Last night I replaced the Naza V1 on my favorite Discovery FPV quad with a Super X basic. My original intent was to fly the X on a Droidworx VM4 frame I have but with the way things are going at work right now I have no time to do a complete build until early to mid November at the soonest. Since I really wanted to see how the Super X flys I figured the easiest route was to simply swap out something of a similar size on a frame that was already flying. The IMU is pretty close to Naza dimensionally what I didn't account for was the I/O block which wound up on the top deck of the Disco...
First impressions, the Super X is quite a departure from the usual DJI way of doing things. One of the more interesting ideas is the fact you don't need to load any software on your computer, it's all contained in the X, just plug in the USB connections and it shows up on the computer just as a USB memory stick would. From there click on the Super X icon and you get the configuration screen which is by far much simpler than anything else I've seen so far for flight controller setup programs. There really isn't much in there you need to change, and in fact most of what you need to do is calibrations that are done via TX and do not require any connection to a computer.
With everything connected and calibrations complete it was time to see how the X handled the asymmetrical Discovery frame. I've had most of the major flight controller systems on one of the three Discovery frames I own at one time or another and I've found that some deal with the uneven motor layout better than others, took me several tries before I got a Multiwii board to fly one without serious glitches. Right out of the box with no adjustment to any of the settings the Super X flew the Discovery without any drama or serious glitches, first flight was pretty uneventful which is the way I like maiden flights to go. The fact that this particular frame has many 10s of hours of FPV flight time on it already with the Naza controller certainly helped although you can never be sure how it will go with a completely new flight controller system you've never used before. It was obvious that while it flew well the parameter settings were going to need some changes, the TX adjustable attitude gain had to be dialed down quite a bit to dampen visible and audible oscillations in FF resulting in a very soft feel on the controls and poor return to center in attitude mode. Still it handled the frame extremely well, much better than the first flight of a few other controllers I've tried on a Discovery.
A couple rounds of trying different settings got me pretty close to the point of having the Disco flying just the same as it did before the swap, one of the easiest setups I've ever done with a completely new flight controller system. Originally when I did the swap over the plan was that it be temporary until I have time to build up the VM4 frame, now that I've run a few packs through the setup I'm thinking I may leave it as is for a while, I want to get some real FPV flight time with it to see how it all compares to what I'm used to when I fly this frame.
I can say with absolute the certainty the position hold and RTH will go toe to toe with anything else currently on the market. The RTH in particular is amazingly accurate, even more so than a Naza or Wookong-m, so far each time I've tried it the landing has been within a foot or two of the takeoff point and the landing picture perfect each time. I was a little worried the first time seeing how quickly it was descending, my finger hovering over the switch to kill the RTH and go back to manual control all the way down but it proved to be a non-issue as it slowed gently and touched down in a flawless landing that I'd have a hard time pulling off manually after a fast descent like that.
Not a whole lot of flight time so far but I'm hoping to get to a field with it this weekend for a couple packs behind the goggles to see how it stacks up as an FPV flight controller.
Ken
First impressions, the Super X is quite a departure from the usual DJI way of doing things. One of the more interesting ideas is the fact you don't need to load any software on your computer, it's all contained in the X, just plug in the USB connections and it shows up on the computer just as a USB memory stick would. From there click on the Super X icon and you get the configuration screen which is by far much simpler than anything else I've seen so far for flight controller setup programs. There really isn't much in there you need to change, and in fact most of what you need to do is calibrations that are done via TX and do not require any connection to a computer.
With everything connected and calibrations complete it was time to see how the X handled the asymmetrical Discovery frame. I've had most of the major flight controller systems on one of the three Discovery frames I own at one time or another and I've found that some deal with the uneven motor layout better than others, took me several tries before I got a Multiwii board to fly one without serious glitches. Right out of the box with no adjustment to any of the settings the Super X flew the Discovery without any drama or serious glitches, first flight was pretty uneventful which is the way I like maiden flights to go. The fact that this particular frame has many 10s of hours of FPV flight time on it already with the Naza controller certainly helped although you can never be sure how it will go with a completely new flight controller system you've never used before. It was obvious that while it flew well the parameter settings were going to need some changes, the TX adjustable attitude gain had to be dialed down quite a bit to dampen visible and audible oscillations in FF resulting in a very soft feel on the controls and poor return to center in attitude mode. Still it handled the frame extremely well, much better than the first flight of a few other controllers I've tried on a Discovery.
A couple rounds of trying different settings got me pretty close to the point of having the Disco flying just the same as it did before the swap, one of the easiest setups I've ever done with a completely new flight controller system. Originally when I did the swap over the plan was that it be temporary until I have time to build up the VM4 frame, now that I've run a few packs through the setup I'm thinking I may leave it as is for a while, I want to get some real FPV flight time with it to see how it all compares to what I'm used to when I fly this frame.
I can say with absolute the certainty the position hold and RTH will go toe to toe with anything else currently on the market. The RTH in particular is amazingly accurate, even more so than a Naza or Wookong-m, so far each time I've tried it the landing has been within a foot or two of the takeoff point and the landing picture perfect each time. I was a little worried the first time seeing how quickly it was descending, my finger hovering over the switch to kill the RTH and go back to manual control all the way down but it proved to be a non-issue as it slowed gently and touched down in a flawless landing that I'd have a hard time pulling off manually after a fast descent like that.
Not a whole lot of flight time so far but I'm hoping to get to a field with it this weekend for a couple packs behind the goggles to see how it stacks up as an FPV flight controller.
Ken
