Psyborgs Rotor Riot Alien build.

[Snarls]

Held the boot loader button down plugged in the USB.. Bah duhn.. no com port found... Watched some video read some forum posts.. found I need the correct usb driver. Extracted it, ran the exe, done deal driver installed (Win 7 pro for general knowledge) Held the button again connected usb it woke up on com 5. Looked up at the screen to find the flash fc button... no joy. Thought maybe I let up on the button or something stalled. Let go of button disconnected usb... retry sequence.. Hold button plug in usb.. Bah duhn.. no com port.

Depending on the drivers you have, connection to the FC for flashing happens in either Dfuse Demo, or the KISS GUI, not both. Perhaps you got the drivers that only work with Dfuse Demo. Or if you are using Dfuse Demo, try flashing via the KISS GUI. Just plug the FC into the computer with the bootloader pressed adn the GUI open.

 

[PsyBorg]

I was following the lead on the usb drivers and came across a page on Flyduino about defuse not being allowed to be downloaded or something along them lines and there was a link to DL the VCP 1.4.0 set up which from my understanding was the driver that was needed to flash thru the Kiss Gui. I unpacked it and installed the drivers and the Kiss Gui started to talk to my quad. then the scenario I described earlier happened where I could get on the FC thru the GUI but the Boot loader only accessed the FC the very first time and then hasn't since.

So if I press the boot loader button and connect to the FC thru the GUI it gives me the connection failed noise. If I connect not using the boot loader button it connects right away thru Com 5.

I really didn't want another third party program I am unfamiliar with on my system but I guess I will have to set up the Demo just to flash the FC the first time which sounds like it HAS to be run thru an FTDI which I am totally clueless about.

 

[PsyBorg]

Ok got up this morning and begged some wire and another light socket from a neighbor so I could make another smoke stopper. Got it all done and powered up the Alien minus the entire video system. No light in the bulb so that's good right. While it was powered up I checked that my switch settings worked. Arming made the motors spin and stopped them when I disarmed so that's all good. Flight modes seemed to change from auto level to acro mode.

The one thing that bothered me though is the Throttle hold set to -125% diabled the throttle stick but did not stop the motors from spinning. I never had that issue on my versa even with air mode but I also got into the habit of getting my switches back to start up positions after a rough landing or flat out crash. And my beeper didn't work That's a must have.

Anyway back to this whole upgrading software to current versions. I went back to flyduino and downloaded the demo program. and tried to watch the video of the guy setting it up.. all I heard was charlie browns teacher in my ear wah wahh wahh wahhh wahhh. I'll watch it again and see now that I have had some sleep if I can understand him. Ill assume since I cant flash the FC that I wont be able to do the ESC's just yet either so Ill wait til I have the FC worked out.

So where I stand in the confusion is. Once I set up this demo program do I need to flash a specific version or can I just go to the latest revision directly. Second once that is done can I dump the demo off my computer without screwing up the drivers?

 

[Snarls]

So where I stand in the confusion is. Once I set up this demo program do I need to flash a specific version or can I just go to the latest revision directly. Second once that is done can I dump the demo off my computer without screwing up the drivers?

You can just flash the latest FW (1.02RC28). You can delete the demo and still connect to the GUI with the board, but assuming the drivers you have work with Dfuse Demo, you will only be able to flash the board using Dfuse Demo. So next firmware update you will have to re-download the program. You could delete the drivers and try to get the drivers that work with flashing from the KISS GUI.

 

[PsyBorg]

SUCCESS !!!!!

I have now flashed the FC to 1.02 RC28. My esc's are 1.02 out of the box and Flyduino says that 1.03 in not a tested release so I am going to grab a 4s battery. Redo the smoke test to be sure and toss some props on for the maiden. Will set the wannabe go pro out to film the maiden and have the results good or bad posted very soon.

I wanna say thanks again to all of you that have helped me get this up and functional. I can not state enough how much having Flite Test Communities knowledge and help to lean on for all things RC has been in this past year. Hopefully I have gained enough that I can and will help others as well.

 

[PsyBorg]

Confused and semi bummed..

Was all happy I got the FC flashed and updated. So I wanted to make sure the motors were turning the correct way before I put props on with the 4s battery. I had the smoke stopper on and when I armed the quad on 4s the smoke stopper started to glow very faintly. For 3s smoke test I just powered it on and never armed it so I do not know if that condition was present on 3s but it surely is now.

