Bills Law strikes again! Life of a Psyborg documented.

PsyBorg

Wake up! Time to fly!
Sooo I FINALLY got the Femto to flash.

What worked?

Well After a day to calm down I decided to start from scratch AGAIN. Loaded all the listed drivers.. cp210, Defuse, and Zadig. Again it would not flash. I tried to use zadig to load the win driver suggested.. Would NOT let me do it.

So once again Removed ALL drivers, cold started the computer and ran Reg cleaner to make sure nothing was hiding in the dark corners of the computer.

This time I loaded Zadig before even connecting the FC

It gave me the option to load the windows discovery thing for pnp so I did. (NOTE I also did this severalt times already in trying to make it all work.) Once that was in I plugged in the FC and listed devices. Tried the Win driver and again failed.. with no drivers at all installed.. FAILED. So for giggles and haha's I decided to do the libusb driver so maybe I could do a replace with the win drivers.. I disconncted the FC started in boot loader mode to try and replace the Libusb driver and low and behold it popped right into DFU mode on those drivers.

I loaded the newest firmware and hit flash... zip bang boom DONE!

So I spent the better part of teh day trying to get a receiver to talk to it. No dice.. Finally I went out and found the wiring diagram for the Femto and the PDf manual. After some reading and looking over the diagram I saw that to use any ppm receiver you can not use the signal port TJ shows in the video. The one for ppm is next to where he tells you to power the camera from in the front part of the controller. The 4th spot in that uart is the TX side for telemetry if you run that.

I managed to get my receiver talking and got the end points and centers set. Now I have put it all together and was ready to go thru blheli suite nightmare ( I say that now as its almost guaranteed not to work and cause me more pain) and found the receiver is not talking again..

But we made progress today so I felt obligated to come pass on the information as well as thank all you guys who have offered to try peer to peer and get this up and running.

BTW as a closing note.. NO OTHER drivers have been loaded at all except that libusb one and Betaflight will connect in DFU mode AND normal mode with nothing else installed. I will test my Alien and my Versa later hopefully they wake right up too with no hassles.
 

PsyBorg

Wake up! Time to fly!
Is that on the apps store where you get the guis too? I( was debating whether to just swap two wires n be done with it but I wanna run Dshot at some point. I am diing to dive bomb that play set with something that will better fit in all the gaps then my alien.

I still have to figure out why the Receiver is not working. It worked when everything was spread out on the table... Probably got too excited and broke a wire or something simple.

EDIT nebber mind I found it. Does the Femto have / use the passthru it talks about before I try n connect it?
 
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PsyBorg

Wake up! Time to fly!
WEEEEE!!!! Successful flight !!! :applause::applause::cool:

Boy this thing is a squirrel though. I did manage to get it softened up before my test pack ran dry. I will get some maiden video outside for you guys tomorrow as well as a screenshot or two with some pids and rate settings to tone this bad boy down for you so you aren't bonkin yer heads on the wall.

Hovered in my living room working on the settings using a 3s 800 mah pack. Its kind of heavy but this hovers it just a hair below half throttle. Motors are a little warm but they don't seem any hotter then any quad I have flown on stock pids. The esc's are barely warm enough to feel it so far.

I managed to set similar rates to my big quads as far as degrees per second but spread out the rate and super rate so there looks to be more softer center stick. I also jacked expo up to 55% it is that squirrely. Will know better how the tuning works for it tomorrow. I have two of these batteries I can use so will have a fair amount of learning time.
 

cranialrectosis

Faster than a speeding face plant!
Mentor
Get the BLHeli Chrome app the same way you get BetaFlight, through the Chrome store. :)

Way to go PsyBorg.... but wait... no pics. No video...

Video or it didn't happen! :mad:
 

LitterBug

Techno Nut
Moderator
SWEEEET! SO glad you got over the hump on this build and thanks for posting your solution!

Cheers!
LitterBug
 

PsyBorg

Wake up! Time to fly!
Get the BLHeli Chrome app the same way you get BetaFlight, through the Chrome store. :)

Way to go PsyBorg.... but wait... no pics. No video...

