Time to try a tri

[jhitesma]

Well, awhile back nilsen sent me a message asking if I may be interested in some motors and ESC's he doesn't need anymore. The price was right so I said "sure, I'll take them off your hands - give me a few weeks so get the funds together." Well, he was impatient and decided to just go and send them to me anyway with the message "There's a little something extra in there too". Last time he sent me some goodies the extra was some chocolate my family enjoyed very much...but still being summer here in the desert I crossed my fingers that wasn't what he sent this time! (Heck, last time my mom sent us Easter chocolate in March it arrived as a molten blob...and that was only from CA and packed with dry ice..before our summer heat hit!)

Thankfully/unfortunately he didn't send chocolate. Opening the box I found a couple packages of HQ props. 11" and 12" HQ props! Sweet! But I don't have anything that uses props that size...I thought these motors were off a 550...what the heck kv are they?! Ohh, that looks like a spare carbon boom in here. Wait...that boom is attached to something, and so are some of these mootors. He sent a freaking DW V3 tricopter I was actually thinking about using the motors to build a tri guess that saves me some effort!

The motors that started all this were indeed in there, but so were 3 more still attached to the tri. The tri looked basically ready to fly:





Wow, very very cool! A bit of testing and I determined it had baseflight on the Naze32, but the tail servo was having some issues. Upon closer inspection the top part of the tilt was cracked:



I took it apart to see about repairing it and the top part of the tilt fell apart. I did repair it - gluing it back together and adding a bit of thin ply for reinforcement. But the splines were stripped It was also the original 3d printed version not even the revised 3d printed version...the new ABS version was <$10 with shipping to the US so I went ahead and ordered one. I also got in touch with Nilsen and confirmed this was the tri from this thread:

http://forum.flitetest.com/showthread.php?14759-Naze32-on-Winderstal-V3-tricopter-setup-help

And while he did get it flying he was never very happy with it. He suspected that the mounting of the Naze was susceptible to too many vibrations and that was causing his issues. It flew well in acro but self leveling modes were horrible.

I made a few change before trying to fly it. I put on the new ABS top piece for the tilt. I rotated the board so it was in it's "native" orientation since I knew some versions of BF/CF had issues on some model types with some rotations (Just wanted to eliminate a possible source of trouble) and I pulled the wiring in and tidied it up just a bit thinking maybe it was flapping around in the breeze and pulling the board around compounding the vibration problems.

He included a bunch of 10" props and since all I have are 2200 3s packs they seemed like a decent choice for the 850kv motors he had on it with that pack. I whipped up one of my homemade flysky RX's, wired it up. And went ahead and flashed David's build of CF 1.9 for tricopters (the standalone version not the version for his integrated board) did the basic firmware setup, confirmed everything looked good...and took it out for a test flight.

Didn't get off the ground. Full throttle it just sat there.

Figured out that I grabbed the battery waiting to go on the charger instead of the one that just came off and gave it another try.

Still can't get off the ground.

It starts to lift. But always the front left motor lifts and I get an instaflip.

Double checked that all the props are on correctly. Double checked that the motors are all connected correctly by powering them up one by one in the configurator. Double checked that the board orientation was right and it responds correctly in the GUI. Everything looks good but I'm getting instaflip.

Powered it up and held it over my head at very low trottle - tilted it around and it feels like the pitch is backwards. But it responds right in the GUI.

I'm at a total loss now. Testing everything individually it all seems to check out fine. But put it all together and try to fly...and it just wants to power up that front left motor. The front left motor also seems a bit rougher than the others. There are 4 more motors in the box so I may give one of them a try on there to see if smoothing it out helps. But something still seems wrong.

If I give it full left aileron and full forward pitch it will almost fly...

It really seems like a board orientation issue...but it responds correctly in the GUI.

I've been fighting with this for over a month now and making no headway.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

[Fyathyrio]

I'd try swapping the front motors to see if the trouble moves or stays on that corner. Then try same with the ESCs...or it could be a bad gyro on the FC...lots of fun. I'm guessing with the care taken to sheath the signal wires that none are pinched, but the sheath could also be hiding damage.

