Multicopter Megathread

[shadowbyte]

55 minutes ago, KaminKevCrew said:

Any opinions on the Chameleon?

I love mine; it flies like it's on rails, and the camera protection has saved me multiple times.

The low center of gravity is fantastic for acro, and with the right tune, it just seems to hang in the air forever. 

[Not_Sean]

1 hour ago, KaminKevCrew said:

I'm honestly thinking of grabbing an armattan Chameleon frame though - I really like the idea of running a high battery, and I've been impressed with the  (INSANE) durability of my F5 acro.

 

Any opinions on the Chameleon?

1

I really don't like the Chameleon at all, think its F ugly BUT that aside I've only heard good things about it. I'd rather have the armadillo, love the look of that one.

i'm currently flying the Diatone TyrantS and loving it, few mates are thinking of grabbing one as mines just been such a all start and weight is not bad at all. Happily keeps with them around the track and such great fun Acro.

 

3 hours ago, Hackentosher said:

Nice. I don't think you should have changed your camera angle though because you fly more comfortably when you get accustomed to a rig. This means you can more easily fly around and avoid things because you're used to that angle and what it does to your perspective. Also consider getting a wider lens for your camera, this helps a lot if you want to fly slow at a low angle, or cruise at a higher angle. The wider FOV will let you see more at more angles, highly recommend the 2.5mm gopro lens, it's like $10 on amazon.

Yes and no, I do agree normally we would keep the angle the same but we adjusted to the new angle pretty quick, main reason we did it as most of the flying was next to a river you had very small landing places so dropped the angle so when coming in to land can at least see the ground.

Yeah, I still need to upgrade my camera, I'm still running a super cheapy $5 cam and mate with a runcam swif2 was saying he's damn impressed with its quality for what it is.  

[Hackentosher]

12 minutes ago, Not_Sean said:

 

 

Yes and no, I do agree normally we would keep the angle the same but we adjusted to the new angle pretty quick, main reason we did it as most of the flying was next to a river you had very small landing places so dropped the angle so when coming in to land can at least see the ground.

Yeah, I still need to upgrade my camera, I'm still running a super cheapy $5 cam and mate with a runcam swif2 was saying he's damn impressed with its quality for what it is.  

I guess, I can't see the ground when I'm coming in for a slow landing, but I've gotten used to flying low and slow with my rig. Maybe try a wider lens? 

 

I wonder how much it would cost to ship my runcam swift RR édition to new Zealand lol. 

[Not_Sean]

8 minutes ago, Hackentosher said:

I guess, I can't see the ground when I'm coming in for a slow landing, but I've gotten used to flying low and slow with my rig. Maybe try a wider lens? 

 

I wonder how much it would cost to ship my runcam swift RR édition to new Zealand lol. 

hey if you want to get rid of it, shouldn't be too expensive  

[Hackentosher]

6 minutes ago, Not_Sean said:

hey if you want to get rid of it, shouldn't be too expensive  

Lol it would probably be more than I want for the camera.

[Not_Sean]

13 minutes ago, Hackentosher said:

Lol it would probably be more than I want for the camera.

hahaha always the issue its all good, I'm happy with how it flies, Might do the gopro lense swap and just keep it as the acro flyer and that new 4" frame on its way turn that into the racer.

[Daysy]

My Taranis finally came  quad isn't built yet but i have set up two step arming and have made it so that the radio volume is controlled by one of the pots, i think my next goal will be to set up a timer that resets when i change packs. anyone have some killer can't live without them settings that i should be giving a try?

[Hackentosher]

5 hours ago, Daysy said:

My Taranis finally came  quad isn't built yet but i have set up two step arming and have made it so that the radio volume is controlled by one of the pots, i think my next goal will be to set up a timer that resets when i change packs. anyone have some killer can't live without them settings that i should be giving a try?

Nice! You should start siming, the DRL hv sim is mostly free on steam, I like it. 

 

You can setup just about anything in the Taranis, you can do it. However, I think an osd showing your voltage is better than a timer so you can be nicer to your batteries. Stinger swarm has some tutorials on this kind of stuff. 

 

As for can't live without, I like my old-school batman theme boot tone and amber sounds pack on my arm switch. 

[Not_Sean]

7 hours ago, Daysy said:

My Taranis finally came  quad isn't built yet but i have set up two step arming and have made it so that the radio volume is controlled by one of the pots, i think my next goal will be to set up a timer that resets when i change packs. anyone have some killer can't live without them settings that i should be giving a try?

