EMAX Nighthawk Pro 280 ARF

[jipp]

i was thinking some like a conductive epoxy i guess. heh.

have you guys seen this thread yet? the camera part i think will cacth on.. a self leveling gimbal for FPV.

it looks good too... seems like a good deal at 300.00

im broke so i wont be getting one any time soon tho.

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2509104&page=6



2204, heavy wall carbon arms.. etc..

chris.

 

[Craftydan]

Cute Gimbal . . . but if something from the airframe isn't in the view, won't be long before the ground will be. It's AMAZING how fast a gimbal like that can drive you into the ground if you're flying acro.

 

[Snarls]

True what Dan says. I would like to try it out though. For me the location of the horizon in my video helps me determine the angle my quad is at otherwise I might over tilt.

 

[jhitesma]

Yeah, I've seen quite a few people try gimbals on FPV cameras only to rip them off saying they make things a lot worse. One of those things that seems like a much better idea than it works out in practice.

Also confirmed that my lack of power on punch outs was due to the max_throttle default being 1850 on betaflight while I had been using 2000 on baseflight. Bumped it to 1950 and things felt a lot better...but I still need to do an ESC re-calibration to get full range back.

Conductive epoxy exists: http://www.mgchemicals.com/products/adhesives/electrically-conductive/silver-conductive-epoxy-8331/

But I wouldn't use it in place of soldering! Think of it more like brazing than welding. Of course I grew up soldering and later learned to braze and weld so for me soldering comes naturally. A bigger tip helps with those large pads. The issue is there's so much copper in the board it sucks all the heat out of your tip fast. Treat it more like you're soldering an XT60 and less like a flight controller when doing power leads on a PDB.

Was hoping to do some FPV at my friends farm tomorrow...but looks like my other friend is finally going to come by and help me hookup the second water heater for my outside kitchen so may not get to fly at the farm until Sunday.

But I'm dying to try flying there:


The land belongs to one of my friends fathers whose family operated a date farm and citrus grove there for years. But they shut down the farm a few years back and have it up for sale. Another friend is renting the small house in the middle and has given me free pass to come fly anytime I want. The whole farm is about 15 acres divided into an open field for the southern 5 acres, citrus trees for the center 5 acres, and date trees for the northern 5 acres. So nice big open field for warm-up / learning. Date trees for more advanced slalom...and if you get really good...there's just enough clearance between/under the citrus trees for some serious proximity flying

Fun local trivia fact. Immediately west of the farm is a trailer park. Just west of that is a small golf course we like to play at in the summer (we have it to ourselves in the summer and they run the place on an honor box.) The owner of the golf course is also friend with the friends who own/live on the date farm land. Anyway, the interesting trivia. If you look at the golf course on google maps there's a house in the lower left corner of it. That's where the owners of the golf course live (or their son...I'm not 100% clear on that.) It's an interesting house that's somewhat famous online. Why? Because it's roof beams are made from wood that was salvaged from Jabba the Hut's barge after they finished filming the barge scenes for return of the jedi in the dunes just west from here

Now - anyone have any thoughts on what could cause the drifting yaw and horrible wobbles when yawing with LuxFloat but not with PID1?

 

[jipp]

that would explain my problem.. i only have a needle tip on my iron. i had no issues soldering in the the polou 5v.

looks like a nice place to fly, and no worries about sand.. woohoo. heh. i have not done the fpv yet. but in theory i have to say the gimbal seem to make sense but i guess its one of them.. not for everyone but for those who can take advantage of it maybe helpful.

add weight sure. but its not a drag race, you still have to corner and i would think seeing the ground would help.. maybe im wrong.. i do not see my self doing the race thing as im to much of a hermit.. so ill noodle around my flat. guess that is why im looking more into AP.. i can do that, and have lots of things around here to practice with.. especially all the damn rabbits.. every morning/evening there are about 60 of them things along with other animals.. not seen a road runner in 2 years tho.. heard one so he/she is around.. but not like when i first moved here.. i was so disappointed when i learn road runners do not go meep beep.. they go WHO WHO WHO in a deep voice sound.


chris.

 

[jhitesma]

Mobius must have just had a low battery yesterday. After a night on the charger it was working correctly today. Winds were considerably worse than yesterday though and I had quite a few house chores this morning and daughter duty this afternoon...so no chance to try flying at the farm.

I did however find a few minutes to get some sample video of the Nighthawk on BetaFlight:

Still not sure what's causing the yaw issue on PID controller 2. No time to really investigate yet either. For now I'll stick with PC1 if I get a chance to do some FPV flying tomorrow.

