XAircraft SuperX




Trike

Member
the motors were pretty off, so much for trusting the indexed marks. lol. I squared up the top motors, on the bottom motors, some of them are a little off. I did the best I could without shimming the motors.
http://log.xaircraft.com/report.htm#2014_09_19_193103.250_39.1.07.14

I think I have the gains too low now. I'm at .8. I can hear an oscillation during FFF. I couldn't hear it before I aligned the motors. The oscillations sounds slowish. I think I'll start bumping the gains back up.

I pretty sure the vibrations I see in the gopro footage are caused from the battery hanging off the back tube. I'm going to remove the tube mount and mount 2 batteries directly to the plate and see if that helps.
 

fltundra

Member
the motors were pretty off, so much for trusting the indexed marks. lol. I squared up the top motors, on the bottom motors, some of them are a little off. I did the best I could without shimming the motors.
http://log.xaircraft.com/report.htm#2014_09_19_193103.250_39.1.07.14

I think I have the gains too low now. I'm at .8. I can hear an oscillation during FFF. I couldn't hear it before I aligned the motors. The oscillations sounds slowish. I think I'll start bumping the gains back up.

I pretty sure the vibrations I see in the gopro footage are caused from the battery hanging off the back tube. I'm going to remove the tube mount and mount 2 batteries directly to the plate and see if that helps.
Very nice improvement!! Try starting at 1.0 straight across on the gains.:friendly_wink:
 

Trike

Member
It's amazing how useful the logs are. I also have a v1 naza and once problems occurred, it was hard to diagnose. If they supplied logs, it would be soo much easier to tune up your rig. I think i'm converted now. Going to sell off my dji stuff and get another SuperX. It just flies soo much smoother and feels predictable.
 

fltundra

Member
It's amazing how useful the logs are. I also have a v1 naza and once problems occurred, it was hard to diagnose. If they supplied logs, it would be soo much easier to tune up your rig. I think i'm converted now. Going to sell off my dji stuff and get another SuperX. It just flies soo much smoother and feels predictable.
SuperX tends to convert a lot of former dji and wooking users.
I still think you will see even more improvements if you balance your props better and after remounting your batteries.
 

Trike

Member
SuperX tends to convert a lot of former dji and wooking users.
I still think you will see even more improvements if you balance your props better and after remounting your batteries.

I agree, I grabbed the leg during a hover and I could feel a faint vibe. I went through one quick round of balancing before flying and skipped the hub on half of them. I have a set of t-style props 13x5.5 and 14x5.5 I'd like to try on it. Going to get a good balance on them and see if the vibes get lower. I also suspect a bad EZO bearing on one of these new motors, Ordered a few sets of EZO bearings to have on hand and swap them out for maintenance or from any prop strikes. I suspect the vibes are higher than the SuperX is reporting because I have the imu on a clean plate like kloner.
 

Mike SF

Banned
Hi Trike, here are a few comments:

* As others have pointed out, motor alignment is very critical. I wonder how many DJI users (Naza, WKM, A2) have this issue without ever knowing because they don't have a black box :highly_amused:

* With my Y6, when running the same props on top and bottom, the motor output differs by around 10-12% (bottom motors work harder). This is normal for a coaxial setup. To make motor outputs more equal, the usual recommendation is to use a bottom propeller that is 1 inch bigger in size or you increase the pitch by one. I'm now using a 11x5 prop on top and a 12x6 prop at the bottom that is cut back to 11inch (both Graupner). The motor output now differs by around 5-6%, which I think is ok.

Your selection of 13x5.5" on top and 12x6.5" on bottom is a little odd, because they 'kind' of behave the same. That's why you still see the bigger difference between top and bottom.

* I'm not sure about the battery placement and if the location is really a problem. I'm using a rail system on my Y6 with the gimbal in front and the battery in the back and it flies very well. It uses only slightly more power when flying FF compared to hover, telling me the motors don't have to work much harder. The angle in FF is still smaller then 30 degrees, so the weight shift and possible pendulum effect, is small. More important is that your CG is correct. But when looking at your battery plate, I think it is way to small to provide a solid battery mount. You are likely using a big battery and it needs to be firmly mounted on a bigger plate with two straps.

* I don't know your dampening system, but often they make things worse in FF. It should only help to avoid jello and some vibrations in the camera, but not more. Soft dampeners work well during slow flight, but have issues with faster flight. Maybe try to tighten things up and try again. I heard from users who even completely removed dampeners and suddenly got much better results. If you are trying to remove jello from a GoPro, then try an ND filter instead. It makes a huge difference.

