XAircraft SuperX on heavy lifter

[octocine]

If you think about it you will understand that GPS Hold is 3 dimensional! it must be, otherwise it is not holding position if it is spinning in a circle!

David

I see what you are saying, but it seems to me that advantage of a multi rotor is that it can move from one point to any other point without rudder input. It appears that in GPS mode that Super X wants to keep the helicopter pointed in the same direction in addition to remaining at the same point in space. This strategy makes complete sense if your objective is not videography. If the helicopter just held to the same point in space with elevator and aileron...and ignored which direction it was pointed...the footage would remain usable. I shoot in windy conditions often and get good footage without yaw issues. Gimbals take out pitch and roll beautifully but yaw, and especially yaw twitching, kills video.

It's not a deal breaker for this flight controller, but for me it's a significant issue because the main reason I wanted to try SuperX is for it's GPS capabilities. The RH feature appears solid and reliable and that's huge.

 

[Motopreserve]

I see what you are saying, but it seems to me that advantage of a multi rotor is that it can move from one point to any other point without rudder input. It appears that in GPS mode that Super X wants to keep the helicopter pointed in the same direction in addition to remaining at the same point in space. This strategy makes complete sense if your objective is not videography. If the helicopter just held to the same point in space with elevator and aileron...and ignored which direction it was pointed...the footage would remain usable. I shoot in windy conditions often and get good footage without yaw issues. Gimbals take out pitch and roll beautifully but yaw, and especially yaw twitching, kills video.

It's not a deal breaker for this flight controller, but for me it's a significant issue because the main reason I wanted to try SuperX is for it's GPS capabilities. The RH feature appears solid and reliable and that's huge.

I may be wrong, but I think the issue is that the FC is looking at the most efficient way to return to that exact position/space that it was told to hold - so if rudder is part of that correction (for example: wind pushed it to the yaw left or right), it utilizes rudder to return to position. Or am I figuring this wrong?

I can see this definitely wouldn't help for the video footage with a 2-axis.

 

[tombrown1]

Good to know. It makes sense that GPS mode would be twitchy in wind, but it would seem that only changes in elevator and aileron would be needed to hold position. I don't understand why rudder is needed to hold position. A gimbal cam remove the roll and pitch motion, but I fly with a two axis, single operator system, so those yaw twitches are a problem for the footage. It's not a big deal since I don't anticipate a lot of GPS flying, but it would be nice to find a way to lose that yaw twitch, if possible. I've got to get the nerve to try manual mode.

3 axis on follow mode is definitely the way to go with a 1 operator setup if you can swing it. Unless you're flying a sony cam with boss stabilization.

 

[Electro 2]

If you think about it you will understand that GPS Hold is 3 dimensional! it must be, otherwise it is not holding position if it is spinning in a circle!

To the best of my knowedge, this is not true. GPS data is only used for resolving errors in lat/long positioning. Yaw axis stability is strictly the mag compass data and altitude is controlled using barometric data. It is the synthesis of data from all these sensors that gives the FC it's stability. This is true of all FC's, not just the SX. If one does an in-place pivot, GPS lat/lon data is rotated/offset on a 2D cartesian grid by the vector information from the mag sensor. If you fly simple open-source code for awhile, and take the time to learn how it's constructed, you'll come to learn how the algorithims interact and just what is controlling what. The magic of the SX is the manner in which this data is combined into a flight command regimen. The mathematical balance of all these parameters is just super smooth. I haven't tried a gimbal yet, so I can't offer any tips on tuning for optimal interaction with the various flight modes. The heaviest I've flown to date is 12 lbs, and the SX definitely reacts differently than on my 4.2 lb. bird.

 

[Motopreserve]

Now THAT was a good explanation!

I have been wrestling with translating the experience I have with Multiwii into the SX. I think I really need to think less! That's what the FC is for!

 

[X650Mouse]

To the best of my knowedge, this is not true. GPS data is only used for resolving errors in lat/long positioning. Yaw axis stability is strictly the mag compass data and altitude is controlled using barometric data. It is the synthesis of data from all these sensors that gives the FC it's stability. This is true of all FC's, not just the SX. If one does an in-place pivot, GPS lat/lon data is rotated/offset on a 2D cartesian grid by the vector information from the mag sensor. If you fly simple open-source code for awhile, and take the time to learn how it's constructed, you'll come to learn how the algorithims interact and just what is controlling what. The magic of the SX is the manner in which this data is combined into a flight command regimen. The mathematical balance of all these parameters is just super smooth. I haven't tried a gimbal yet, so I can't offer any tips on tuning for optimal interaction with the various flight modes. The heaviest I've flown to date is 12 lbs, and the SX definitely reacts differently than on my 4.2 lb. bird.

What I am referring to here is the 'Mode' GPS Hold! Not GPS data as you seem to have misread, as referenced with SuperX and I have observed it uses more than coordinates in the process of it's implementation, but thank you for the information

David

 

[kloner]

I'm flying regularly at 26.8lbs AUW and have gone as high as 36lbs AUW.... so far, shiny side is up and no weird anything......

 

[octocine]

I'm flying regularly at 26.8lbs AUW and have gone as high as 36lbs AUW.... so far, shiny side is up and no weird anything......

