We have a Cinestar 8 with a Mikrokopter flight control board. We just finished building a small dji f450 for some gopro work and it's a great machine for what it does. One of the best features we found so far is the "course lock" which makes single operator flying (and panning) really possible. I looked briefly for this on the Cinestar but I don't see a function like this. Am I overlooking something or is it just not possible without changing the flight control board? Thanks, Bob
Bob are your talking like hovering with gps and altitude on the panning around? If so yes! I dont know what "course lock" is can you explain it more thanks
The closest thing to DJI Course lock, and only on my taking a look at the manual, would be Carefree Mode. You can read about Carefree on the MK WIKI site at http://www.mikrokopter.de/ucwiki/en/CareFree?highlight=(carefree) Caution with Carefree. If the copter is getting close to the Home position, GPS coordinate at motor start/takeoff, and for any reason it thinks that the Home spot is now in front of the copter (copter has flown past Home) then the controls on the stick will all be reversed. So best advice, turn Carefree on when the copter is more than 20m in distance and turn it off before you get back to 20m distance (horizontal not vertical).
There is teachable carefree which is similar to DJI's Home lock IOC function. It has a box that you have to check in Koptertools. Unlike DJI you cant toggle between a course lock or home lock(teachable carefree) its one or other set in the menus. The dangers in using standard Carefree is not knowing if you took off with it on or inadvertently turning it on with the nose in an unknown position. Teachible carefree will at least allow the copter to be-line towards home no matter where it is relation to you. Even it drifts laterally TCF will come back to you by aft pitch stick movement. Be careful and make sure you have a good GPS acquisition first. Like Gary said it only works when at least 20 m away.
Course lock= Carefree in MK = Simple mode in ardupilot. What it does is normalize all stick movements to the compass heading of the front at the time it is engaged. No matter where front boom rotates after that the stick commands pitch and roll act as if the front is still where it was. So I takeoff with the front boom at north engage CF then rotate the front boom to the east, my pitch will be north or south. Versus, if I dont have carefree on and rotate the nose to the east pitching the nose fore or aft will be East or West.
Thanks everyone. Going to work with the carefree and teachable carefree today. We've just not used it with our normal two operator setup, glad it's there though. Bob