I'm not going to go into the gory details but I need to get a new set of motors for my Elev-8 kit. The ones I currently have are red but I notice that the new kits come with yellow motors. I'm not particularly concerned with the asthetics of having two different motor colors but I'm wondering if it would be better to have a matched set of four new motors rather than mixing the older red motors with the newer yellow ones? Are these new motors identical in performance to the original red ones or would it be safer to have a matched set of the newer ones rather than a mixture of the two?
Also, is this the motor that is used in the current Elev-8 kit?
I think I've managed to fix one of my broken red motors by replacing the shaft and that along with a spare red motor that Ken Gracey generously sent me a while back will let me get my Elev-8 kit flying again. I'm going to have to be a lot more careful in the way I handle my motors in the future since I am now out of spares! Thanks to everyone for their advice!
One of the things I forgot to do the first time I attempted to fly my Elev-8 was to calibrate the ESCs. I'm trying to do that now and am running into differences between what the ESC instructions say and what I observe while performing the calibration. The ESC instructions for the Turnigy Plush 25A say to perform the following steps:
1) Switch on the transmitter with throttle at top
2) Connect the battery to the ESC
3) Wait for about 2 seconds
4) "Beep-Beep" should be emitted indicating that the throttle highest point has been correctly confirmed
5) Move throttle to bottom
6) Several beep tones should be emitted, one for each battery cell
7) A long beep tone should be emitted indicating that the throttle range lowest point has been correctly confimed
The trouble is, I don't get the beeps indicated in step 6. I just get the long beep tone in step 7. I have a three cell battery so I expected to get three beeps for step 6. Any idea why these beeps are missing and if it indicates a problem?
6) Several beep tones should be emitted, one for each battery cell
7) A long beep tone should be emitted indicating that the throttle range lowest point has been correctly confimed
The trouble is, I don't get the beeps indicated in step 6. I just get the long beep tone in step 7. I have a three cell battery so I expected to get three beeps for step 6. Any idea why these beeps are missing and if it indicates a problem?
How are your ESC's configured? The HoverFly instructions say to set the ESCs to "Ni-xx" batteries. If you followed those directions you'll wont get the three beeps in step 6.
In this thread, Nick Ernst suggested using "Li-xx" for battery chemistry. I'm going with Nick's suggestion myself.
What are you using in your configuration settings?
How are your ESC's configured? The HoverFly instructions say to set the ESCs to "Ni-xx" batteries. If you followed those directions you'll wont get the three beeps in step 6.
In this thread, Nick Ernst suggested using "Li-xx" for battery chemistry. I'm going with Nick's suggestion myself.
What are you using in your configuration settings?
I selected Ni-xx as suggested by the Hoverfly instructions. I guess that explains it. Thanks!
I selected Ni-xx as suggested by the Hoverfly instructions. I guess that explains it. Thanks!
I switched to the Li-xx setting and, as you predicted, I now get the three beeps indicating three battery cells. Thanks!
I've configured and calibrated the ESCs with the settings suggested in the thread you mentioned. However, I calibrated all of the ESCs using the same motor. Is it important that the correct motor be used during calibration or is that process independent of the motor itself. I guess the motor needs to be connected because otherwise I don't hear any beeps.
I've configured and calibrated the ESCs with the settings suggested in the thread you mentioned. However, I calibrated all of the ESCs using the same motor. Is it important that the correct motor be used during calibration or is that process independent of the motor itself.
It's fine to use the same motor for calibration.
BTW, I flew my hexacopter for the first time today. It was too windy to fly very high or for much time but it was fun to see it finally in the air. Once I get a video of it flying a little higher, I'll start a new thread about it.
BTW, I flew my hexacopter for the first time today. It was too windy to fly very high or for much time but it was fun to see it finally in the air. Once I get a video of it flying a little higher, I'll start a new thread about it.
Congratulations on flying your hexacopter! I think I'm going to take your advise and get the RealFlight simulator and practice with that before trying my Elev-8 kit again. I don't want to trash any more motors! :-)
By the way, when I went to reprogram my ESCs to use the Li-xx setting, I noticed that one of them had totally the wrong settings. Have you ever had an ESC lose track of its settings? I know I programmed all four correctly a few months ago. I'm not sure why this one was wrong when I checked it today.
Is it important that the correct motor be used during calibration or is that process independent of the motor itself. I guess the motor needs to be connected because otherwise I don't hear any beeps.
The motor is the speaker through which the beeps are played, which is why you won't hear beeps it if it's not connected. (if you look closely, you'll often see the propellers wiggle a little when the beeps are playing). The calibration has nothing to do with the motor itself - The ESC is reading the values it gets from the receiver when your throttle stick is at the top & bottom positions so it knows to respond to that specific range.
