Anybody up for flying on Monday?

[Chris Anderson]

Dear Bay Area UAV fliers,

I need to do some practice missions ahead of the Sparkfun competition and am thinking about a fly-in at the Court Lane site in Concord on Monday afternoon (Memorial Day) around 2:00 pm.  Might be a bit windy but not too cold and no rain. 

Anybody up for joining me?

Best,

Chris

--
Chris Anderson
Editor in Chief, WIRED
ch...@wired.com
Twitter: @chr1sa

[John Smith]

Hey Chris,

I'll try to make it up there. It's a little bit of a trip from San Jose but I think I can make it. Need to clear the "Honey Do" list first.

I just missed seeing you and Jordi up at the Maker Faire in San Mateo. I heard the show turned out fairly well for 3D Robotics.

Looking forward to finally meeting you.

Cheers,

John Smith

www.EVUAS.com

--
John M. Smith
SmArt Semi Inc.

575 Emory St.

San Jose, CA.  95110

www.smartsemiinc.com
Cell 408-832-1195

[David Long]

I think I can make it with my new hex.  I'm adding a new camera mount which I want to test.

David

[Jeff Vyduna]

Sure! Can't think of a better group for hints on my first APM flight. 

-- 

Jeff Vyduna

+1 773 895 5995

[Mark Harrison]

On 5/25/12 8:01 PM, Chris Anderson wrote:
> Dear Bay Area UAV fliers,
>

> I need to do some practice missions ahead of the Sparkfun competition and am thinking about a fly-in at the Court Lane site in Concord <http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=court+lane,+concord,+ca&sll=37.759709,-122.397754&sspn=0.02185,0.019569&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Court+Ln,+Concord,+Contra+Costa,+California+94518&ll=37.953453,-122.012122&spn=0.005448,0.004892&t=h&z=18> on Monday afternoon (Memorial Day) around 2:00 pm. Might be a bit windy but not too cold and no rain.

>
> Anybody up for joining me?

Sounds great, I'll be there.

[Charlie Burtoff]

Sounds great!

I'll bring my APM2 Quad!

-Charlie

[Jason Short]

Looks like I got the OK to go.

See you there. I'll bring a plane to try for Sparkfun. Maybe you can help me set it up Chris.

Jason

On May 25, 2012, at 8:01 PM, Chris Anderson wrote:

[Andreas M. Antonopoulos]

Does any one know the two EFF chaps who were at the site?

I'd like to get in touch, but didn't get their contact details. 

[Parker Higgins]

Hi Andreas!

It was me and Trevor Timm. This is my personal email, but for work stuff you can get me at par...@eff.org, and him at tre...@eff.org.

It was really great meeting many of you yesterday, and I look forward to flying more with you guys.

Thanks,
Parker

[Charlie Burtoff]

Hey All, 

If anyone is curious my quad was the one that took off at full throttle after arming and didn't respond to any of my commands :(

It got terrifyingly close to hitting one of our cars....

Crazy thing is I had flown this setup/firmware (2.5.5) just that morning and had no drama at all. 

Amazingly I only broke one motor/prop and the landing gear!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9DQWzIcylo

-Charlie

[Jason Short]

Whoa, rocket launch.

Was that a 2.4 radio? did you find the cause of the PWM input failure?

Jason

[Chris Anderson]

Any chance you were accidentally in one of the auto modes? It was definitely stabilizing and otherwise flying properly in an attempt to get to a high altitude, then it looks like it switched out of auto mode and into manual, with throttle off. 

The code is not supposed to arm if you're in any of the auto modes, however. Is it possible you hit a toggle switch right after you armed?

Either way, that's quite a video! Glad it ended with minimal damage. 

-Chris

[Jason Short]

we looked at the logs in the field. The RC input went to 800+ 1 second after arming 

[Charlie Burtoff]

I was using 2.4Ghz  (Spectrum Module in a Futaba 9c) which I had been using without incident for a while now. I can tell you I was rocking the roll and pitch pretty hard the first 10-15 seconds so it must have been something up with the rc radio setup considering none of that was received by the APM. The RX was ejected pretty hard in the crash, I will put it back in its case and test it but It might be done in my quad :)

I'll have it flying again soon, I have extra motors and props here ready to go :)

Jason - Thanks so much for the debugging at the field! That was really awesome. 

