Originally Posted by flight01

Hi mark,
I was watching your video and was wandering if you have done any mod to the RSSI .I'm amaze that your level does not bounce up and down up to your 6km flight.I am struggling to have a stable Rssi level,even at 300M it keeps going like crazy and lots of warning and failsafe.Can you please share and what is your RSSI setting value?.
Have a look at VIRGIS21 video a couple of thread back to have an idea.
thanks
Anthony.


Edit ( Virgis21 Post 7931)

I set RSSI in PC Commander so 100% was with tx beside receiver and 0% was with dummy load on tx and at a distance so it was just entering failsafe.
Virgis is getting his antenna shielded somehow, flying away from home at 600 meters he is losing signal a bit but coming home at 3500 meters it has 100%.
I made my own receiver antenna because the original was not quite long enough to get me to the tail, I used rg58u and 2mm solid copper wire for the active and ground.

Mark

Originally Posted by flight01

Hi mark,
I was watching your video and was wandering if you have done any mod to the RSSI .I'm amaze that your level does not bounce up and down up to your 6km flight.I am struggling to have a stable Rssi level,even at 300M it keeps going like crazy and lots of warning and failsafe.Can you please share and what is your RSSI setting value?.
Have a look at VIRGIS21 video a couple of thread back to have an idea.
thanks
Anthony.


Edit ( Virgis21 Post 7931)

Anthony,

I've changed my DL rx with the 2nd one. i will investigate the 1st one, because 5km isn't that distance to start loosing my controls.
Anyway, with that 2nd one (witch is now in the airplane set). have made 20km ground test, gave nice performance..
You can do RSSI setup by PCComander. There is a wizard to do that very easy! and yours RSSI will be set perfectly.

I've changed many thing now in my LRS bird. Will cary more battery capacity now. in place of 10 000mah will be 15 000mah.
FY-20A left only fro ailerons stabilization. DOSD+ and GPS stabilization will take care of Rudder and elevator. Added ArduIMU for AHI, to pass any fog or clouds. and finaly AP will do better without that gliching.. (FY-20 stabilization and AP conflict). Will test it after I feel better.. hate this weather..

Virgis

Originally Posted by Virgis21

Anthony,

I've changed my DL rx with the 2nd one. i will investigate the 1st one, because 5km isn't that distance to start loosing my controls.
Anyway, with that 2nd one (witch is now in the airplane set). have made 20km ground test, gave nice performance..
You can do RSSI setup by PCComander. There is a wizard to do that very easy! and yours RSSI will be set perfectly.

I've changed many thing now in my LRS bird. Will cary more battery capacity now. in place of 10 000mah will be 15 000mah.
FY-20A left only fro ailerons stabilization. DOSD+ and GPS stabilization will take care of Rudder and elevator. Added ArduIMU for AHI, to pass any fog or clouds. and finaly AP will do better without that gliching.. (FY-20 stabilization and AP conflict). Will test it after I feel better.. hate this weather..

Virgis

Virgis,

I'm intrigued to know... isn't using the FY for roll stabilisation redundant overkill?
(yes I realise you are most likely using what you have on hand)

I have a normal gyro that I'm planning to install on my ailerons between the DOSD and servos.

I'd be interested to hear views and or experience.

Cheers,

Ren

Originally Posted by devfor

Virgis,

I'm intrigued to know... isn't using the FY for roll stabilisation redundant overkill?
(yes I realise you are most likely using what you have on hand)

I have a normal gyro that I'm planning to install on my ailerons between the DOSD and servos.

I'd be interested to hear views and or experience.

Cheers,

Ren

Ren,

Fy-20 will take care of ailerons (as AP turns airplane banks, FY will hold it as in my video it was done already).
AP will turn using Rudder. Altitude will be hold better than now (FY+DOSD doing together )
VIrgis

P.S. have you seen my vid few pages ago? with waypoints (boring one)

Originally Posted by Virgis21

Here is video:
http://www.vimeo.com/18796684

Virgis

Virgis,

Is this the one?

Any chance you can go mobile for folks who like to surf whilst in horizontal mode?
http://vimeo.com/blog:265
It's all part of being a PLUS member
cheers,

Ren

Originally Posted by devfor

Virgis,

Is this the one?

Any chance you can go mobile for folks who like to surf whilst in horizontal mode?
http://vimeo.com/blog:265
It's all part of being a PLUS member
cheers,

Ren

Yep, that's the one
I've tagged now option: Make my videos mobile..
Nice viewing!

