New build AD-4 HL

[robvree]

Nothing special, but here is a video with a bunch of clips from flying on Sunday. I just wanted to get out and fly and not worry about settings or tweaks or whatever. It's just a bunch of raw clips put together with no post processing. I guess I'll use it as a reference to see if what changes make things better or worse.

I certainly have a ways to go before I am really happy with my video results.

 

[AIRCONROB]

Rob, you doing a great job, I'm still waiting for some decent weather here:livid:. I love the kart, what setup you running there lol, and where's my night clip?

 

[robvree]

Rob, you doing a great job, I'm still waiting for some decent weather here:livid:. I love the kart, what setup you running there lol, and where's my night clip?

Thanks Rob! I'm having such a blast with the whole process. I'll get you that night clip, I promise. You have to get in the air first.

 

[AIRCONROB]

Well if i waited any longer for some decent weather I would of cracked up, so I got the AD-4 out tonight in the back garden with my lad. It wasn't the ideal first flight as it was blowing a gail and a spit of rain. Appart from getting in the dog house with the wife making my sone stand out in the rain lol, It went ok. Need to work on the gimbal and get the Quad dialed in, Cheese and onion pye and chips are on order for the dialing visit Geoff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mhd5wmtxt4E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjrYmyfiHM8

 

[ZAxis]

Good job.
I'll just wait for the press reports of a UFO over Nantwich, those lights are bright!

andy

 

[robvree]

Well if i waited any longer for some decent weather I would of cracked up, so I got the AD-4 out tonight in the back garden with my lad. It wasn't the ideal first flight as it was blowing a gail and a spit of rain. Appart from getting in the dog house with the wife making my sone stand out in the rain lol, It went ok. Need to work on the gimbal and get the Quad dialed in, Cheese and onion pye and chips are on order for the dialing visit Geoff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mhd5wmtxt4E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjrYmyfiHM8

Great to see you finally in the air Rob. Those lights look awesome. I really haven't much time to spend with my quads lately. I did get out this weekend and log about 45 minutes of flight time with my Droidworx flying in about 10-15 mph wind. It was a bit scary in the beginning but then I got used to the not so solid altitude hold and had a blast throwing it around in the wind. Also, before I went to the park I set the "disturbed gain" down to 90% in the advanced settings and I must say my GPS hold is awesome now. I can even fly forward and let off the sticks and the quad starts what appears to be the toilet bowl effect but it quickly finds its lock position and holds. Still need more testing before I convince myself that that change improved the GPS hold so much (and even in such wind). Just thought I'd throw that out there. I had also tried it at 175% a couple weeks back and I thought it was going to leap out of the sky and kill me.

 

[robvree]

Hot damn! Had my first FPV flights today with my Droidworx. Wow, what an experience. At first I kept having to pull the goggles away because it was freaking me out that I couldn't "see" the quad and I kept gaining altitude in fear that I was going to come crashing down. After a couple batteries I really got the hang of it and found that my banking turns were way smoother than when I wasn't flying FPV.

For all the flights I had the gimbal turned off. Once I gain more confidence I'm going to slowly ease into flying with the gimbal on.

This is the equipment I went with:

iftron 5.8 stinger pro 250mw Tx
iftron GoPro cable
immersionRc Duo5800 diversity Rx
CP fan antennas on the Tx and Rx
Standard Omni Whip antenna on Rx (I also have a BiQuad antenna which I have yet to use)
Vuzix 920 Wrap video goggles

I would say I flew at least twice as far as I ever had without FPV and the video was crystal clear the entire way. I think the entire time I had a huge smile across my face.

 

[robvree]

AirconRob - I promised you a video of my LEDs. I filmed this last night. The weather was perfect, 70F degrees and almost dead silent wind. I was coming in for a landing on my last battery when I decided to pull out my cell phone and record this. The battery was already beginning to warn me it was low but I just flicked on GPS hold and kept my left hand on the radio while filming with my right. Enjoy!

 

[robvree]

Here is the latest video that I shot last night. This was done to give me a new baseline of where I'm at with overall camera stabilization. From what I can tell it seems like I have vibrations under control, but I'm getting a bit of wobble that I hope is caused by my gains being too high.

What do you think? Comments and suggestions would be really helpful.

Video is just several unedited clips from 1 flight put together. No additional post processing. Shot with a GoPro 2 in 720p 60fps.

 

[AIRCONROB]

That looks great Rob, I've just got to pull myself together and crack on with mine, just been really busy with work. I've had a little blast with it but i'm trying to get my head round on what all the gains mean and do. If you look back on the last clip i did for my first hover, the gains are 120, 120,120,130, 70, 70 and to be honest i dont know which to adjust to stop the little rocking and also the attitude with the throttle feels too spongy in the middle. Your gimbal looks great and nice to see it flying around instead of sat in one spot, it makes it more interesting. Happy for ya mate. And yes i'm working on putting on the light show for you very soon.

