Replies to This Discussion

ModeratorPermalink Reply by Dean Wynton on June 12, 2012 at 9:29pm

Hi Bruce, have a look Here

The reason they are less, is because on my setup they were far too high and caused an opposite effect, i.e loiter did not work, or auto mode. In fact switching to these modes could have resulted in loss of control due to the high P setting oscillations

In the rate settings, perhaps take out the I and D from 0.001 and 0.004 and return them to 0.0?

I will change that now in the place where you downloaded my Params, as those settings may not work for some people?

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Permalink Reply by Bruce Jones on June 12, 2012 at 9:36pm

That link is EXACTLY what I've been looking for - thank you very much.

It's looking like tomorrow will be a good day to fly.  I'll download your latest params, check them out, and load them into my tri and give it a fly. I'm very anxious to get loiter working well.  Then it's off to scripted waypoints.

I did a bit of an experiment tonight with the GPS.I set the APM next to a window and tried to obtain a GPS fix.  As expected, no luck after 15 min or so.  I then took off the delrin cover plate and restarted the APM.  I had a satellite fix in less than 2 minutes.  It kind of looks like that cover might be blocking GPS signals - which I find kind of surprising.  I'll experiment some more when I can get to my flying field, but I'm very hesitant to fly with the APM board out naked and exposed.

Also tonight I'm trying to figure out how to mix switches on my DX7s Tx to use my 3-way and a 2-way together to get 6 settings on channel 5.  I found a couple how-tos on here, but none for the DX7s.  I'm trying to adapt the DX8 instructions.  Mixes give me a headache.

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ModeratorPermalink Reply by Dean Wynton on June 12, 2012 at 9:39pm

Dont worry Bruce, I only have those settings in the 2.6 file, and they seem to be working O.K with that release, I will just add a note on that post to change those parameters if they cause problems?

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ModeratorPermalink Reply by Dean Wynton on June 12, 2012 at 9:41pm

Here Bruce, this will do it for you DX7

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Permalink Reply by Bruce Jones on June 13, 2012 at 2:03am

Unfortunately the DX7 is fairly different from the DX7s.  The DX7s it actually closer to th DX8, one major difference being that my flight mode switch is only a 2-way, not a 3-way.  I'll figure it out.  And I should post the solution after I do.

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Permalink Reply by Bruce Jones on June 13, 2012 at 10:37pm

In case anyone is following this, I just posted screen shots from my DX7s to my blog here on how to get 6 modes out of channel 5 using the Gear and Flap switches.

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Permalink Reply by Bruce Jones on August 8, 2012 at 12:24am

Hey Dean - Have you done any updates lately with the 2.7 or 2.7.1 releases?  I just updated my firmware and am looking at the parameter differences.  There are a lot of them.

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ModeratorPermalink Reply by Dean Wynton on August 8, 2012 at 1:35am

Hi Bruce, I actually haven`t had my APM2 for a while now... I rested it on a carbon plate while running some tests without thinking CARBON IS CONDUCTIVE?? so I managed to fry it :( I sent it back to 3DR for repairs.. That was a month or more ago? still haven`t heard anything? Once I get it back I will continue :)

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Permalink Reply by Bruce Jones on August 8, 2012 at 10:10am

That stinks!

I'm traveling now, but get home next week.  I'd be happy to loan you one until you get a new one.

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Permalink Reply by Bruce Jones on June 19, 2012 at 12:19am

Well the weather continues to be miserable here in the Pacific Northwest.  Every day I'm free it seems to be windy or rainy. If I'm not available to fly, it's sunny and calm.  Hopefully the two will coincide soon.

While I'm waiting I updated to 2.6 and loaded your 2.6d params.  I assume there were no changes after the delta release?

I can't wait to fly this puppy again.

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Permalink Reply by Bruce Jones on June 20, 2012 at 12:23am

I got out tonight and flew 3 batteries.  It felt great to be out doors and not get wet.

These were my first flights with the new 2.6 release and Dean's 2.6 parameter settings.  I'm happy and had a good time (I'm alway happy whenever I don't crash) but it was kind of a mixed bag.  Some thoughts:

* Stable mode just rocks.  It's almost as good as my Naza.  When there's absolutely no wind and everything is trimmed up right, the craft just hovers nice and steadily.  I'm very happy with it.

* Given that I just have an altimeter and no range finder, altitude hold does an amazing job.  There's a wee bit of slow oscillating, but it's minimal.  I wouldn't expect it to be this good.

* Loiter seems to be a bit better.  At least it seems more like a loiter and less like a wander.  When in loiter, I'd say it stayed in a 50m radius.  A bit more than I'd like, but not nearly as bad as in previous releases.

* Simple mode just doesn't seem to work at all.  I couldn't make heads or tails of what it was doing - moving the sticks seemed to produce totally random directions.

* Circle mode should be called semi-circle mode right now.  It looked like it just couldn't bring itself to turn that back boom all the way around the circle and face due west.  It'd usually stall around 200° or so.  Then try again.  After several tries I never saw it make it around 360°.  I never saw it face west unless it started in that direction.  Could this be a compass issue?

* I couldn't get RTL to auto land.  It would head back near the launch area and loiter, but never land.  One time I let it loiter 3 minutes and it still didn't land drop altitude at all.

* I didn't properly test auto mode.  At the first waypoint it started going up and up and up and I turned it off before I lost sight of the craft.  After I got back down I found that somehow I'd entered 100m for the altitude instead of 10m.  My typo.  Or maybe I forgot to change the defaults.  I'll try it again the next time I fly.

* Yaw is weird.  I had a fairly difficult time getting the craft to yaw properly clockwise.  Counter-clockwise wasn't too bad, but I could watch the tail motor being controlled by the servo and whenever I was yawing clockwise and stopped by returning the stick to center, the motor would over-compensate when returning to center and turn maybe 20° to the right.  I'd really love to stop that action.  I'll video this the next time I fly.

* Finally, when I look at my log files, there are some really strange points in space.  I'm not exactly sure what to make of them.

I had fun tonight, I can't wait to play with it some more.  I've got to learn how to tune some of these things like circle mode.

Attachments:

• 2012-06-19 19-49-30.tlog, 1.8 MB
• 2012-06-19 20-18-50.tlog, 2 MB
• 2012-06-19 20-45-24.tlog, 2.1 MB

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Permalink Reply by Bruce Jones on June 20, 2012 at 1:21am

One more question - I'd like to watch in real time what the FC thinks it's doing with the Yaw mechanism.  Since the servo is controlled by channel 7, I just be able to go to the Flight Data window, turn on the Tuning check-box and make sure that ch7out is being watched.  I did that, but there doesn't seem to be any output on ch7out.  I can't correlate the yaw control to any of the out channels.

Any ideas how I can see what the FC is doing?

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