The motor is the speaker through which the beeps are played, which is why you won't hear beeps it if it's not connected. (if you look closely, you'll often see the propellers wiggle a little when the beeps are playing). The calibration has nothing to do with the motor itself - The ESC is reading the values it gets from the receiver when your throttle stick is at the top & bottom positions so it knows to respond to that specific range.
Jason
The motor is the speaker? Wow! I never would have guessed that. Thanks for confirming that using the same motor to calibrate each ESC should be okay.
The motor is the speaker? Wow! I never would have guessed that.
That got me too. Now that I think about, I've modified the heatshrink on several ESCs and I've never seen one with a speaker. I just assumed ESCs all had a little piezo speaker somewhere.
I'm sure you've all tried out the "songs" that come programmed in many ESCs. The songs get old real fast if you leave them programmed in.
This is also why some ESCs have a selectable PWM rate. A lower rate (8KHz to 16KHz) is a little more efficient due to lower switching loss, but it's audible - you get a high pitched whine from the motor. Having a rate just higher than the threshold of most people's hearing (22KHz or above) makes for a much quieter motor.
It's a crappy speaker, but it gets the job done, and as Duane noted, it saves board space.
David,
One thing that could have contributed to your ESC losing the settings that you had previously programmed into it could be that at the end of the manual programming steps, I have noticed that if I don't get all the way to step 8, and then exit calibration by selecting exit in that step, some of my ESC's would lose the configuration that I had just entered. This could have been what happened to yours.
David,
One thing that could have contributed to your ESC losing the settings that you had previously programmed into it could be that at the end of the manual programming steps, I have noticed that if I don'd get all the way to step 8, and then exit calibration by selecting exit in that step, some of my ESC's would lose the configuration that I had just entered. This could have been what happened to yours.
It's possible that was my problem. I made sure to go back and check the settings on all of the ESCs this time so I'm sure they're all programmed correctly. Thanks for the suggestion!
Here's an example why you never fly over people. In the video you see a very popular multi rotor stabilization system (DJI WooKong) experience a firmware bug.
Perfect explanation of why we support Hoverfly Tech!
I have completed building my ELEV-8, and I'm experiencing serious issues with my motors. Once i power up the quad, as i begin to give it power about half way up it goes full throttle every time. I have no idea what's happening. Any advice will be useful. ( I'm using the Futaba as my controller.)
I have completed building my ELEV-8, and I'm experiencing serious issues with my motors. Once i power up the quad, as i begin to give it power about half way up it goes full throttle every time. I have no idea what's happening. Any advice will be useful. ( I'm using the Futaba as my controller.)
Thank You,
Chris
Chris,
Have you calibrated the ESCs as described in this post.
There's a lot of other good setup information in that thread.
Has anyone intergrated Parallax, Mesmix 2125 Dual-axis Accelerometer or MMA7455 3-Axis Accelerometer Module to the ELEV-8? I'm entering the next stage of my Project & any insight on this would be appreciated.
Has anyone intergrated Parallax, Mesmix 2125 Dual-axis Accelerometer or MMA7455 3-Axis Accelerometer Module to the ELEV-8? I'm entering the next stage of my Project & any insight on this would be appreciated.
I think it's safe to say the MMA7455 3-axis accelerometer is the better choice for this application. I have one of these sensors I plan to try to use with my ELEV-8 but I haven't started yet.
I'm guessing the place to start would be to get Jason Dorie's code to work with your ELEV-8 and then try adding the accelerometer (I think Jason and others are working on this). I doubt this is a trivial problem. I have links to Jason's code and other quadcopter threads in post #10 of my index (see my signature).
Yeah, it's not simple. Using the gyro only, you just keep track of what angle you think you're at, and what angle the user wants you to be at, and you adjust the motors to compensate for any difference, but "angle" is a meaningless number because you have no frame of reference. It's like being in a car, trying to figure out how far you've driven when all you can look at is the needle of the speedometer. You can make an educated guess, but that's all it is.
Using the accelerometer, now you have a rough idea where "down" is, so you can correct your angle guesses. Using the above analogy, it's like passing mile markers on the highway. So, every so often you can correct your guess, and you can use the corrections to improve your future guesses. The problem with it is that, computing a rotating orientation frame in 3D, the math gets pretty complicated.
Comments
The link that you attached is for the current ELEV-8 Motors.
Duane,
The motors you linked to at HobbyKing are not the same as those are 1100kv rated motors, and our motors are 1000kv.
