Multirotor Flying Meet This Weekend!

[Robert Longbottom]

Hi,

Shall we try for our next flying meet this weekend, Sunday 2pm at Lydiard Park (so children can play on the swings if they want).  Same place as last time we were at Lydiard, just past the football pitches.

The weather looks like it will probably be okay, though there is chance of rain, but it sounds like this day/time better suits people.

I want to try out the Y6 with it's new camera gimbal and try out my new longer range video transmitter on the Hovership.  Also I have 3d printed one of these hand lanuch gliders: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:306440  place bets now for which tree it ends up stuck in! :-)

Rob.

[Robert Longbottom]

Sundays weather is looking less and less promising.  We could go for Saturday at 2pm instead, or just chance it on Sunday  What do people think?

[Damian Axford]

can't do Sat, happy to chance it for Sunday...  

[Robert Longbottom]

Okay, we'll stick to chance it on Sunday.

On 6 March 2015 14:07:20 Damian Axford <dam...@axford.me.uk> wrote:

can't do Sat, happy to chance it for Sunday...  

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[Jamie Osborne]

Hopefully any rain won't be too bad - forecast is for 0.1mm atm (which *should* be nothing).

Damian, any chance of a lift? :)

Jamie

[Damian Axford]

cool - and sorry, haven't got any spare seats (kids are coming too) :(

[jmeosbn .]

No worries, hopefully someone else will be along.. :)

Jamie Osborne

On Fri, Mar 6, 2015 at 3:26 PM, Damian Axford <dam...@axford.me.uk> wrote:

cool - and sorry, haven't got any spare seats (kids are coming too) :(

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[Robert Longbottom]

Reminder!  :-)  Flying tomorrow 2pm Lydiard. (weather permitting)

On Thursday, 5 March 2015 11:58:26 UTC, Robert Longbottom wrote:

[Jamie Osborne]

I don't have a ride! :(

Jamie

[Damian Axford]

Have built a prototype para glider... And half way through turning the hex into a Tricopter... Didn't quite finish it in time for tomorrow

Still... One new flying thing is better than none :)

See you at 2

[Jess Robinson]

Anyone driving through/from town centre-ish? We're carless at the mo..

Jess

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[Jamie Osborne]

Anyone driving through/from town centre-ish? We're carless at the mo..

Just been looking at the bus options; number 1 is a 15 min walk to Lydiard House - but I think that's the wrong side of the park - while number 20 is a 20 min walk from Freshbrook. Both departing from Fleming Way.

Though I'm not sure it's worth the round trip time of almost 2 hrs!!

Jamie

[Damian Axford]

we're heading over now...  running late as paraglider lines got tangled and i had to re-string the entire thing :(   plus it's raining... grr

[Robert Longbottom]

Doh.  Not raining here, yet....  Will be somewhere near where we were last time.

On 8 March 2015 13:58:50 Damian Axford <dam...@axford.me.uk> wrote:

we're heading over now...  running late as paraglider lines got tangled and i had to re-string the entire thing :(   plus it's raining... grr

[Damian Axford]

so...  just Rob and my family, but a good hour of flying fun :)

bit windy, but the rain went away just in time.  Got to try out the paraglider - turned out to be very hard to launch, esp with the wind and after a few attempts it ended in pieces - back to the drawing board on that one.  Rob's Y6 flew very well, camera gimbal appearing to do it's job nicely - and having seen it fly, have decided to build a Y6 out of whatever I've got in the workshop (mostly bits from the hex).

So - now printing are the motor mounts to go on some carbon tube arms - found a 1500mm length of 17mm OD carbon tube on the shelf, so that's destined to be the arms.  Only irritation is that being round, it makes the joints into the body a little harder. 

still - plenty of examples to copy/rip-off.... on with some CAD/printing.   It's time like this I wish I had more than one printer - sooooo slow.

[Robert Longbottom]

Yes, the weather cleared just in time.  I've been looking at paraglider launch videos on YouTube and it doesn't look easy!  I think you definitely need a prop guard and to have it nicely balanced.

The video from the y6 is very impressive for stability given how much I was chucking it around and the wind.  You can barely see it moving.  There is a very slight jello effect, but that's vibration rather than gimbal issues and given I don't have it on anti vibration mounts its very minimal.  I'll upload it to YouTube at some point and bring in the full version for anyone who's interested.

I looked into the logs to find out why it kept "wandering off" when it was supposed to be in GPS hold and it looks like it was having compass problems and actually went into auto land a couple of times!  Which would explain why it started loosing height at the same time.  Hopefully I just need to redo the compass calibration, since the last time I did it was before I added the gimbal and fpv kit and it was loitering fine before that.

No idea why my OSD decided to stop working, will have to look into that some more.

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[Damian Axford]

yep - paraglider mk2 to follow...  although want to get the Y6 built first, given it'll handle windy conditions!

look forward to seeing the video - what gimbal board did you buy?  got a link?   ....  I have a GoPro, and most of the bits for an FPV setup, should really get it working :)

curious on the compass issues - perhaps too much interference from stuff sandwiched around it?  

