dRonin - No longer just for the brave
- Thread starter jhitesma
- Start date
Started from scratch with the latest dRonin release on the Owl with the RE1. Think I may have figured out the Glipping (glitching and dipping) as a gyro/accell 6 point calibration issue. Ran Autotune last night and just need to get it out to the field for the FPV test. Very optimistic that this will go good.
Cheers!
LitterBug
Cheers!
LitterBug
Unfortunately, I have no happy dRonin videos. Given it my best, with two different builds, and for me, it has been unflyable. :black_eyed: With the Owl, I had no choice because there was no other option for the BrainFPV RE1 controller. With the Hellbender and the DTFc controller, It was running great on BetaFlight, switched over to dRonin, and it became unflyable. I've tried working with the folks on the dRonin forums for over a month on the owl. When BetaFlight is released for the RE1 in a week or so, I'll throw it on what's left of the owl after cracking the frame doing LOS testing in the back yard. If it flys OK on BF, I'm done.
LitterBug
LitterBug
PsyBorg
Wake up! Time to fly!
That is the tough part for using community based Beta testing. Not every piece of gear or every persons skill sets can be addressed. At least you will soon have the option to change over to something you know, and know works for what you need it to do. At least you have two craft in the air and behaving reasonably well. Keep chugging away you will figure it out I am sure.
Kinda sucks about the frame damage. The positive is Duct tape fixes every thing!!! splint the piece and give it a wrap
Kinda sucks about the frame damage. The positive is Duct tape fixes every thing!!! splint the piece and give it a wrap
Have been running dRonin for several months now with great results. Have it on a BrainFPV RE1 on my AWK210, on my RCExplorer F3FC Racing running a TriFlight variant, and now this:
Been quietly working on some other dRonin beta testing lately and can finally let the cat out of the bag. There's a new F4 FC with built in OSD, compass, and baro called Seppuku about to be released, and here's a brief sample from tonight done with the prototype board I've been playing with.
Didn't take any spares to the field. Really only had time to fly one or two packs. More to come!
Cheers!
LitterBug
Been quietly working on some other dRonin beta testing lately and can finally let the cat out of the bag. There's a new F4 FC with built in OSD, compass, and baro called Seppuku about to be released, and here's a brief sample from tonight done with the prototype board I've been playing with.
Didn't take any spares to the field. Really only had time to fly one or two packs. More to come!
Cheers!
LitterBug
Last edited:
Oh man, you beat me to it
Was just getting ready to update my hex build thread with details about the seppuku since I've been testing it in there
I don't have any video to share though Took it out two weekends ago for some desert fun and burned a few packs around our camp...but somehow managed to dumb thumb the mobuis buttons and didn't get any video.
It's been killing me not to be able to talk about Seppuku as I'm totally in love with this board. Cleaned up the wiring over my original Brain and flies great! F4, full sensors, tons of serial, CAN bus, WS2811 LED's (including one built in for status), buzzer support, graphical OSD, 1st tier dRonin support (with BetaFlight support coming for those who are scared of new things) all crammed into 36mmx36mm with no funky connectors - designed and boards made in the US with final assembly in Canada...all for $60. Oh, and I'm pretty sure I'm still forgetting something else.
The latest dRonin release "artifice" is behind schedule Which is in large part because of the time that's gone into designing and testing this board...but also because of more new features coming. Dshot support is coming (and looks like it may even work on CC3D at some speeds which would make dRonin the only F1 firmware that can run dshot) there's the new acrodyne flight mode that I absolutely love, light telemetry improvements (which can even be sent down as audio over your FPV link), USB fixes in GCS which should help solve a lot of crashes, and some more stuff I probably can't remember right now.
Oh and triFlight support is still in the works and looking better - but isn't scheduled until the next release after this one.
Was just getting ready to update my hex build thread with details about the seppuku since I've been testing it in there
I don't have any video to share though
Took it out two weekends ago for some desert fun and burned a few packs around our camp...but somehow managed to dumb thumb the mobuis buttons and didn't get any video. It's been killing me not to be able to talk about Seppuku as I'm totally in love with this board. Cleaned up the wiring over my original Brain and flies great! F4, full sensors, tons of serial, CAN bus, WS2811 LED's (including one built in for status), buzzer support, graphical OSD, 1st tier dRonin support (with BetaFlight support coming for those who are scared of new things) all crammed into 36mmx36mm with no funky connectors - designed and boards made in the US with final assembly in Canada...all for $60. Oh, and I'm pretty sure I'm still forgetting something else.
