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Alta Settings, weights, setups etc

Discussion in 'ALTA' started by JASPER GLAVANICS, Nov 19, 2015.

  1. JASPER GLAVANICS

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    Hi All,
    Im sure theres a thread out there about this, but I don't have time to troll the forum to find it, as I have a large shoot next week and wanting to use the Alta.
    Im running Alta, with Red Dragon, Tomahawk, M15 and trying to figure out max lens and power system i can use. Today I ran everything with Freefly lipo and first tried canon 16-35 and then put on a 21mm Cp2.
    Results were varied. Manual mode was quite up and down, like the old MK systems, but apparently this is normal? Height mode wouldn't hold height very well, Alta descended a lot whilst flying a straight path.. Position hold was fine, but if you want to fly a path in position hold, I'm assuming this isn't the best idea? Cos was pretty hard to go anywhere...
    Also I had vertical oscillation whilst in Height mode when flying a straight path... tuned down the Vertical stiffness and this helped a bit. Also was getting horizontal movement in the footage through the M15.
    Total weight was around in the 13's with the CP2.... but DOP is asking for Super speed next week and this with polariser will be 1.6kg, so would bump up the toal weight 14.5kg...
    SO can anyone help me with these subjects?? Best gains for my descriptions etc ... anyone tried gross weights in the 14's?

    Any suggestions or help would be much appreciated. Shoot is next Tuesday, which gives me a few days to test and get comfortable with the system.
    Forgot to mention we are having a heat wave at the moment and the outside temp is max 40deg. ... two weeks ago it was 21 celsius. lol
     
  2. Mateusz Hajdziony

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  3. JASPER GLAVANICS

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  4. JASPER GLAVANICS

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    not sure why that just posted in italic .. lol
     
  5. Steve Maller

    Steve Maller UAV Grief Counselor

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    It's been said numerous times on the forum...while you can fly an ALTA at more than 100% of recommended GVW, you run the risk of a catastrophic crash in the event of the loss of a motor/ESC/prop (or trying to pull out of a fast descent). However, I'm not aware of anybody experiencing that issue to date, so maybe you're willing to take that risk (insert Dirty Harry quote here). You should also have many hours of time with your ALTA in order to properly bond with its personality. Flying a new ALTA "on set" without adequate familiarity with its flight characteristics and limitations is asking for trouble IMHO. :eek:
     
  6. JASPER GLAVANICS

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    Yeh normally I wouldn't fly a new machine on set. I probably will end up flying my X8, but would be a shame not to use the Alta.

    So theres no one out there willing to share their Alta settings that they have with max payload? I know freefly are saying fly default, but just wanting to know what others are saying.
     
  7. JASPER GLAVANICS

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    So flew the Alta at 30deg celcius ambient temperature with 13.6kg payload and had no issues. The only problem i found was when it was windy, around 32km/h gusts .. i found the copter to be quite unstable. Im running the vertical stiffness at 9. Dropped the hold stiffness by 2 as well. Other than that, had default settings.

    Anyone else found unstability in winds? .... I guess i dont know the limits of the Alta yet or visually how its supposed to look in high winds.
     
  8. Adam Varadi

    Adam Varadi Member

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    I flew it with 15.6 kg... It was flying well in 25 celsius.
    I'M confident that it can hadle 16 kg max, but only if you don't pus it too hard.
    But I'M waiting for freefly since my ALTA dropped out of the sky yesterday, with a small camera, so can't say anything for sure about the payload.
    It's a bit wobly in wind, I wanted to start changing the gains to see how it responds.
     
  9. Stefan Helborg

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    Ha Ha 21,8 kilos at 0 degrees :p
     
  10. Michael McVay

    Michael McVay Active Member

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    I have been attempting to fly in winds 20+ mph and experienced a lot of wobble in GPS hold. In manual mode it flies very smoothly so the problem must be in how the FC is responding to the wind. One would think that if a person on the sticks can fly smoothly in the wind, that the FC should be even better at it with it quick reaction to all the data it analyzes many times per second. I had posted the changes that Freefly suggested I make in another thread - but they essentially said to lower some of the settings on the Position Hold section of the app. I thought I had made a few improvements, but when flying in very high winds again a few days ago, we decided to put the Alta away and switch to a copter we are more familiar with and have tuned for flying in higher winds.

