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Helix 6 inch takes some beating..
#1
Hi everybody,
I finally got to enjoy some flying today,
unluckily just 2 1/2 packs, since:
1. Both the 4-inch-body/5-inch-arms alien build (finished last night :o) and my Shuriken X1-mod couldn't lift off. They're tasmanian devils, as soon as they lift off a couple of centimeters, they spin wildly. Something with the setup has to be fundamentally wrong, I still have to learn ever so much!
2. While Lady Helix came to my emotional rescue, I thanked her by dropping her twice out of the sky, the second time straight into a muddy pond, *eecchhh... Had to look for it quite a while, since the poor thing couldn't beep anymore. Lucky to have found her at all, honestly.
It seems that I got some spontaneous failsafes, and I'll be investigating possible reasons. I sure got suspicious about my equipment, today! *not good..
Deplorable Runcam 3 didn't really survive her maiden either. Cry Can't be switched off and doesn't accept commands since her stone chasing & subaqueous excursion..
I'm waaayyy too hooked to become entirely reasonable and properly test everything, though. I will probably be trying to "just get the new ones into the air" and dig my way into PID-tuning. Some laborious stuff, I have to say! Once you get over the PID-factors themselves, filter terminology and setup is awaiting you. Seems that I still have to learn a heap of stuff..
However,
I'm everything but proud of it, but then we should all be taking it easy on ourselves in this challenging hobby and motivate each other, no? So consider yourself lucky if you've got a working, trusty quad that you can reliably throw around the air,
I'm still working on it - day and night, daaayy and niiighht..  Rolleyes
Happy flying & aerial love to all,
E

Failsafe I:


Failsafe IISadLooking at it, I have to say that it's very well possible that I just ran down the battery Whistling - unluckily I couldn't check on the remaining voltage since it has been "biologically discharged" in the pond. *ouch!..)


aircraft:
ImpulseRC Helix 6 inch,
T-motors F40 (II, not pro) 2400KV with Dalprop 6045 bi-blades,
Tattu 4s, 1550 mAh Lipo
Runcam 3
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#2
That's really unlucky. Hope you can get something flying tomorrow!
[-] The following 1 user Likes unseen's post:
  • campagnium
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#3
(13-May-2017, 09:45 PM)unseen Wrote: That's really unlucky. Hope you can get something flying tomorrow!

Thank you unseen!
I actually just got the new alien to hover in the living room. It's still terrifying to do that, to be honest Cry
Just didn't want to check PIDs and filter settings out in the field tomorrow (..if it stops to rain, that is).
Helix is not soo bad! Just need a new fairing and I have to take the motors apart to get them properly cleaned from rubble & a joyful combination of silicates & rutile Wink
Thank you for the "motherly" support you're giving to all of us, btw. I sometimes think about the great amount of time you altruistically dedicate to so many, that's impressive! Thumbs Up Thumbs Up Thumbs Up
As you're a electronics-aficionado, maybe you can shortly answer this: Possible that I somehow damaged my Tx-board when soldering on a new coax w. connector for the 5dBi-antenna? I wasn't grounded, and if I remember right, I wasn't wearing a cotton t-shirt. *darn..
Ordered a new board for safety anyway, and this time I'll shave my whole body and cover it with grounding electrodes ROFL ROFL ROFL
Happy flying & Murphy on vacation to you!
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#4
first off, hey Campy, nice to see you back. It's been a few days.

Next... I really love that spot and it looks like you found a much better RF friendly place to be for it... Such a bummer that you're having connectivity problems.

As for covering your whole body with grounding electrodes.... I am suspicious that it may not be the fix... however... I could see someone who is "into" the hobby enough... maybe going for that?  ROFL
carl.vegas
Current Quads: Operational: Diatone GT2 200 In need of repair: Bumble Bee, tehStein,  Slightly modified Vortex 250 
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#5
First: I am very sorry for your very rough day!  Second:  I only "liked" your post for the very nice videos.  You honestly reminded me of "home" (which I haven't really thought about in years) - I thank you for that!!

My birth home was a rural town in West Texas - flat, mostly agricultural - and the countryside hid several of these wonderful "caliche" pits.  I really have no intention of visiting that town or state again, but your videos unexpectedly brought back a very strong "home" feeling.  It was brief, but I realized I hadn't felt that in a long while... Smile

Thanks again for sharing, and Good Luck with repairs!
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#6
(13-May-2017, 10:37 PM)campagnium Wrote: Possible that I somehow damaged my Tx-board when soldering on a new coax w. connector for the 5dBi-antenna? I wasn't grounded, and if I remember right, I wasn't wearing a cotton t-shirt. *darn..
Ordered a new board for safety anyway, and this time I'll shave my whole body and cover it with grounding electrodes ROFL ROFL ROFL
Happy flying & Murphy on vacation to you!

It's possible, but if you really are getting reduced range, the first thing you should be suspecting is the placement of your receiver's antennas. I notice that when you lost your connection, the quad was inverted. Will there still be a line of sight between your transmitter and receiver when the craft is inverted?

Using an antenna with 5db gain on the radio sounds attractive, but it's important to remember that the only way you get increased gain from an antenna is by making the radiation pattern more directional. So, if the receiver antenna is within the part of the pattern that reaches further, you'll have better reception, but the opposite is also true and when the receiver moves outside of the highest gain area, you'll get worse reception.

The quarry that you are flying in is a very challenging environment for microwave signals. There will be lots of reflections from the walls of the quarry and this will make things much harder for the receiver as when a wave has a linear polarisation, reflected signals can combine with the main signal in different ways and will sometimes attenuate the signal if they are 180 degrees out of phase or add to the signal if they are in phase. Either way, because the reflection arrives later than the direct signal, it will distort it and possibly make the signal unrecognisable.

