What are some light weight orentation devices that can help for daytime flight, balls ,tail, etc, That work from a good distance. I tend to lose orentation when I'm at a few hundred yards away, Any ideas would be great.
At a few hundred yards, I'd strongly suggest an FPV setup with the SmartOSD. Unless you have eyes like a hawk, not much is going to work that far away. At 400-500 meters this past weekend, I completely lost sight of my copter (a CS8), but my FPV link was rock solid, and I was able to easily and safely maneuver. But my finger was on the COME HOME switch the whole time just in case!
Personal preference, lights on the front boom and booms 4 and 6. Orange tape on boom 1 and lime green on 4 and 6. Double LED lights on the rear of boom 5, red led on boom 7 and green on boom 3. These are from www.rc-lights.com. They make a great little controller. I have seen some that have taken an extra landing leg and mount it pointing up on boom 5 with bright florescent tape. Combinations of more lights on the booms. I've got some double density LED's on the way. Saw these on one of the Freefly copters at the NBA show. The single strips, or even my side by side on boom 1 just don't cut it once you are out 100+m. And anything else you can think of. Steve is right on point. At 100 yards it gets very tough. The copter may be blending into the background clutter and you may think it is maneuvering or going up or down more slowly than commanded and over control.
T Thanks Steve for all the good info, that's funny I to have a XP2 , so much fun, and not the pucker factor of my big bird
The XP2 is a great copter. Hans is a rockstar, and it's great to have something to just "throw in the air" with a GoPro and bop around a bit. I'm using the XP2 at a big convention back east next week because I just need a few quick aerials and I don't want to pack the Cinestar. And now that I've found a great tool to straighten out my GoPro photos (PTLens), I'll be super happy with the photos. And the XP2 travels really easily!
I use 12 LED clusters under booms 5 and 1. Red for boom 1 and white for boom 5. I can see them very well at 200 plus meters away. they are Hobby King 12 LED clusters mounted in the Baja Headlight Housings...they snap right in. I had to modify the housings (cut the existing mount to roughly 30 degrees) to get the desired angle and to fit the mounting locations. http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=17189 http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=17192 http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=24802 Here's a picture of the lights before I mounted them in the baja housing under the motors
Wow, That looks great, with the strip LEDs do you run all that off your flight battery? Or on another pack? Does all of that draw allot of power reducing flight time? Thanks so much for all the great info, what a great forum,
I run all my orientation lights off my PDB. I use the MK extension board for the LED's and run them at 12 volts. I use a Castle Creations BEC to reduce the voltage from PDB voltage down to 6 volts for the 12 LED clusters. My copter weights 12 pounds with the 3 axis gimbal and camera and I run 2 QC 6200 batteries that give me 11-13 minutes of flight time. I have not noticed any drop off in flight time using the PDB for power.
Dave, this is off-topic, but are you actually running your landing gear in this configuration? I've never seen anybody do it that way. Seems like it'd be a bit uneven. Most of us with 2-axis gimbals mount our skids on booms 2, 8, and 5 for a 'tripod' configuration. Looks like you have yours on booms 2, 7, and 5.
No that's a very old picture of just a mock up. I now run a 3 axis gimbal and I needed to make mounting plates under my motors for the LED housing.