Cheers

Rob

 

[robvree]

That looks great Rob, I've just got to pull myself together and crack on with mine, just been really busy with work. I've had a little blast with it but i'm trying to get my head round on what all the gains mean and do. If you look back on the last clip i did for my first hover, the gains are 120, 120,120,130, 70, 70 and to be honest i dont know which to adjust to stop the little rocking and also the attitude with the throttle feels too spongy in the middle. Your gimbal looks great and nice to see it flying around instead of sat in one spot, it makes it more interesting. Happy for ya mate. And yes i'm working on putting on the light show for you very soon.

Cheers

Rob

Yeah you need to get crackin now! This thread is lonely. LOL!

So I did more tuning yesterday. I installed a little laser pointer on the gimbal and was flying with it shining on my fence so I could get a better visual of the wobbles. I now have my basic gains at 110,110,110,110 and atti gains 85,85. That seems to have smoothed it out a little more. However during a take-off I had a little mishap. The front left landing skid got caught in some heavy grass and I ended up having a tip strike and breaking one of my carbon fiber props. I switched over to my original APC props and it doesn't fly as smooth as the cf blades and the noise is crazy loud with a high pitched whine. I ordered another set of CF blades and will wait to get them in the mail before doing any more tuning.

Oh, something else I noticed was that I was getting a slight yaw to the left. I tried messing with the yaw gain to fix it but that didn't work so I checked all the motors and found that one of them wasn't pointing perfectly straight up. A quick adjustment and the yaw was then gone. I need to come up with a way to be able to align all the motors perfect. The little alignment notch that is on the boom has a little slop so your motors might not be perfect.

I'm also a little confused as to exactly which gains would help get rid of the wobble without taking away nice control of the quad. From what I understand, the basic pitch and roll gains control the reaction speed related to your stick input. If the gains are high, the quad will react faster to your inputs. If they are too high, the quad will begin to twitch. The atti gains control the speed at which the quad will level itself when you let go of the sticks. If those are high it will level quickly and if they are low the leveling will look and fell mushy. So... From that description I'm still a bit confused myself which would be better to adjust to control the wobble. It seems like it should be the atti gains. I'll need more testing to confirm that. I don't want to screw up my position hold and I don't want to make the quad fly really mushy.

Oh, and I found I have much better GPS hold with the advanced disturbed gain set at 90%.

 

[robvree]

OK, here is yet another totally boring video of the parks around my house. I think I'm really getting it smooth now but I would LOVE to be able to get rid of the wobbles. In this video I'm using my old APC props which are not as nicely balanced as the carbon fiber props but since I broke one I need to wait for a replacement. I don't think however the props are causing the wobble but you will see some jello from these props which I don't get with the CF ones.

 

[AIRCONROB]

OK, here is yet another totally boring video of the parks around my house. I think I'm really getting it smooth now but I would LOVE to be able to get rid of the wobbles. In this video I'm using my old APC props which are not as nicely balanced as the carbon fiber props but since I broke one I need to wait for a replacement. I don't think however the props are causing the wobble but you will see some jello from these props which I don't get with the CF ones.

Rob, I'm not being funny mate, but there is nothing boring about your testing videos, end of the day we are Beta testing and you are doing a great job. At least people out there can see your progress, but you know what the funny thing about all of this is, you mentioned the other day that this thread is a bit loanely, I'm sure there is a lot more good guys out there that could put some input our way, mybe then we would both be happy chappys. Like i said you are doing a great job, and your inputs are raising my hope for mine.

Cheers

Rob

 

[blotto649]

Gents, I'm a noob around here and these stories of your successes have been a great read - congrats to both of you. I'm diving right into this stuff, full on, and I think you've both convinced me to go DJI over MK or HoverFly. One question I do have, though - what ESC's are you guys using? I'll be using the Plettenberg 15-20's (comparable to Axi 4120/20) and I want to be sure I use something rock-solid. I've read good things about Turnigy, but there are just so many options out there.

Thanks again!

 

[robvree]

Gents, I'm a noob around here and these stories of your successes have been a great read - congrats to both of you. I'm diving right into this stuff, full on, and I think you've both convinced me to go DJI over MK or HoverFly. One question I do have, though - what ESC's are you guys using? I'll be using the Plettenberg 15-20's (comparable to Axi 4120/20) and I want to be sure I use something rock-solid. I've read good things about Turnigy, but there are just so many options out there.

Thanks again!

Welcome to the game Blotto. I only got into multi's about 4 months ago so I don't have much first hand experience with many ESC's yet. On my Droidworx I use the Maytech 30A V1 ESC's which so far have been great. I have high hopes that Castle will fix up their firmware to work rock solid with multirotors and I will probably upgrade. I don't mind spending extra on quality when I have thousands of dollars on the line. You mention you have Plettenberg's so I see you like quality as well.