Perhaps flashing the ESCs with BLHeli, or at least connecting to read settings and verifying all are the same? If the motors & ESCs are hard soldered then this may be the easiest to try first using an Arduino Nano and reading via the signal wires.

 

[PHugger]

I had similar issues with DW's standalone firmware for CF.
It was very strange. The 3D model in CF didn't respond correctly.
I eventually flipped the board in CF front to rear 180 degrees and it was fine.
This made no sense as the Naze was right side up and in the correct orientation.
It flew fine until I had the issue with the 5v trace on the Naze frying after a "hard" landing.
I went through a complete setup again as I was trying to diagnose the problem.
For some reason it now was happy with the default orientation and has remained that way since.
VERY STRANGE.........
Make sure the 3D model is responding correctly in CF.



Best regards,
PCH

 

[nilsen]

It's very odd indeed, I was flying it one day and I just couldn't get the tune right and after yet another crash I just packed up and never touched it again until mailing it to you. I really don't know what to say, do you have a spare FC lying around which you could try (tri) ;-)
Sorry, that was very lame.
Those motors aren't ideally spec'd for that tri but they were absolutely fine, even on 4s. I actually wanted to mail you a battery which I bought when I bought the tri but the lady at the post office said, no ways.
Nevertheless, have you tried an older version of CF, 1.8 or something?
Those ESC's cannot be flashed with BLHeli, I have never been able to find which hex would work on them, they are made by "jdrones".

 

[jhitesma]

I do have a few spare FC's...just no Naze's. I do have an afromini I could try...

The motors/ESC's are all soldered and while that's not exactly a deterrent to me...I've been too lazy to do any swapping because of it so far It is one of the things I've considered trying and haven't just yet.

I wasn't sure what firmware might be on the ESC's and had been meaning to ask nilsen so I'm thankfull for the reply above I do have some 18a KISS laying around I could try, and some F20's...but I'm 95% sure it's a FC issue since watching the way the FC reacts in the configurator it seems to be the FC telling that motor to speed up more than the others.

The 3D model does respond correctly - but it acts like the pitch is 180 off. I may try some experiments with the orientation still...just haven't had much time to actually do test flights and config changes lately.

 

[Fyathyrio]

I was checking out DWs page last night, looking for tuning tips for my small tri as he's recently released a smaller one. He has the dump from his settings shown, and one of the FC axis is rotated 180*...perhaps cure as simple as just going into the CF and verifying FC rotation?

 

[Cyberdactyl]

Once you can say the title of the thread 10 times fast without screwing up, you'll find it'll fly.

 

[Spastickitten]

not fair...

 

[jhitesma]

I was checking out DWs page last night, looking for tuning tips for my small tri as he's recently released a smaller one. He has the dump from his settings shown, and one of the FC axis is rotated 180*...perhaps cure as simple as just going into the CF and verifying FC rotation?

That's what it acts like...but the 3D model responds correctly.

Just to be sure I did some more tests this morning and tried swapping some of the FC cals by 180. None of them helped - just made it worse. Inverting all three by 180 was the only way the 3D model still responded correctly...but it still instaflipped on me.

It really feels like the big problem is the tail rotor isn't getting the right signal. When I hold it over my head and give it some stick inputs it responds correctly in all directions. But if I move it around it fights me going left and right like it should, and it fights yaw like it should...but tilting it forward or back it doesn't fit it amplifies. Which really feels like pitch being 180 out. But if I rotate pitch by 180 it just makes everything worse.

Think I may try a stock CF install instead of DW's next to see if I can at least get it to fly. I know the version of CF for the embedded naze has some things flipped 180 because of how he mounts the MPU chip....but I double checked that I'm using the version for the standalone Naze not the integrated version. But I'm wondering if maybe DW posted the wrong version by mistake.