I did a visual and saw a single strand from the ground wire on the connection to the FC from esc 4 but it did not look like it was touching anything nor able to reach anything. Other then that nothing got hot, nothing smelled funny, and when the motors started to spin the were all in sync and smooth. I raised the throttle a touch and obviously with more current draw it glowed a little brighter so I disarmed immediately to troubleshoot further.

I decided to eliminate the motors and esc's one at a time so I unsoldered the positive wire on each esc one at a time. Each time redoing the smoke test. With each escs removal the glow was less and less as it should have been. Once all were removed and it was just the FC the bulb no longer glowed. Again obvious as that draws minimal current.

Now that I have started to really scratch my head I thought wait...Isn't this SUPPOSED to act like this.. Powered on there were no shorts so the light bulb wouldn't light as there is minimal current draw. When the esc's are drawing power thru the bulb obviously the current draw would go up and at that point making the light bulb just a power meter of sorts.

Could someone please confirm I am correct and have gone thru this for nothing and that the system is working correctly or that there is still a problem somewhere I have not found before I toss props on and put it in the air.

 

[ElectriSean]

I've heard the term smoke stopper bulb bit I'm not sure what it is. If it is just wired in series with the battery, then as the current goes up it would glow brighter. If there was a short, it would glow very brightly.

 

[Snarls]

You should be fine. What you should be looking out for is the bulb lighting up very brightly when you plug the battery in. If things are ok then you will probably see a faint glow like you say, and as you arm and throttle up the brightness should increase accordingly. A sudden flash of brightness is when something is wrong.

Glad you got things working. Just curious, how did you get the FC flashed and working in the end? I myself have to update my ESCs to 1.03, but I have 1.01 on them so flashing requires removing the heat shrink and soldering to the tx and rx pads on the ESC. Plus I'm not in the mood to retune again.

 

[cranialrectosis]

I think any glow on the bulb when you don't have the copter armed or the motors spinning is bad. Once the copter is armed, I suspect the bulb would glow as the current draw increased.

I connect the smoke stopper and lipo and watch the bulb. I don't ever arm the copter with the smoke stopper on. Once I can connect and see no glow after 3-4 seconds, I take the smoke stopper out and give it a whirl.






Does it fly?

 

[PsyBorg]

Yup it fly's !!! :applause:

BUT.. on the maiden I had a twitching that caused a hard yaw spike and then back to normal at random intervals. I went ahead and flashed the esc's to 1.03 and the twitching is still there. I did the maiden late so the video is dark enough it doesn't really show up well. Ill put it up on yt in a few minutes and dump the link in here.

Again nothing is heating up or smellin funny. In the video FGA said to turn off the LPF. I THINK I remember hearing either Painless360 or Joshua Bardwell talking about the LPF and it causing twitching if set to high or two low.. Gonna hunt that down again and see if that brings more knowledge as well as resolution so I can trust this to actually fly it.

If you have any thoughts please feel free to post them.

 

[PsyBorg]

You should be fine. What you should be looking out for is the bulb lighting up very brightly when you plug the battery in. If things are ok then you will probably see a faint glow like you say, and as you arm and throttle up the brightness should increase accordingly. A sudden flash of brightness is when something is wrong.

Glad you got things working. Just curious, how did you get the FC flashed and working in the end? I myself have to update my ESCs to 1.03, but I have 1.01 on them so flashing requires removing the heat shrink and soldering to the tx and rx pads on the ESC. Plus I'm not in the mood to retune again.

I ended up loading the Demo and going that route to get the FC up to date. That allowed me to flash the esc's directly thru the KISS Gui.

I did watch this guys video before deciding to do the maiden without flashing the esc's. He seemed to know what he was doing and what he did worked.. I didn't feel like going thru all that serial number gathering and stuff because I know little to nothing about working with FTDI stuff.

 

[PsyBorg]

Here's the video of the maiden If you up the brighness on the video (I can do it on media player not sure how on YT) you can see better.
The twitching is hard to see but when it drops down or moves to the left that was a twitch not me on the controls. It is very sensitive so Ill have to set at least a little Exp on my radio until I am used to it once this twitch is resolved.