 

[jipp]

morning jason. im surprised you were able to get any kind of footage showing your issue with with pids.. that wind was pretty strong.
i think before i would adjust anything id wait for less wind just to be sure..

hopefully you get to fly some FPV Today.. its early i know but the wind here seems ok today... which could change at any min it seems
chris.

 

[jhitesma]

Even in calm wind and with 5" props I was having the same yaw issues.

Wasn't impressed by the 5" DAL props at all could hear them flattening out and feel them loosing power at higher throttle. Discussed that in airhawks 250 thread though.

Popped on the HQ 5x4.5" props that CodeMonkey sent me awhile back to compare. Much nicer 5" props. Noticeably more power and no flattening out at higher throttle. Quick test flight with them uploading. Unfortunately while you do get a lot more performance for the extra cost - it also comes at the price of much less durability. One fairly gentle mistake and I broke 2 of them Doh. Seemed like they were even more fragile than the 6x4.5" HQ's I usually like. Or maybe I just got unlucky.

Anyway - was thinking about the yaw thing and had an idea. I'm running that custom mixer to try and optimize for the slightly non square motor spacing. Wondered if maybe that could be the issue. So after breaking the 5" HQ's I swapped back to my good old 6" FC's, hooked up the configurator and swapped things back to use the standard quad-x mixer.

Yaw is much better on PID controller 2 now Still have a yaw drift on PID2 that isn't there on PID1...but the crazy unrecoverable wobbles are gone. Didn't get video of that though - must not have pushed the right button on my hat cam

 

[jhitesma]

All of my other Naze boards have build in memory chips so the little bit of playing with blackbox I've done I've just used those so far. But this guy doesn't have a built in chip. So a week or two ago I ordered an openlog and it arrived today.

I'm running a PPM RX so I used UART2 and just soldered the RX line from the openlog to the pin for ch3 on the RX header, grabbed 5v from the ESC header and just used the side of the USB plug for GND.



Closeup of where I attached the wires:


Bit of shrink wrap around the openlog to protect it, bit of double sided tape to hold it in place. And...where did I put that SD card...

Crud. Could have sworn I had a spare class 10 microSD. Can't take the one from my phone or my wife's phone...looks like a class 4 in my mobius...I should have at least one more kicking around. Oh yeah, my daughters old nook color! Bummer, it's only a class 4 as well

Gave it a try and confirmed it's working. But getting too many dropouts in the data to really be useful. Have a class 10 card on order but it won't be here until Monday. Guess I won't be doing any blackbox tuning this weekend after all

 

[jipp]

whats the difference between a class 4, and class 10. i just ordered a runcam mobius style cam.. i bought a 32 gig class 10 for it.. i had no idea there were different versions. hopefully i bought the right one from you wanting another 10. ( i think i get it, class 10 seems to read and wright data faster.. less chance of errors or missing data. )

speaking of nook color, i gave mine to my sister, she loved it.. till her baby boy decided he wanted to play with it.. and crushed the screen.. apparently he has a good throwing arm.. lol.

chris.

 

[jhitesma]

Theoretically Class 10 cards are "faster" than class 4. In practice. It's mostly marketing wank.

The way the class ratings works isn't very good for some purposes. I know when I was hacking nook colors a lot of class 4 cards gave higher performance than class 10 cards because they could read faster while the class rating is skewed towards high write speeds.

I'm pretty sure Mobius recommends class 4 cards - yeah here it is:

Class 4 memory cards from popular manufacturers provide the best compatibility with this camera and are recommended. Class 6 and Class 10 cards, at best, do NOTHING to improve the camera's video and cost more, and at worst, they may not work properly! ALL MEMORY CARDS should be formatted using the camera's internal formatting routine for best compatibility! . If you are uncertain about what kind of memory card to buy, order one from the camera vendor when you place your order.

from here: http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1904559

Blackbox however suggests:

microSDHC cards known to have poor performance

Generic 4GB Class 4 microSDHC card - the rate of missing frames is about 1%, and is concentrated around the most interesting parts of the log!
Sandisk Ultra 32GB (unlike the smaller 16GB version, this version has poor write latency)
microSDHC cards known to have good performance

Transcend 16GB Class 10 UHS-I microSDHC (typical error rate < 0.1%)
Sandisk Extreme 16GB Class 10 UHS-I microSDHC (typical error rate < 0.1%)
Sandisk Ultra 16GB (it performs only half as well as the Extreme in theory, but still very good)

They're both applications that do a lot of writing to the card. But the way they write is different enough that Mobius apparently is happier with class 4 (Though I've used a 10 in mine with no ill effect) while blackbox prefers 10.

