Aha. Gotcha. I thought you were making some kind of measurement along the magenta lines. Just out of curiosity, where did you get the aluminum angle from? Home Depot? Your gauge seems to be best field setup I've seen thus far. Henceforth known as the Azarelli Gauge, no? (The "Joe Gauge" lacks the gravitas required...) As to having the GPS/Nav board on Boom #7 -- I don't see any problems as long as the word "Mikrokopter" on the GPS is parallel to the line between booms #7 and #3, and right way up when your looking from Boom #5. (The arrow on the underside of GPS board should be facing forwards, in other words. The Nav board needs to have the edge with the micro-SD card parallel with the line between booms #2 and #6 and facing forward. The paragraph above is really the longest way that I could think of for writing that both boards should be in the same orientation as if they were mounted on the central stack! What was the motivation for putting them on Boom #7, by the way? I presume it shifts the CoG to the left a bit? Andy.
The angle is from "the gettin' place" , Home Depot. The reason, as far as I can recall, is that with the ribbon cables provided boom 7 allowed the furthest distance from the stack for the Nav board. When the boards are all facing North. At the time I was challenged by bad magnetic compass data messin' with my impeccable flying skills. I have since disabled compass influence but the nav board remains there. I have a 16grams of lead attached to the end of the opposing boom to adjust balance. [ the "A-gauge" is easier to pronounce, right? ] A side note.. I lived in Beaverton for two years. If I recall, it rains 7...no...8 out of 10 days. No wonder you put 10 coats of conformal on your boards! Joe
Hi Joe: Thanks. I'll hit Home "Despot" and see what they have. I was wondering about making up my own, slightly longer, 10-pin and 6-pin ribbon cables, so I could move the FC and GPS a bit further away too. I'm sure that some is messing with my impeccable flying skills too, and it might as well be the FC/GPS boards. Too bad that you have to have 16g of dead weight, though...that comes out of the payload capacity/battery life. The A-Gauge it is. In Beaverton it often rains 11 days out of 10. Less so in NW Portland. Andy.
I have just been looking at my cinestar and have noticed not all the booms coming out from the center hub are level on the horizontal axis, how much of an impact will this have on flight, I imagine it cannot help with prop tracking! I can't think how to adjust them, there is no way I can see of doing so
Thanks Tabb, your input is greatly appreciated, I didn't know if it could cause tracking vibrations like helicopter blades not tracking exactly. I am a born worrier and want to get this awesome machine flying as well as I can. Thanks again for your help
THe easiest way at the end is with and electronic pitch gauge (rcLogger) you zero it where you want and you measure..! you there is no need to level all the 8copter..!
C welcome to the forums. Would you be kind enough to change your user name to your real first name and last name, please? The reasons for this (and how to do it) are explained here: http://forum.freeflysystems.com/index.php?threads/real-names.497/.
I put all the props on, then if i wanted to align for example motor 1, I would make sure the prop was at 90 degs to it's boom, take a step back, close one eye and line up each propeller tip with the top of the prop nut from booms 4 and 6. this means you can get very accurate alignment of each propeller tip independently of other propeller tips/ level surface etc as you do with other methods. it takes a few seconds to check each prop.
Don't mean to hijack this post, there might be something more to consider on a lighter note - I'm no expert but read somewhere about getting good control on a flat Octo by tilting the angle of axis 3 deg. Positive CW for CW turning motors and negative i.e. Anti CCW for the CCW motors. Been thinkng about trying this out and was surprised to see DJI has implemented it in their new 1000 Octo, lol. Don't know anything about how it's performing but here's another project Andy... to get the alignments 3deg+ and 3deg- for all the motor mounts on the booms. Anyone try this out...do let me know your experience.
That being said I've eyeballed all my motor mounting plates horizontal and parallel to the center frame (when viewed from the boom end down towards the center plate) with this set perfect there should be perfect and smooth yaw in both directions. If it's not right then yaw issues would crop if these are not perfectly horizontal. Mine are....checked them and double checked them but I have a yaw issue turning nose left. Right yaw is smoother and easier on the motors.'wonder what the issue might be? Any thoughts....anyone?
Avetis: Do you have a typical GPX file from your MK Navigation Control Board that you could post? The flight data in the GPX file might hold a clue. Andy.
Ooops. I don't think the Wookong FC gathers any motor current data does it? The asymmetry is a hard one to explain without some mechanical cause, I'm afraid. Andy.