In order to use position hold you must first have a magno.
I would advise FahPah to state this clearly before allowing anyone to continue to the checkout stage as anybody buying one and hoping for position hold (all of us) would obviously be needing to know this fact - instead of running into it later via hours of info surfing and having to shelve the project and wait for the part to arrive from where ever they could lay their hands on it when it could have arrived with the quad in the first place.
I know I know - this isn't the place... blah blah
THIS IS THE PLACE ! This is where we all come together and communicate.
This is not a negative message - it is a positive one. I am not angry but instead want to save others time and money.
One more point I'd like to make is that one big long length of aluminium from front to back would make the quad so much stronger - having all arms meet at the centre means that the quad is only as strong as the centre plates - and they bend like plastic. This means that your 4 props will eventually be pointing at each other instead of pointing at the sky - especially if you place your landing gear under the motors so that your camera has a greater field of view.
Tally-ho, Rich
Replies
I would have appreciated knowing that I needed the mag for gps hold prior to ordering my quad but no big deal. I've been flying for a week or so without it and have one in the mail.
As for the lack of strength of the frame on your quad, Rich, I think that sounds more like something you could fix yourself. You've changed the design by moving the landing gear to under the motors so why not add the aluminum bar yourself? Do you have any pictures of your quad? I'm curious as to how you have the landing gear and dome mounted.
I personally haven not had any issues related to the frame. I actually like how my earlier crashes only resulted in snapped nylon screws. Today was my worst crash though. Prop came off (my own fault for not checking) pretty high up. Broken upper motor mount, prop, upper and lower dome rings and one of the clear screws on the landing gear. No bent arms or any other damage. I'll take that with a smile, albeit a painful one.
-John
I am surprised you find this form of construction weak. Whilst having a single front to back arm as one length it does not solve the problem when you crash on the other arm. I have tried the single plate and arms that are cutaway at the centre so they can overlap, two plate sandwiches and the same crossover arms and separate arms and a two plate sandwich. The latter is easier to make and is very strong but there again I do use steel rather than nylon bolts.
Peter
"having all arms meet at the centre means that the quad is only as strong as the centre plates - and they bend like plastic."
no... :D (just a little physics here)
you have 2 center plates, one on the upper side and one on the lower side
if you try to bend it: you try to pull one plate apart and push the other one
now try to pull appart one of these plates by hand
or try to push them together
you would not ever get them to break like this
Randy, please could you explain me why Magneto is so important for GPS hold?
I am looking and "hacking" a little the code, but when it comes to GPS hold it seems that only roll and pitch are involved.
I believe that Mag can help keeping the heading ad so roll and pitch would be more effective, but it should not be imperative right?
Also can I ask you a few questions regarding yaw programmg in private?
Thanks,
Emile
When instructions to remove the resistor on my 1 week only magnetometer, I had to unsolder the board from the IMU, and I successfully removed the resistor as instructed.
The catch was that the pads on my magnetometer were not longer there and I couldn't resolder the board back on.
So I ordered a new one, but this time rather than soldering it onto the board and cutting up my GPS cable I mounted a I2C board onto the magnetometer and use the standard GPS cable without cutting it and soldering it to the magnetometer. Attached the GPS cable between the I2C port on the IMU and the the new I2C port on my magnetometer.
It isn't a recommended method according to the wiki but it works, and it looks nice and professional. As per the picture.
photo-6.JPG
I guess the painful part is that now you have to wait for the magnetometer to arrive.
I've updated the mag and GPS wiki pages to make this more clear. Hopefully this helps some peopel after you.
GPS wiki page
mag wiki page