 

[Snarls]

Yup it fly's !!! :applause:

BUT.. on the maiden I had a twitching that caused a hard yaw spike and then back to normal at random intervals. I went ahead and flashed the esc's to 1.03 and the twitching is still there. I did the maiden late so the video is dark enough it doesn't really show up well. Ill put it up on yt in a few minutes and dump the link in here.

Again nothing is heating up or smellin funny. In the video FGA said to turn off the LPF. I THINK I remember hearing either Painless360 or Joshua Bardwell talking about the LPF and it causing twitching if set to high or two low.. Gonna hunt that down again and see if that brings more knowledge as well as resolution so I can trust this to actually fly it.

If you have any thoughts please feel free to post them.

That twitching does not look like high P gain. High P gain is a faster oscillation and you will hear a constant twitch. One possibility is high D gain. I advise you keep the D gain below 20, and the less the better. With high D gain you will hear rough grinding noises at low throttle and possibly get twitching like you have. The twitching could also be the filter like you say. Personally I fly with no filter. Even with the LPF FRQ set to high (which is minimal filtering) I get shakes like the P gain is high.

A note about PID tuning:
Is this flying at the default PIDs? If not I suggest starting there and not using other pilots profiles, even if they have a very similar setup. I say this for one because even an almost matching setup can be slightly different with a different firmware version and require different PIDs. That said, the biggest reason to not use pilot profiles is because they trick you to have expectations. If a pilot has a very similar setup to you, you will be tuning with bias towards tuning the PIDs to something close to what the other pilot has, when in reality the best PIDs may be far different.

 

[PsyBorg]

I Followed FGA's latest RR video how to set up the FC and in it he gave suggested starting values. I will go back to default pids and ss if that changes anything. Thanks for the heads up and the info on the LPF as well.

Seems like the twitching will happen above 50% throttle with no props but as you saw it will twitch at very low barely hovering levels with props. Anyway back to defaults and start up with my own tuning if that cures the twitching.

 

[PsyBorg]

Holy crap I think I just solved the mystery..

I was messing with filters and had defaulted pids. I noticed when I was in level mode pitch roll and yaw would respond accordingly. When I switched to acro only throttle was working. So I picked up the quad while the motors were spinning and when I tilted it to look at the wireing a twitch happened. So I moved it again and it twitched again.. Now Im thinking something is loose as I can make it twitch on command by wiggling it.

So knowing my solder job is fine as I had checked that a bunch of times when I had it apart this afternoon I started looking at the connections that were plugged in. Which are only the flight battery and obviously it was not dropping power. The video feed off the filter coming off the pdb which isn't even connected at this point yet. That leaves only the receiver to FC connector. It LOOKED like it was plugged in all the way but when I put my glasses on for better view it was ever so slightly away from the receiver.

I powered it all down and pushed the plastic housing in the rest of the way then used a small screwdriver to push the pins in further. That seems to have solved the twitch. So that means that the connector is not the best quality or the female pins are not gripping properly so I will change that out tomorrow and retry all this again.

Then I will get a re maiden video in the sunlight.

 

[LitterBug]

AHHHH..... The fun of Maidens!

Cheers!
LitterBug

 

[PsyBorg]

So me thinks tha lil beastie lives. I tightened up the connectors to the receiver and redid the maiden a short while ago. Flew two 1800 mah packs on it to see how it handled the weight. It did well and was nice and smooth in mildly gusting winds.

Here is the video on the first pack. I would upload the second as it was more interesting flying but a neighbor came up and was asking questions. His voice is loud as he sat right next to the camera as well as his dog was being a pita.

 

[PsyBorg]

Took some time to start making a camera mount for the wanna be go pro I have. Was not much room up top when I put the 1800 mah on it but managed to get a decent start and keep it balanced nicely. I flew my 1300 graphene battery with it and then my two Gens ace 1800's

I am amazed how stable this is. obviously there will be tuning needed for harder stuff but as far as it being top heavy or bouncy its not to bad on the pids FGA put out to start with on his latest Kiss FC set up video to go with the Rotor Riot Alien build.

The flight is nothing fancy just me getting used to how responsive this thing is and trying not to over correct. A few more days of this and I will probably start running FPV it flys so smooth and responsive.

 

[LitterBug]

ACRO LOS! That is impressive. I can acro all day FPV. I cannot wrap my head around ACRO LOS and still need some sort of leveling LOS.

Cheers!
LitterBug

 

[cranialrectosis]

I see a kid's playset that looks like it has some gaps... just sayin'.