although it was pretty easy to fly LOS in GPS mode. I didn't loose orientation this time but it's a confidence builder to know that if I did all I had to do was let go of the sticks and it would hold its spot.

It would be nice to know what caused the burble when you switched to GPS.

I think the bobble was from releasing my forward elevator stick but still having a lot of forward momentum from flying in manual mode. When I hit the GPS switch I think it must have been like hitting the brakes.

Your a MR test pilot pioneer, one day they will place a plaque on that field and people will remember it just like Kitty Hawk, the place it all started. [that is if the FAA doesn't find you first...] JK..

HAHAH you crack me up and are far too kind! I wish I had one of the houses right on that field, I would fly way too much!

Anyway, its been a long time since I've been this excited about a FC. This is cool.

It is fun being excited about a FC as well as feeling more secure as it has features that allow for autonomous recovery.

Thanks for the video.

Sure!


Wow, great flying.

Fun to watch.

Which quad is that?....is it just a home build?

Thanks, it was a lot of fun to fly! I was really happy. I've had several flight controllers that were not so fun to fly but this one was great.

It's the x525 frame with some aluminum towel bar arms from Home Depot. The landing gear is the x468. The whole setup is the one in the photos a few posts back.
 
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teryn1

Member
Oh man I want that setup, retracts and all!

I'm looking to build a hex to carry my Nex5 camera with a 3 axis brushless gimbal so I would need the retracts for a 2 man setup.

Don't suppose you have more specs on your setup?
Tarot T960 frame, Foxtech W5008 motors, DYS 40 (SimonK) ESCs, SuperX Flight Controller (firmware v1.0.8), Airtechno FX10 electric landing gear, 2x Turnigy 6s 5000mah

Here is another video showing the retracts: https://vimeo.com/82808200
 
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Aerovideo

Member
Well I seem to have run into a snag.

Today I decided to replace two of the motors on my quad as I could hear some bearing noises. This is the only thing I've changed.

I've had several successful test flights including some FPV flights and everything performed as expected.

Today I went outside to do a test flight with the new motors. I turn on the radio, plug in the flight battery, get some beeps from the esc/motors, some blinking from the SuperX LED and it finally settles into a double red flashing. I try several times all with the same results. It's about 32F outside so it's a little chilly but not too bad.

I unplug everything and bring it in the house to check what the blinking means in the manual. As I thought, it means its in safe mode. So after only being in the house for a minute or two I plug it in while inside and I get a fast flashing green light as expected as I start out in manual mode. Great, I unplug everything and take it outside and I'm again presented with the double red flashing. The receiver is on and appears to be working.

Not sure what could have changed and what's causing this. For kicks I bumped the endpoints in my Dx8 radio from 100/100 to 150/150 on the Gear/Failsafe channel and this had no effect.

After bringing it in and letting it sit inside for a while I was finally able to take it outside and get it to go, and had a successful test flight, but I'm still not sure what my original problem was.

Definitely something temperature related. Since it was showing failsafe mode I'm guessing it's either my EZUHF receiver or the Super X that is sensitive to low temperatures.

Any other ideas?
 

Av8Chuck

Member
So every time you went outside you had double flashing red indicating it was in failsafe, correct? I know you would have tried this but you know how it is sometimes someone has to point to the obvious and hopefully its just a simple thing.

Did you check your failsafe switch and switch between flight modes inside? Also outside? Have you used your EZUHF outside in the cold on other FC's?

Did you try recalibrating your neutral and full sticks? I don't know why it would have changed but the fact that it did something different on initialization maybe something changed your setup. Did you also change ESC's?
 

Aerovideo

Member
So every time you went outside you had double flashing red indicating it was in failsafe, correct? I know you would have tried this but you know how it is sometimes someone has to point to the obvious and hopefully its just a simple thing.

Did you check your failsafe switch and switch between flight modes inside? Also outside? Have you used your EZUHF outside in the cold on other FC's?

Did you try recalibrating your neutral and full sticks? I don't know why it would have changed but the fact that it did something different on initialization maybe something changed your setup. Did you also change ESC's?

No problem pointing out the obvious to me, a lot of times I need that... hehe But yes, I did make sure the safe mode switch was disengaged, tried on and off for good measure. I also tried all three flight modes to no avail.

This EZUHF Rx has been on this quad since inception and has performed flawlessly thus far. I do question the escs, they're not the best, but they all did arm and I haven't changed them out at all. Only change between this flight and my previous flights were replacing two of the motors.

I'm going to go try again.

