First Bat Bone Build

[DDSFlyer]

Gotcha, I have a local guy I'm gonna reach out to that has David's 2.6v tricopter that'll help me tune so I'm not worried too much. Just need to get it over open ground and softer ground hopefully and recalibrate level on the sensors. The gift cards I used for landing gear are actually too thin and just flex under the weight of the bat bone. I will mostly do my flying under self level because I want to film stuff with it so I'll make sure it's tuned both ways.
BTW, I'm using the KK2.0 board first just because there's more info basis out there. Then when I feel more confident or can notice a difference I'll move over to the KK2.1.

 

[DDSFlyer]

So here's the update.
What I was able to accomplish today was get the new motor mounts on. What I didn't realize was when I did that my breakout wire troubles came up again and the leads for the M1 and M2 were too short...grrr. Had to extend one black and one red wire to get the ESC's to connect. Flew another battery and messed with the settings. I seem to have a slow wobble so I messed with the I gain setting...didn't get anywhere or if I did I'm too ignorant to know it. I think I'll start from scratch with the settings you gave me CraftyDan and try and just fly for awhile.
After that I was able to tidy all the wires up and tuck them away, added red and green LED's to the arms and powered them with a JST connector to my breakout cable, and then re-zip tied everything and admired the work. Since I buggered up the headlamp spotlights I was gonna use, I'm thinking of running a strip of white LED's in the front of the frame gap and one strip on the bottom of the tail boom for orientation. I think that'll look pretty sweet and if I can get the spot light thing working it wouldn't be a bad thing (especially since I hope to hook those up to an on/off switch). Here are the pics.




This last ones shows the gap/grill I'll put the white LED strip in connecting the red and green strips.
After that it's off to burn batteries!

 

[DDSFlyer]

got my white light bar across the front and under the tail boom installed tonight...no flying though. thoroughly watched some videos of tuning the KK board and hopefully I'll get the chance to work on it soon.

 

[Craftydan]

Shiny!!!

Get her dialed in and she'll be great for the local UFO spotters!

BTW, Were you flying self level with the wobble? don't foreget SL hides tuning issues, making 'em harder to fix. If you think high "I" is the culprit, cut it to 0. "I" affects drifting off of angle in acro, but if you command tilt left/right, it'll still go there . . . just won't stay there when you let go. Completely flyable, but you'll have to keep bumping it back to the angle you desire. If there's wobble from high "I", clearing it will make it go away . . . then slowly bring "I" back up back up.

Leave "I" limit alone. There are cases where it can fix a problem, but more often than not the default level is perfectly fine.

 

[cranialrectosis]

Beautiful copter. Would love to see some twilight flight video when you get there.

 

[Cyberdactyl]

Looking great DDS. Fly it high and proud!

 

[DDSFlyer]

Thanks guys! After wiring all the LED's I found a flaw in my routing...forgot about the folding arms! Now I have to re-route them.

I watched more vids about tuning and was able to run 3 batteries through at lunch time today. Was able to turn make the P limit 100, I limit 20 on roll/pitch. Got the P gain to around 35 and I gain to 45 and was getting close so I started flying around. Messed only a little with the Yaw P and I gains (leaving the limits at P 20 and I 10) I'll fiddle with that later as I try to understand the purpose of it later (getting the yaw movements to go quickly and then when letting go not have too much overcompensation the other way?) I also messed with the tail motor on throttle compensation (forgot where it is in the menu to say) but was able to get it to climb level when I punch the throttle (learned that from the bat bone v-tail build video). Tried the self level switch and the settings are way off now and it would pitch off at an angle and the controls were really off and too sensitive (have to mess with those settings next).

After hovering and keeping the bat bone pointing forward and away moving across a field left and right, forward and back. Then on the third battery I started to try and fly a pattern with forward movement. As I was coming back towards me it was leaning to the right and I overcompensated the wrong way and down she went... I was able to keep flying but after a few minutes it looked a little funny...realized I had a split tail boom and one of the battery/camera tray mounts had split. Oh yeah and one of the arms tried to fold but the wiring from the LED strip kept it almost in but tore a connector on the strip so I'll have to replace that section.

Off to Home Depot for a couple of 1/2" square dowels (make sure to check for straightness, QC is all over the place with wood that small). I am gonna try and make the camera mounts to the bat bone out of some plastic vs the plywood (or thicker plywood) and try and line up the wires better with a little less tension...they just don't line up straight with the bat bone's frame. Then back in the air!

 

[cranialrectosis]

I find it useful to build 6-8 booms at a time for a tri-copter, 8 booms for a quad. When I crash it is on a day I can fly (the weather is cooperating). I don't want to use a fly day to build new booms if I can help it. So on bad weather days, I build and have plenty of booms for use on fly days.

At this point I consider booms to be every bit as replaceable as rotors.

 

[Craftydan]

I've found it easiest to use unbreakable booms, but in leu of those, lots of spares are a fair substitute.

 

[jhitesma]

I've reached a point where somehow I seem to break more booms than props on my knuckle. Not sure how, I'm just using cheap HK nylon props. But the past month or so every crash I've had has resulted in a broken boom but no broken props! My props are a bit beat up and nicked...but still smooth enough for non video use.

 

[DDSFlyer]

Here's the first little video of a test flight...got the wife to actually record it! Sorry it's just a cell phone vid. Still working the kinks for self level mode though (not in this vid).

