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First time buyer of used cinestar 6, what should i think about?

Discussion in 'CineStar FAQ - Tips and Tricks' started by Kasper Bröns, Nov 19, 2013.

  1. Kasper Bröns

    Kasper Bröns New Member

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    Hi!
    I'm selling my current hexacopter to buy a new one, and i'm going to buy a cinestar 6 with the cinestar gimbal and radian. the seller who is my friends friend who is also big in heli filmning in sweden has built it by himself. is there anything i should think about when buying a used cinestar? im going from a dji hexacopter with a lift capazity of 1 kg with an crapy crane 3 gimbal to a cinestar 6 i really hope it will be better..;) any tips for a ny cinestar owner? :) and things i should ask about or look for when i buy it?


    Thanks in advance!
     
  2. Andy Johnson-Laird

    Andy Johnson-Laird Administrator
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    Kasper:
    That's a pretty broad question -- but not an unreasonable one.

    Here are some thoughts:

    1. Has the copter ever been crashed? If so, what parts were replaced?
    2. Are there any known problems with the copter and its flight characteristics.
    3. Approximately how many flight hours does the copter have?
    4. Was the copter purchased ready to fly? If so, from whom and when? If not, who built it, and what prior experience of copter building do they have?
    5. Does the copter use Mikrokopter flight control, navigation control, and GPS boards? If so, what version of firmware is install on the flight and navigation control boards?
    6. Has the flight control board been updated to version 2.2 to improve the accuracy of altitude hold.
    7. What non-standard settings have been applied via the MK Tool software?
    8. How stable is the altitude hold and position hold?
    9. Have the motors been balanced? If so when?
    10. Have the propellers been balanced?
    11. Are the motors all aligned so the prop shafts are vertical?
    12. What firmware are the Radians currently running?
    13. Who set the gains on the Radians and for what camera and lens have they been set.
    14. Has the camera been physically balanced on the gimbal?
    15. Is there a under-voltage alarm for the gimbal battery? (If not, some of the gimbal batteries may have been over discharged).

    If you are purchasing used LiPo batteries, be very cautious. If they have been mistreated (over discharged, stored fully charged), then may not give back the full charge you put into them.

    I'm sure there are more questions, but not knowing precisely what accessories you're getting with the copter (e.g. chargers, LiPos) it's hard to be all-inclusive.

    Andy.
     
  3. Kasper Bröns

    Kasper Bröns New Member

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    Hi!
    Thanks for the fast an good respond! :) I'll ask him about the questions next time i speak to him but i'm going to try and answer them as far as i know.
    1,2,3,4 the craft is totally new and put together by him for me, he is one of the best RC helicopter pilots in sweden and builds lots of helicopters and hexacopters so i would say he's really experienced.
    5, i know that it will be running on mikrokopter and that it will have gps position hold and so on but i dont know about the firmwire or navigational control

    the other questions i dont have an answer for, whats the ideal answer for them?

    Some other things i know about it is that it will be controlled by an T8FGS with 12 channels and he told me that it would have MK gps tilemetri and grupner mx20 with mk in


    Actually i must say i dont know 100% about Mk and their parts, kinda new to it!

    posting some photos of it being built
     

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  4. Andy Johnson-Laird

    Andy Johnson-Laird Administrator
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    Oops....looks like they all got renumbered. Oh well...
    Ideal answers are at the end of each question
    1. Has the flight control board been updated to version 2.2 to improve the accuracy of altitude hold. (Yes)
    2. What non-standard settings have been applied via the MK Tool software? (None. But get details if custom settings are used and the reasons why they were chosen.)
    3. How stable is the altitude hold and position hold? (With FC 2.2 it should be rock solid AH.)
    4. Have the motors been balanced? If so when? (Yes. Recently.)
    5. Have the propellers been balanced? (Yes. Recently.)
    6. Are the motors all aligned so the prop shafts are vertical? (Yes. I checked them just minutes ago. :) )
    7. What firmware are the Radians currently running? (1.03)
    8. Who set the gains on the Radians and for what camera and lens have they been set. (Can't tell you ideal answer, depends on camera/lens.)
    9. Has the camera been physically balanced on the gimbal? (Yes. Let me show you by removing the belts!)
    10. Is there a under-voltage alarm for the gimbal battery? (If not, some of the gimbal batteries may have been over discharged). (Yes, there is an alarm.)
    MK parts are good, but you may need to spray them with conformal acrylic spray if you anticipate flying in high humidity where there might be condensation. (If you do need to, see first document here: http://rathergoodguides.com/documentguides.html) You will need to become very familiar with the MK Tool software, http://www.mikrokopter.de/ucwiki/en/Software . The Navigation Control board writes flight log data to a 2GB microSD card (formatted for FAT16). To interpret that data, consider MK_GPXTOOL. http://www.mikrokopter.de/ucwiki/en/MKGPXTool .
    If the person selling you the copter has GPX files from previous flights, ask if you can have them for reference purposes -- it is good to be able to double check that all is well by comparing flight data with earlier flights.
    From what you say, you will be using the MX-20 transmitter with a Graupner radio receiver (that also transmits telemetry back to the ground for display on the MX-20. Be sure to ask whether the Transmitter/Receiver are running the V4 HoTT firmware and that the Mikrokopter voice fiie has been installed.
    I can predict that you will have other questions, so it would be good to get used to searching by using queries for Google like this:
    mikrokopter error 3​
    If you put the word mikrokopter first then you'll find that you can get appropriate search results.
    There is a Mikrokopter wiki at http://www.mikrokopter.de/ucwiki/en/MKGPXTool -- but it's often quicker to search just using Google.
    The learning curve is going to be a bit steep, but you can always post your questions here....
    Andy.
     

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