Ken, thanks for the welcome and the quick answer. I'm a prop hobbyist (currently building an automated tennis ball shooter for the dog) and don't know if I'm really ready for the ELEV-8.
The Sacramento-area agency that I work for is about to kick off a creek restoration project. I would like to use something like the ELEV-8 to photo-document our progress from the air. It will be very cool as we rip out an old concrete channel carve a new, meandering creek with native flora and fauna.
Would you be interested in loaning your ELEV-8 periodically to help us capture this transformation on (digital) film?
Sure. Just tell me when you need it. I'd ask you to come in for a flight training first and I'd mount the Hoverfly PRO board so you have an easier time getting the video you want.
I can give you a flight training at Parallax January 30th or 31st. Your choice, or even later.
If you've never flown one before you might be surprised at how tricky it is to do it well. Not trying to dissuade you from owning one, but "can I borrow it to film something" might be getting yourself into more than you'd expect. (I hope that's not coming across as snarky - it's certainly not intended in that way)
If you can't find someone local to do it, I'm in Petaluma which is only about an hour away. I have an Elev-8 and a personal quad that I'm adding a stabilizing camera gimbal to, and I'll likely be looking for an excuse to use it.
Wow. Thanks for the the offers. That would be great.
Ken, what's happening at Parallax on 1/30 & 1/31?
You are coming to the office. If you can fly an ELEV-8 then you can borrow it. If we think you are overly crash-prone then I can film it for you or Jason could. Which creek in Sacramento are we talking about?
Just a FWIW for new "pilots". I learned many years ago on airplanes. Crashed a lot at first. I firmly believe that driving an RC car or truck first can go a long way toward learning the fine motor skills and "finesse" needed to control an airplane or even a stabilized quad. You will also get some exposure right off the bat to the "backwards" effect when you turn around and come back toward you. My brother solved that problem by turning his back an the vehicle and looking over his shoulder.
A flight simulator is a valuable tool for learning to fly. I have used the CSM sim (DOS based) and Real Flight. I recommend a simulator that either uses your actual RC transmitter or comes with a "dummy" transmitter.
I second that - I have RealFlight as well, and a quad flies very much like an R/C helicopter. I fly planes and helicopters as well, and I doubt I could quantify the amount of money I've saved by trying things in the sim first.
@ Mr. Ken Gracey - I wish to thank you for the warm welcome and all your personal contributions over the years, it doesn't go unoticed in my opinion. I have enjoyed many years of pleasure through Parallax products and all the people that contribute and educate the masses that follow the various threads posted on this site. I especially enjoy this thread as it is exactly what I have been trying to accomplish for my home robot. I am a retired Navy person, with many hours of flight time in both fixed wing maritime patrol aircraft and helicopters. I served my country using technology created by people like yourselves here at Parallax and many other companies which kept me safe during my 20 years of Naval Aviation, I have to thank all the people here for providing me personal pleasure and satisfaction in furthering my education through all that contribute their personal trials and tribulations here. I have outlived my first wife, lost my house, taken a pay cut to keep a job, so the real importance of you all is you give me happiness and pleasure in otherwise difficult times. Creating the Propellor Chip is the best invention/innovation in my 55 years of walking the planet. Thank You Ken:)
I'll third that. I used the CSM to learn to fly my RC gas heli a few years ago. Of course, back when I learned originally, they didn't even have PC's yet.
@ Mr. Ken Gracey - I wish to thank you for the warm welcome and all your personal contributions over the years, it doesn't go unoticed in my opinion. I have enjoyed many years of pleasure through Parallax products and all the people that contribute and educate the masses that follow the various threads posted on this site. I especially enjoy this thread as it is exactly what I have been trying to accomplish for my home robot. I am a retired Navy person, with many hours of flight time in both fixed wing maritime patrol aircraft and helicopters. I served my country using technology created by people like yourselves here at Parallax and many other companies which kept me safe during my 20 years of Naval Aviation, I have to thank all the people here for providing me personal pleasure and satisfaction in furthering my education through all that contribute their personal trials and tribulations here. I have outlived my first wife, lost my house, taken a pay cut to keep a job, so the real importance of you all is you give me happiness and pleasure in otherwise difficult times. Creating the Propellor Chip is the best invention/innovation in my 55 years of walking the planet. Thank You Ken:)
Rob, thank you very much for the compliment to Parallax. We have a few veterans on our staff, including one with eight years of ground experience in Afghanistan and Iraq. I've heard him say several times things like "if I just had that quadcopter. . . " so I understand what you're conveying.