Video or it didn't happen! :mad:

Hehe I had the app and the reversal done before I posted the edit. Its not fancy with specific changes like the heli suite but its a fast fix for set up and motor direction.

Videos will be up today. I was not about to wait for a battery to charge at 3 am to make a maiden video at 4 am hehe. Last one is on the charger now and I will do a quick indoor proof of flight / over view. then take it outside depending on wind. At least the sun is up and no rain. Hopefully I can walk out on the grass and not sink in up to my knees after all this rain.

I suppose I can get the pics up now while I am doing coffee. be back in a few.

Thanks LB !!

Again thanks for all the offers to connect live and work thru this. It was not needed this time but was getting more a considered option as time went on.
 

PsyBorg

Wake up! Time to fly!
Back..

Proof it does exist

GR1.jpg

Profile to see the over / under motor mounting. Notice the metal standoffs which are taller. I was going for a closer prop line as well as wanting to mount the batteries in the frame with the FC and receiver on top but these batteries do not fit. I will leave it like this to see what I can do with newer lighter batteries. If that is not viable I will use provided ones and close the gap and save the weight.

GR2.jpg

Front views to show the custom camera mounts using old foam sanding blocks cut to shape that is wanted.

GR3.jpg

GR4.jpg

Quad build weight including rubber band since O ring is too small for the batteries I have.

GR5.jpg

Battery weight.. I KNOW its heavy aas heck but the quad flys at just under half throttle. this is NOT my permanent battery for sure. 3s 500-650mah tops should keep the motors cooler.

GR6.jpg

All up weight of the beastie.
GR7.jpg
 
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cranialrectosis

Faster than a speeding face plant!
Mentor
Just wondering, shouldn't the props for the upside down motors still face up so the airfoils work?
 

PsyBorg

Wake up! Time to fly!
Yes and they do. I had to swap them around.. TWICE.

Uploading the maiden in my hall way and then another one with a bit of tuning done. The stock pids seem way to high for these. I started tuning up at first to get rid of the warbles with little effect. When I dropped em down its starting to sound and fly ore smoothly. I dropped I's by half and D's down to 10 to start and I have nearly all the shakes under control. Motor temps seem to rise slower too. Will charge the batteries again and tweak a little more before I take her out in the sunshine.

That will give the maintenance guy a chance to finish cutting the grass as well as let the wetness cook off more.
 

PsyBorg

Wake up! Time to fly!
Here is the maiden I will post the semi tuned flight for comparison after it uploads.


Here is the semi tuned flight. notice I have enough control to bounce it in that small area now as well as less chattering out of the motors.


Here are the settings that second flight was made on except I brought the expo down from 55 to 48.

First tune process small.jpg
 
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JimCR120

Got Lobstah?
Site Moderator
Ok ok, you did get it flying. I'd like to take a jab at my shipmate and say, "You call that flying? I could do that." But as it is, I can't.

Congratulations Bill! Looking forward to more.
 

PsyBorg

Wake up! Time to fly!
Just got back in from outside testing.. Got 35+ minutes to edit and get together to show you how it does.

Right off the bat I will say a few things. First the camera looks phenomenal sitting on the table. Not so much when you are in and out of sun. It is SLOOOOOOOWWWWWW to adjust. I am hoping it is programmable somehow other wise its first on the upgrade list.

Second if you are used to flying 200 size quads you have a learning curve for throttle. I think I may have to program an actual curve in the radio.

Third on the Josh B frame with that heavy battery Rolls are actually harder then flips for it to do gracefully. I have pitch locked in nice n snappy. Rolls not so much yet but this was on my initial hover in the hall way tune so hardly and I or D not to mention P's need more love.

4th.. PLENTY of power. even with the heavy battery it would punch out in a respectable manor.

5th Damage resistant.. I put it in the dirt pretty hard more then a few times. Did two freefall from ~50 ft drops once when I forgot to switch on air mode and another on a fail safe. So far only a minor bend in one prop and a ding from striking a down spout when the wind pushed me closer to someones porch area then I wanted to be.