There were some pretty heavy discussions in the nook hacker forums about 4 vs. 10 with people benchmarking a bunch of cards. Things got pretty heated.

Loved my nook...until gingerbread...then it just couldn't keep up. But my daughter loved it (she even calls the ipads at the libraries nooks) until my wife shoved it in her purse and cracked the screen. I need a new tablet for myself. I've got a nexus 7 but with the latest updates it's painfully slow. My daughters Asus Memo7 is way faster but she never lets me play with it...and she cracked the screen. Which I haven't bothered to repair because a new screen costs almost as much as I paid for the tablet (Got it on woot as a refub for like $70 about this time last year.)

 

[jipp]

yeah i could use a new tablet. i had a ipad 2 ) out dated now ) but it still works laughs sorta.. what i mean is... cough i had a bad fall and of course it was in my hands and it took out the screen.. it just went black. but you can hear the darn thing working in the back ground..

i was quite angery at my self for ruining such a expensive toy.. i will want a new tablet i think; i will go with android tho on my next one.. as it will come in handy i think for the taraot 680PRO AP air frame i plan on building in the spring.. just now starting to collect parts for it..

i originally went with the ipad because it was a gift. but yeah hell with the apple tax, even if i have a bunch of software on my drive that is useless with out it. android much cheaper.. when i bought the nook color it was the best bang for the buck for a tablet i too hacked it.

then got the ipad and gave it to my sis. back then tablets were just trying to play catch up with Ipad.. so the android OS was in a race same with manufactures a lot of crappy spec tablets came out at first but now they are on par and much cheaper. heh. i use to pay attention to stuff like this.. not sure what happen to make me stop keeping up on such tech.. guess my health.

looks like the runcam shows class err class 6 or above.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/151726402697?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

chris.

 

[jhitesma]

My sister in law has been in town since Thursday and is staying until Tuesday. Today was a special day for them being their mothers (who is no longer with us) birthday. So we decided to go out to the desert and add their mothers name to a place called "The Names" where people spell out their names and their loved ones names in rocks of contrasting colors on the desert floor. It's a huge place that goes for 3-4 miles but we just stopped at the entrance. It was windy enough I almost didn't fly...but I didn't want to have drug all my gear out for nothing and I've been dying to do some FPV with this guy.

So despite winds that made it somewhat unpleasant just to be outside I burned a few batteries. Overall I did better than I expected. Only broke two props (both in the same crash no less) and managed to break all four safety wires on my mobius mount so had to search for bobbins a few times (But found them all each time!) And the mobius even recorded every flight for once! Unfortunately I didn't get anything on the blackbox for reasons I've yet to determine. Not sure if something came loose or if the SD card wasn't in well or what. Whic is a bummer because despite the wind (which I knew would skew my results) I was mostly trying to fly stuff that would give interested blackbox data to review.

At the end I tried tossed on a 2200, I don't normally like them on this quad since they make it a bit sluggish and heavy...but the wind was pushing me around so much I figured the extra weight may help. It actually did - not a lot, but at least a bit...and I was still able to do flips and rolls no problem. Haven't worked up the guts to try any big loops or coffins FPV yet but getting a lot more confident on the flips and rolls at least.

Video is pretty shaky, the wind was really gusty and every time it calmed down and I thought I'd have some fun it would suddenly pick up again and push me in a direction I wasn't expecting...but here's the last pack of the day. After I took out the streamer on the kite (oops) I switched to LOS for the last bit. My TX was beeping at me about it's battery at that point and my video signal was getting iffy (antenna had taken a few hits and signal was getting some breakup - Time to do some fixing on that antenna!

This is raw video - so you'll probably want to turn the volume down. But here's my late afternoon flight over "the names" today as what turned out to be a rather large storm started to blow in:

 

[jhitesma]

Found the problem with the openlog. I suspected it would be the 5v or serial wires since they were tacked to the back of those tiny little connectors. Nope. It was the ground wire soldered to the side of that big honking USB connector that managed to come loose. Quick fix (I'm starting to really like how easy it is to remove the all in one board on this!) so hopefully I'll be able to get some better BB data later this week. Weather sounds nasty tomorrow...but we'll see...

