Hoverfly XY8 with Hoverfly Pro, first flight

Bartman

Bartman

Welcome to MultiRotorForums.com!!
Just went out and had my first flight with a Hoverfly product and I was very pleasantly surprised. My experience is mostly with Mikrokopter but I've also spent a decent amount of time with a suicidal XAircraft X650 and even less time with an OpenPilot Copter Control guided quad. Compared to the XAircraft flight qualitites the Hoverfly is a rock star. The Hoverfly board is also better than the Mikrokopter was with the I2c to PWM converter (the device that lets you use Chinese ESC's or CheeSC's as I like to call them). Is it better, or even as good as, the Mikrokopter flight control system with a full complement of MK motor controllers? That remains to be seen but after one flight it makes me a happy guy to already see that it's a stable flight controller with no obvious wobbles or suicidal thoughts.

Obivously better than the Mikrokopter is the quality of the board and the layout of the components. Granted the HF board is slightly bigger but it's very professional looking in its layout and quality of manufacture. Some of the Mikrokopter boards have been looking pretty rough lately.

We're off to look at bringing home a puppy friend for our 3 yr old Lab Retriever. I've got to organize the wires and later on I'll try to do some more flying and get to know things better. Tonight I'll put my camera mount on and try to get that dialed in for some trials tomorrow but so far so good. I guess they can take the line out of the manual that says the frame has to have a symmetrical arrangement of the motors!


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Mactadpole

Mactadpole

Member
Congrats Bart! That is the nice thing about the Hoverfly, you can get airborne with relatively little to no setup issues.

Good luck on the puppy hunt!

Shawn
 


hoverben

hoverben

Person of Interest
I'm glad to hear you're having such a positive experience with the HoverflyPRO, Bart.

One thing I do want to address is the geometry of your build. The HoverflyPRO is scaleable and can thus tolerate a little assymetry, but the mode geometry isn't really designed for "Spider" frames. Please be careful about moving your motors too far from symmetrical, as you might experience power and control issues caused by this.

That said, Spider frame geometery is something that is in the pipeline for a future firmware release - they just look so darned cool that we want to fly them, too!
 

Bartman

Bartman

Welcome to MultiRotorForums.com!!
hoverben said:
they just look so darned cool that we want to fly them, too!
Click to expand...

Coming soon.....www.USdrones.us

Design, manufacture, and build of a complete line of XY multi-rotor helicopters and integrated camera mounts.

I'm trying to get my thoughts organized regarding my Hoverfly experience and will post soon.

Thanks for the reply Ben!
Bart
 



DucktileMedia

DucktileMedia

Drone Enthusiast
I would say the fact that Bart's XY8 worked as well as it did with the HFP means it probably doesnt care where the motors are. No? I can't imagine it would fly at all if it needed symmetry. look at how sensitive the DJI is to all those XYZ coordinates. I don;t really understand why one is so different from the other in terms of the positioning. Very curious though.
 

Bartman

Bartman

Welcome to MultiRotorForums.com!!
Yuri,
Welcome home! Have fun in Pismo?

Having flown mostly Mikrokopter since starting this little multi-rotor adventure it's hard for me to really be objective about how the Hoverfly Pro board flies after only a couple of flights. It flies different from my MK's but very well at the same time. To understand what I'm talking about it's worth pointing out the modes that both flight controls offer. Mikrokopter may very well be a good flight control for buzzing around and enjoying some aggressive sport flying but I've never used it that way as the boards have always been on camera mules that I can't afford to crash. I fly pretty conservatively with the stuff that makes money so I've never ventured beyond MK's beginner mode.
The Hoverfly Pro board has two very different flight modes similar to the XAircraft FC-1212. It can be flown in straight attitude mode where the flight control seeks to maintain a commanded attitude and it's up to the pilot to maintain situational awareness and control of the helicopter. There's also an Auto-level mode where the flight control seeks to level the helicopter for the pilot but I'm not entirely sure what the parameters are for the Auto-level feature so I'm having trouble understanding what I can do to make it comfortable for me to fly. I know I can definitely fly the Hoverfly Pro board in attitude mode to do aerial photo/video but I don't know for sure if I could reliably let it go far from my position on the ground and still maintain control. It offers solid handling but it's different from what I'm used to so it's hard to draw any conclusions.