I got super excited when I set all that up on my Evo timers and battery telemetry and honestly never used it. Its cool to have but OSD will always be way better.

[Hackentosher]

1 hour ago, Not_Sean said:

I got super excited when I set all that up on my Evo timers and battery telemetry and honestly never used it. Its cool to have but OSD will always be way better.

Plus your radio beeping at you every time your battery sags below 14v or whatever gets really annoying when you're in the flow. Or maybe it's your buddy's radio

 

[Not_Sean]

Just now, Hackentosher said:

Plus your radio beeping at you every time your battery sags below 14v or whatever gets really annoying when you're in the flow. Or maybe it's your buddy's radio

 

hahaha naI muted mine, gets SUPER annoying when it starts beeping on a punch out and you still got lots of battery. 

[Hackentosher]

43 minutes ago, Not_Sean said:

hahaha naI muted mine, gets SUPER annoying when it starts beeping on a punch out and you still got lots of battery. 

Amen. Thus OSD. Only thing is to be careful with the placement of all your elements. If they're too close to the edge, I tend to forget about them a bit lol

[Daysy]

@Hackentosher @Not_Sean

My pdb has a basic osd in it so will be using that to monitor Battery voltage but I think upgrading to an FC with betaflight OSD is looking like a must

[Hackentosher]

11 minutes ago, Daysy said:

@Hackentosher @Not_Sean

My pdb has a basic osd in it so will be using that to monitor Battery voltage but I think upgrading to an FC with betaflight OSD is looking like a must

I agree, the betaflight osd is amazing, I will never buy a flight controller without one ever since I got it working. Tuning is no longer a chore. Want to try new rates? Boom, do it in the goggles. If you have it setup right, you can even configure your VTX and led strip in there too. It's amazing. 

[Not_Sean]

2 hours ago, Hackentosher said:

I agree, the betaflight osd is amazing, I will never buy a flight controller without one ever since I got it working. Tuning is no longer a chore. Want to try new rates? Boom, do it in the goggles. If you have it setup right, you can even configure your VTX and led strip in there too. It's amazing. 

Yeah, I'll be needing that on the new 4" racer! I'm happy with my Tyrant currently untuned as its nice and predictable.

[KaminKevCrew]

I love the Dominator V2s I got. The only real issue I have with them (which I assume would be consistent with all fatsharks) is that I have an absolutely massive head, and the IPD adjustments get me about 95% of the way there, but they don't quite get me all the way there, so it can be a bit of a faff to get everything sitting just right on my head (oh, and I wish the goggle R rating were just a little bigger.)

 

On 11/27/2017 at 5:01 PM, Not_Sean said:

snip

I agree with you that the Chameleon isn't the prettiest of frames, but I will say that I think the pink version looks super good. It's just a shame that I didn't know about it until it was too late - I totally would have picked one up if I had seen it, it looks great (and it would look amazing with the Freybot motors.)

 

Also, I got the new M9 gimbals on my TX yesterday, as well as a new QX7s! Hall effect gimbals are so nice. Oh, and the throttle gimbal on my X9e is now an M9r. Those are pretty cool too.

[Hackentosher]

16 minutes ago, KaminKevCrew said:

Snip 

Don't the m9r gimbals have a shorter throw on the y axis? 

[KaminKevCrew]

1 minute ago, Hackentosher said:

Don't the m9r gimbals have a shorter throw on the y axis? 

They do indeed! It's pretty noticeable too. I grabbed the X9e M9 gimbal kit from Aloft Hobbies (actually went to their shop for the first time yesterday - they're a bunch of REALLY nice people, and they have about the best selection of Taranis and FrSky Radio mods I've seen.) and when I did, I decided to grab an M9r from them as well, since I haven't seen anyone that's posted about trying them.

 

All over the web, the M9r pages talk about how you'll need to order two in order to have matching gimbals, but I don't see why you would ever want a shorter pitch axis on your non-throttle stick.

 

Want me to post some photos?

[Hackentosher]

28 minutes ago, KaminKevCrew said:

They do indeed! It's pretty noticeable too. I grabbed the X9e M9 gimbal kit from Aloft Hobbies (actually went to their shop for the first time yesterday - they're a bunch of REALLY nice people, and they have about the best selection of Taranis and FrSky Radio mods I've seen.) and when I did, I decided to grab an M9r from them as well, since I haven't seen anyone that's posted about trying them.