Virgis

Okay, finally got the plane in the air today, with the IMU working through the DOSD. One thing became immediately clear. . the IMU "drifts" pretty badly, as seen in the video (note the places I put remarks). Secondly, the DOSD NEEDS to have the servos center reset EVERY flight, other wise something gets out of whack.

The IMU makes the DOSD VERY responsive to keeping the plane wings-level. I had the gain set at only .500 and the thing would go form KE to wings level in about 1/2 second, even from almost inverted to wings upright very quickly, so that's a GOOD thing. Pitch stabilization is a bit trickier, especially since I had not done a "servo Center" realignment before I began flying. During the 4th flight (which i forgot to record) I set the Servo Center before I flew, and all the spastic pitch changes went away, and things settled down quite a bit.

My Turnigy motor started to drag, so I had to quit flying today. .I'll put my other motor BACK on the plane and try it again tomorrow with fresh batteries. given the improvements as I started dialing in the Stabilization gain, things are looking much better. During the last flight, the plane was turnign for Home, but not in a very aggressive manner. I had turned the Stab Gain down to .250, so I'll turn it back up tomorrow and see how things work out.

Anyone have any comments on the obvious servo drift and problems with the AH going so far off track, only to slowly realign itself as the plane flew longer? Would using a different firmware help with this and make the drift less prevalent?

I also have the video on Vimeo. I'll add it's URL as soon as it's finished processing.

Thanks

Kris Welter


YOUTUBE:

Dragonosd10 (8 min 10 sec)

VIMEO:

DragonOSD10 (8 min 10 sec)

For compass styles...I tried 8, but found myself trying to interpret it and just confused myself. I went back to mode 3 with just the arrow. For me it's nice, simple, and not in my main field of view.

Now...it would be nice to have something that provided an orientation of actual plane location compared to starting point. Case-in-point. I did my first FPV flight behind goggles today. No issue with the goggles...kinda liked it actually. What I did find is that when coming home (thanks to compass mode 3), I wasn't actually sure where in the sky I was, i.e. coming in from the left, right, or from straight ahead. When I took off the goggles to look for the plane for LOS landing, well...I didn't know where to look. I just used my 'backup' monitor to keep flying FPV until I got myself oriented and then finally found my plane in the sky. I think what finally worked for me was to go into RTH mode, remove goggles, move to backup display, fly low, slow, while passing in front of me, look away from backup display, find airplane (by sound and closer in), take over LOS flight from there. Yeah, easier would be just land via goggles, but I'm not there yet.

Kris,

I glad you got into the air!
What IMU version did you use? Must try Ardu-IMU16f-I2C.zip [47.38 KiB]
Do very precise ArduIMU calibration (as it is described in tsebi forum).
And set: #define SPEEDFILT 0

And then go fly, check if there is less drift.

Vantasstic,

That's why I do always land by FPV (goggles). For me it is easier and more precise than LOS

Virgis

Thanks Virgis
Edit... Damn that was quick
They crunched your video already!


Kris,

I'm assuming the ArduIMU detects no motion and therefor deducts that the airframe is level, "trimming" the AHI to reflect this.

Is this a feature of the DOSD or the IMU?
In other words, is it Daniel's coding that resets the AHI based on what the IMU is telling the DOSD or does the IMU do this all by itself?

cheers,

Ren

Kris

I've not had to reset ail/ele netrals each time I fly... have you got your IMU completely flat in the airframe?


Devfor

as I understand, the IMU uses Daniel's algorithm to make sense of the data coming from the gyros and g-sensors. this attitude data is then fed to the OSD to create the AHI and stabilise.

Originally Posted by MikeTheCrash

Kris

I've not had to reset ail/ele netrals each time I fly... have you got your IMU completely flat in the airframe?


Devfor

as I understand, the IMU uses Daniel's algorithm to make sense of the data coming from the gyros and g-sensors. this attitude data is then fed to the OSD to create the AHI and stabilise.

Mike, I've had to do this before I iinstalled the IMU. I was seeing a cumulative change in aileron trim after 3-4 flights if I had 5-6 clicks of trim in the airplane. I'd reset the servo center after flying, to get the established trim into the unit, then shut down, Next flightI would have to add more trim in the TX to re-establish the center, and then when the AP was turned on it would be more aggressive in turns in one direction, and sluggish int he other direction. I solved this by mechanically setting the trim into the plane with the aileron trim zeroed, by changing the length of the pushrods, and the problem went away.

