I finally managed to fly my Arducopter Modified Helicopter. Very pleased with todays test. Only hovering but its a great start. I have been battling severe ocscillations. Its rock sold now. After lots of work and late nights.
So the next step is to get some footage and add it here.
The plan is to finally Mount a gimbal camera and use the gyro cam outputs of the ACM.
Lots of things planned FPV etc....
I know there are a few Heli Guys lurking so thought i'd start a blog feel free to chime in :)
Got to say a big thanks to MartinT of buildyouowndrones, huge help spent many hours talking and working with him.
I wrote a manual with the help of mike, just press here
Managed to isolate the ACM from viabrations using Gyro pads between the ACM poly carb plate and the frame.
It now floats above the frame.
Comments
Try your flybarless setup you might have better luck than i did. The Razor600 is a heavy helicopter. I try to get my servos as level as mechanically, then leave the subtrims level on your TX and use the ACM Heli trim to level the swash plate.
As for the Gyro i use an external one, i plug my Gyro gain channel directly to my receiver and the gyro control goes onto the ACM. You will want to set your yaw P setting at around 0.1 bring the IMAX down to 100.
I use either 5 or 7 for the mode selection from the receiver but it depends on your Radio manufacturer.
Hi ben, i'll take some pics for you tonight, bit late for work so i have to run, as for the manual, i signed out of google to make sure it was public and i can see it. I'l see if i can view it from work.
Hows the build going?
Hi Malcolm, great work! Can you please provide close up pics of the mount and APM? Also, I am having trouble viewing the manual as it seems the actual manual has disappeared from the site??
@ Ponqtorn choose one either channel 5 or 7 goes to APM ch5
Will change the manual to say minimum of 6 channels
@ Randy sorry i forgot to add your name to my blog. Randy is the guy that wrote the code for the traditional heli, So big thanks to him!!
@ Ponqtorn you can fly it on a 6 channel, just use the gyro out on the ACM and set that to whatever gain you want, then use that channel to change the modes. Acro / Rate, stabilise, Loiter etc, if you use a futaba gy gyro then you might have a couple of issues, i haven't tested with other ones.
Very encouraging results for traditional heli people.
May I ask a newbie question about the transmitter? Do we absolutely need at least 7 channels? From your manual V1.06 (09/08/11), the motor is directly controlled by Rx CH3. The Rx CH5 and CH7 go to APM CH5 (MODES).
Just wonder if I can use my DX6i for traditional heli. Any idea of the funcions that will be missing by going from 7 to 6 channels. Thank you.
I always have loved the idea of turning RC helis into drones, but what keeps stopping me is the level of complication in dealing with the servo mixes. The quads always looked easier. Nice job. If i do it eventually follow your path i think i'm going use a skookum 720 as the heart and do most of my other work on the ground.
malcom. congratulations! for a successful stabilized flight using AC2. the traditional heli's are difficult because of lot of mixing in channels. it is a remarkable achievment to get a stabilized flight. i am working on on align 450 CCPM. i have a long way to go. just ordered a new APM2560 board from sparkfun. i did not want to dismantle my APM2.0 which has been finely tuned and is flying very well on skywalker aircraft and has been fitted inside the fuselage.
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