 

All over the web, the M9r pages talk about how you'll need to order two in order to have matching gimbals, but I don't see why you would ever want a shorter pitch axis on your non-throttle stick.

 

Want me to post some photos?

I personally like more throttle resolution. 

 

Aloft fixed my radio when I fucked it up! Pretty good guys, but I should have done the repair myself. 

[KaminKevCrew]

20 hours ago, Hackentosher said:

I personally like more throttle resolution. 

 

Aloft fixed my radio when I fucked it up! Pretty good guys, but I should have done the repair myself. 

I feel it. Keep in mind though, I use a Tray radio, which means that I have really long sticks on my gimbals, so I don't really lose anything when compared to the regular Taranis as far as movement distance. And, while I haven't confirmed this, I assume that the M9r still has 2000 or so steps of resolution despite the fact that it doesn't have as long of a throw. I might be wrong on that one.

 

One nice thing about the M9r though is that it has silicone wiring, as opposed to the PVC wiring found on other gimbals from Frsky.

[Hackentosher]

5 hours ago, KaminKevCrew said:

I feel it. Keep in mind though, I use a Tray radio, which means that I have really long sticks on my gimbals, so I don't really lose anything when compared to the regular Taranis as far as movement distance. And, while I haven't confirmed this, I assume that the M9r still has 2000 or so steps of resolution despite the fact that it doesn't have as long of a throw. I might be wrong on that one.

 

One nice thing about the M9r though is that it has silicone wiring, as opposed to the PVC wiring found on other gimbals from Frsky.

It should still have the 1000us to 2000us range of control like every other gimbal, but that range is on a smaller physical axis. That's what I'm talking about. I like to have the range a little more spaced out because then you have more precise throttle control. You can get the same effect with longer sticks, but then your roll and yaw axes are longer than pitch and throttle and that's weeeeiiiirrd man.

 

Oh really? I thought the stock gimbals used silicone? I know the ones in my radio are reinforced with that yellow hot glue schmoo.

[KaminKevCrew]

2 hours ago, Hackentosher said:

It should still have the 1000us to 2000us range of control like every other gimbal, but that range is on a smaller physical axis. That's what I'm talking about. I like to have the range a little more spaced out because then you have more precise throttle control. You can get the same effect with longer sticks, but then your roll and yaw axes are longer than pitch and throttle and that's weeeeiiiirrd man.

 

Oh really? I thought the stock gimbals used silicone? I know the ones in my radio are reinforced with that yellow hot glue schmoo.

IMO, it would be a lot weirder to have different lengths on elevator and aileron or something. For me, throttle is different enough where different lengths isn't too bad.

 

also, keep in mind that the difference we're talking about here isn't huge. I'm in bed on my laptop right now, but I'll see if I can take some comparison photos tomorrow so that people can actually see the difference. I've asked a couple of retailers about what the difference in angle actually is, but none of them could tell me. Maybe I'll send the photo to a couple of them so that they can use it to show people who might be considering the purchase. They're definitely pretty cool looking though.

 

Also, keep in mind that the micro second timing isn't the be all and end all of resolution - Jeti radios have about 4000 steps of resolution (e.g. there are 4000 distinct, different points between 0% throttle and 100% throttle.) whereas I think most cheap radios have ~1000 steps, if not fewer. I'm reasonably certain that Taranis radios have 2048 steps, as do most (I believe) real computer radios.

[Not_Sean]

So my cousin finally got around to throwing all of this extra drone footage into a video. Its pretty sick, He's heavily sponsored by GoPro so its the Karma

we already talking about me shooting a video with him for some high-speed stuff 
 

 

[Daysy]

Got her built and test hovered flew a couple laps of the park LOS then just as I'm about to put the goggles on bam dog walkers everywhere Dx

[Hackentosher]

Of all the radio companies in the industry right now, I think spektrum is in the position to make the most change. They have the resources and the brand to take back some market share from fr-sky, but what do they do? They come up with something no one asked for. A radio with a smartphone built in. Who cares? And for $600! That's insane! Sure it has crossfire support, but so does the qx7 for 1/6 the price. I would love it if spektrum got off their high horse and released an actual Taranis competitor. I want spektrum's design, build quality, gimbals, with all the support, RF link quality (or just build in a crossfire module), and features we love from the Taranis. If they could pull that off and sell it for $350 or less, I would seriously consider putting down my beloved Taranis.