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3D RoboticsPermalink Reply by Chris Anderson on April 6, 2010 at 6:50pm

That's about 2x bigger than anything we've flown, but the current code has proven to work pretty much out of the box for everything from a Superstar to a Funjet. I think you'll find that the Telemaster flies fine with the default settings. It's only the really funky airframes that need tweaking.

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ModeratorPermalink Reply by Morli on April 6, 2010 at 11:17pm

Yep , the default settings pretty much work out of box for normal/standard airframes. A little bit of tweaking may be required if you are perfectionist,

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Permalink Reply by Troy Reabe on April 29, 2010 at 10:32am

I don't know about the Sr. Telemaster but when we did testing on our Telemaster we only did a single leg test and it worked well using the file that was made for a .40 size trainer even though we were much bigger.
We were using a Micro Pilot Not anything open source but we are looking at going open source and going to a really big foam plane so that there is less liability if we crash.

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Permalink Reply by Mike Bakula on April 29, 2010 at 10:44am

We've used the Sr. Telemaster, but that was with a Cloudcap Piccolo. It's a really nice platform, and handles similar enough to the EasyStar that the stock gains should work fine. We've loaded them to over 30 lbs (with the optional wing struts, and a bigger engine) and it carries the load with ease.

Plan on picking up some yellow Monokote, because it can be a challenge to get stuff into the fuselage without cutting the film. (I'm assuming you're buying the ARF version.) Protect the tail -- hangar rash can easily damage it. To start with, I'd probably set the ailerons fixed and use rudder and elevator only, then worry about mixing them in.

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Permalink Reply by Curt Olson on April 29, 2010 at 7:28pm

Those 6" inflatable dubros tires make for nice tundra gear ... coolest thing is watching them stretch and flex as they reach for the ground in a cross wind landing.

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ModeratorPermalink Reply by Nathaniel Caner on May 2, 2010 at 11:17am

Curt,

Looking good! I like the tires. What are the brand, and where did you get them? Do they add much weight? Did you fly with AP?

What are you using for a power system? I purchased a Venom 6s1p 5000Mah LIPO, Castle Creations Phoenix ICE 100A ESC (built in 10A BEC), and a Rimfire Outrunner .80 50-55-500kv Motor, and I bought two props both APC E versions 13"x8"E and a 15"x6"E.

Any thoughts and feedback appreciated.

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Permalink Reply by Curt Olson on May 2, 2010 at 12:34pm

These are dubro tires. There is a good chance you would find them in just about any well stocked RC hobby shop. I think we used an AXI 4130/16 motor and Phoenix 80 speed controller. We are flying with 18.5v 8000mah packs from truerc.com ... that gives us about 25-30 minute flights (of course depending on how hard you run the motor.)

I wouldn't call this airplane over powered, but I think the speed controller and motor could handle a higher voltage battery pack, and if we went from 5 to 6 cells we probably could go vertical with the thing.

I've done quite a bit of AP flying with this ... it's my work horse test bed.

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ModeratorPermalink Reply by Nathaniel Caner on May 2, 2010 at 12:47pm

Curt,

Were your PID settings pretty good out of the box? Did you do much tweaking?

I just noticed...no rubberbands! Did you modify the wing for bolt-on attachment?

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Permalink Reply by Curt Olson on May 2, 2010 at 1:01pm

Look Ma, no rubber bands! Yes, we modified the wing attachment to bolt on. I can't stand rubber bands ... thing wing never goes on exactly the same angle two times in a row and you are always fiddling with trim. I also made my own lift struts out of tear drop shaped extruded aluminum tubing. Oh, and I mounted the rudder/elevator servos in the tail rather than run pushrods from the cabin ... this leaves the cabin wide open for gear.

My gains actually did work first time out of the box, but I did a lot of subsequent tweaking to dial them in even better. I did all my initial gain tuning inside FlightGear and then copied over the autopilot xml config file to the UAV (which runs the same autopilot algorithm and uses the same config file format as FlightGear.)

(It uses the ATI autopilot which is currently under development, 15-state kalman filter, gumstix (verdex) ARM9 600mhz main processor, camera stabilization code, loads of fun) :-)

Currently I have all the gear ripped out of the airframe for a complete hardware/software overhaul, but I'm hoping to get everything back together again and up and flying in a couple weeks in order to test a bunch of new hardware and software changes.

Curt.

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Permalink Reply by Curt Olson on May 2, 2010 at 1:14pm

Here is a video of my Senior Telemaster in action. Autonomous flight is really boring if it's done well, so I'm trying to narrate in my best boring voice:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO88h20H-AQ

Here is a movie of another real flight of the same telemaster, however what I've done is collect flight data and then later replay (and visualize) the flight inside FlightGear. This allows me to show some views of the flight that I wouldn't otherwise be able to see. Oh, and I don't have a 3d model of the Sr. Telemaster so I used a Rascal 110 as a stand in for the virtual replay (but the original flight was done with this same telemaster):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTkJYaiVxtA

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ModeratorPermalink Reply by Nathaniel Caner on May 2, 2010 at 5:18pm

Curt,

Those were great! Nice smooth response in auto. Were your PID similar to those in the current "h" file? What version of ardupilot were you using, what hardware?

Sorry for all the questions, you know what they say why reinvent the wheel if someone has already done it. I have an ardupilot board, ublox gps, arduimu, and a v2 shield with airspeed sensor. Currently this is all installed in a Superstar EP, well almost all, I had to send back the shield Jordi's sending me a new one. Anyway the plan was to transfer a tested system from the Superstar to the Sr. Telemaster when finished. Now I;m not sure I might buy a new Ardupilot Mega, and the IMU shiedl if it's out in time. The Sr. Telemaster is out of stock till late May....so maybe. BTW how's the visibility of the all yellow scheme? I see at some point you recovered the fuselage in all red. I'm planning on getting the Red and White version to take advantage of the better visibility of that color scheme.

Thanks again,

If you think of anything else that might be usefull let me know

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Permalink Reply by Curt Olson on May 2, 2010 at 8:12pm

This was not flying with an ardupilot. It's an autopilot I'm developing with a company called ATI (www.atiak.com) for a NOAA ocean debris location project. The telemaster footage was shot flying with a Xbow MNAV sensor head (which is long since been discontinued now.) But the code is in good shape and we are bring things back online with new sensor hardware.

The reason the fuselage is all red is that it was crushed in shipping. I got a replacement (I like Hobby Lobby customer service) but got impatient and just fixed the original. But required a complete recover and the telemaster yellow is hard to match, so I just went with red.

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