The latest dRonin release "artifice" is behind schedule
Which is in large part because of the time that's gone into designing and testing this board...but also because of more new features coming. Dshot support is coming (and looks like it may even work on CC3D at some speeds which would make dRonin the only F1 firmware that can run dshot) there's the new acrodyne flight mode that I absolutely love, light telemetry improvements (which can even be sent down as audio over your FPV link), USB fixes in GCS which should help solve a lot of crashes, and some more stuff I probably can't remember right now.Oh and triFlight support is still in the works and looking better - but isn't scheduled until the next release after this one.
PsyBorg
Wake up! Time to fly!
That looks pretty locked in LB. A lot more smooth then the past flights you have presented. I am even impressed with the artificial horizon not being 3 to 5 seconds behind on fast maneuvers. Seems like you and Jhitesma have been holdin out on us hehe.
I will say thank you to you guys for the effort to help out with this project as I am sure a lot of people will benefit. Good job Gents!!! :applause::applause::applause:
I will say thank you to you guys for the effort to help out with this project as I am sure a lot of people will benefit. Good job Gents!!! :applause::applause::applause:
I was wondering where dRonin and the Brain boards were going. I missed this thread.
@jhitesma,
Yeah I thought with all the bad stuff that happened previously with my first board that had a bad gyro, I needed to post up some of the awesomeness that is going on now. I saw the post that it was "official" on the dRonin board https://forum.dronin.org/forum/d/276-new-dronin-flight-controller-seppuku, and had to spread the word ASAP.
PB,
This build is literally just a bunch of used scrap ESCs and cheap $5 motors thrown together on my used cracked Hellbender V1 frame to have something to test with. I was just bangin sticks feeling it out on my warmup pack in that video which is only the 2nd FPV flight made with it. I wanted to get some footage to post the capabilities of this board. Unfortunately smacked the ground with no spares before I could get a good flight in. Going to have to pre-heat and insulate some batteries now that the temp has dropped again. I've pre-ordered a final release board and have a 6" Shen Drones Krieger waiting for it. Should be good to go super crazy fast when spring gets here.
Pre-release board
Cheers!
LitterBug
Yeah I thought with all the bad stuff that happened previously with my first board that had a bad gyro, I needed to post up some of the awesomeness that is going on now. I saw the post that it was "official" on the dRonin board https://forum.dronin.org/forum/d/276-new-dronin-flight-controller-seppuku, and had to spread the word ASAP.
PB,
This build is literally just a bunch of used scrap ESCs and cheap $5 motors thrown together on my used cracked Hellbender V1 frame to have something to test with. I was just bangin sticks feeling it out on my warmup pack in that video which is only the 2nd FPV flight made with it. I wanted to get some footage to post the capabilities of this board. Unfortunately smacked the ground with no spares before I could get a good flight in. Going to have to pre-heat and insulate some batteries now that the temp has dropped again. I've pre-ordered a final release board and have a 6" Shen Drones Krieger waiting for it. Should be good to go super crazy fast when spring gets here.
Pre-release board
Cheers!
LitterBug
It's been killing me not being able to talk about this
Can't wait to get my hands on a production board, the quality should be even better on them (These prototypes were mostly hand assembled, mine had a minor issue with one of the resistor arrays that I had to reflow) and the silk screen on the final boards should be greatly improved (the dRonin logo should look like the logo and not a misshapen blob.) The packaging for them is also looking pretty cool but that's still pretty hush hush
I was in a rush to get this in my hex to test fly - I was out of town when the boards shipped out to testers so I was running behind everyone else. But I still took a few minutes to take advantage of the through hole design to cleanup the wiring - with the PDB on the hex it was easy to attach everything from underneeth making for a super clean install:
That's fully wired for OSD with voltage and current sensing driving 6 motors on my hex. I'm running mine soft mounted mostly because the O-rings were already there on this frame. I still need to dig out one of my GPS's and a bluetooth module and take advantage of all those serial ports
There is passion behind this board. Icee designed it because of his frustration with the lack of fully sensored F4 boards at a reasonable price. Thankfully for me he has the time and knowledge to make this happen and his idea of what a FC should be matches up to mine pretty damn closely DTF likes hardware that doesn't suck and has been working to improve his production abilities to help make better RC electronics a reality. I love his DTFc board for small racing quads...but it's not a great option if you're looking to run more motors and/or hook up a bunch of peripherals for more advanced autonomous flight.
