Aeronavics / Droidworx SkyJib Retractable Landing Gear not Locking

[Quinton]

Just wondering if it is worth changing the end points for the Servo, I also have this one without any problems.
What exactly makes the landing gear stop when opening/closing, is it a pre-programmed DW thing or a hard stop?

 

[cbpagent72]

Just wondering if it is worth changing the end points for the Servo, I also have this one without any problems.
What exactly makes the landing gear stop when opening/closing, is it a pre-programmed DW thing or a hard stop?

I would like to know the answer to this as well. I would like my retracts not to open as far. I have the Droidworx carbon nacelles and the landing gear are hitting them when they retract.

 

[kloner]

some people run the way the gear comes with the controller handling the servo stop points, others bail the board and go to end points. i run the droidworx controllers on both with seperate bec's for the retracts

 

[Quinton]

some people run the way the gear comes with the controller handling the servo stop points, others bail the board and go to end points. i run the droidworx controllers on both with seperate bec's for the retracts

Can you explain what you mean exactly by "i run the droidworx controllers on both with seperate bec's for the retracts" and why you do this?

I just had a play with the end points and it made no difference at all.

 

[kloner]

the servo goes to the droidworx control board, it is pictured above..... if you want to use endpoints to control where the servo stops you gotta use a servo wire straight from servo to receiver and bypass that board

we use a seperate bec so if the servo geeks out it won't surge in the flight controller..... only thing from the landing gear to the receiver is the signal wire.....

 

[Quinton]

OK that makes a lot of sense, thanks for the explanation.
I have still a lot to learn it seems, especially with the precautionary stuff.

 

[cbpagent72]

the servo goes to the droidworx control board, it is pictured above..... if you want to use endpoints to control where the servo stops you gotta use a servo wire straight from servo to receiver and bypass that board

we use a seperate bec so if the servo geeks out it won't surge in the flight controller..... only thing from the landing gear to the receiver is the signal wire.....

I am almost finished with my SkyJib build. I took off 3-4 weeks while I dealt with some work issues, now I am back at it.

One thing that keeps kicking my butt is the retracts. Everything else on the multirotor is programmed correctly on my Futaba 14SG except for the retracts. I have them opening and closing on a dial.

One new problem discovered today is when I shut off my transmitter and the fail safe kicks in they retract. I have tried reversing the fail sage and it doesn't work.

Another issue is when it returns to the closed position it doesn't lock and the legs collapse under the SkyJib weight.

When the legs retract another issue happens they are hitting the nacelles on the arms and making a servo noise.

With all of the above issues, I have a hard time trusting the landing gear with my gimbal and camera below it.



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[Quinton]

I am almost finished with my SkyJib build. I took off 3-4 weeks while I dealt with some work issues, now I am back at it.

One thing that keeps kicking my butt is the retracts. Everything else on the multirotor is programmed correctly on my Futaba 14SG except for the retracts. I have them opening and closing on a dial.

One new problem discovered today is when I shut off my transmitter and the fail safe kicks in they retract. I have tried reversing the fail sage and it doesn't work.

Another issue is when it returns to the closed position it doesn't lock and the legs collapse under the SkyJib weight.

When the legs retract another issue happens they are hitting the nacelles on the arms and making a servo noise.

With all of the above issues, I have a hard time trusting the landing gear with my gimbal and camera below it.

Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk

Was just taking a look through my settings on the controller, havent time to get out today..just noticed 1 of my failsafes was on hold instead of F/S so I will need to check that out when I get flying

Anyhow, my setup is like this..
I dont use the Wookong Failsafe, instead its set up on a channel mix.

CH5 is X2 On switch SD for Intellligent Orientation Control (IOC) with Endpoints set to 81/81 (REVERSED) AUX2
CH6 IS x3 On switch LD I just use this to play with my gains. VPP
CH7 is on switch SA for GPS/aTTI/Man with Endpoints set at 78/78 Gear
CH8 is on LS (left Slider underneath) this is my lading gear. Aux1

Now I have a program mix for SA and SF
this lets me go into failsafe at anytime using the SF switch, I can go into failsafe by flicking SF when in GPS/ATTI/Manual mode

For this I go into prog mix #1 and set up as follows..
OFF:GEAR-GEAR (Point..not linear)
5=-54
4= +0
3= -52
2= +0
1= +48
2nd page of that mix
Master Gear>OFF>OFF
Slave Gear >Off
Activate SF as the switch (so whenever you flick switch SF on/off you can see it doing it on this page)

Now Failsafe..
channel 3 Throttle F/S On -52% (This is above the minimum requirement of 10% + for Wookong) *My throttle is set to reverse* so may be different for you!
Just noticed actually that my CH 7 F/S was on hold, so I will have to double check that once I get back out on the field, as it should have been on.