 

[jipp]

pretty cool place to fly.. never heard of it.. im assuming after a couple of good storms the names vanish.
yesterday was cloudy with rain off and on all day.

its good to know even pro with a solder iron can have a wire break lose.

what kind of data are you hoping to get from the blackbox?

chris.

 

[jhitesma]

pretty cool place to fly.. never heard of it.. im assuming after a couple of good storms the names vanish.

Nope, they last. Sometimes they get buried, but then usually the next wind storm blows the dirt off. The rocks are heavier than the sand so the names last even as the stuff around them gets blown around. They do shift and deform over time. I've asked some old timers and no one seems to know exactly how long names have been put down out there but it sounds like at least the late 40's. I think the oldest I've found was dated as the 50's.

The road in is the old Barney Oldfield stage route, google has actually taken their street view car down it:
https://www.google.com/maps/@32.869...203&h=100&yaw=52.666977&pitch=0!7i3328!8i1664

That's right near the entrance to "the names" If you follow that link and switch to earth view then zoom in you can see some of them to the north. The spot I was flying is about 200-250 feet north of where the google car turned west and cut across the wash. That's right at the "entrance" the names continue for about 3-4 miles going north and about 150-300 feet out on either side of the road that runs though them.

yesterday was cloudy with rain off and on all day.

It was cloudy here, but no rain until just after we got back when it DUMPED on us. But that only lasted about 30 minutes.

its good to know even pro with a solder iron can have a wire break lose.

I readily admit it wasn't a very good joint. I didn't bother to clean the coating off first and just tried to melt through it. I only plan on keeping the blackbox on there for a few flights while doing some tuning so I didn't put a lot of effort into making great connections Just surprised that the one I thought was actually halfway decent was the one that come loose.

what kind of data are you hoping to get from the blackbox?

I'm a data freak. Love looking at graphs and numbers. Want to see if I can get any tuning insights out of it in general. Specifically though I'd like to try and figure out why I've got such a bad yaw drift on PIDC2 and so much yaw overshoot on PIDC2 as well. Though yesterday I noticed some yaw drift even with PIDC1 which I haven't noticed before. That may have been from the wind but I suspect something else is going on. I've had yaw drift with Naze based boards almost every time I've used them which I haven't been able to tune out or mask with deadzones so I'm really curious to try and figure out what's going on.

 

[jhitesma]

Well that sucks.

New class 10 transcend card was delivered just before I got home for lunch. Reset the blackbox_rate to 1/1, formatted the new card...had a minor heart attack because my wife and her sister cleaned the backroom and my box of multirotor bits was MIA (turned out they had put it on a shelf, for a few minutes I was having flashbacks to when I was about 10 and the cleaning lady my parents hired threw out the balsa Fokker Dr.1 I was building because she thought "it was just some scraps of wood left over from a project" and not actually the project itself.)

Took the quad outside to do a quick test flight and see if BB is now capturing at full rate...and...realized it's a lot easier to fly with props on.

Went inside and put some props on. Went back outside. Turned on the mobius, confirmed it was recording, armed the quad...and did about 3 minutes of nice aggressive front yard flying in the crazy wind on PIDC1. All seemed well so figured I'd get some data on PIDC2...landed, switched profiles. Took off. Did a few flips, rolls, that kind of stuff....and decided to do the yaw move that's been giving me headaches. Sure enough yaw went crazy and I slammed into the neighbors driveway missing the grass by 2 feet. Mobius flew 10 feet and it's card popped out. It was taped in so didn't get lost, but still came loose so no video Though "oh well, at least I'll have BB data to look at." and went to eject the card from the openlog....nope it was gone

Arrrgh, yesterday when the ground wire was loose I had at least remembered to tape the card in just in case. Damn. New card on order will have to wait until Wednesday to try again now

 

[jipp]

thanks for the info on the names. i did not realize they were rocks.. just thought drawing in the sand which is why i figured a storm.. kind of neat its been going on since the 40s and im sure the ritual will continue for a long time in the future.

yeah i can see how data could be interesting and help diagnose and get a better idea of what is going on a whole different level.

yeah i noticed there was some kind of film or something on the PDB Too.. it was much easier to solder after i burnt what ever it was off. i did buy a flux not sure how well that works tho.. but i bought one since it said it help with pdb and in a handy pencil form.. so far the sucker and wick have been a life saver as i continue to get better at soldering.. even tho im convince in eed a at least two tips.. the 5v regulator was simple to solder to the PDB pin holes with the needle tip i have.. but it sure sucks for the larger pads where i think a chisel bit would be better suited as it hold heat longer.

could you do me a favor and give me some measurements of your mobius. curious, as im I was expecting a bigger camera for the runcam which arrived today, im charging it now.. it should work perfect for slap on a quad tho small and light.. need to do the hat mod tho as that is what i originally plan on using it for. i will also get a SJCam 5000 WiFI for the 680pro project come spring. you can fly FPV through the camera should be interesting to try that later too just to see how bad the lag is.

just a rough guess is good enough, im curious if the mobius is the same size.. they sure look bigger on paper.

well cloudy here no rain yet.. did rain all night tho.
chris.

