AQ Octo is working well

[LPR]

AQ Octo is working well



Thanks everyone for all the great help and a stunning Auto pilot!!

Larry

[kinderkram]

Nice and smooth Octo Ship you have there, Larry!

Did you fly some kind of missions as I can hear you flip switches on the transmitter - or was it some other noise?

btw: I hope you don't mind I edited your video to make it show up here. No censorship intended!

[LPR]

Norbert

I guess I should let people know that I was flying a mission the whole video. There's no way I can fly that steady.
I don't have the video public yet because I'm working on a better one but it's getting colder here in Minnesota soon and I might have to give up.
I had a friend with a very high quality camera and tripod over this morning to video a complicated mission between the trees on my lawn. A wind increased to over twenty MPH and it blew the octo right past a waypoint. No damage, I'll try again latter.
The trick with the string really works. Just to see how well, I took all the beat up props I had and put them on to see if I could fly. No problem, flew just like I had new props. Some of the props had more than a .5 cm chipped off of one side of the prop. I had some sailboat rigging, Vectran on hand so I used it, it's very strong. Even though I've broken four props sense I used the string the string has not been hurt. Don't ask how I broke the props. All I can say is that the string doesn't stop pilot error!!

Larry

[JussiH]

Spiderweb-octo?

Nice build and nice flying, seems like a very stable and well-tuned machine. Thumbs up!

[LPR]

[JussiH]

I think that is a very good idea. I had a similar idea to make the booms longer and then use a bicycle tube to create a bumperzone, but I like that one...

One time when I was doing an orthophoto-flight, it would only execute up to WP12 out of 20. In that case it came from an error in WP12 - so I deleted that WP, reprogrammed and reuploaded the mission via QGC and it would execute. But its been a while since I flew missions, my latest jobs has been inspections and all flown in DVH mode. I have never seen the WP´s get mixed up - if you can document what is happening, it will make it easier to pinpoint for Peter.

I have a set of 3DR 433 radios, and they seem reliable enough in bench- and rangetests, but I havent flown with them yet - I am still using 2.4 Xbee pros. What airspeed are you setting the 3DR radios for?

Tell me about winter coming - the forecast here is -15c and 10CM snow this afternoon, so I am gonna go out and fly while I can, and I ordered some conformal coating for the ESC´s and FC in an effort to stretch the season, but soon I will have to go back into dev/design mode to fill the long cold nights with something useful.

[LPR]

JussiH

I use wood dowels in the heli tail booms were the clamps are. The dowel for the motor mount is a couple of centimeters long than needed so I can add the extra length and Styrofoam baseballs. Two layers of packaging tape stuck together is the messy band around the baseballs. I can take it all off in less than minuet. I left the tape on for the video because I liked the look and for safety.
I've have problems with the 3D radios often and it is likely my setup. I have twisted wire over .5 meters long from the AQ board out to the 3D radio running in a bundle of the PWM motor signal wires. I new it would be best to use a shielded cable be I hoped it would be OK. It's time to change. I've had two crashes when I start a mission and the octo jumps straight up trying to get the 335 meters of relative altitude instead of the 1 meter I had it set to. At first I thought it was my error, the last time I know I had it set right in the waypoint. The bluetooth is connected to the same wires when I use my Android and I have even more problems with loading a mission. Way to many errors are happening. I need a shielded cable.
I'm been researching methods of waterproofing and I think I'll use a thin film coating and sealed containment with a breathable moisture barrier membrian so I can get snow everywhere and not have to worry.
My RC Timer 4215 motors bearings already sound like the bearings are needing replacement so I don't need to worry about them, I'll put new bearings in them in the spring.
The web of Vectran braided rope around the motors does wonders for vibration. There is no need to worry about balancing the props or even bad bearings causing control problems.
Vectran is known for absorbing vibration but I think any string would work.
It's been a long time and I'm really having fun flying missions.

Larry

[teramax]

Hy Larry
What did u do, change, tune between ~~~~~ and --------- ?

[LPR]

Tera

I had a lot of crashes due to the ESC32. The motors RC Timers 4215 take 26 amps with a APC 12 x3.8 prop. Getting the ESC32 to not cut out with that much amp draw was a challenge. Once fixed the only change from default setting is rate D to 5800. I would guess that the bigger the multicopter the lower rate D should be because the extra mass slows movements. The only other thing was to use a string around the motors, you can see it in the video. The string greatly reduce problems with vibrations. Finding a motor mix for an octo was a learning experiences.

Larry

[JussiH]

Larry, was the 26A with your 6cell A123?

What airspeed are you using with the 3DR radios?

Thanks

Jussi