But, today, on the first flight, I was getting a climbing attitude, even when the AP was not on, and then when I switched the AP on it would start to climb more aggressively. You can see this in the first part of the video when the AP is on. When I reset the servo centers, the plane flew properly under AP, except that it wanted to do a gliding descent, until I clicked in 2 clicks of up trim. The moment I hit the trim the 2nd time, the plane departed it's descent and began climbing aggressively, then when it reached about 375' altitude it tried to establish some sort of level altitude, though it was not a strong hold, slowly descending, then slowly ascending, as it flew on AP. This mild mannerism can probably attributed to the ROCStepGain being set to only .500. I'm sure I can be a bit more aggressive with this now that the IMU is helping to limit (at least in theory) the DOSD's reactiveness past a certain point.

The plane was turning for HOME properly, crossing directly over Home before continuing to circle with Home at one part of the arc, and I could force a reversal of the turn afterr the plane crossed over Home, with as little as 10 degrees toward one direction establishing that direction for the AP to try to returrn to Home again. About 800' out, turning on the AP would have the airplane turn towards home, but not very aggressively since I have the turn/sec limited to 25 degrees and the ROTStepGain is low, at only .700.

BTW, it was nice to see the afffect of the IMU on the plane, with it self-stabilizing when put on wing-tip, and then rolling wings level again. I think I am being a bit conservative with my settings at the moment, so I'll start increasing the Gains in future flights.

I'm just kind of bothered by the AH drifting the way it does. It's definitely a function of the IMU's on board components drifting in a steady-state/off-level attitude. . i just did not expect it to be as evident.

Kris Welter

Originally Posted by Virgis21

Kris,

I glad you got into the air!
What IMU version did you use? Must try Ardu-IMU16f-I2C.zip [47.38 KiB]
Do very precise ArduIMU calibration (as it is described in tsebi forum).
And set: #define SPEEDFILT 0

And then go fly, check if there is less drift.

Vantasstic,

That's why I do always land by FPV (goggles). For me it is easier and more precise than LOS

Virgis

Virgis, I used the 16f version of the firmware. The data stream is very difficult to get a read on, but I used the highest value numbers that I was in the stream for each value, if they repeated themselves several times. I'll pull the unit out of the plane and double check the values tonight ( I am going to HATE this process. . . ), and see if I can see anything that needs to be changed.

I'll do more tests tomorrow. I only have two battery packs for the plane, so unless I want to spend 3-4 hours at the flying field, recharging the packs, that's all the testing I can get done.

I'm also not using goggles yet, so it's LOS, land, and look at video. . reset something .. take-off again. . see how it does. . land and check video. . change something else. Kind of hard to change values in flight right now.


BTW .i just saw the line for "Set speedfilter 0" I'll do that as well.

EDIT. . just checked. .the Speed filter is set to 2 . .will change that.

Kris Welter

Found the following values had changed:

AN3 404,600 changed to 401,607
AN4 406,601 changed to 400,611
AN5 410,610 changed to 410,615

Set airstart to 1 instead of 0
Set #define Speedfilt 2 to 0

Compiled the sketch, set hardcal to 0 and uploaded to board.

Installed in the plane .. IMU is working.

Will give it a try tomorrow. Thanks for the help Virgis. It seems I am actually getting this process down. . . only took 3 minutes to do the whole thing . .amazing. . .

One last question. . should I be setting the DOSD GP mode to 2, for pass thru to the ArduImu, or leaving it 0?

Kris Welter

Gents,

CM 7
I think it still needs a bit of tweaking. At least on my display, the appears "airplane" is 180 degrees off relative to home. The heading representation works, and so does the range scale.

Here you see my test waypoints. I directed the plane to "visit" waypoint OCEAN...Which it smartly did.



Here's the video:

2011 Jan 15 More DOSD Testing- CM7 (2 min 25 sec)

Like I said, an arrow home and course in the bottom center as in CM 8 would be awesome.


HOLD
I also tried to "HOLD". Not really sure how that is done. In the bottom of the main menu there is a "set hold position" menu. I assumed by toggling that choice, the AP would remember that location and when AP is activated, it would then "CIRCLE" around the saved position. I thiink I'm missing something big here...lols.

GAIN POTENTIOMETER
I also assigned "GAIN" to my RC Channel 7 Potentiometer. I did not detect any difference in damping...perhaps because my GPS Stab Gain was set at a relatively low 3. Any ideas here?

VISIT
Worked as advertised. Specify a WP. Specify VISIT. Engage the AP, and the plane obediently flies to the WP and returns home. Brilliant!