Paul
 

Aerovideo

Member
I just took it out, plugged it in and I got the green flashing light right away so all was good and I flew it just fine. The weather is overcast and foggy so I'm guessing my GPS reception wasn't the best as I had a little drifting in the beginning but a couple minutes later and it was back to holding position exactly like normal.

I flew for 6 minutes and brought it in for a landing in manual mode. I landed it and it was flashing green for manual mode. I picked it up and brought it onto our patio and was just about to unplug it when it switched to the double red light flashing of fail safe. Weird!

This time before I took off I flipped on the failsafe switch while it was on the ground and it did double flash red so I know that's what it's doing. I flipped the switch off and it went back to green.

This is pretty weird stuff :( I'm sure it's something with my setup, it always is. Just need to figure out what.
 

Av8Chuck

Member
My did the same thing just after setup but I hadn't calibrated the compass yet so I ignored it. Its almost as though it had lost the signal from the Rx but there was nothing obvious that I could see would cause it and I had a green light on the Rx the whole time.

Another issue I'm having is when I switch off the Tx it doesn't go into failsafe. If I switch to failsafe manually it seems to work but not when I power off the Tx. I guess I don't have it setup correctly in the radio.
 

Aerovideo

Member
My did the same thing just after setup but I hadn't calibrated the compass yet so I ignored it. Its almost as though it had lost the signal from the Rx but there was nothing obvious that I could see would cause it and I had a green light on the Rx the whole time.

Another issue I'm having is when I switch off the Tx it doesn't go into failsafe. If I switch to failsafe manually it seems to work but not when I power off the Tx. I guess I don't have it setup correctly in the radio.

Are you switching off your Tx while your quad is in the air? You have some big ole steely cojones!

I have done the compass calibration, I remember before I had done that I was getting red flashes.

Electro in the other forum suggested maybe my Tx and Rx were too close together at the time and the signal dropped causing the failsafe.
 

Electro 2

Member
Electro in the other forum suggested maybe my Tx and Rx were too close together at the time and the signal dropped causing the failsafe.

I've had this happen. The antennas used on the UHF LRS TXs do have some wicked nulls off the end of the stick. With 2.4 the 1/4 wavelength is so short, (3/4"), it's generally not an issue. On UHF, it's like 6" for a 1/4 wave, possible issue. If you were wearing the TX (w/strap) when you approached the craft to disconnect the battery it could have dunked for a split second tripping a F/S on the RX. I ran DragonLink for a while on my 1000. Since the motors weren't running, nothing ugly happened here. If they *had* been running, very ugly things happen. (Don't ask how I know this.) Don't know, it's just one possibility. I've never had either of my two SXs do anything like this that wasn't radio related. I check FS function before take off, every flight.
 
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Aerovideo

Member
I've had this happen. The little dipoles used on the TXs do have some wicked nulls off the end of the stick. If you were wearing the TX (w/strap) when you approached the craft to disconnect the battery it could have dunked for a split second tripping a F/S on the RX. Since the motors weren't running, nothing ugly happened. If they *had* been running, very ugly things happen. (Don't ask how I know this.) Don't know, it's just one possibility. I've never had either of my two SXs do anything like this that wasn't radio related. I check FS function before take off, every flight.

When you say you check failsafe do you mean you actually turn off the radio or just flip the failsafe switch?
 


Av8Chuck

Member
Are you switching off your Tx while your quad is in the air? You have some big ole steely cojones!

I have done the compass calibration, I remember before I had done that I was getting red flashes.

Electro in the other forum suggested maybe my Tx and Rx were too close together at the time and the signal dropped causing the failsafe.

No, I've never tested it in the air. I haven't even tested the RTH yet.

Like I said, I'm slow and methodical.
 

Aerovideo

Member
I have done some more test flights and have yet to have the fail safe problem again. I did put a freshly charged battery in my Tx, maybe that was part of the problem, low voltage on my EZUHF.

I flew it in 15 mph winds with gusts to 21 mph and it flew pretty well. The GPS handled the wind impressively as well. The copter was definitely working to stay in place but with a brushless gimbal it doesn't matter anymore. This superX is awesome! Anyone have any spares they want to give me ;)
 

David Almond

New Member
Wait till you get the gains correctly tuned, you'll be blown away. I published the radio channel setup for Spektrum radios here, IIRC. Included reversals, etc. I suppose I should do the one for Futaba, too. I have Super Xs on both aircraft and both radios.

Electro 2, do you have a link to where you published your channel setup for Spektrum radios? Thank you.
 

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