    I'm sure we will get it figured out - it just requires more time and some trial and error. Plus, I would like to re-read the tuning section of the manual to see if I can get a better understanding of how the general settings affect the settings you establish in Altitude and Position. The manual is clear that you need to get the general settings the way you want them first before you tune the other settings so there must be some relation between them. Maybe some of the general settings need to be modified for flying in high winds to get the Position settings to do a better job holding steady.

    Would love to hear anyone else's thoughts on flying the Alta in 20+ mph conditions (other than the obvious "don't fly when it's so windy" - which we only do when we have to)

    Thanks!
     
  11. Michael Elsegood

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    Sounds like you're in Australia too, Jasper. We've had all of our testing flights in 30+ degrees C which is a good place to check the limits. I think the ALTA performs very well right up to its max limits, even in these conditions. Wind is certainly a bit of a challenge when fully loaded.
     
  12. JASPER GLAVANICS

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    Yeh we're in Oz Michael... some of the most challenging climates to encounter! lol
    Have you changed your Alta settings much when flying max payload in higher temps? Or to battle the wind??
    What are your Altas responses like when in wind? Twitchy, oscillating etc etc?
     
  13. Michael Elsegood

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    Jasper, I'm a camera Op, I don't fly - I have a contract operator/controller who flies for us... I'll ask him what he has done with settings for these conditions and let you know.

    Which part of Aus are you flying?
     
  14. JASPER GLAVANICS

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    That'd be great thanks Michael.

    Im based in Sydney ... you?
     
  15. Chris Fanning

    Chris Fanning Member

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    For a heavier payload like the M15 with Dragon you'll want to lower your Horizontal Stiffness and Hold strength under position settings. You guys are finding instability in the wind cause the Alta is setup to be very locked in from Freefly with minimal payload. Problem is when high winds and gust start to hit it, the horizontal stiffness setting causes it to compensate too quickly, and the hold strength causes it to over compensate. It took while for me to get my Alta dialed in cause it's always windy in Florida with the coastal breeze coming in. Also with heavier payloads you'll want to bring your Vertical stiffness & vertical hold down to get it to fly right in forward flight. I battled this for a while as well. I have different presets for different payloads now setup. Took a while to get my Alta dialed in but she's amazing now that she is. Good luck.
     
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  16. Michael Elsegood

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    Perth
     
  17. Will Glover

    Will Glover New Member

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    Hi,

    Just picking back up on this thread as I've been flying the ALTA at max payload quite a lot recently. We're based in the UK so temperature is usually not an issue and rarely is hight and issue so we are managing to get to 13.6kg.

    One thing I have found is that flying in height hold and position hold there is quite a lot of vertical oscillation. I have flown my last 3 shoots in manual mode to stop this oscillation which is kind of annoying because you have to keep such an eye on the craft rather than the shot framing. I like to go from the monitor to the craft every couple of seconds to make sure everything is falling into place in the shot.

    I tried to combat the vertical oscillation by lowing the stiffness settings in height hold mode and it is now at 5 which seems kind of works but only at certain times. If you leave the ALTA stationary in the air it slowly builds up to a vertical oscillation however if you are flying it around then it seems fine... no good for static shots. I feel like it needs to be set to 4 but the ALTA app won't let me go any lower than 5 which brings me onto my next question.

    I'm flying the firmware 3.04.0 currently. The reason for not updating was because of the whole ESC temperature cut off problem people were having even when they weren't flying at max payload. I was wondering if it's now 'safe' to update the firmware beyond this and also is that is potentially why I cant get a stiffness setting lower than 5.

    Thanks,

    Will
     

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