Multirotor, multicopter and quadcopter discussion - The Drone thread

Mine was about £65 delivered from HK, already had TX and RX. I guess with an entry level transmitter, receiver, some spare batteries and a lipo charger, it wouldn't be far off £200. Then you need a camera, video transmitter/receiver and goggles/screen and all the gubbins, so put aside another £200 :D Then you get quad envy and build something bigger/faster/more stable...

Has everyone seen the soma's warpquad videos? This guy has some mad skillz

http://vimeo.com/86291282
 
Well I need to wait and save up my pocket money for some FPV gear. Got the mobius camera on order so that should be fun to start.

d_brennen, are you flying with the KK? If so can you share your P & I settings?

Just been to a field nearby after testing in the garden yesterday, 5 batteries charged and was great fun, even managed to fly straight at me for a change :) Very well behaved with self levelling on. Need a much bigger field for this beast :)

Edit, just watched that video, holy ****p!
 
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Heh, mines in bits for a rebuild with SimonK ESCs. Pretty sure they were as follows:

Ail/Ele
P: 60
Plimit: 100
I: 30
Ilimit: 20

Rudder
P: 75
Plimit: 20
I: 75
Ilimit: 10

SL
P: 40
Plimit: 20

Still got some wobble on decent and she isn't too fond of wind, hoping SimonK ESCs might help with stability, so I can crank the gains up a bit
 
Just flashed 3rd party Devention firmware on my fisher price Devo 10 tx. Only reason I did this is to enable 150mw power, which might fingers crossed increase range a little. The other feature I like is I can USB into the internal storage on the thing and just copy config files from it, edit on pc, and copy back... it's a nice way of managing things.

The GUI is very unfriendly though, so I ended up modding someone elses config file to get everything working.

No tried to fly yet, but first flight is going to be at 7am over the sea to film some paddle board guys, talk about tempting fate.



edit:

All went well, first try at filming with GoPro feeding FPV and gimbal, going to take ages to get used to, and gotta get brave enough to fly atti at 5m over sea :) (I wussed out and stuck with GPS)

 
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Trying to setup the Futaba 14SG with the A2/S1000 and having a mare. The DJI Assistant can only see 5 controls (sticks and one of the 3-way switches). All the other switches and knobs do nothing on the mapping screen. Any ideas?

Ahhhgg!
 
Ok took the FPV250 to a large field today, man that was crazy fun, my first real RC flying experience! And I only pranged it once! :) It's flying incredibly smooth after some more tuning this morning (P gain was far too low).

Put the 2 blade 5030 HQ props on and it seemed perfect, but they are all black so I've strapped 2 red and 2 yellow velcro straps to the feet for orientation. Getting just under 11 minutes with the 1500s.

Fun fun fun.
 
Nice one Genoma. What sort of thrust are you getting out of the 1804s + 5030 2 blades? Does it feel a little sluggish? Haven't had a spare moment until today and it's been bloomin raining all day
 
Got there with the 14SG and A2 but man is this brain-melting work :p. Gimbal and 8J receiver up and running now but still need to set the channels, and then both the controllers died and I haven't got any chargers for them; need an NiMH and I only have LiPo, and Futaba were out of stock so I have to apply for them to send me some once they come in... SIGH.

Also not sure how to supply power to the Immersion RC transmitter.
 
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Nope, they just sent a voucher to post off for one to be sent out when they come back in stock. Pretty bad. Not sure how you can run out of chargers but still have the actual systems in stock but there we go.

Our Phantom's charger only does LiPo and LiFe, but yeah I realised the massive one we got with the S1000 does. However I couldn't for the life of me get it to work! All the instructions on the charger said was to hold Enter down for 2 seconds to start the charge which did nothing. This was at 11.30pm after a long weekend so my brain was melted and I was baffled :p.
 
Just flashed 3rd party Devention firmware on my fisher price Devo 10 tx. Only reason I did this is to enable 150mw power, which might fingers crossed increase range a little. The other feature I like is I can USB into the internal storage on the thing and just copy config files from it, edit on pc, and copy back... it's a nice way of managing things.

The GUI is very unfriendly though, so I ended up modding someone elses config file to get everything working.