All this puts me into failsafe if I flick the SF Switch or turn the transmitter off, and all confirmed in Wookong software. (and brings landing gear down, although Ill have to test thechannel 7 F/S once more when I'm out)

As for your landing gear..maybe you have stripped the sevo. One solution would be to take the Nacelles off the 2 middle booms so they dont hit, you have NO WAY to set the end points of the landing gear, unless you have a setup like Kloner above.
Hope the above makes some sense..Im not saying this is the correct way to do it, but its what works well for me.

I don't have any gimbal set up yet, so may need to change a few things when I need the rest of the channels working.
Im also posting this here for my own future reference

 

[kloner]

i have my lg on a 2 way switch, gear switch...... it makes 2 places the gear can be, up or down

re the falling legs, when the gear are all the way down os the aluminum thing connected to the servos all the way locked or completely down? if not, loosen it from the serve while it is powered and down and slip that mechanism till it is physically all the way down..... it kinda locks. You do have to be careful and not make the craft rock when it's sitting there, you also kinda gotta target a gritty surface or grass, that usually helps a lot, but yea, mine falls from time to time. We power it up on a stand and set it down only when it's ready to power up and leave.

http://www.harborfreight.com/200-lb-capacity-portable-work-stand-38778.html

We always leave it open around just in case, i've had to land on it twice when lg went away..... I also highly recommend using a separate bec for the landing gear. we use cc bec. in my case i had enabled extreme hopping in ezuhf and it made everything electronically on the rig to not work,,,, video feed, landing gear, even a brushless gimbal controller and skyline were affected.

 

[Quinton]

i have my lg on a 2 way switch, gear switch...... it makes 2 places the gear can be, up or down

re the falling legs, when the gear are all the way down os the aluminum thing connected to the servos all the way locked or completely down? if not, loosen it from the serve while it is powered and down and slip that mechanism till it is physically all the way down..... it kinda locks. You do have to be careful and not make the craft rock when it's sitting there, you also kinda gotta target a gritty surface or grass, that usually helps a lot, but yea, mine falls from time to time. We power it up on a stand and set it down only when it's ready to power up and leave.

http://www.harborfreight.com/200-lb-capacity-portable-work-stand-38778.html

We always leave it open around just in case, i've had to land on it twice when lg went away..... I also highly recommend using a separate bec for the landing gear. we use cc bec. in my case i had enabled extreme hopping in ezuhf and it made everything electronically on the rig to not work,,,, video feed, landing gear, even a brushless gimbal controller and skyline were affected.

Id love to see a more detailed picture and parts description of your setup Kloner, as the photos above don't make much sense to me but it does seem to be the way forward.
Are your landing gears the latest, the ones where you have to open/close twice for them to activate, as I have never had any problems with the retracts.
A reason why I use the left slider underneath the Futaba to open close, as it would be very hard to get mixed up with open/close..if the sliders down, the legs are down, slider up legs up and I cant accidentally hit a switch.

 

[kloner]

i've been around rc and have a few planes with retracts, the two back top switches have always been called gear and throttle hold....... one is usually momentary, other is usually always a two way..... i do have the latest version, takes 2 clicks, and thats the problem, it's not powered and if the rig gets bumped the legs do the "creep crawl" will it accelerates into the legs slipping out to the side, even powered up. We boot it all up, with a red i like to power cycle the gear so the legs are held with a servo power now instead of just the built in cam lock system they count on. Reds are heavy and production looks at you funny when there camera is in the dirt and you aint even taken off yet....

 

[cbpagent72]

Thanks for the settings Quinton, I am going to try them out when I get home from work tonight. I might bypass the Droidworx circuit board and program the endpoints.

It is crazy that they sell the nacelles for the skyJib and don't mention the clearance issues with them or a workaround.

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[cbpagent72]

Kloner,

I have a harbor freight store a few miles away from me. I am going to pick up one of those stands this week, they seem to be pretty useful. I went with the dial for the same reasons Quinton did, I didn't want to bump the switch.

This retractable landing gear issue really seems like a bad design. I am going to adjust the servo collar again. What are you using to tighten the nut? I have just been using pliers, it is too tight of space for a socket.

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[garyl]

Retractable reversed

Hi,

I have been trying to adjust my retractable with the A2 and I am having trouble ! it seems to work fine but when on the assistant it says down it is up and I have tried ticking
the rev. box and it doesn't swap it around ! I am very new to all this. Have I missed something? I have a FUTUBA 14SG and there are no 2 position switches so I have it on a
3 position but I don't think that should make much difference should it?