I will pass your statement about the Propeller chip to Chip Gracey, as he'll be pleased to read about it being the best invention you've seen in your 55 years.
@Jason - I have been playing with the Hoverfly sport and have figured out that the port#'s used for the esc's in the X configuration are 27,26,3,2. And you have pointed out the receiver ports are P8-P12,P15. I have tried to modify your RC-Receiver-6.spin program to read from P8 on up but the simple change I made doesn't work and is commented below with all the question marks. I know your a busy guy and would prefer you spend your time completeing the code your working on. But perhaps you can tell me that won't work and I will continue to experiment. Thanks
DAT
org 0
INIT mov p1, par ' Get data pointer
add p1, #4*6 ' Point to PinMask
rdlong pin_mask, p1 ' Read PinMask
shl pin_mask, #8 ''added to make receiver pins P8 thru P12 ??????????????????????
andn dira, pin_mask ' Set input pins
'=================================================================================
@Jason, @W9GFO, ... It seems like I should get a simulator before I spend too much time and money on crash repair. Since I am a complete novice and an "old dog", it might take a LOT of simulation time to get ready for some real flying. I hope I can do that while I build the ELEV-8 that I should be getting soon.
So, what is the "best" simulator? RealFlight Basic, RealFlight G5.5, G6, or ???? All suggestions are welcome.
When I first started looking into quadcopters, I really underestimated how much I would get involved with them. And how much I had to learn.
It is a good idea to try it first to make sure your computer can handle it.
I actually like the CSM sim a little better. It is (was) a no frills helicopter sim with extremely simple graphics but it ran very smooth and did everything that it needed to. These new sims are more like video games with a zillion different options, viewpoints and flight modes. Very easy to get distracted away from the actual purpose of the sim which is learning to fly.
Don't get me wrong, Real Flight is a great program. However, for actual training, the CSM excels because it has just one mode, and that one mode is the one where you actually learn to fly an RC heli.
I suppose it is a bit silly that I am going on about a sim that you probably can't even get anymore, more of rant against feature creep I guess.
@W9GFO.. Thanks for the information. Do you know if there is a way to get CSM?
I am downloading the G5 demo now. I will probably need a new computer to run it.
Do you have any thoughts on RealFlight Basic?
A week or two ago, you posted a photo of your production of many sets of the plastic parts of the ELEV-8. Are you any your family planning a synchronized flying demo for the EXPO? ;-)
I don't know where to get it. Even eBay comes up short. There are four parts to the CSM simulator. The parallel port dongle, the software, the transmitter cord and then a real RC transmitter. Maybe someone on an RC forum has one for sale. I have one but I don't even know where it is right now.
I haven't used Real Flight Basic but it seems to have the important parts without so many frills. I see it has the Raptor 90 helicopter which is probably the one I would use. Small helis tend to be very twitchy. Of course, flying fixed wing has a lot of value too when learning orientation. The downside is that it is not upgradeable in case you decide you want all the frills and eye candy.
Synchronized flying? If, and that's a big if - if I get FPV working in time then maybe. With UPEW early this year it is the weekend after the Spokane regional and two weeks before the championship in St Louis. I have the feeling that I will not have much spare time.
@Dave - I'm not quite ready to publish the rest of it yet, but I can give you these bits. I've attached modified versions of the servo engine and the R/C receiver that will work with the Sport. There's a little more to it than just changing the pin mask - the pin test code needs to be altered as well.