 

[jhitesma]

yeah i noticed there was some kind of film or something on the PDB Too.. it was much easier to solder after i burnt what ever it was off. i did buy a flux not sure how well that works tho.. but i bought one since it said it help with pdb and in a handy pencil form.. so far the sucker and wick have been a life saver as i continue to get better at soldering.. even tho im convince in eed a at least two tips.. the 5v regulator was simple to solder to the PDB pin holes with the needle tip i have.. but it sure sucks for the larger pads where i think a chisel bit would be better suited as it hold heat longer.

Not sure what would have been on the PDB. The board for the emax is coated after assembly with a conformal coating which is kind of like liquid electrical tape. It's not exactly thick...but it's not exactly thin either. Kind of rubbery, but can be melted through with a soldering iron - or better yet cleaned off with a bit of isopropoyl alcohol first. Given that the bottom of the quad is the bottom of the main circuit board I'm glad they did the coating since otherwise it would be painfully easy to short things out.

Flux you just add a little bit to the connection before soldering, it helps make it easier to get a good joint...I'll let wikipedia explain in more detail:

In high-temperature metal joining processes (welding, brazing and soldering), the primary purpose of flux is to prevent oxidation of the base and filler materials. Tin-lead solder (e.g.) attaches very well to copper, but poorly to the various oxides of copper, which form quickly at soldering temperatures. Flux is a substance which is nearly inert at room temperature, but which becomes strongly reducing at elevated temperatures, preventing the formation of metal oxides. Additionally, flux allows solder to flow easily on the working piece rather than forming beads as it would otherwise.

The role of a flux in joining processes is typically dual: dissolving of the oxides on the metal surface, which facilitates wetting by molten metal, and acting as an oxygen barrier by coating the hot surface, preventing its oxidation. In some applications molten flux also serves as a heat transfer medium, facilitating heating of the joint by the soldering tool or molten solder.

As for the size of the mobius...will have to wait until I'm home and can measure it But google says about 2x1x1 inches or "61mm (L) x 35mm (W) x18mm (H)"

 

[jipp]

aww. yeah iv experienced the ball forming. well i will be sure to always use the flux. i started to think it was what was causing me problems so i stop.. then you told me there is alot of copper in the PDB and it was sucking the heat so i compensated by letting the iron get hot then solder real quick. then wait again after a few minutes instead of just moving onto the next joint. anyhow, ill just get a chisel bit and see if that helps any im sure it will. also practice is helping. im not sure what the coating is it was coming from the material once it heated up and i did not get a solder joint it would get like a plastic over then i had to scrap it clean to get a decent solder joint. i pulled on the wires if they did not come lose i went to the next solder joint. i just need more practice. thankfully when i solder the polou 5v that was a breez ( which was good experience before i solder up the sparky 2 FC.. id would rather waste 5.00 to a 100.00 but knowing my luck ill screw that up too, story of my life.. laughs ). so my issues is with heat.. maybe i should of spent the extra money on the 80w iron instead of the 60w.. sucks being cheap.

looks like the runcam is 60mm(L) * 35mm(W) * 18mm(H) unfortunately the 3d plastic case does not close all the way about 1/8" gap on the sides ( i think im gonn run some foam on the 3d printed protective case if i have a small gap on the side anyhow to help protect it abit more when its on the quad. ).. better than no protection i guess i really could use a 3d printer i could.. id like to have some covers made for esc that go on the arms for a cleaner looking build.. o well. cat win them all.

anyhow thank you for the info. look forward to your blackbox experience. as i plan on playing with sensors and what not on the larger quad. already have a sonar sensor in my parts box. figure ill get a few sensors for amps, heat, maybe temp, speed. heh.. something to play with.

hopefully no other issues come up for you.. always sucks when something goes wrong and you have to wait for the mail. heh.

chris.

chris.