Sorry if this isn't what people want to hear but I'm slowly trying to get a handle on it.

I'd like to reach out to the folks at Hoverfly but I'd guess they're in NAB mode so I was going to wait until next week to call. Mactadpole has offered some guidance and he's been very helpful. I'd also like to see how my experience compares to what RTRyder has gone through with his Hoverfly equipment.

I'd like this thread to remain constructive as I really think the flight control and GPS units are of very high quality and are up to the requirements of pro-aerial users. I'm just too new to the system and too short on experience to draw any conclusions. I also haven't tried to fine tune any of the calibration steps that aren't required in the quick-start approach to getting airborne.

All in all I'm impressed with the quality and solid handling of the Hoverfly Pro board. I hope to see if I can get used to it with the GPS on my XY8-EOSc where I am sometimes at the limit of LOS flying and need to remain comfortably in control (with a little help from the FC).

Bart
 

R

RTRyder

Merlin of Multirotors
I've pretty much come to the conclusion that the Pro board I have is crap. Being one of the first ones off the assembly line way back when there is clearly something not right with this board because no matter what I do with firmware versions, gain settings, calibrations, frames, configurations, etc., it will not maintain level flight in autolevel for an entire battery pack. The last two times I flew it, about 2 weeks ago, I had to land and do the disarm/rearm routine three times to get it back to some semblance of normality before it would start drifting off in random direction again while it took more and more control stick throw in the opposite direction just to keep it where it was. It is now back in it's shipping box and there it will stay, I've spent far more time and $ than is reasonable trying to make this thing fly and I'm done with it.

The Sport board I have on the other hand works perfectly so my Hoverfly success rate is 50% at this point.

Ken
 

Bartman

Bartman

Welcome to MultiRotorForums.com!!
Thanks for chiming in Ken. I'm trying to understand at what point the flight controller is taught what level actually is. with Mikrokopter it is a taught condition that can be tweaked until the FC and the helicopter both come together to understand what it means to be level. How do I get the HF board to reach that same level of Zen with my helicopter? Does the rig have to be perfectly level at the point of arming to fly without drifting?

disclaimer again, I'm new to HF and learning the routines from scratch.

Bart
 

R

RTRyder

Merlin of Multirotors
Unlike the Mk which you setup to perfectly level and then calibrate the accelerometers to teach it what level is, with the H/F you get it in the air in manual mode and then turn on autolevel. Now you use the trims on the TX to get it to fly level, best done in calm conditions for good results, and once you have it trimmed out land in autolevel mode and disarm then power it down. Turn off the autolevel switch, plug the battery back in leaving the trims as they were and it will now use those settings as "level" when you flip the switch, doesn't matter where it is when arming as long as it's not something crazy like a 45% angle. You should however plug the battery in and leave it be for a good 15 or 20 seconds minimum before before doing anything further, gives things time to settle a bit, I typically waited 30 seconds to a minute to give the board time to fully boot up and get ready to fly.

With my board no matter how well I get it trimmed out in autolevel it not work when the switch is first turned on, the routine is take off, fly for a minute or so, turn on autolevel and be prepared to catch it as it trys to fly off in a random direction, turn off autolevel, land, disarm, rearm, then take off again and autolevel will now have the trim it was set to on the last flight however it won't stay that way. It will slowly start leaning towards a random direction and it takes more and more opposite control to counter it, land and do the disarm/rearm thing and it's OK for a couple more minutes before it starts losing it again, repeat as necessary until the pack is discharged.

I do recall a time when I could get it trimmed out and it would hold fairly well for the entire day of flying but need to be trimmed out again the next time I took it out. I can't say that it ever worked as well as what I've experienced with either MK or DJI although it did fly well when it was working at it's best which for me wasn't nearly as much as I would have liked for what the board cost.