I found a bug in the gyro driver for my own quad and want to make sure it didn't creep into the Sport version I have, and I've also figured out how to make the R/C and servo code fully pin assignable in the calling code. I want to make those changes so I can stop developing a "Sport" version and a "Me" version of all of them, and then I'll do a code drop. I'm hoping to do that shortly, but it's supposed to rain all weekend, so flight testing may be limited.
@Al - I also have RealFlight 5 and I really like it. Like W9 I tend to stay away from the multitude of game-like options and just fly. You may need a more current machine, but you can turn down a lot of the graphics & horsepower settings, so it might be ok. Give it a try before doing anything too rash. On the other hand, maybe you're looking for an excuse to buy a new machine, in which case go to town.
@W9 - Is there a name we should call you? GFO? W9? I can't seem to settle on one.
My old 1Ghz laptop would run Real Flight pretty well except that the aircraft shadow did not work. Of all the graphical features that there are, I think the shadow is just about the most important if you ever want to make good landings.
Thanks Jason. I am just experimenting with what you have posted so far (thank you). I get a real clean gyro signal from the sport now with your itg-3200-pasm.spin.
Another option is ebay for a used Real Flight 3.5 or higher version. We've use Real Flight 3.5 in the shop(hobby) for years and use it to this day. You might find it to have less requirements, get it cheap and might not need to upgrade your computer. Just a thought.
@Dave - I have a new version of the flight code that include a low-pass filter that removes a lot of the gyro noise. I'll be able to drop all of this online shortly, I just want to make sure there are relatively few bugs in it before I do.
Anything is likely better than nothing, as long as it flies ok, but I think you'll find that the toys don't really prepare you for how fast these things can move. If you get a fairly stable toy copter, the first time you fly the Elev-8 you'll probably end up over-steering a lot. Their recommended first setup was *very* input sensitive.
That said, for things like getting your brain around the orientation changes and basic reflexes, yes it'll help.
Anything is likely better than nothing, as long as it flies ok, but I think you'll find that the toys don't really prepare you for how fast these things can move. If you get a fairly stable toy copter, the first time you fly the Elev-8 you'll probably end up over-steering a lot. Their recommended first setup was *very* input sensitive.
That said, for things like getting your brain around the orientation changes and basic reflexes, yes it'll help.
I'm not sure how well some of the "toy" helicopters will prepare you. Most of the ones I've played with have a difficult time hovering. They are basically designed to be moving forward all the time. They can also be very twitchy to adjust so that they fly straight.
I think you'll find that the Radio Shack type of helis are 3 channel. I wouldn't recommend learning on a 3 channel setup then going to something like a quad which is 4 channel. Your fingers would be confused.
Comments
Sure. Just tell me when you need it. I'd ask you to come in for a flight training first and I'd mount the Hoverfly PRO board so you have an easier time getting the video you want.
I can give you a flight training at Parallax January 30th or 31st. Your choice, or even later.
Sincerely,
Ken Gracey
If you can't find someone local to do it, I'm in Petaluma which is only about an hour away. I have an Elev-8 and a personal quad that I'm adding a stabilizing camera gimbal to, and I'll likely be looking for an excuse to use it.
Edit: Apparently Ken types faster than me.
Ken, what's happening at Parallax on 1/30 & 1/31?
You are coming to the office. If you can fly an ELEV-8 then you can borrow it. If we think you are overly crash-prone then I can film it for you or Jason could. Which creek in Sacramento are we talking about?
Ken Gracey
The build, setup, trimming, maintenance and repairing of helis is much harder though.
Rob, thank you very much for the compliment to Parallax. We have a few veterans on our staff, including one with eight years of ground experience in Afghanistan and Iraq. I've heard him say several times things like "if I just had that quadcopter. . . " so I understand what you're conveying.
I will pass your statement about the Propeller chip to Chip Gracey, as he'll be pleased to read about it being the best invention you've seen in your 55 years.
