Multirotor, multicopter and quadcopter discussion - The Drone thread

I have had a great day, took the quad out this morning after spending an absoloute age tuning pids and setting rates to bury it in to the deck, my extended top plate was too thick for the bolts which couldn't get a tight enough grip and the whole quad exploded. Contents all over the floor, upright posts bent.... not a good start.

Took it all home and bent the uprights back in to place, fitted the old top deck and fastened everything down to realize my board camera wasn't there! So i watched all the footage back and went to the location.... found it! great news. So i take it all back home and fit it and low and behold it doesn't work :(

Ok i think, shake it off and don't worry, i can pick up a super had for £25. It isn't ideal but what are you going to do. I set up the quad with no fpv gear and take it for a flight. Holy cow it is a beast, the 5040's and the 4s mean it just glides with so much punch the field starts to feel small. I pull some great maneuvers, double barrel rolls, double flips, fast flips 4 feet from the ground as it has so much power it barely moves in height for the acro maneuvers and pulling them off at fast flight is a dream. If i do say so my self i had some amazing flying for me.

I get home and go to load the video from the mobious. But wait, what do i find...... black screen with audio! I had left the lens cap on :(

DJ take your bad luck back, i don't want it any where near me!

Did you go back to your old PID controller or stick with one of the new ones? Sorry to hear about your crash :(

Sorry about that :(

Hope you get it all sorted and flying soon.


I just got mine in the air, feisty little buggers aint they, slowely getting hang of correction on stick movements, its very easy for a bit of wind to pick up and off it goes though. Although I would say it held up pretty well as higher up it is a tad windy today. Lost orientation a couple of times

Im guessing out of the box and on stock settings it acts like this though, and you need to tune it down to become more controllable and less sensitive?


But had around 4 minutes of actual fly time, didnt use the battery completely, had two crashes, one in to some tree's after i misjudged the direction it was going in to a next field, so I cut the throttle slightly, then cut it full, but before I did that I managed to flip the thing before it went in to the tree :p then second time was from around 20feet up, had to cut the throttle again, came down and broke a prop.

Im going to have to get used to not having GPS lock, I can fly in atti mode in normal cases fine, im good wth my DJI. But this is a little harder to control obviously.

I must say they are quite fun to fly though and the frame seemed to withstand some knocks ok.

Will have a look at that in a sec flukester

Yeah, tis a bit trickier without the crutch of gps. Are you flying in acro mode or one of the self level ones?

hmm - yes just found that 2 hours discharge and it's only down to around 3.95 a cell. (15.7 on 4s)

That will do for now anyway - likely to be out and about this week probably with it all.

Yeah, the B6 isn't great with high capacity batteries. I'm already starting to look at more powerful chargers.
 
Did you go back to your old PID controller or stick with one of the new ones? Sorry to hear about your crash :(



Yeah, tis a bit trickier without the crutch of gps. Are you flying in acro mode or one of the self level ones?



Yeah, the B6 isn't great with high capacity batteries. I'm already starting to look at more powerful chargers.


Self levelling one I can't remember what its called, it levelled OK, but had to keep correcting it slightly as the wind takes it
Edit: angle mode, and I have horizon mode on the same switch

Generally what I do is learn to keep a level hover, then get used to circle figures, then built it up with some faster flying and turns
 
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Self level will keep it level. That's not the same as keeping it static like GPS mode does.

A quad can move about a lot (wind), drift (gyros leveled on an uneven surface) or travel at quite a pace (momentum) while remaining perfectly level.
 
Self level will keep it level. That's not the same as keeping it static like GPS mode does.

A quad can move about a lot (wind), drift (gyros leveled on an uneven surface) or travel at quite a pace (momentum) while remaining perfectly level.

Yep I know hence why I am aiming to get used to how much correction in various conditions, today kind of dropped me in a bit deeper as it was quite windy, but manageable. Do need to get front and rear LEDs done properly so its easier to orientate better :p

I need to sort out some legs too.

I don't use GPS that often only when doing some further out flying, or high altitude flying, generally stick with atti on my dji
 
Have had a blast flying about this weekend - not sure it'll end up online though but we'll see :)

Certainly got the estate owner interested! He's putting together a photo book about the place and said he might use the odd still from one of my flights seeing as I've recorded them all in 4k.
 
Sorry about that :(

Hope you get it all sorted and flying soon.


I just got mine in the air, feisty little buggers aint they, slowely getting hang of correction on stick movements, its very easy for a bit of wind to pick up and off it goes though. Although I would say it held up pretty well as higher up it is a tad windy today. Lost orientation a couple of times

Im guessing out of the box and on stock settings it acts like this though, and you need to tune it down to become more controllable and less sensitive?


But had around 4 minutes of actual fly time, didnt use the battery completely, had two crashes, one in to some tree's after i misjudged the direction it was going in to a next field, so I cut the throttle slightly, then cut it full, but before I did that I managed to flip the thing before it went in to the tree :p then second time was from around 20feet up, had to cut the throttle again, came down and broke a prop.

Im going to have to get used to not having GPS lock, I can fly in atti mode in normal cases fine, im good wth my DJI. But this is a little harder to control obviously.

I must say they are quite fun to fly though and the frame seemed to withstand some knocks ok.

