Elev-8 Help
chris jones
Posts: 391
Hello,
i have spoke with a few people there at parallax and i was not able to get a lot of help they pointed me to the forum. i would like to see if anyone can help me with my quad. i have had about 4 friends look at the wires and everything looks great but it just flips i have checked and tripled checked the wires.at this point i am willing to mail my quad out or meet someone in taxes Dallas area to help me fix this i can even pay i just dont know what i am doing wrong.
i have spoke with a few people there at parallax and i was not able to get a lot of help they pointed me to the forum. i would like to see if anyone can help me with my quad. i have had about 4 friends look at the wires and everything looks great but it just flips i have checked and tripled checked the wires.at this point i am willing to mail my quad out or meet someone in taxes Dallas area to help me fix this i can even pay i just dont know what i am doing wrong.
Comments
There are lots of ways to make mistakes putting an ELEV-8 together.
First, you'll want to tell us more about your set up. What radio system are you using? Which ESCs do you have and which motors do you have (not all ELEV-8s have the same parts).
If you can take pictures of the way the wires are connected, someone here might spot a problem.
I believe I may have talked to Chris Savage about this particular case.
I took a quick look at the propeller orientation, and assuming the red booms are forward then the props are properly oriented. However, I couldn't see the videos so I was unable to determine of the propellers are spinning in the correct direction.
Front right: CW
Front left: CCW
Rear right: CCW
Rear left: CW
While many people have looked over the wiring, this is usually where the problem lies. I've built 20 of these and still make wiring mistakes - there's so much room for error when you start plugging in the ESCs and receiver. Have you traced each one, carefully, to the OPEN board? We should start with this step, again.
Also, have you configured the OPEN board in the Hoverfly Setup Client to be an "X" style configuration?
Have you set the ESC throttle range by starting with the radio throttle all the way up?
There's a good possibility that your receiver is not wired correctly, too.
We can't be too over-confident with a quad - there's lots of room for setup error.
I'll check back with this thread.
Ken Gracey
I receive errors when I try to watch the videos. You might want to upload the videos to YouTube.
I'm not familiar with your radio equipment. One thing that can cause problems with setting up a quadcopter is the various radio manufactures have channel behaviors which are different from one another. Do you have a normal hobby servo? If so you could use it to find out which channels on your system will need to be reversed.
Do you know if your radio has the channels configured like a Futaba radio or a Spektrum radio?
i will upload the videos to you tube it may take a bit but i do have a servo laying around but not sure what we would test i am a bit new to RC but i am sure i can pickup fast. as for the RX TX i have bought 3 so far and they all yield the same results and they look the same so i think that all have the same setup.how would i see how the RXTX is setup this one did not come with software but i have the hookup to connect it to the computer.
yes i was working with Chris a bit and he sent a new board but that board still gives the same result so i think its something else so i went and bought new batteries and a new RX TX and still same result.i also labeled all of my motors so i know where they are hooks up from 1-4 and that helped with wiring but it was hooked up exactly like it was before i labeled the cables.i am in the process of uploading the video i will have it posted soon.
Also, have you configured the OPEN board in the Hoverfly Setup Client to be an "X" style configuration?
Yes i did that 2 times and it sad updated successful
Have you set the ESC throttle range by starting with the radio throttle all the way up?
yes i removed the props and set each motor up with a battery back and moved the throttle to full waited for beep and back down to the lowest point and wait for 2 beeps
There's a good possibility that your receiver is not wired correctly, too.
that could be true i followed the chart in tee manual but maybe my receivers are special i don't know
We can't be too over-confident with a quad - there's lots of room for setup error.
i understand but i have dissembled this thing about 8 times i have had it since Christmas and its bothering me that i cant figure this out.
Your radio has some sort of monitor showing which channel is throttle, rudder, aileron and elevator, and gear. Don't assume that they're sequentially arranged in your radio. What I do is connect the radio, identify the throttle, check the Hoverfly docs for which port CH1 goes to on their PCB. Do this for each of the four channels for control, and then gear for gain.
There's a problem and we can certainly find it.
Ken Gracey
flippy
http://youtu.be/jCJCVvf7INk
motor rotation
http://youtu.be/Dit5Xexj4YM
- are the aileron and elevator wired to the correct Hoverfly ports?
- is the gear set at a gain of around 25%, and enabled? You can set both endpoints of CH5 to the same amount.
Be very careful, too.
Ken Gracey
If your transmitter has no visual LCD or human interface, how are you able to verify the gain setting? This might be a "turn the knob and guess" kind of setup.
You might need to hook up a standard servo to the receiver to make sure you've got the correct radio output channels connected to the right Hoverfly ports.
Ken Gracey
My thought was to use the servo to identify which control stick/switch controls which channel and in which direction. Plug the servo into channel 1 and find which stick controls it. Which direction do you move the stick to make the servo turn counter clockwise? Repeat this for each channel and report which stick corresponds to which channel. Also let us know which direction you need to move the stick/switch to make the servo turn ccw.
I'm not sure if you really need to do all the above or not. You radio sure looks like this one at Hobby King. I bet the channel numbers and directions match its settings so you probably don't need to use the servo after all.
www.rcgroups.com/forums/showatt.php?attachmentid=3735318
also Ken ?
how do i check this i think this is the silver knobs on my transmitter but i cant be sure i ahve had so many transmitters i lose track of whats what. but both of my knobs are set to about 25
- is the gear set at a gain of around 25%, and enabled? You can set both endpoints of CH5 to the same amount.
also yes i have seen the horror stories so i have goggles and protective clothes when i was testing that on my table.
Ken,
If it's the same as the HobbyKing tx, the setup display is the PC.
I don't know if a bigger green bar means a longer pulse length or a shorter pulse length.
You could plug a servo into the channel and find out. Most servos will rotate further ccw with a longer pulse and cw with shorter pulses. You could use the servo to let us know if more green means a longer pulse or a shorter pulse.
NEVERMIND found it
http://www.mycoolheli.com/t6config.html
You might also want to check the "files" tab on the page I linked to in post #17.
I think if would be a good idea to plug the servo into the throttle channel (#2) (should be #3) and the gear channel (#5) and let us know which way the servo turns when you move the stick/knobs. Also let us know which direction the servo turns when there's more green in the display.
Edit: It's probably a good idea to check each channel with the servo. Make sure the servo moves the same direction when more green is displayed. Make sure and let us know which direction you moved each stick and knob to increase the green.
Edit(4/17/14): I stated the throttle channel was channel #2. I think the throttle is really on channel #3.
This software that Duane found will omit the need to use servos to identify what channel is used for each stick.
Ken Gracey
i hooked that t6config tool up and this is what my transmitter comes back with
I see the graph is telling us how far from center each stick is. Let us know which direction you need to move the stick to have the black move to the right.
Use the servo in at least one channel so we know which direction it turns when there's more black to the right on the read out.
Yeah, good catch. This will change everything about the radio's behavior, causing signal mixing and perhaps channel remapping on the sticks.
Airplane mode will be the safest starting point.
Ken Gracey
If you're monitoring the forum, hold off on uploading those videos.
The issue tranger brings up is a big one. You'll want to make sure and correct this issue before proceeding.
i did make a video of the original setup as well as the change with the software. does this require me to re sync all of the motors ?
http://youtu.be/hiYOs3PpBxQ
http://youtu.be/tFuxJyKUMuc
http://youtu.be/7jc_qffojkY