1) Switch on the transmitter with throttle at top
2) Connect the battery to the ESC
3) Wait for about 2 seconds
4) "Beep-Beep" should be emitted indicating that the throttle highest point has been correctly confirmed
5) Move throttle to bottom
6) Several beep tones should be emitted, one for each battery cell
7) A long beep tone should be emitted indicating that the throttle range lowest point has been correctly confimed
The trouble is, I don't get the beeps indicated in step 6. I just get the long beep tone in step 7. I have a three cell battery so I expected to get three beeps for step 6. Any idea why these beeps are missing and if it indicates a problem?
Thanks,
David
How are your ESC's configured? The HoverFly instructions say to set the ESCs to "Ni-xx" batteries. If you followed those directions you'll wont get the three beeps in step 6.
In this thread, Nick Ernst suggested using "Li-xx" for battery chemistry. I'm going with Nick's suggestion myself.
What are you using in your configuration settings?
I selected Ni-xx as suggested by the Hoverfly instructions. I guess that explains it. Thanks!
I've configured and calibrated the ESCs with the settings suggested in the thread you mentioned. However, I calibrated all of the ESCs using the same motor. Is it important that the correct motor be used during calibration or is that process independent of the motor itself. I guess the motor needs to be connected because otherwise I don't hear any beeps.
It's fine to use the same motor for calibration.
BTW, I flew my hexacopter for the first time today. It was too windy to fly very high or for much time but it was fun to see it finally in the air. Once I get a video of it flying a little higher, I'll start a new thread about it.
Congratulations on flying your hexacopter! I think I'm going to take your advise and get the RealFlight simulator and practice with that before trying my Elev-8 kit again. I don't want to trash any more motors! :-)
By the way, when I went to reprogram my ESCs to use the Li-xx setting, I noticed that one of them had totally the wrong settings. Have you ever had an ESC lose track of its settings? I know I programmed all four correctly a few months ago. I'm not sure why this one was wrong when I checked it today.
The motor is the speaker through which the beeps are played, which is why you won't hear beeps it if it's not connected. (if you look closely, you'll often see the propellers wiggle a little when the beeps are playing). The calibration has nothing to do with the motor itself - The ESC is reading the values it gets from the receiver when your throttle stick is at the top & bottom positions so it knows to respond to that specific range.
Jason
That got me too. Now that I think about, I've modified the heatshrink on several ESCs and I've never seen one with a speaker. I just assumed ESCs all had a little piezo speaker somewhere.
I'm sure you've all tried out the "songs" that come programmed in many ESCs. The songs get old real fast if you leave them programmed in.
It's a crappy speaker, but it gets the job done, and as Duane noted, it saves board space.
One thing that could have contributed to your ESC losing the settings that you had previously programmed into it could be that at the end of the manual programming steps, I have noticed that if I don't get all the way to step 8, and then exit calibration by selecting exit in that step, some of my ESC's would lose the configuration that I had just entered. This could have been what happened to yours.
Perfect explanation of why we support Hoverfly Tech!
I have completed building my ELEV-8, and I'm experiencing serious issues with my motors. Once i power up the quad, as i begin to give it power about half way up it goes full throttle every time. I have no idea what's happening. Any advice will be useful. ( I'm using the Futaba as my controller.)
Thank You,
Chris
Chris,
Have you calibrated the ESCs as described in this post.
There's a lot of other good setup information in that thread.
Welcome to the forum.
The link you gave is not working.
Chris
We calibrated the ESCs according to the hoverfly manual.
Chris
Sorry about that. I just fixed it.
How does one ESC/motor behave if you connect a single ESC directly to the throttle port on the receiver? Does the motor respond as expected?
Did you configure the ESCs as described in the HoverFly manual or according the the settings Nick suggests?
I assume you used the HoverFly software to configure the HoverFly board? Did that all go okay?
If i connect one ESC/Motor directly to the throttle port, it works fine, every time. Exactly as expected.
According to the HoverFly Manual. Reviewing Nicks suggestions right now.
Yes i did, it went perfectly well.
Did you see the instructions to reverse the channels on a Futaba?
Appendix C
4 Transmitter Programming
4. Set Channel Reverse to normal (reverse all on Futaba).
Done. I think I may have solved the problem. I will know for sure tomorrow.
Thank You All.
Thank You
I think it's safe to say the MMA7455 3-axis accelerometer is the better choice for this application. I have one of these sensors I plan to try to use with my ELEV-8 but I haven't started yet.
I'm guessing the place to start would be to get Jason Dorie's code to work with your ELEV-8 and then try adding the accelerometer (I think Jason and others are working on this). I doubt this is a trivial problem. I have links to Jason's code and other quadcopter threads in post #10 of my index (see my signature).
Using the accelerometer, now you have a rough idea where "down" is, so you can correct your angle guesses. Using the above analogy, it's like passing mile markers on the highway. So, every so often you can correct your guess, and you can use the corrections to improve your future guesses. The problem with it is that, computing a rotating orientation frame in 3D, the math gets pretty complicated.