Hello everyone. I could really use some advice and suggestions on doing some fine tuning on an 2.5 apm.
Here is what I am running.
1000 KV, and 30amp ESC (Mystery). 2200 Mha s3 with a APM 2.5, external compass and GPS, with Radio Telemetry. 2.5Ghz Video transmitter with Cyclops OSD. I am flying on flysky 6ch controller and the aircraft flies like a dream. I do think I will have to add a much more dense foam square over the barometer because it drifts alot.
The TX power kill causes the craft to come home, and I do have switch A set up for alt hold and stabilize. I have recently set switch D to loiter, and thats working well but I have to admit it makes me nervous when I take my hands off the controls. I have tested the radio cutoff and have had the craft land right in my hand, but something I noticed was when I would catch it, as it was lading it self, the props power would cut off just as it reached my hand. I didnt think much of this until today when I was doing a test of the loiter switch, and I cut power to the TX, and it fell like a stone. Granted it was about 5 ft off the ground only and somewhat near the launch location, so I am chalking this up as a (All conditions just right for a rough landing.) but the cutoff before it actually touches the ground is still concerning me.
When it fell it snapped the right arm near the motor, so back to the Lab it went. After a arm replacement, I took the craft back down to the same location but this time with laptop in hand. I wanted to do a calibration of compass, acc, and radio at the location. Everything went well for the calibration but while I was getting set up and programmed, I gathered a bit of a crowd of people so when I at last got it in the air to test things, I was to concerned about the people under the flightpath to really test TX power cut / RTL. I hope to have some good weather tomorrow to do some flying and testing without a crowd of people asking me questions as I try to fly. But I digress.
What I did notice when flying is that at times it was way to slow to respond then all of a sudden it would kick in, and be overly responsive. I am thinking it may be down to the curves i have in place. I am thinking that calibration process on the radio is best done with curves set at default, then after everything is configured, then set the curves?
When I did my first setup and calabration I also loaded apm 2.5 v3.01 from Peter King's setup guide instructional videos and google code share that can be found here and his video here. (If you are out there, Thanks for that Peter)
So now down to what I am looking for I suppose.
1) The alt height dropping like a stone early before touching the ground issue. Anyone else have this problem? Or notice what is really going on?
2) You can see the protection cover that sits over the radio control RX and the flight controller. It is set up for good airflow, but, inside is a small piece of foam that sits over the barometer. How thick/thin should it be, and what problems do you foresee may happen or be happening with the slow drift up and down, and side to side.
3) Channel curves set at default during calibrate, then set curves after, or?
4) And I forgot to mention this one in the post but,, (Easy mode and super easy mode) Check both for learning to fly or? And how to get used to the switching up of directions. Messes me up every time. Can someone link a good video or explain how to get my head around this feature?
5) Just a thanks to everyone out here that helps new fly bugs out. Cheers.
Here is a couple of photos of what I have thus far. She weighs in at 1.7 pounds.
Replies
That's a great-looking quad you've built!
By curves, do you mean in your transmitter? In general, with APM, you want to send it a linear throttle.
You can use some exponential on your pitch/roll/yaw to soften up the controls around neutral. Don't use to much to start. I normally use 34% but that may not mean the same thing on whatever type of TX you use.
It's not recommended to turn off your TX while in flight, even to test failsafe. Do that on the ground with the props off.
Watch Randy's excellent Arducopter 3.0 pre-flight and maiden flight videos and do everything in them.
Your machine will fly best with minimal air and no light getting to the APM/Barometer. You want a setup which allows very minor pressure changes to get in but doesn't get any airflow from the props or movement. A sealed box with a couple of small holes on the bottom works great. Alternatively, the foam on the barometer helps damp things out. I'm worried that your cabin structure with all of those holes may cause false altitude changes when your copter is in motion.
I've never used simple or super-simple mode. I personally think it's better to learn to fly without them so I can't help there.