Will have a look at that in a sec flukester

I take it you are flying LOS? If so these things are so small that they really benefit from LEDs on the arms, makes things much easier. You seen the flitetest 'how to fly' video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6btEFJJD4_o
 
lOS yeh, there is led strips soldered on, the board I have have front led strip power pads and rear, but I think it's a dodgy connection as there not working,.going to resolder them

Already know how to fly multirotor I have a dji f450 :) although iv not don't acro flying, loops etc so will learn how to do that

It was more just getting used to the way this handles, bit like driving a new car I guess :p, edge yourself in gently before you start drifting it around corners :p
 
Out again just now, getting some more experience with these creatures

Still slightly blowy but just about managble. Using the rudder stick mixed with ail and doing circles around myself. Can maintain hover ok.

Got some attention from an retired lady wanting to take it up

"is that a quadcopter" started asking loads of questions lol.

Had one throttle cut but looks like when it landed it took off the battery balance charge 4 pin plug, going to be careful and try and get this connected again

All in all fun flying :)
 
In true DJ style I borked up the 4 pin connector for my battery balance wires

new one on order :D

and a small LOS video that I took, very short coming soon


For some reason its duplicated my video, so its double the length, apologies


Again poor quality video,
 
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Getting there DJ.

Took mine out today and put 4 full battery's through her. Really starting to click with the acro flying, bit gutted about my camera as I was looking foreword to getting in some fpv practice this weekend but hey ho plenty of time yet. Video is on its way, laptop taes an age to render the thing.

I got my pids quite close today, I ended up reverting back to baseflight in the end and it has proven much easier to tune. I am still getting some oscillation on high throttle but it is starting to feel much more locked in now. I do have some vertical play on 3 motors though so that will have to be sorted before I can make any real progress with the fine tuning but I have found a shop that sells spare bearings for the emax motors so going to order some more and a few spares too.

2 hours 20 minutes to render a 6 minute video :(

Oh and charpu is a legend with these things, so much skill!
 
Getting there DJ.

Took mine out today and put 4 full battery's through her. Really starting to click with the acro flying, bit gutted about my camera as I was looking foreword to getting in some fpv practice this weekend but hey ho plenty of time yet. Video is on its way, laptop taes an age to render the thing.

I got my pids quite close today, I ended up reverting back to baseflight in the end and it has proven much easier to tune. I am still getting some oscillation on high throttle but it is starting to feel much more locked in now. I do have some vertical play on 3 motors though so that will have to be sorted before I can make any real progress with the fine tuning but I have found a shop that sells spare bearings for the emax motors so going to order some more and a few spares too.

2 hours 20 minutes to render a 6 minute video :(

Oh and charpu is a legend with these things, so much skill!

Yeh pleased with the progress, the circle about 30 yards radius of me I was impressed with, was keeping it quite smooth

When will your camera be sorted?

Not used cleanflight I am just using base flight.
 
Should get it ordered tommorow, hopefully be flying fpv at the weekend.

Feeling very comfortable with what the quad can do and really the only limiting factor now is my terrible eye sight meaning I can't fly any real distance away.

Also want to find some nice locations to fly in soon. A field is nice but is limited with your options.
 
Tonights purchase for the F550. Flytrex Core 2 DJI NAZA, FrSky FLVSS Smart Port LiPo Voltage Sensor and FrSky VariometerHigh Precision. Now the waiting

Also flew today after setting the Taranis to self centre on the throttle. I now get the perfect hover. I also then flew to 160m or 525ft today, the highest I've gone yet.

My friend has gone to China with work and keeps sending me pics of all the drone shops in China. He's found one selling the T960 frame official item and store for £150. Am tempted to go for it.

Have tonight bought a Sony Nex 7 boxed as new with 2 lens for £100 of Facebook. So the T960 is making more sense
 
Here is my video from yesterday, the Gemfan 5040's feel so much more robust and rugged and with 4 cell have a wicked turn of pace. Still a bit of tuning to do on the pids but they are getting close.


PIds

...........p......I...........d
roll-----2.4--0.025----32
pitch---2.4--0.029----33
yaw----5.9--0.020----11
roll&pitch rate 0.35
yaw rate 0.45
TPA 0.56
 
I did some good FPV flying yesterday, with a pretty good B/P ratio for the day (battery to props broken). 6 batteries/flights and 2 broken props. Had my small SJ4000 camera on the ground taking some flyby footage.

This was my first FPV with Cleanflight, BLHeli firmware and oneshot + Harakiri PID controller. Everything felt dialled but I'm getting a bit of oscilation at high speed. My PIDs might be a bit high, but it was also very windy yesterday. The SunnySky's performed really well, pretty nippy and very smooth. Got a few 4s batteries on order :)

One things I am having trouble with is rolling it. Can't seem to do it at all, not sure if it's my lack of ability/technique or whether it's the settings (I'll post them later).
 
Here is my video from yesterday, the Gemfan 5040's feel so much more robust and rugged and with 4 cell have a wicked turn of pace. Still a bit of tuning to do on the pids but they are getting close.

PIds

...........p......I...........d
roll-----2.4--0.025----32
pitch---2.4--0.029----33
yaw----5.9--0.020----11
roll&pitch rate 0.35
yaw rate 0.45
TPA 0.56


Cool video :)
 
Going to order some spare props today if I can find them cheap in stock in the UK

Gemfan 5030 Multirotor Propellers CW CCW

if not will see if I can find some other decent ones
 
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EBay. I paid £19 for something like 36 props. Just cost me 40ish for 76 5040's, should last a week.

Put in a order for a cased super had 700tvl camera.went for a cased one this time as it is smaller and comes with a mount stand to make it easier to tilt.
 
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