 

Trike

Member
Hi Mike,

Thanks for the comments, I just realized I made a typo in my original post and mentioned 12x6.5 on the bottom. It's supposed to be 13x6.5". I'm going to spend some time today and balance the 13x5.5 and 14x5.5 t-style props and see how it flies.

I agree about the battery plate being small. I had to use 3 straps to make sure it was secured and wouldn't shift during flight. Once I get the cg correct and I tap the battery lightly, it's very obvious that it's wiggling around. The dampeners are pretty soft. Since the brushless gimbal already has some dampening balls on them, I'm going to try and replace the dampeners on their plate with some solid stand offs. I tried attaching 2 6s 8000mah (2400g) directly to the plate without the cg tube and it's still not enough weight to get the CG correct. Unfortunately I don't think I can get rid of their CG tube now. So hopefully with a solid mount, it wont wiggle and wont jello.

I need to see how the sky hero people arrange their packs with a gimbal attached. Then again, I don't think i've seen many videos of sky hero rigs with gimbals doing FFF.
 


TDK

New Member
Hi All

Been following this thread and considering purchasing a SuperX. I'm building a f550 hexa with dji E300 motors / ESC combo and 4S lipo.

Is anyone using the E300 (2212/920, 15a Opto and 9.4x4.3") + 4S combo with a SuperX with success?

cheers
TDK
 

Trike

Member
That's a lot of battery strapped to the copter. With a GoPro the flight time should be tremendously long.

I wish! Since this is my first coaxial, i wasn't quite sure what the flight times would be. With a zippy 6s 8000 and an AUW of 4.8kg, I'm only getting about 8:20/flight. However, I tested with 2x 4s 10,000 and got 20mins. But the avg motor usage during hover was 86%, which is too high. I was hoping to get about 10min with a single 6s 8000 pack and around 15min with two of them in parallel. I'm ok with some loss in efficiency, since flying a coaxial feels really stable in the wind. Now that I have it built, and flying reasonably well, its time to fine tune it. I'm hoping I can dial out the vibes during FFF.

I'm using the rctimer x3(35mm) 470kv motors, they seem to be decent motors. They come with ezo bearings and a screw shaft instead of a circlip. According to ecalc, I can't use a bigger prop than 13" before I hit the motor's max power output of 450w.
 

fltundra

Member
I'm using the rctimer x3(35mm) 470kv motors, they seem to be decent motors. They come with ezo bearings and a screw shaft instead of a circlip. According to ecalc, I can't use a bigger prop than 13" before I hit the motor's max power output of 450w.
Get a set of KDE's. The 3510 475's are good to over 665 watts +, and their headquarters are close to you. Top notch customer support!
 

Trike

Member
Those KDE's look nice.... but they're sure pricey. I'll consider them if I can't get this motor/prop setup working well.

I replaced the dampeners with standoffs, it appeared to help, but I was flying in a gusty wind for the first time. It was solid in the wind. I didn't get a chance to do a 2nd round of balancing the props yet.

I set the gains to 1.0 as suggested with atti gain at 20%. This is how it flew: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nWaItfMEo4

Because of the wind, I can't tell if the vibes during forward flight is from the brushless gimbal getting hit from the wind or from being over gained on the superx. I forgot to upload the BB log before I went to work, but I'll upload that later.
 

SamaraMedia

Active Member
Get a set of KDE's. The 3510 475's are good to over 665 watts +, and their headquarters are close to you. Top notch customer support!

Altitude Hobbies was selling out their KDE inventory and reduced prices by 20% on most motors. I picked up 4 more 2814-515's
 



noid1037

Member
The ESC throttle cal is best done first. Connect the servo lead of each ESC/motor to the throttle output channel of your receiver (RX) one at a time - and do the following: Power on the radio (Tx) and put the throttle stick all the way up. Power on the quad. You will hear beeps. Then put the throttle stick all the way down. You'll hear more beeps. Power down the quad. Switch to the next ESC and repeat.

They make (or you could make) a harness that will connect all ESCs to the throttle channel output - but it's easy enough to do it one at a time.

After that - plug all servo leads back into the superx and do the stick cal as described in the manual.

quick question... Do I need the superx connected to the receiver or is this a grand alone procedure that the super x does not need to powered up and connected?
 

Motopreserve

Drone Enthusiast
quick question... Do I need the superx connected to the receiver or is this a grand alone procedure that the super x does not need to powered up and connected?

No, not unless the RX is powered by the superx. you plug the servo lead to each ESC directly to throttle output channel of your receiver. After you finish, plug all servos back into superx, and continue with superx stick cal.
 

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