6 put air mode on a switch. This thing is bouncy bouncy bouncy on the slightest of impacts and will easily relaunch itself when landing.

7 REMEMBER said air mode switch position when doing flips.. I dropped it out of the sky because I launched and forgot to set it active. If you are quick enough on the throttle when you do forget you can recover with enough altitude. It is very agile when rates are sitting around 1000 degrees per second.

Couple of hints: Pay some attention to how you have your FC mounted. With tuning the double sided tape gets weak really fast with the plugging in and out. Also it does not always guarantee to be square to the frame / arms / props after unplugging so keep that in mind when tuning.

Ok I am off to edit some footage, and re-tweek some more settings while the batteries are charging so I can go out again before the sun gets at too bad an angle for that camera..
 

PsyBorg

Wake up! Time to fly!
Its not an edit but this is my best flight with the Gremlin so far. Tomorrow is a more serious tuning day and hopefully I will have it tight before the weather turns to crap again. I am worn out and need to cook and then relax so I will probably get to a crash compilation video from the 6 packs I have flown so far on it and a few pics to show durability or not so durable. :p

I will say this. these things scoot about nicely. I haven't even really pushed it except for a few power loops to see the hang time. Think I actually hit full throttle maybe twice for like a second or two tops. I DEFINITELY need to recut a better foam with more camera angle. Only about 10 degrees atm and that is no where near enough for as quick as this thing is.

 

LitterBug

Techno Nut
Moderator
SWEET. PB lovin his micro is a good thing. Love all the flips and rolls and inversions. Did a little work on my Pico-X tonight. Fixed busted cloverleaf on the AIO camera/vtx and rewired the AIO to filtered power. Trying to fix the horrendous video noise it was having.
 

PsyBorg

Wake up! Time to fly!
Yeah this camera system is the weak link so far. The camera is set all wrong. too high contrast and too low brightness as well as a slow dark / light adjustment. The CP antenna ended up getting smooshed the last flight I did with over 50 ft free fall inverted. I was leary of that pcb tower that its mounted to so I will be working on that over the next few days. I also wanna research if that camera is adjustable other wise its on the to replace list and I won't bother with the antenna swap to a dipole. It will need and get a power filter at some point to help clean up the signals as well as a better focusing.

Over all even though its not fully tuned it is fun and it does rip pretty good for its size with that heavy battery I have. The battery I used still has at best guess at least another minute in it. I have been taking them up longer each flight and they are still coming down above 3.8v per cell. VERY livable flight times so far.
 

Airkaos

Member
I switch my antennas to this on all the micros (gremlins), they are flexible and not as fragile as the cloverleaf. IMG_0026.PNG image.jpg
 

PsyBorg

Wake up! Time to fly!
I managed to straighten the CP antenna last nigh with no damage. I will be replacing it with a dipole soon as I get some more batteries for my dvm so I can do some measuring and maths. I want to do a short version since this vtx already has that pcb "tower" on it

On the battery note I am charging the lil ones now and the first one went on the charger at 3.83 v per cell after that last video was made so nearly a full 7 minutes on them even doing all that zipping and flipping so far.

LB Thanx for the info and confirmation about setting PIDS lower on the micros. I actually have 2 profiles that take them higher to test today that I will change for sure to lower before I head out to the park today as its turning out to be a gorgeous day already.

If you guys don't have a micro like the Gremlin get one. You will be shocked and amazed how much thrashing you can do and not have that worry over your head of hard crashes when trying new things. I use the same rates as my Alien but cranked the expo up by 20-30% over what I use on the Alien and it seems to fly pretty close control wise. I think this will be my second stage after the sims for trying new trick and stuff live before we graduate to the Alien. What ever you do add a beeper at minimum or keep it out of uncut grass. This bugger is hard to find even on a freshly cut lawn. This one will not intentionally get over that alfalfa field out back. One crash it bounced into the edge of that field and took a while to find even though I knew where it went in AND had two sets of eyes that saw it live besides me. That or train a dog to be a drone retriever.

Also TONS of Thanks for the compliments , support, and inspiration from all you guys. It really does make a difference in motivations to slog thru problems.