As for the booms, didn't take me that long. Not sure it would be very fast to change them out on my tricopter since those lights and wires are all over them, but it didn't take me that long, I just really need a drill press for those holes. I'm terrible drilling straight down with a cordless drill!

http://youtu.be/QfELa7vDNng

 

[Craftydan]

looks nice in the air! Keep it up!!!

 

[xuzme720]

Looks like your drilling is fine! Looks good with the light setup too!

 

[DDSFlyer]

I've still got to get better at flying in acro mode...or I just need to get self level to work correctly so that I can go back and forth. I only fly my nano in self level so it's not helping me learn to fly in acro at all. Just get turned around (literally) when I have it facing me and can lose it pretty fast.
I feel like my throttle is a little sensitive. After a steady hover (at around 55%) it's just touchy. Where is the best place to adjust that? in stick scaling? or misc. settings? or I forgot where the throttle compensation place is where you adjust throttle on each individual motor...

 

[Craftydan]

nailed it with stick scaling -- think of it as an onboard reduced rate. drop it by ~20% of what it is now and it'll spread "hover" it over a wider range of the stick.

I take it SL is still way out of tune?

For the Acro, might want to try a more "rigorous" training some folks use for large helis. pick an orientation and a 3' box. take off and if it strays out of that, or moves off orientation, call it a crash. Land it where it is, then go manually pick it up and put it back in the center and try again. Takes a handful of batteries doing that in each orientation, but it helps . . . if you don't cheat.

 

[DDSFlyer]

Thanks, I'll go into stick scaling and drop it down a little bit.

I think I need to recalibrate my ACC to get level again. Then I have to play with the gains to see if it works better. Haven't played with it enough.

I definitely have been just doing hovers and movements in just pointed away orientation before I move on to facing me. I really am trying to get the Yaw control better before starting to do turns and such.

Another question, what is everyone setting their low voltage sensor at? I've heard mostly at 10.5v but I don't run my batteries below 11.1v right? I've set it up at 11.0v because I know that under load the voltage will drop and when you stop it it will get back up. But just was wondering what the general consensus was.

 

[Craftydan]

11.1v at rest. What that means for voltage under load will depend on the load -- how much your 3 motors draw. You can do that, and check at rest, and see how far down it is . . . then bump the alarm voltage down a touch more.

Something easy to watch for -- how quickly it transitions from solid tone to slow beep to fast beep. I've found if I can make a casual landing before the solid tone switches to slow beep, I've probably got it set too high and left juice on the pack. If it transitions through solid to slow to fast before I can comfortably get it down, it's set too low and I'll be looking at less than 5% left back on the bench. solid tone that changes to a slow beep as it gracefully comes in for a touchdown and it's usually just about right, but check the rest voltage back at the bench to know if it needs to bump up/down.

Still using the 2.0 board, right? It should have a sensor test mode -- set it on a "level" surface and remember the ACC numbers. turn it 180 on the surface and compare. if they're the same it's a level surface, if not . . . a few points should be fine, but dead level will get you nearly the same ACC readings. If you get that you're ready to run the ACC test. The newer firmware on the kk2.1 has a nice bubble feature . . . when you get to that

 

[Cyberdactyl]

I set my lowV alarms somewhat high as well. For 3S at 108 (10.8V) and 144 (14.4V) for 4S. I fly over thick woods quite a bit and want the buzzer going off early.

The drawback to the onboard KK2 is it doesn't inform you if a cell is off from the others. The good part is the convenience, no need to hook up the stand-alone buzzer every time.

The HUGE caveat for me using the KK2 as my alarm is I run 3S and 4S in my quad. There's a chance I could forget the KK2 is set for 108 when I put the 4S in. Of course, the buzzer immediately goes crazy if I do it the other way around and put 3S in and it's set for 14.4V.

 

[DDSFlyer]

Thanks for the info. I've set mine at 11.0v and it leaves it around 11.2-11.3v which I feel comfortable at for now. I know I can set it up lower by .1-.2 but I'm not worried at this point. I dont mind leaving extra juice in the batteries since I have a few and I was used to over working my batteries before.

As for the SL, I flew it today and it actually is flying better. I am now going to work on the gains of that so I can work on flying that way. Flyin Acro is really challenging for me right now and I'm pretty sure if I cheat with SL I may not go back but I still dunno which way I want to fly.

I think I tweaked my M2 boom on the earlier flight I broke my tail boom on, because my prop on the front right is angled a little to the right. The KK board seems to be compensating ok for it though.

What changes do I need to do for wandering on hover? Like it slowly drifts forward and left? This is in Acro mode so I may just be not getting it in a stable hover before going hands off but on general that's the way it's going. Wondered what setting can compensate for drift?

 

[Craftydan]

A well balanced SL, can be hands off in a wind free environment, but to get the true "let go and it stays parked" you need the GPS and baro sensors too . . . which is beyond the kk2 at this point (and likely forever).

Hands off acro doesn't exist. Theoretically, you should be able to balance an acro mulit perfectly and it should stay put . . . but in practice it will always be off a touch and always drift and you have to pilot it gently to keep it still.

Now PI setting and bad vibe *can* make drift worse, but you'll see it in the I tuning. If I is too low and you control a pitch/roll angle, the angle will slowly drift. Too high and it creates slow oscillations.

If you need a break, dink around in SL mode for a pack. this is for fun! no harm in enjoying a flight or two SL is nearly indispensable in orientation training but if you've got that down -- you're right -- a learning flight will be mostly in acro.

Improving pilot skills improves your ability to dial it in, which improves the whole experience. Keep working on it! it's progress!