I also still love my original Brain and plan to move it into something else...just debating what I like the new RE1 Brain, but can't really justify the price on it and don't much care for the external extra cost baro and don't need the racing transponder. But can understand the decision to go that way since racing sells right now. I'd still like to see Brain really take advantage of that FPGA on there and do more cool stuff - though I'm not creative enough to imagine just what that cool stuff could be. I just know that's some nice hardware that's got a lot of untapped potential.
I'm also excited that with this board almost done software progress has picked up again This next release has me really excited and the stuff on deck for the next one is starting to look potentially more exciting still!
Can't wait to get my hands on a production board, the quality should be even better on them (These prototypes were mostly hand assembled, mine had a minor issue with one of the resistor arrays that I had to reflow) and the silk screen on the final boards should be greatly improved (the dRonin logo should look like the logo and not a misshapen blob.) The packaging for them is also looking pretty cool but that's still pretty hush hush
I was in a rush to get this in my hex to test fly - I was out of town when the boards shipped out to testers so I was running behind everyone else. But I still took a few minutes to take advantage of the through hole design to cleanup the wiring - with the PDB on the hex it was easy to attach everything from underneeth making for a super clean install:
That's fully wired for OSD with voltage and current sensing driving 6 motors on my hex. I'm running mine soft mounted mostly because the O-rings were already there on this frame. I still need to dig out one of my GPS's and a bluetooth module and take advantage of all those serial ports
There is passion behind this board. Icee designed it because of his frustration with the lack of fully sensored F4 boards at a reasonable price. Thankfully for me he has the time and knowledge to make this happen and his idea of what a FC should be matches up to mine pretty damn closely
DTF likes hardware that doesn't suck and has been working to improve his production abilities to help make better RC electronics a reality. I love his DTFc board for small racing quads...but it's not a great option if you're looking to run more motors and/or hook up a bunch of peripherals for more advanced autonomous flight. I also still love my original Brain and plan to move it into something else...just debating what
I like the new RE1 Brain, but can't really justify the price on it and don't much care for the external extra cost baro and don't need the racing transponder. But can understand the decision to go that way since racing sells right now. I'd still like to see Brain really take advantage of that FPGA on there and do more cool stuff - though I'm not creative enough to imagine just what that cool stuff could be. I just know that's some nice hardware that's got a lot of untapped potential.I'm also excited that with this board almost done software progress has picked up again
This next release has me really excited and the stuff on deck for the next one is starting to look potentially more exciting still!
Have you autotuned your hex on dRonin yet?
I love that purple PDB. Are you running 3S or 4S on your hex?
I love that purple PDB. Are you running 3S or 4S on your hex?
Have you autotuned your hex on dRonin yet?
I love that purple PDB. Are you running 3S or 4S on your hex?
Many times
Remember I've been running Tau or dRonin on it since I put the Brain on almost 2 years ago! Haven't manually tuned it since. It's still on 3S - though at least one local friend was convinced it was running 4s when he saw video from it
With acrodyne and autotune I just love the way it flies now. I have nice smooth gentle control mid-stick, and crazy over the top flips and rolls when I want to push things. I had my max rates setup at 600deg/s but with acrodyne that allows it to achieve up to 900deg/s. People were amazed by it when the saw me flying it at our big campout two weeks ago.
I wasn't going to share it because it's not great video - onboard LOS seldom is. But here's one of my shakedown LOS flights at the camp:
That's on cheap a Turnigy 3s 2200 40c pack I bought for FF2015 and haven't cared for very well. I also had my rates turned down to around 500deg/sec on that test since I had been flying FPV before it (but the video didn't record) and 600 and acrodyne was just a bit too touch for my tastes FPV.
What I didn't realize while I was flying was that most of the flight I was right over our big campfire. From where I was sitting it looked like a bush due to some unburned branches blocking my view! I almost landed in the fire several times since I thought I was just playing around a shrub
I'm really thinking about making a new top plate for the hex that will allow more camera tilt...with the power this thing has FPV just doesn't feel right with the limited tilt it can achieve.