Thank you for being part of the community.
Sincerely,
Ken Gracey
DAT org 0 INIT mov p1, par ' Get data pointer add p1, #4*6 ' Point to PinMask rdlong pin_mask, p1 ' Read PinMask shl pin_mask, #8 ''added to make receiver pins P8 thru P12 ?????????????????????? andn dira, pin_mask ' Set input pins '=================================================================================So, what is the "best" simulator? RealFlight Basic, RealFlight G5.5, G6, or ???? All suggestions are welcome.
When I first started looking into quadcopters, I really underestimated how much I would get involved with them. And how much I had to learn.
Al
You can download a demo of Real Flight here: http://www.realflight.com/free-g5-demo.html
It is a good idea to try it first to make sure your computer can handle it.
I actually like the CSM sim a little better. It is (was) a no frills helicopter sim with extremely simple graphics but it ran very smooth and did everything that it needed to. These new sims are more like video games with a zillion different options, viewpoints and flight modes. Very easy to get distracted away from the actual purpose of the sim which is learning to fly.
Don't get me wrong, Real Flight is a great program. However, for actual training, the CSM excels because it has just one mode, and that one mode is the one where you actually learn to fly an RC heli.
I suppose it is a bit silly that I am going on about a sim that you probably can't even get anymore, more of rant against feature creep I guess.
I am downloading the G5 demo now. I will probably need a new computer to run it.
Do you have any thoughts on RealFlight Basic?
A week or two ago, you posted a photo of your production of many sets of the plastic parts of the ELEV-8. Are you any your family planning a synchronized flying demo for the EXPO? ;-)
Al
I haven't used Real Flight Basic but it seems to have the important parts without so many frills. I see it has the Raptor 90 helicopter which is probably the one I would use. Small helis tend to be very twitchy. Of course, flying fixed wing has a lot of value too when learning orientation. The downside is that it is not upgradeable in case you decide you want all the frills and eye candy.
Synchronized flying? If, and that's a big if - if I get FPV working in time then maybe. With UPEW early this year it is the weekend after the Spokane regional and two weeks before the championship in St Louis. I have the feeling that I will not have much spare time.
I found a bug in the gyro driver for my own quad and want to make sure it didn't creep into the Sport version I have, and I've also figured out how to make the R/C and servo code fully pin assignable in the calling code. I want to make those changes so I can stop developing a "Sport" version and a "Me" version of all of them, and then I'll do a code drop. I'm hoping to do that shortly, but it's supposed to rain all weekend, so flight testing may be limited.
@Al - I also have RealFlight 5 and I really like it. Like W9 I tend to stay away from the multitude of game-like options and just fly. You may need a more current machine, but you can turn down a lot of the graphics & horsepower settings, so it might be ok. Give it a try before doing anything too rash. On the other hand, maybe you're looking for an excuse to buy a new machine, in which case go to town.
@W9 - Is there a name we should call you? GFO? W9? I can't seem to settle on one.
Even the DOS based CSM has shadows!
(click the pic for a review of the CSM Sim)
Another option is ebay for a used Real Flight 3.5 or higher version. We've use Real Flight 3.5 in the shop(hobby) for years and use it to this day. You might find it to have less requirements, get it cheap and might not need to upgrade your computer. Just a thought.
As usual beware of ebay sellers.
Ron
That said, for things like getting your brain around the orientation changes and basic reflexes, yes it'll help.
This weekend I will try another computer and maybe look into a new graphics card.
@Jason - thank you for all of your work on the software. I plan to start digging into it soon, but I have been following your efforts here.
I'm not sure how well some of the "toy" helicopters will prepare you. Most of the ones I've played with have a difficult time hovering. They are basically designed to be moving forward all the time. They can also be very twitchy to adjust so that they fly straight.
I think you'll find that the Radio Shack type of helis are 3 channel. I wouldn't recommend learning on a 3 channel setup then going to something like a quad which is 4 channel. Your fingers would be confused.
Ron