Thanks
Gary

Ok had a little play with mine tonight for the first time.
Im using the Futaba T14SG (think the same as you?)

The manual is pretty dire to say the least..
[FONT=.HelveticaNeueUI]http://droidworx.co.nz/assets/Retractable-Landing-Gear-Setup1.pdf

"Zero the retracts twice at zero" then turn off signal..what exactly does that mean.

I'm not sure if I am doing it right, but things seem to be working OK.
Hopefully someone who has been through this before can chime in and help.

I put the servo lead into the receiver at 8/SB (seems to be mapped to X2)
On the transmitter I went to channel 8 and added a gear and set "SF" as my 2 way switch.
Made sure they were both set to 100/100 .

Tightened the servo horn right up.
Turned power on, and flicked the switch twice, and it armed up.(went from solid blue to quick flashing blue) flicked the switch and the legs retracted..started to to blink really fast when coming to the end of the servo, then started to blink slow when gear was up.

The switch seemed to be back to front, so I went in and reversed it to..when it was off legs were down, and 1 = legs up
Tried it quite a few times, and all seemed well.
No idea how you would know if the servo is over running, but the lights are flashing properly, and there is no noise coming from the servo when fully up/down.

Went into my failsafe for channel 8, and turned it on and set it to +100%, turned the transmitter off, and the legs fully retracted down.
Need to be careful though as soon as I turned the transmitter back on and the switch was 1 the legs retracted and went up.

Never set anything like this up before, so if I am doing anything wrong hopefully someone that know better can chime in.

It looks and sounds OK at least.



[/FONT]

 

[Quinton]

This is an old thread
Interesting you are wanting to know about retracts, I just had a run in with another set, but that's a different story!

SF on the futaba (the back left one) is a 2 way switch, try that.
Also go into reverse on your controller, and see what it says for that channel.
I use my left slider (LS) for retracts, for a couple of reasons, just in case I accidentally flick the switch, and when slider is down I know that landing gear is also down.

 

[Quinton]

Actually I am just setting mine up also on the A2 and see what you mean, no matter what way you put it, when its down it shows in the assistant as up, and vica versa.
Reversing things in the assistant or in the radio makes no difference.
Also when I turn on the Intelligent gear the legs automatically go into the "up" position.

 

[garyl]

Retractable and a2

Thanks Quinton for both your posts. It must be something to do with the A2 and the built in receiver. Are you using the built in receiver? with your FUTUBA? If you find a way let me know unless someone else can help? I will try and ask Droid if they have a solution and let you know once I hear back! I have tried reversing on both radio and in the assistant and it always ends up the wrong way round and I also set up the FS on the Futuba and that does seem to work either.
Gary

Actually I am just setting mine up also on the A2 and see what you mean, no matter what way you put it, when its down it shows in the assistant as up, and vica versa.
Reversing things in the assistant or in the radio makes no difference.
Also when I turn on the Intelligent gear the legs automatically go into the "up" position.

 

[garyl]

Hi Quinton, I have actually managed to get it to work by using the F2 (ON A2 RECEIVER) = D2 ( IN ASSISTANT MAPPING PAGE) mapped it as channel 5 and left the gear on channel 5 too and
all works fine even with FS. Its a shame about the F1 plug which can't be used in this case but maybe DJI have saved the F1 just for the S800 !!! that is the best I have found and it works !
I should be speaking to Droidworx technical soon I hope so I will ask them if that is how they do it and come back to you.
Best Gary

Actually I am just setting mine up also on the A2 and see what you mean, no matter what way you put it, when its down it shows in the assistant as up, and vica versa.
Reversing things in the assistant or in the radio makes no difference.
Also when I turn on the Intelligent gear the legs automatically go into the "up" position.[/QUOTE]

 

[Vizjournalist]

Any word back from Aeronavics on this problem? I too am experiencing this and don't want to give up a channel so the retracts work properly. I've sent the below email to Aeronavics and will post their reply in this thread.


Email:
Hello, I am having problems correctly programing the retract mechanism on my SkyJib to respond in the A2 properly. The retracts are connected to the A2 gear channel and are reversed in the software. When the gear is physically up (retracted) the A2 thinks the gear is down and vise-versa. I have tried to reverse the channel in the A2 software and on my radio but this does not solve the problem. The A2 controller will always see the gear as opposite to its physical orientation. The problem with this is when the A2 goes into failsafe/RTH the gear goes up... You can imagine why this is a problem. How do I solve this? Can I re-wire the retracts control board? Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated. Take care, John.

 

[Quinton]

Might be an idea reading the posts here, there is a "sort of" solution ..
http://www.multirotorforums.com/sho...bonCore-Cortex-Maiden-Flight-Completed/page20