Then again - After getting frustrated with it this morning I took the RX off of it and put it on my Twitchity hex. This is a new DIY flysky RX I made myself and have only used on the tri so far. But the hex was acting up big time today with that RX. So I'm wondering if maybe there's something wrong with the RX - though that doesn't explain why it reacts wrong when just being held with no TX inputs. Still, I'm going to try swapping to a different RX next and see if that helps at all.

I'm really starting to think Naze boards just really don't like me

 

[RCExplorer]

Are you sure you didn't accidentally flash the firmware for the integrated naze32 instead of the standalone version?
Here is the correct link: http://rcexplorer.se/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/RCExplorer-Cleanflight-v1.9.0-STANDALONE-BOARD.zip

 

[jhitesma]

Hey David thanks for stopping in, was going to finally register on your own forums later this week if I didn't make any progress

99% sure I didn't flash the integrated version...filename is RCExplorer-Cleanflight-v1.9.0-STANDALONE-BOARD.zip downloaded on 8/28

But I'll re-download and give it another try just in case because it's really acting like it's the integrated version. That's why I was starting to wonder if maybe the integrated version was accidentally posted as the standalone version...and why I was thinking about trying stock CF just to see if I could make any more progress.

 

[jhitesma]

Just re-downloaded from the link David provided, reconfigured, and....same problems. I did actually get it off the ground a bit this time but it took about 3/4 forward pitch and was barely controllable.

I did a video of the test flight and going through the setup - but it's still uploading and will be for awhile because my internet has been stupid slow this weekend...

<unrelated rant>
I pay for 20mbps down 2mbps up and yesterday I was only getting 5mbps down. Followed the cable companies stock response of "try resetting your modem" and after it rebooted I was only getting 1mbps down. At least I'm still getting my 2mbps up which was why I upgraded to the 20mbps down plan. Before I was on a 10/1 plan that was $10 a month less...but on that plan I regularly saw download speeds of 25-30mbps. Now that I pay more my down hits a brick wall at 20. I used to upload a lot more photos to my photo site (dunephotos.com) but have pretty much stopped taking photos because it's so painful to upload with these pathetic upstream speeds. </unrelated rant>

...ok, got that off my chest

Anyway, video is uploading.

Naze32 is mounted in "stock" position. Arrow pointing forward USB to the back. One thing I noticed this time was my yaw was backwards in the 3D view after reflashing and setting up. You'll see this in the video when it's up. I was able to get things responding correctly by setting yaw roll and pitch all to 180 - but it still doesn't fly right.

FWIW - I haven't even tried horizon or angle modes yet - all acro.

I'm half tempted to get the integrated board and PDB - but I really want to fly it first to see how I like a tri in the air before spending money I really shouldn't spend right now If I do enjoy it I'm sure I'll upgrade to the integrated setup at some point.

Will try to find time to try stock cleanflight later today. If that doesn't work any better I may try and get my afromini working to see if it's the Naze itself having an issue.

 

[jhitesma]

Video of this mornings troubleshooting. Sorry it's a bit long but I wanted to try and cover everything. Was going to fast forward some sections...but I kept talking and editing it down on this ancient computer would have meant not getting the video up until tomorrow:

 

[x0054]

I would be interested to see what happens if you switch to integrated board. I am having a lot of issues with the integrated board, and actually going to try to switch to AfroNAZE right now, just to see if it fixes things, to confirm that the problem is indeed with the vibrations, and not something else on my setup. At this point I am not sure that it's the vibrations, it could be something boneheaded that I did.

 

[Cyberdactyl]

At the 7 minute mark you show the top left motor running, but it's running very noisy. To me it appears that -might- be the issue. It could be running with sporadic control, even though it's spinning up and in the correct direction.

Oh and that's why I have loved the KK2s for field testing and tweaks. All the in-and-out to the PC and outside would have been merely walking to the copter and pushing buttons.

 

[Snarls]

Are you sure that the issue is not from way off PIDs? From the video it seems to kinda fly, but is just kinda swinging around. Also try like you said in the video and flash stock Cleanflight to the board. Maybe even try a different FC, could be a strange hardware issue.