Ken
 

Bartman

Bartman

Welcome to MultiRotorForums.com!!
I haven't had the time to get the autolevel feature tuned but your suggestions make sense and I'll give them a try. in attitude mode the helicopter will fly pretty well hands off and even resist drift a bit in a breeze. i'll probably get a chance to fly it again tomorrow evening or Wednesday and we'll see how it goes.
Thanks again Ken.
Bart
 

Bartman

Bartman

Welcome to MultiRotorForums.com!!
Ken,
I was thinking. According to your instructions above I should be able to train the autolevel function and have it remember what level is. But what if I did your steps and didn't bother to fly?
Here's what I've been thinking.......I want to build an adjustable platform, maybe a piece of 3/4" MDF that is 18" by 18" and in each corner I'll have a bolt threaded into a blind nut. I'll level the platform on a table and then place the helicopter on it.
If I follow your steps above it would give me a baseline to see how close the autolevel is to being level. Once I fly it and see where it's at I can adjust the feet on the board and put the copter back onto it and do your steps again but without actually flying. After I recalibrate it I can fly it again and keep doing it until the helicopter is perfect. Ideally the flight control will remember this level setting and it should fly perfect each time after.
I've got an old camera mount attached and I'm heading outside to see how it does. I'm not even close to having every possible adjustment all dialed in but I thought a quick flight to see how it's doing would be a fun experiment.

I have to admit I did adjust the throttle and throttle trim so I'll be going to dead props with a dead stick so we'll see how that works out for me.

Bart
 

Mactadpole

Mactadpole

Member
Bartman said:
Ken,
I was thinking. According to your instructions above I should be able to train the autolevel function and have it remember what level is. But what if I did your steps and didn't bother to fly?
Here's what I've been thinking.......I want to build an adjustable platform, maybe a piece of 3/4" MDF that is 18" by 18" and in each corner I'll have a bolt threaded into a blind nut. I'll level the platform on a table and then place the helicopter on it.
If I follow your steps above it would give me a baseline to see how close the autolevel is to being level. Once I fly it and see where it's at I can adjust the feet on the board and put the copter back onto it and do your steps again but without actually flying. After I recalibrate it I can fly it again and keep doing it until the helicopter is perfect. Ideally the flight control will remember this level setting and it should fly perfect each time after.
I've got an old camera mount attached and I'm heading outside to see how it does. I'm not even close to having every possible adjustment all dialed in but I thought a quick flight to see how it's doing would be a fun experiment.

I have to admit I did adjust the throttle and throttle trim so I'll be going to dead props with a dead stick so we'll see how that works out for me.

Bart
Click to expand...

Are you going to have the copter strapped down and throttle it up? You have to realize that they have all kinds of controls written into the code so that it does or doesn't do certain things unless it knows its flying or not. I can't recall all the in's and out's anymore but this may prevent your idea from working. Or I could be completely wrong and it will work great! Just thought I should let you know that they have these sort of things in the code.

Hope it went well!

Shawn
 

Bartman

Bartman

Welcome to MultiRotorForums.com!!
THanks for the tip Shawn. I'll reach out to the folks at Hoverfly to see if my idea can actually work. I was going to build the platform to make tuning MK's easier and it will definitely work for that and save a lot of time. After reading Ken's post I thought I'd try to apply it to the Hoverfly stuff as well.
I flew a few quick flights with the camera mount hooked up and then with the T2i and another with the NEX. I've got to tweak settings to make things closer to optimum but so far I'm happy with what I've seen.
Bart
 



Bartman

Bartman

Welcome to MultiRotorForums.com!!
Yurimus,
I'm about halfway through rebuilding my HF XY8. I'll post some pics once I get a little farther along. I was pretty happy with it before my motor spontaneously disassembled and I was really jazzed about the gimbal control.
Give me a week or so and I'll have it flying. Two other builds going at the same time and trying to keep everyone happy.
Bart
 

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