Hi to all I wanted to dedicate a thread only on telemetry for the HL that use individual Esc and MK FC, MK Navi, MK GPS and the options in transmiters receivers or hardware add on can any one comment thanks
Jose you get nearly all telemetry from the MK with the exception of PDB (amps and BL temps) with either Graupner or Jeti receivers. Those are the only two brands that currently, and the Jeti is recent, pull the data from the MK stack. Other FC systems like WKM, Hoverfly and Zero UAV give mostly the same type of data. To the best of my knowledge no one offers ESC temps/amps directly through the FC system. There are other alternatives depending on your TX/RX. Graupner, Futaba, Jeti all offer other sensors that can be incorporated to give you other types of data. Some offer battery connections that give amps. Only concern I have with those is that they typically need to be inserted in the between the battery and your power distribution system. If you run dual batteries with dual paths to the PDB that would mean two of the devices. And you have introduced a possible failure path in both of your power paths. Would be interesting to understand how they fail, circuit open or closed.
Thanks Gary It would be so intersting to have at least telemetry on the amps the Esc are consuming in flight this would give us an indication of other things going on I guess the GPX file also doesn't record the amp draw I have seen on Mario from Flexacopter on his many motor test a device that measures a bunch of stuff including temperature and Amps Hmmmm??
Gary Is correct on this I am afraid. This is one of the few things that is good about the MK setup. The stock MK BL's have a temperature sensor and current sensor on each BL/ESC. It takes that data and encodes it onto an I2C bus and sends it back to the FC to be monitored. Problem is that most off the shelf ESC's do not have current or temp monitoring. The ones that do like the Castle's do not have the ability to send that data back to the I2C bus to be monitored in real time. I wish they did but they don't. Shaun
If you use Hercules III / 6S and I2C bus, with small modification on the MK FC, the voltage and amps consumed can be monitored like the standard MK stack.
Ozkan yes the Herkules and the Aerodron Aerodrive 8 are the two PDB systems that 'talk' MK. Jose they are are an alternative that I forgot about. They just aren't seen very often here in the U.S.
Yes I know perhaps thats why they are 3 time more expensive than 8 individual Esc and 2 times more expensive than a MK Bl Ctrl and the FF power and Esc set up, I have 2 Herkules II boards that Im trying to figure out up to what AUW capacity I can safely use them, one concern is that on any issue with one of the Esc, and you are down 4 Esc, in the case of the Aerodrive any issue and you are down 8 Esc.. I had a dumb issue with one of my Herkules where I nock off a tiny capacitor when pulling on the molex connector took a wile to fix it, in the case of a MK Bl Ctrl, yes 1 Esc can also go bad but with some soldering skills, it can be replace on location may be in 1 hour... I think... or this days it is cheaper to have a 2nd MK PDB w 8 Esc ready to be replaced on location they are going for 1/2 or more the original price this days but many have reach the lift capacity of the MK Bl Ctrl v2.0 I think Herkules is very well made and Andreas has done a remarkable job in quality specially in keeping up with the load demand that the HL MR community is going, they are in the Herkules III now, it makes me wonder, where is MK on this!!, recently they came out with the ACC mini board that is great, and I have seen some waypoint gadgets that I am sure are cool to use, but one of the key components that make this machine they are good at, nothing, a MK Bl Ctrl v3 is way way over due I hope they surprise us soon.