- Charlie

On May 29, 2012, at 5/29/12 8:21 PM, Jason Short wrote:

we looked at the logs in the field. The RC input went to 800+ 1 second after arming 

ARM

MOD:STABILIZE, 443

CTUN, 279, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 32, 0, 0, 0

CTUN, 278, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, -232, 278, 0, 0

CTUN, 278, 0, 9, 0, 0, 0, 0, -168, 278, 0, 0

CTUN, 278, 0, 9, 0, 0, 0, 0, -60, 278, 0, 0

CTUN, 278, 0, 18, 0, 0, 0, 0, -24, 278, 0, 0

CTUN, 278, 0, 18, 0, 0, 0, 0, 24, 278, 0, 0

CTUN, 278, 0, 18, 0, 0, 0, 0, 20, 278, 0, 0

CTUN, 278, 0, 18, 0, 0, 0, 0, 12, 278, 0, 0

CTUN, 278, 0, 18, 0, 0, 0, 0, 8, 278, 0, 0

CTUN, 802, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 4, 802, 0, 0

CTUN, 802, 0, -18, 0, 0, 0, 0, -68, 801, 0, 0

CTUN, 803, 0, -37, 0, 0, 29, 0, -120, 832, 0, 0

...

The roll and pitch were zero the whole time.

I think loosing radio signal was the only thing that brought it down. But I cant know for sure.

Jason

<rocket.log>

[Mark Harrison]

On 5/29/12 8:41 PM, Charlie Burtoff wrote:
> Jason - Thanks so much for the debugging at the field! That was really awesome.

As the guy on TV said, "I don't always fly quadcopters, but when I do I fly
with Jason Short!"

Was there any record of the altitude reached?

[Jason Short]

Looks like 176 meters!

[Gary Stofer]

Why was it "stable" when it was upside down as seen in the video. ?

 

gary

[Chris Anderson]

It was stable under power. When it was upside down the motors were off. 

[Charlie Burtoff]

I had put some effort into getting it properly balanced. I could be dreaming but that could be why it was sorta level when flipped over and coming down. 

[Gary Stofer]

Are your motors freewheeling or do you have the "brake" on in the EMCs ?

 

G

[Charlie Burtoff]

Brake is off. 

Timing is medium and the cutoff is set to nicad :)

Charlie 

[Jason Short]

I've lost a battery at this height. The motors freewheel and the drag causes a very smooth level flight down and a fairly soft landing. That's if the CG is off center enough to stay somewhat stable.

Jason

[Louie Mendez]

Hi everyone,

My name is Louie and I'm a member of NorCal Milsim located in
Fairfield, Ca. We are looking for someone to do aerial reconnaissance
with the use of R/C plane or UAV equipped with a camera. If you're
interested, our operation/game are hosted first Saturday of the month.
Our field is about 160 acres, I hope I can find the right person with
the right tool =).


Here's a link of our organization.
www.norcalmilsim.com
http://www.facebook.com/pages/NorCal-Milsim/136957799695898

We were also mentioned on LA Police Gear.
http://site.lapolicegear.com/blog3/2012/03/who-let-this-guy-in/

Thanks for time! You guys are welcome to our field and check us out.

Louie

On May 30, 10:09 am, Jason Short <jasonsh...@me.com> wrote:
> I've lost a battery at this height. The motors freewheel and the drag causes a very smooth level flight down and a fairly soft landing. That's if the CG is off center enough to stay somewhat stable.
> Jason
>
> On May 30, 2012, at 9:52 AM, Charlie Burtoff wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > Brake is off.
>
> > Timing is medium and the cutoff is set to nicad :)
>
> > Charlie
>
> > On May 30, 2012, at 9:49 AM, Gary Stofer wrote:
>
> >> Are your motors freewheeling or do you have the "brake" on in the EMCs ?
>
> >> G
>
> >> From: Charlie Burtoff
> >> Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2012 9:45 AM
> >> To: bay-area-...@googlegroups.com
> >> Subject: Re: Anybody up for flying on Monday?
>
> >> I had put some effort into getting it properly balanced. I could be dreaming but that could be why it was sorta level when flipped over and coming down.
>
> >> On May 30, 2012, at 9:10 AM, Chris Anderson wrote:
>
> >>> It was stable under power. When it was upside down the motors were off.
>