No tried to fly yet, but first flight is going to be at 7am over the sea to film some paddle board guys, talk about tempting fate.



edit:

All went well, first try at filming with GoPro feeding FPV and gimbal, going to take ages to get used to, and gotta get brave enough to fly atti at 5m over sea :) (I wussed out and stuck with GPS)


Great Video,id be too worried flying over water,dont even like going too near the river with mine :D
 
One of these 250s is very tempting!

I'd probably go with the RCX 250 from myrcmart, if only because everyone flying FPV250s migrates to SimonK 10a ESCs and RCX1804 motors at SOME point anyway :p

The QAV250 (not to be confused with the high end Lumenier, who Diatone ripped the name from :rolleyes:) looks a better bet if you want to hang a camera and video transmitter off yours at some point. I had a bit of a headache getting everything fitting well with a good CoG
 
Getting there with the S1000 but at a bit of a loss when it comes to the T8J controlling the Z15-5D gimbal. I've got tilt and pan but all the other switches/channels don't work or get recognised in the DJI Assistant software. They all just say "Disc." which I assume means "Yet to Discover" or something.

I've got the channels set up right and in servo testing mode the correct switches activate the correct channels, but they're just either not getting to the Futaba receiver or they're being ignored by the Z15-5D.

Does anyone have any ideas? :confused:
 
I'd probably go with the RCX 250 from myrcmart, if only because everyone flying FPV250s migrates to SimonK 10a ESCs and RCX1804 motors at SOME point anyway :p

The QAV250 (not to be confused with the high end Lumenier, who Diatone ripped the name from :rolleyes:) looks a better bet if you want to hang a camera and video transmitter off yours at some point. I had a bit of a headache getting everything fitting well with a good CoG

Thanks (David?) :)

Can't seem to find the RCX250 anywhere even on MYRCTMART.
Is this theQAV250 you mention: http://www.getfpv.com/qav250-mini-fpv-quadcopter.html ? Seems a lot of dosh for the frame.

How long do those 1804 motors give on a 250 sized quad that size? One thing about my Tri that bugs me is the battery life.. it's just not long enough. I already have some 1300mah 3S Lipos for a 250 sized quad you see :)
 
Nah, this one: https://sites.google.com/site/miniquaduk/home/shop

Like many Chinese companies, Diatone have a rather unpleasant habit of ripping off well known/respected names, even if their product isn't remotely similar. The FPV250 is about the only truly original frame these guys have come up with... then they slap a cage on it and call it a QAV250, which already exists :p However, I am looking out for a place to buy their Whitesheep (:p) frame somewhere in the EU, because I cannot justify the price of a TBS frame

The UK retailer above has obviously objected and is calling it a FPV250 V2, which is entirely more appropriate, and most other reputable retailers are doing similar. It should also appear on HK for $16.99 at some point too.

As for battery life, on 1300mah 3S 45c batteries I fly up to 5 minutes when fully laden with FPV gear. I read of some going a bit longer, up to 7 minutes with 6" 2 blade props, but I am not sure how accurate that is. The Mobius, vTX and power regulator probably amount to 100g or so, which accounts for roughly a 25% increase in bare take off weight. I'd rather a 30 second battery swap than ragging my batteries tbh.

e: The "QAV250" frame thread on RCGroups http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2138633
 
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Russ, are you using a separate receiver for the 8J or trying to map it via the A2?
You need to have a separate receiver for the 8J, connected to the Z15 GCU via S-Bus.

Sorry if it's stuff you already know. You weren't clear if you were setting up this way.

I'm afraid I have no experience with the Z15 as I had no need for a 3rd axis (still photography) so went for a much cheaper gimbal.

One thing, stay on 2.1 of the A2 firmware. There are some serious issues with 2.2 including total loss of control with no warning. Many people are reporting it and a few folk who have contacted DJI directly have been told to stay on 2.1 until they sort out the issue with 2.2.
 
Yep, separate receiver (R20008SB). Like I said pan and tilt work fine from channels 1 and 2 but its the aux channels that don't do anything. If I swap channel 1 to control the gimbal mode for example then the assistance software recognises that so it's not a problem with the input on the gimbal's GCU.

Makes me think it's an issue with the channels on the receiver but I've gone through every single menu and can't see anything, plus Googled for hours. The correct switches activate the correct channels in 'Servo' though so I've literally no idea. Aaahh!

Also do you know how to power the Immersion RC? It's got a red 2-pin plug that I've not seen before.
 
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