There's no need to shave yourself (and that won't help much if you do), but you should invest in an antistatic mat for your workspace and connect the earthing wire from the pad to a nearby radiator, water pipe or the earth pin on a nearby power outlet. If the soldering iron you are using is not earthed, then you should replace it with one that is. Static electricity is a real problem when the air is very dry, but when it comes to RF stuff, the output and input stages are very sensitive indeed and can be damaged by static charges that you wouldn't notice and that other devices could probably tolerate.

Before you fly any craft, you should perform a range check. This cuts the transmitter power to a tiny amount and you should verify that you get at least 30 metres of range in range check mode. If you do, then it's safe to assume that you will get at least ten times that range at normal power levels.
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#7
[quote pid='22238' dateline='1494750523']

Thanks again for sharing, and Good Luck with repairs!
[/quote]

Oh man,
thank you for sharing your "déjà-vu"! It actually touched and surprised me,
not to speak of the motivation this gives me  Wink I'll be eagerly crashing (not that I try to on purpose, but I have this curiosity-module going haywire each time I'm onto fpv-quads..) and posting the best that I can, promise!
Crashed both my Alien and Obsession-builds today,
and I know why, but that'll be another post. Crashing's not fun, but it has something deeply educational. Never learn as much as when lying flat on your face.. Whistling
Uploading some footage from Cairo, Egypt right now. It's kinda politically delicate, but I am a firm believer in enlightenment and open source, so take a peek if you're interested in illegal footage. Was shot with a Mavic, though, but from great heights ;-)
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#8
crashing is one of the exciting parts of the hobby really... It's part of the cycle... learn enough that you can fly without crashing, then start doing things that are harded to do and start crashing again until you learn them and stop crashing again... then try new things and crash again! If you've got the stomach for prop and possibly component destruction (especially the little things like fpv antenna pieces, camera mounts, receiver antennas, etc) it can be kind of fun... Knowing that no matter what went wrong you can almost certainly repair it is a big help too.
carl.vegas
Current Quads: Operational: Diatone GT2 200 In need of repair: Bumble Bee, tehStein,  Slightly modified Vortex 250 
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#9
Hm, the 1st one looked like you still had control? However on the 2nd one i think i hear the escs reboot... I got suspicious when reading that you're using f40 motors and 6045 props, the current might just have dragged down the battery enough for the electronics to fail (rx and/or fc - probably only the fc). My friend built a 6" with f60 motors which seem to be a good match, i think the f40 are simply too weak for that much of a prop... I tried 5045BN on my f40 once and even that was too much.

But nice hangtime that you had (almost worth the crash lol) and for sure a nice spot to fly in!
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#10
(15-May-2017, 05:29 AM)fftunes Wrote: Hm, the 1st one looked like you still had control? However on the 2nd one i think i hear the escs reboot... I got suspicious when reading that you're using f40 motors and 6045 props, the current might just have dragged down the battery enough for the electronics to fail (rx and/or fc - probably only the fc). My friend built a 6" with f60 motors which seem to be a good match, i think the f40 are simply too weak for that much of a prop... I tried 5045BN on my f40 once and even that was too much.

But nice hangtime that you had (almost worth the crash lol) and for sure a nice spot to fly in!

I truly think you're oh-so-right, fftunes! - did some testing with the batteries, motors & props, and this setup is definitely going berserk on the f40's! Noob-error: At the beginning, I was using the throttle so gingerly that it didn't matter that much, but one quickly gets greedy for thrust! Rolleyes So I guess I was just overdoing it without realising and searching for the error in the completely wrong department. Shame on me, poor Helix! Cry
It wasn't supposed to be a "beat'em up"-quad, but it sure has become one!
I was trying to set up my Obsession running f60's yesterday too (..those motors are FAT..), but the quad sports one of my last cloned fc's, and I was solemnly punished for hoping this one would last. LOS-testing and PID-tuning was sort of fine (jitter..), but the first fpv-run taught me better: It went completely blank and Obsession dropped out of the sky like a brick. So back to the bench this week, ordered some flexible filament for soft-mounts, will be rigging caps for the esc's and first of all install one of my Rotorgeeks-FCs together with an OSD. Didn't know the Redrotor-OSD/PDB was so "antique", so ordered some replacement from a local supplier, didn't want to wait Big Grin
I'll have to rebuild my Helix as soon as I've figured out the fried parts, guess it'll sport the f60's you suggested and I'll be swapping the f40s to the Obsession, if I manage to restitute them.
I'm glad the runcam recorded the "unintentional" hang time, I noticed too that the quad was starting to turn around again b4 the crash.. *damn. Means that I'll have to give it another go! ROFL
I really like the spot, agree! Be my guest anytime if you want to know where it is,
for now I'm checking my setups properly and can't wait to go back there: Without rain, without overproped quads, without schizophrenic fc's.. Tongue
Any suggestions for comfortably measuring Tx output without going broke on equipment? I know that doing it properly requires crazy equipment, so I guess I'll do the "friend waiting with cell phone and I walk away"-thang..
Have fun, happy flying and hasta priesto!
E
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#11
Sadly i don't own a driver license so i mostly depend on my friend taking me with him whenever we go to spots a bit further away... but maybe, in the future... you never know. Smile

Regarding TX output, as unseen suggested there's usually a range test mode which cuts the power (at least my spektrums do have that), but i recently read of another funny test of someone (don't remember who it was), he put the receiver into his microwave, with the "bad" tx he had failsafe behind 2 walls inside the building, with the better tx behind 4 walls. Big Grin (most receivers i know have some sort of LED feedback if they lost connection in between, i.e. spektrum receiver LED will blink if it had loss of connection).
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#12
sick up side down drop there at the end Big Grin shame it was a failsafe!
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