Did you go with a DW AD-4 frame as well?


Cheers!
Rob

 

[Elliott000]

Nice work aircorn, i had my F550 WKM dialed in pretty sweet right around 120 across the board and 80 for atti, in the dead calm tho... as soon as i went out in some wind it was wobbles all over and i couldnt really sort it. Im droppin my preorder on an S800 in the next few days, pumped to try that unit out, hopefully the WKM will run it nicely, i want to be able to have some decent video to chase some buddy's down trails on mountain bikes at Whistler. Xaircraft gimbal acceptable Zenmuse is too far in my reach, how do you like the AV130, does the WKM drive it nicely

 

[AIRCONROB]

Hi Elliott, Thats where i'm stuck on, nice in the calm and bonckers in a little bit of wind, so I'm trying to work out what all the gains should be doing. As goes for the AV130, Yes it is a little on the expensive side but worth getting, just takes a bit of dialing in but works great. I've yet to give it a full test.

 

[blotto649]

Welcome to the game Blotto. I only got into multi's about 4 months ago so I don't have much first hand experience with many ESC's yet. On my Droidworx I use the Maytech 30A V1 ESC's which so far have been great. I have high hopes that Castle will fix up their firmware to work rock solid with multirotors and I will probably upgrade. I don't mind spending extra on quality when I have thousands of dollars on the line. You mention you have Plettenberg's so I see you like quality as well.

Did you go with a DW AD-4 frame as well?


Cheers!
Rob

Thanks, Rob - it's good to know that with only 4 months experience, it's possible to still get a good handle on things. I have a lot of RC car/plane experience and I've been doing my research, so hopefully things will work out well for me. Been a little bit afraid that I've jumped in over my head. You're absolutely right about spending a bit more for quality components, though - I attack any and all projects like that. I know that this is something I'll be committed to, so may as well start off big

In addition to the Pletty's I have on order, I ordered a DW SkyJib 6 which should be here early next week (need the added payload). That's all I've committed to so far, but I'm hoping to make a decision on ESC's and power distro by the end of the week. Sent an email to the local vendor for DJI last night to inquire about price and availability for the WK-M, so now I just gotta wait.

Thinking I might start a build thread - very helpful community here, so hoping I could do the same by sharing my experiences.

 

[robvree]

Rob, I'm not being funny mate, but there is nothing boring about your testing videos, end of the day we are Beta testing and you are doing a great job. At least people out there can see your progress, but you know what the funny thing about all of this is, you mentioned the other day that this thread is a bit loanely, I'm sure there is a lot more good guys out there that could put some input our way, mybe then we would both be happy chappys. Like i said you are doing a great job, and your inputs are raising my hope for mine.

Cheers

Rob

I hear you Rob. The videos are certainly helpful for me to plot my progress. Glad that they are of use to you as well. Looking forward to seeing some of your results. :nevreness:

We are in for some wet weather all this week so hopefully by the time it clears I have my new replacement CF prop ready to go. I also have a set of Graupner 11x5's and APC 13x6.5's that I'd like to try for comparison. I just added an EagleTree eLogger so I can also monitor what kind of AMPS I'm pulling with each of the different props.

Have you ever given any thought to Droidworx's published Specs? (http://www.droidworx.com.au/specifications.html) They say the optimum total weight of the AD-4 HL is 3kg. That seems too low. With the AV130 + GoPro and NO BATTERIES I'm at just about 3.0kg. With batteries I'm looking at almost 3.9kg.

 

[robvree]

Thanks, Rob - it's good to know that with only 4 months experience, it's possible to still get a good handle on things. I have a lot of RC car/plane experience and I've been doing my research, so hopefully things will work out well for me. Been a little bit afraid that I've jumped in over my head. You're absolutely right about spending a bit more for quality components, though - I attack any and all projects like that. I know that this is something I'll be committed to, so may as well start off big

In addition to the Pletty's I have on order, I ordered a DW SkyJib 6 which should be here early next week (need the added payload). That's all I've committed to so far, but I'm hoping to make a decision on ESC's and power distro by the end of the week. Sent an email to the local vendor for DJI last night to inquire about price and availability for the WK-M, so now I just gotta wait.

Thinking I might start a build thread - very helpful community here, so hoping I could do the same by sharing my experiences.

I also have years of RC experience before getting into multi's however I've been out of it for a number of years. I dipped my feet into electric heli's several years ago and I must say my entertainment level with multi's is 10 times what it was with the heli's. I find the multi's super easy to fly and they are just so damn cool.

So you got a SkyJib! Nice... One of the big boys. I'm not ready to commit to something that big at this point. While I'm a photographer by trade, I totally got into this hobby for personal reasons and don't plan on using it for anything but my own fun and enjoyment. If and when I decide to upgrade I will most likely get a flexacopter due to its ability to quickly break down. Most of the video I'd like to start taking will require some hiking and even my AD-4 is too big to hike with.