[Robert Longbottom]

The gimbal board is an (unofficial) Mini Alexmos BGC (http://www.basecamelectronics.com/) that I got from ebay (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/321657688116) - actually from Germany for £13.88.  You can them from China for about the same price, or from the UK for the usual markup (£28)!  The official boards are _considerably_ more expensive for some reason.  

It's not the latest and greatest version, but it does a good job.  I think their latest boards are 32bit, most do 3-axis (mine is only 2, but I think can be extended to do 3), but again, you pay a lot more ~£100.  I had some trouble finding the right version of the software to set it up and configure it, but managed eventually.  And finding a wiring diagram / pinout took a while too!  I'm also not clear on firmware upgrades.  There are a few discussions where people have tried to upgrade unofficial boards and it has bricked them, though I'm not sure how they could be achieving that.  So for now I'm sticking to the firmware that came on it until I have a requirement to upgrade!

Compass interference seems to be a common issue, though calibration has always fixed it for me - previously on the quad and on the y6 before yesterday.  My APM has the onboard compass, later APM boards came with a GPS+compass module so you could mount it away from motors / power wires.  I do have a separate external compass board I bought but I've never gotten round to wiring it up because after calibration I've never had any trouble.  I think probably adding extra electronics around the flight controller (minim + fpv transmitter) has messed up my calibration so I'm hoping that just redoing it will fix it, its just a bit fiddly to do. Otherwise I'll have to look into the external compass board again, but I'd rather not have something like that on the end of a pole stuck up in the air because it seems very breakable!  Though if I'm anywhere near landing upside down with the Y6 I'm probably in enough trouble that the compass will be the last of my worries :-)

[Robert Longbottom]

Oh yeah, and I'm looking forward to seeing paraglider mk2 :-)

On Monday, 9 March 2015 12:01:17 UTC, Damian Axford wrote:

[Robert Longbottom]

Here's the flight video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-D2eP_yd1k

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[Malcolm Pett]

That was amazing Rob

[Damian Axford]

Heading to Lydiard today (21st) for 1:30 ish for some Y6 flying...  more the merrier

[jmeosbn .]

Something I didn’t get around to mentioning the other day when suggesting that we have a list of contact numbers, was using free WiFi calls via Signal (iOS) or RedPhone (Android) for short notice stuff like today.

People could add themselves to the "Telegram* list" for basic messaging and note other preferred/available contact methods. Those not wanting to list their phone number can still use telegram by setting up a username and listing that instead.

*The Signal app also handles messaging, but not as well as Telegram, and requires a separate app on Android anyway (TextSecure). While I think we'd rarely use voice calls, it would be handy.

So, an example table is shown below - the question is where to store such a list??

Name	telegram	phone number	standard voice/sms?
Alice	alicea		No
Bob	→	+44 7911 131517	Both
Jamie	jmeosbn	+44 1921 232527	Signal/RedPhone
Chuck	→	+44 2931 333537	Telegram/SMS only

Jamie Osborne

On Sat, Mar 21, 2015 at 12:12 PM, Damian Axford <dam...@axford.me.uk> wrote:

Heading to Lydiard today (21st) for 1:30 ish for some Y6 flying...  more the merrier

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​

[Robert Longbottom]

Video up on the Hackspace YouTube channel

Hexacopter Flying At Lydiard Park: https://youtu.be/xbDqeoWbmnM

[Damian Axford]

it looks tiny in the video - the wonderful slimming effect of a wide angle lens :)

new leg design printed and fitted - will see how it fares on its next flight and then consider replacing the other two.

@Jamie - I give in, I'll install telegram - although spamming email, groups and twitter seemed to work ok today ;)

[Jess Robinson]

Impressive!

We would have joined you, but our excuse was that we were in the wrong
side of the country! (Londinium). Looks like it flys well!

(Have car back now.. so next time!)

Jess

On Sat, 21 Mar 2015 21:06:06 -0000, Robert Longbottom <robe...@iname.com>
wrote:

> Video up on the Hackspace YouTube channel
>
> Hexacopter Flying At Lydiard Park: https://youtu.be/xbDqeoWbmnM
>

[Robert Longbottom]

ha ha, yes.  And when I followed you between the trees I thought I was right behind you, but I was still miles away.  Got to find a way to improve that depth perception!

The twitter dm would have alerted me sooner had I had my phone on me (which I didn't because I  was in the garden), so calling wouldn't have helped either in this case!  Still just about made it though.  I think I need to come up with an idea for a garden wide alert device triggered from important emails or twitter messages :-)

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[jmeosbn .]

@Jamie - I give in, I'll install telegram - although spamming email, groups and twitter seemed to work ok today ;)

Welcome! :)

Although I don't see you there yet? :(

Did any more go with you and Rob then?

The nice thing with something like telegram is that you can create a group: "People most likely to come flying quadcopters at short notice" (but called something snappier) and then with one message alert them all at once. Then optionally post to the group as applicable.

Jamie Osborne

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[Damian Axford]

Perhaps two cameras and a video switcher - one wife angle and one narrow...

And I like the garden alert system - need it connected to the doorbell as well, don't stand a chance of hearing it when I'm in the workshop :)

[Jamie Osborne]

We can't see you on telegram - and @axford still seems to be available - if you're using a different number/username, ping me and I'll add you to snhack group. :)

Jamie