This is well along in testing with the RCExplorer F3FC Racing FC. Best my Tricopter has ever flown.
Same maiden FPV video from my RCExplorer Baby Tricopter build thread:
Cheers!
LitterBug
Thanks for the info jhitesma & LitterBug.
Over at:
Seppuku flight controller
https://www.airdtf.com/shop/seppuku
...it says:
You guys know when-ish?
pre-ordered and curious...
Over at:
Seppuku flight controller
https://www.airdtf.com/shop/seppuku
...it says:
You guys know when-ish?
pre-ordered and curious...
Can not wait... seriously thinking about ordering a second one too.
I saw on your Seppuku FC Testing video that you posted that you used a BrainFPV PDB right?... Wanting to get my ducks in a row before this board arrives so would you recommend that PDB or other for a Seppuku build? Even something like:
Crazepony Matek Mini PDB Power Distribution Board with 5V 12V BEC
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01E5AXGV0
...be ok? I have a couple on hand.
How did you wire telemetry? You can use mah & current right...
Seppuku should be shipping before the end of the month. The latest firmware release with support for it is in final testing now and production boards are coming out of fab and being tested.
I'm using a cheap RCTimer power sensor since the power board on my hex doesn't have power monitoring: http://rctimer.com/product-1096.html
Any current/voltage sensor that is scaled to 3.3v output should work.
I don't have telemetry on my radio so hopefully Litterbug can chime in with more details on how to set that up. But basically you wire it the same and just have to wire telemetry out from the FC to the RX.
The new release also support audio telemetry - but there aren't any ground tools for working with it yet.
I tested it yesterday, again wasn't going to share this yet but not sure when I'll have time to edit it with the gopro footage and the LOS footage I shot of it...but you can hear the FSK telemetry in the audio (may want to turn the sound down.) Unfortunately this example was not recoverable because I only wired one channel of audio and my VTX is stereo. I left the other channel unconnected but should of grounded it. Since it was just hanging it created a lot of noise and the DVR in my friends goggles only recorded mono so the telemetry got mixed in with noise
I also didn't have the camera angle settings setup right yet on that flight. So the artificial horizon is pretty far off as I finally gave the camera more tilt. My friend is starting to get used to flying the hex too - I love seeing it fly when someone better than me is piloting it
I'm using a cheap RCTimer power sensor since the power board on my hex doesn't have power monitoring: http://rctimer.com/product-1096.html
Any current/voltage sensor that is scaled to 3.3v output should work.
I don't have telemetry on my radio so hopefully Litterbug can chime in with more details on how to set that up. But basically you wire it the same and just have to wire telemetry out from the FC to the RX.
The new release also support audio telemetry - but there aren't any ground tools for working with it yet.
I tested it yesterday, again wasn't going to share this yet but not sure when I'll have time to edit it with the gopro footage and the LOS footage I shot of it...but you can hear the FSK telemetry in the audio (may want to turn the sound down.) Unfortunately this example was not recoverable because I only wired one channel of audio and my VTX is stereo. I left the other channel unconnected but should of grounded it. Since it was just hanging it created a lot of noise and the DVR in my friends goggles only recorded mono so the telemetry got mixed in with noise
I also didn't have the camera angle settings setup right yet on that flight. So the artificial horizon is pretty far off as I finally gave the camera more tilt. My friend is starting to get used to flying the hex too - I love seeing it fly when someone better than me is piloting it
Nice, thanks for the vid jhitesma. Uhm, just how big is that battery? Vid said: Consumed energy: 3316 mAh
Gotta say, even with that video you can see that you handle it very smoothly. Looks very smooth...
I saw Voltage, Current, & RSSI pads on the pic of the board, just not sure how to setup telemetry for low battery warning to be displayed on OSD. I'm sure it'll be pretty straight forward very soon.
Thanks again for the info & vid!
Gotta say, even with that video you can see that you handle it very smoothly. Looks very smooth...
I saw Voltage, Current, & RSSI pads on the pic of the board, just not sure how to setup telemetry for low battery warning to be displayed on OSD. I'm sure it'll be pretty straight forward very soon.
Thanks again for the info & vid!
Similar threads
