Balancing The Cs 8

Hi Pavlos:
The best way is really the way you've probably already thought of. Suspend the CS8 by the center of the battery plate in such a way that it can move freely (I just use some string) and then you can get a good idea of how the static balance is. You will know best what you can move around to bring the CS8 into balance -- often it's just shifting the battery.

For dynamic balancing, use Xbee or Bluetooth, and the On Screen Display of MK Tool (the OSD button) -- then the Flight Control Board will actually display a window showing you where the dynamic balance of the aircraft is -- it has to calculate this to keep the CS8 stable and level.

Of course, you then have to land, adjust whatever you choose to adjust, take-off and test again.

However, this is by far the best way of adjusting the balance because it's the dynamic balance of the aircraft in flight.

Hope this helps.
Andy.

 

That's weird. Do the Xbee's work fine otherwise? The implication is that, if different versions of MK Tool all "wedge" in the same way, that there's something odd going on in the communications channel. Any chance you can try MK Tool on a different PC or a laptop? It works fine for me (how's that for a really helpful statement, eh?)

Andy.

 

If by "perfect center" you mean the point from which you suspect the copter, then it's at the center of the hub, right above the center of the battery plate.

If your question is how do you get a perfect balance, then I'm afraid the answer is the one I gave above: Use Xbee/MK Tool while the copter is in flight and then bring up the Balance window by clicking on 3D -- I apologize -- I said OSD before. My mistake -- it's the 3D button in MK Tool. This will then show a balance window and the dot will show where the Flight Control board has calculated the actual CoG to be -- and if it's not in the center, then it shows you where you need to move mass to bring it into center.

It will also display whether there is any yaw component that the Flight Control board is having to counter-act (that shows in the horizontal scale across the top).

Here's the section from the MK Tool documentation...

Andy.


3D

After a click on the 3D-Button the indicator of the center of gravity (Balance) and the simulation of the Kopter will be displayed.



Both ads will appear when you are connected to the FC and than click the 3D button (maybe click on "FlightControl" before).
In the display of the center of gravity you can control if the Kopter has it's center of gravity in the middle or at a different spot.
For this you can connect your Kopter with e.g. a Bluetooth or a Wi232 to the PC.
Now you can hover with your Kopter and controll the center of gravity (a second person can do this for you).
If the focus of the MikroKopter is not on the main thrust of the engines (usually the center) the point walks out.
Very interesting: Yaw (upper scale). If the frame is not really straight the MK is yawing all the time against it.

 

Hmm. The evidence suggests that:

1. MK Tool is not this issue -- if it were, then Xbee would not work.
2. The MK boards are not this issue -- again, Xbee would not work if they were.

So it's pivotal to determine whether or not it fails on another computer.
If it does fail, there is a deeper problem than we think.
If it does not fail, then the problems is with the operating system and/or the virtual COM port driver on your computer.

Let me know what you find.
Andy.

 

Pavlos, you can wrap some zip ties from a few points to hang it, or I usually just pick it up from 2 booms, see how it feels. Then pick it up from the 2 booms 90 degrees from the other booms. I find this usually gets me close enough.

Tabb