HELICAL HELL


Tried APC propellers again. Propeller struck ground but didn't bend. Motor broke off mount & propeller struck ESC, damaging something. ESC started smoking. Fortunately we test fly on the golf course instead of a dry field. It's been a long time of occupied storage, but now it's time to trash the APC's.








Finally got operational with the fulltime orientation hold. Next, the helical antenna finally got its show.

It certainly doesn't get as many satellites as the patch. It hasn't had any sudden glitches yet, either. It has a lot more of a random walk & seems to lag more.








The main difference with fulltime orientation hold is the lower D gains possible. That reduces the amount of oscillating. The human controlled cyclic needed such high D gains it always oscillated. The only option for full cyclic was different gains when in full autopilot.

We're not entirely crazy about fulltime orientation hold any more than basic cyclic. Now there's a very narrow limit to angle of attack because our accelerometer only does right side up. It needs a bit of margin to keep from going over 90' & flipping.




















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Comments

  • Jack, one of the pictures you posted earlier made it appear like you were mounting the helical antenna horizontally. I don't know how you eventually mounted it, but my understanding is that the antenna is optimized to work best vertically. In my project I notice satellites drop off when I roll into even a 20-30 degree bank.
  • I meant 1.4
  • That's cool Jack. I am building a tri-copter as small as I can with arduino boards, imu and stuff. What thrust : weight and max angles do you use? Will 70% be good enough in moderate wind(&30 deg x y ?)? Any help would be used against you in a court of clowns(seriously).
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