ELEV-8 w/Hoverfly Open LED alignment, and hacky fix..

phreakocious

Just an FYI to the fine people of Parallax.. I picked up an ELEV-8 kit the other day which comes with the Hoverfly Open instead of the Sport. I noticed that the hole for the LED in the plastic top piece doesn't line up with the LED on the board. It's off by about 1-2mm. It was a bit distracting to see the LED always looking red through the red plastic.

Hacky fix: I drilled a hole in an automotive valve stem cover for the light tube and use it to enclose the LED.

Still having lots of problems achieving stable flight, but I will post again on that when I'm sure I didn't do something stupid.

Ken Gracey

Hello phreakocious,

Welcome to the forums!

I'll immediately alert our internal product owner to your point about the LED whole on the top piece. Like you pointed out, it'd be distracting to always see red (and dangerous, too).

If you're having stable flight issues, try turning the gain down - this should fly really smooth.

And if you have any trouble with the kit, we're right here to keep you in the air. Just let us know how it's working out as you proceed. We want everybody to have success!

phreakocious

Thanks for the suggestion, Ken. Lower gain does seem to help a bit, but the thing really wants to go off in a particular direction all the time.

I "developed" this "amazing" zero budget extended frame to help avoid destroying props:

Nick Ernst

Hello phreakocious,

Welcome to our Forums!

A few questions for you off the get go:
-How long ago did you get the kit, and from where did you get it? I ask because the Sport board has not been in the kit for quite some time now.
-What do you have your gain set to in your controller, as this could be affecting your flight. We recommend starting at 25%, and then adjusting in small increments, 2-3%, from there.
-Could you take a few pictures of your setup? A picture is worth a thousand words, and we may be able to identify an issue that could be affecting your flight through a picture.

I will PM you to get some information from you so that I can send you a new top plate.

-Nick

Nick Ernst

Another thing to check is whether you have synced your ESC's. This could also be causing the ESC's to not spin together and cause the craft to seem like it is drifting in one direction. Before you power up your Elev-8, turn on your Transmitter and put the throttle stick all the way up. Now power up your Elev-8 and you will hear the ESC's go through their normal power up sequence, and then you will hear two(2) short beeps, meaning the ESC's have recognized and saved this as the maximum throttle point. Once you hear those two beeps, lower the Throttle on your transmitter to the bottom(0). Now you will hear three(3) short beeps, and this means the ESC's have recognized and saved this as the minimum throttle point.

Once this has been done, your ESC's are synced and they should spin up together and you should have smooth throttle control. Let me know if you have done this, and if you have not, if you get better results or not.

phreakocious

Nick,

I picked it up at the local Microcenter in Madison Heights, MI on Monday. I had read a number of posts talking about the Sport board being there, so assumed that the Open board was why the LED alignment was off.

I have a Spektrum DX6i. All the ESCs were individually programmed and calibrated. (Speaking of which, shouldn't they be calibrated to the Hoverfly and not the transmitter??)

I have only run in manual mode, and have the gain at about -28% now. My main issue seems to be that it doesn't sit level and wants to move in some direction, usually tilting dangerously at a low altitude.

There's a lousy picture in my previous post.. I broke two props running it without the coat hangers.

Nick Ernst

When you run through the procedure for syncing the ESC's, they will be synced to the signal that is being fed to them by the Open Board. Try syncing the ESC's as I described and see if you still have the tilting issue.

phreakocious

I will test it out after the battery recharges and let you know. Thanks for the awesome responsiveness, you guys.. I now officially forgive you for waiting to so long to release the source code for last year's DEFCON badge.

Ken Gracey

phreakocious wrote: »

I now officially forgive you for waiting to so long to release the source code for last year's DEFCON badge.

Haha! That was my responsibility, and it took a long time to get posted because the DEFCON organizers wanted the contest to be almost finished by the time we posted the source.

Even my iPhone got hacked at the 'CON. What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas (including your iPhone profile, your credit card information and most of your identity!). Who knows what I was thinking when I decided to go to the CON to catch up on sleep..

Let's get your ELEV-8 flying properly, pronto. Make sure those ESCs were calibrated using the calibration card, or the transmitter (there are two ways to do this job). Also, you can "reset" the ESC by holding the throttle high during boot-up. Once it beeps, lower it down and arm the board.

Duane Degn

phreakocious,

I've tried to make a list of ELEV-8 related links in post #10 of my index.

This thread is about setting up a Spektrum DX6i to use with the ELEV-8.

Do you have experience with radio control aircraft? While the ELEV-8 is a lot easier to fly than a RC helicopter, it's far from easy.

You might want to check out the thread about flight simulators. I personally think a flight simulator is a very good idea and it will likely save you money in the long run.

phreakocious

Battery recharged and did the en masse ESC calibration as you suggested, Nick, and it's definitely much better than it was.. It's cold and dark outside, so I need to do more testing tomorrow.

Duane: I have some experience with standard RC helicopters and they are too finicky for me. My expectations may be a bit off, but I thought the Hoverfly would provide relatively stable hovering if all of the controls were idle by using its internal gyro to compensate for balance issues by adjusting individual motors.

Is it possible that having the Hoverfly board not be perfectly level relative to the frame due to the screw penetration into the plastic and/or rubber grommets be a factor?

SRLM

phreakocious wrote: »

Is it possible that having the Hoverfly board not be perfectly level relative to the frame due to the screw penetration into the plastic and/or rubber grommets be a factor?

The onboard gyro can correct for short term deviations from a set point, but the Hoverfly cannot determine where level is and maintain that level. Instead, it relies on the feedback from the pilot to keep it stable in the long term.

phreakocious

Thanks once again to all who have contributed information and suggestions. Unfortunately, it's been raining all day, which is preventing me from doing any further testing. I'll post some updates whenever I have them.

phreakocious

It looks like that calibration has really helped a lot. Still have a bit of drift, but not nearly as extreme as before. No more breaking props. Just need to practice now.

Thanks!

BennyO

Regarding the LED issue.. My fiancee gave me an elev-8 kit for x-mas and the hole for the LED is off by 1-2 mm on that as well. I think she bought it sometime in November.