Thanks. It's nice to know that there's a light at the end of the tunnel. I'm getting decent footage now, but it stills requires post stabilization. My smaller setups (GH2) - even without optical image stabilization are rock solid and rarely require any post stabilizing. Is it realistic to get to the point where I would not need post stabilization on heavy lifter footage or are my hopes unrealistic?

 

[kloner]

mine is too, but i'm fine with it because it's a fixable problem with little artifact..... to be pro, almost everything we've ever touched has post stab, premier warp to be specific

 

[Aerovideo]

Woah I haven't been on this thread for a while, looks like you're making some progress octocine.

I know I've got a Tarot T810 Hex with my Super X and it weighs in at 14 pounds, not nearly as heavy as yours. However, in a hover I get perfect video but as soon as I start flying I get some micro bounces. Not jello but bounces. Still trying to figure that one out myself. I can hear the motors pulsing in the recorded video and I've tried dropping my gains but that hasn't helped yet.

I was getting some pretty nice results from my go pro based quad setup with the Super X till I demolished it in a crash

Bigger and heavier definitely creates a whole new set of problems.

 

[octocine]

They say there are no dumb questions and I sure hope that's the case because this one could qualify: One thing that surprises me with the coaxial setup is the amount of leaves and debris that that seems to get vacuumed into the air with this setup. I've not had this problem with the flat 8, but I realize these are bigger motors, props and two motors pushing the same air. It seems odd to have so much flying debris on shots below about six feet. I wondered briefly if I had the lower props on backwards. Black box data shows pretty much equal power on all props. Have others experienced this issue? I love to fly low over things, but can't do it currently without lots of debris in the shot.

 

[octocine]

Okay, last update. I tried the 550mm booms to see if it improved the flight characteristics and it did somewhat. Got slightly less wobble in the images, but still not happy. Next I tried a flat 8. It was almost impossible to fly with the same gains I was using with the X8 (near crash), so use caution if you try this on a big rig. At a primary gain of 1 and a atti gain of 75 on my DX8 it was barely flyable. I ended up getting decent results at main of 102 and secondary of 100 (range on DX8 is -150 to +150). I got decent results with this flight controller, but it's not giving me the results that I'm looking for, so this experiment is over for now. Thanks for all of the help!

 

[kloner]

my observation and understanding is you want the knob gain to be closest to 30, on mine use +30 -30 on the endpoints and i barely move the adjustment to hit 30-40..... then the rest of the gain is handled with the gui,,,, gain till stable, flies best

 

[DucktileMedia]

Sounds like I better stick with my Hoverfly Pro's. I was about to give the Super X a try next time around but I need more confidence than this.

 

[kloner]

the best thing this does is gps mode flight. To me the hfp is the most stressful flight controller i ever tried, but it made great footage. Stressful to fly though. i still got em sitting here but i'l never use them again. Synapse has my attention

 

[DucktileMedia]

The only thing the Hoverfly pro could use other than the obvious gps improvement is a much much better active alt hold feature. Though I have not tried the new firmwares in a while. I just trust the controller and it flies so freaking smoothly. I guess we all have our own experiences but to me it makes a nicer end product for LOS shots without the stress of having gps or all the functions that seem to get many in trouble. I am supposed to shoot inside a large museum in SF soon and I would not be comfortable with a GPS on it. I arm it and it flies, I land and I dis-arm it. done.

Havign said that I would be curious to see first hand what it is like. Maybe my personal experience will be better than some have had.

 

[kloner]

this has an amazing atti mode,,, alt hold, self level, but it's gps as in hold works bitchen, smooth transitions, doesn't hop around, holds wihtin inches, looks like a gigantic tripod.... like a radio, it has a switch so it's not always on..... the entire way of dealing with a hoverfly is so unorthidox and not very intuitive to me. lift off before alt hold, don't turn on self level till it lifts off, no adjusting alt holf height i assumed, mine ate a model so i quit trying.....

 

[octocine]

Here's a link to a clip with the Super-X and BlackMagic 4k on an X8. It's not terrible, but I could never eliminate the slight wobble, so it needed stabilization. Scaling was about 5%.

https://vimeo.com/91680706

 

[jfro]

Here's a link to a clip with the Super-X and BlackMagic 4k on an X8. It's not terrible, but I could never eliminate the slight wobble, so it needed stabilization. Scaling was about 5%.

https://vimeo.com/91680706

Did you shoot your Big Sur video on the x8/super-X & Black Magic @ 4k? I'm guessing some of the water/wave shots would be even more stunning in 4k on a 4k monitor. Nice!

 

[dazzab]

I've been flying with a SuperX on a Aeronavics (aka Droidworx) XM6 for about a week now. I'm very happy with it. It's quite stable and as Kloner mentioned the GPS lock is excellent. Anthony in Sydney has been extremely helpful with support which really impresses me. I hope they will add some more features to it like a geofence but you can't beat how easy it is to set up and use.

I am having an issue not related to the flight controller that someone might be able to help with. About 5 mins in to flights the motors just cut out. At first we thought it might be that the copter is heavy and had a high hover rate but that sounds odd to me. I dropped the batteries down from two 6A to two 4A and removed the camera/gimbal but the issue is still there. The motors are cool after flight as are the ESCs so I don't think it's a heat related issue. The motors are T-Motor 3510-25 with Hobby King Blue Series 30Amp SimonK flashed ESCs and 14" T-motor carbon fibre props. At this point I suspect the ESCs but it seems odd they would all shut down together.