 

[jhitesma]

x0054 - I'd love to try the integrated board. But the hobby fund is only just starting to recover from summer AC bills Maybe around January I'll be able to try one. I'd swap the naze on it for your integrated if you wanted though - too bad you're not just a little closer so we could do that experiment without involving shipping costs

Cyberdactyl - The KK2 buttons and LCD are almost useless here - can't see it in the daylight and I have a real hard time hitting just one button with my fat fingers That thing drove me crazy the one quad I helped setup with it. We had to keep bringing it inside to make changes because even with our hands over it it's just too bright to see no matter how you adjust the contrast

Yes, that top left motor is noisy and I'm probably going to swap it for one of the other 4 matching motors nilsen sent. But with props on holding it over my head it's actually the tail motor that makes the most noise believe it or not. And watching the gyro readings while spinning the motors up there aren't any more vibrations showing up from that noisy motor than the others. So yes, that is something I'll probably try...but I'm not in a rush.

The way the yaw is backards with the stock rotation settings even though the board is installed face up with the arrow forward really has me thinking there's an issue with the custom firmware.

Snarls - the PID's are David's suggest starting PID's for the tri. They could be way off....but nilsen did have it flying before with stock CF so I'm still coming back to suspecting there's something off with the custom version. My next step is going to be trying stock CF I think. Just haven't had another chance today because my wife has to work so I'm watching our daughter (who we made the mistake of letting stay up a bit later than normal last night and has been a real handfull today as a result.) after that a different board is the next step...but with only an afromini and two burned out Naze32's on hand it would mean taking my nighthawk 250 apart to extract it's Naze to try that next...hoping stock CF works better for me.


BTW - I seriously didn't plan for youtube to pick a screen with that skull on my table as the screen shot to go with the "cursed copter" title Just working on building some halloween props for my daughter!

 

[Cyberdactyl]

I've never had a problem seeing the KK2 display in bright sunlight. Well. . . that's not entirely true. If I try and read it directly IN the sun yes, but the shadow of my head solves the problem. But sorry, I can't solve the sausage finger issue.

 

[jhitesma]

There's sun....then there's desert sun I learned that lesson the first week I moved here. We only had an afternoon newspaper then, it usually got delivered around 3PM. By 5PM when I'd pick it up out of the driveway the top three pages would already be yellow - and we had trees shading our driveway!

Leave a plastic bag out in the yard for two days and try to pick it up...it disintegrates from the UV.

Zip ties? Even in the winter if I put my Christmas lights up more than two weeks before Christmas the zies (even high end "UV stabilized" ones) are falling apart before we open our gifts.

The sun here really is something else that has to be experienced to be appreciated

And to be honest when tuning I normally use my phone and a bluetooth adapter. So much easier than a tiny LCD screen or a clunky notebook Plus I just really didn't care for the way KK flew. It sounds contradictory but it was both too smooshy and too robotic for me. The yaw just didn't feel organic but the roll/pitch was too organic feeling. Maybe if they hadn't been unobtanium when I build my first quad and I had started with one I'd like them better. But having been forced into starting with a homemade MW KK just always felt like a big step backwards to me once I got to try one.

Working on dumping my configs and reflashing to stock CF so I can give it a try over my wifes lunch break. The little one is finally sated with a bit of my little pony and I have a few minutes

 

[PHugger]

Your experience with the Stand-alone custom Naze 32 firmware almost exactly mirrors mine.
Mine was Insta-Flipping from side to side (not consistent direction either).
The 3D model did not respond correctly.
By correcting the "board orientation" in CF front to back 180 degrees, the model worked correctly and it flew.
(my board was oriented correctly)

I had a hard landing and the power trace on the Naze burned and I had to rewire it.
During that debugging process I re-flashed the Naze and reloaded the configuration file.
Now it worked fine without changing the board orientation in CF.
It flew very well.

I am now thinking that maybe there is something odd in the configuration file.
Some hidden character or EOL or junk.
Depending on your editor, you may or may not copy and paste it in.

I'm sorry I can't say what exactly fixed mine, but re-flash and carefully look at the config data.



Best regards,
PCH