Hello everybody, As you might know, I had several incidents with MK BL Ctrl 3.0 boards and I got my Herkules III from the shelves to use it with my heavy lifter. I will post some videos in a few days. As I said on another topic: Today, I flew it with this setup: * Cinestar 8 frame * Herkules III with 1.06 firmware * Mikrokopter FC 2.5ME * 6S 2x8000mAH 30C Lipo * KDE 4014XF-380KV with 18" Tiger Carbon props * AUW: ~15kg What I can say is, I wouldn't fly at this weight. My maximum AUW is around 12kg. This is for stress testing to see how Herkules III would handle this load. Logs of one of my flights: As you can see, even though I push %100 percent gas sometime, I see maximum 20,7A power consumption. Copter is very responsive and super smooth. I see no difference in flight performance between Herkules III and Mikrokopter BL Ctrl 3.0. Only thing I need to adjust is the top gas value from 230 to 247. I'm very happy at this moment. I will be testing Herkules III with KDE 5235-435KV motors by next week. Will push tese ESCs to see how they will perform under real world conditions.
I had two times BL Ctrl 3.0 failure in mid flight; one with a crash, one with safe landing. the third incident was on the ground; I got BL Missing error after a battery change.
I am VERY interested in hearing how this works with the KDE 5215-435s! This is the exact setup I would like to fly but I am wanting to fly upwards of 20kgs at times (special project). The HERK III may not be able to handle this however. Normal flying weight would be 12-13kg AUW. Josh
Hi Ozkan, Did you report your incidents back to Holger? If you did - that was his response to it? I hope your kopter survived the crach. I'm also flying the BL 3.0... :-/ Bo
Bo, I'm in contact with Mikrokopter about this issue.I'll post here once we have some progress. They will test 4014XF-380KV motors and 18" props in combination with BL Ctrl 3.0 again. Josh, For flying 20KG I would go with X12 setup for peace of mind and for not putting the copter under lots of stress. Once you have X12 setup, the motors and ESCs will work under less load which will decrease the chance of having an issue. For my MK builds, I bought single BL Ctrl 3.0 boards and I will wire them by myself. With the current DoubleQuadroXL boards, once there's a problem, the whole board needs to go to service.
Ozkan, Any idea what the source of your BL failures was? Even at max throttle with 18" props, the 4014XF-380 should be way below the current limit. Do you believe it was a matter of stress or is something else at play?
Chris, I'm not sure about the cause I tried to stay on the safe side with my motor, prop choice and with my AUW. Holger will test this combo. If this combo is making problems I think these BL Ctrl's should be rated way less.
I kept testing Herkules III and today copter started to act weird with lots of shaking. The weird thing is I didn't change any settings. There was no wind. The log files also doesn't show any abnormal things. I will try to change the Gyro settings to see if they will help or not.
Ozkan I might be interested in testing this on a backup rig. Can you tell me more about it. Do you have the XL version? Any pictures? Why is there 3 sets of battery cables?
Dave, I have the Octo XL version, it has two battery leads for double battery setup. The problem is still there and since I dont have much time to workaround the problem. I have filming until Thursday. The kopter is shaking crazy like it is fighting 40 knots of wind. It started to happen after I put a real gimbal under the copter. Without the payload, it was super smooth. I will setup the kopter with 5215XF-435KV motors again with I2C firmware over Herkules III. If that doesn't work, I will convert to PMW firmware and use I2C converter to see if the problem is still there. I would like to use I2C interface since it provides all telemetry data a we used to on MK BL Ctrller: Amps used, voltage, BL temperature. Another thing I noticed with Herkules III and BL Ctrl 3.0, Herkules III provides less thrust at the same throttle level which is very noticable. I increased max gas setting from 230 to 247 and it helped but still less thrust with Herkules III, I have no idea why it might be. Herkules III is more reliable solution for 5215XF-435KV in terms of current handling and cooling when compared to BL Ctrl 3.0 but I need to figure out this stability problem first.
Have you tried adjusting MK gyro settings? I've found that when changing motors or speed controllers you'll sometimes need to adjust gyro settings. For shakes, start with gyro D...maybe raise a couple of clicks.
Thanks for tips Howard, I will try that. The reason why I didn't change gyro settings was, with MK BL Ctrl I didn't have to change gyro settings when I was adding / removing weight to the copter. The funny part is, when testing the copter without payload it worked perfectly. I added dummy payload, it flew perfectly. When connected gimbal, which is not heavy as the dummy payload (half size), it started to shake. That FC 2.5 is now working with MK Bl Ctrl 3.0 without ay issues right now. I will report as soon as I get any improvements.
I use Gyro D of 12 on my HL Tiger 4120 flat 8 copter and its smooth as butter with 28 pounds. I think the X configuration might need some tweaking with the Gyro D though.