I own a Cinestar 8 with Mikrocopter electronics. The chopper was built in May 2014. I have many years of RC airplane experience and a couple years in the multi rotor world. I first started with a DJI 450 and later a 550. With DJI the three flight options were Manual, ATTI, and GPS. I flew on GPS most of the time and found it to be the easiest especially in any wind. I'm now comparing this to the Mikrocopter electronics which is set up for GPS stabilized, GPS POSITION HOLD, GPS COME HOME and GPS ALTITUDE HOLD. The closest comparison in Mikrocopter to the DJI GPS function is GPS HOLD, but for those of you that have tried forward flight in this mode know that it doesn't perform very well. Is there are way to adjust this in MK TOOL? Or is this just how the Cinestar and the Mikrocopter electronics fly differently from the DJI? From my perspective, it's just harder to fly in the GPS stabilized mode especially if there is any wind, but also means I need to become a better pilot. I'm more concerned for when I start flying FPV, to have to trust the camera for every movement of the chopper, the GPS stabilized mode needs a lot of control input. Thanks for any advice from the FF Forum.
Hello Charlie, Take a look here: http://www.mikrokopter.de/ucwiki/en/MK-Parameter/Navi-Ctrl 2 So, you can try dynamic position hold off if you wanna move faster between the positions. Another thing you can do is, to increase the GPS angle a bit more, so you will be able to move a bit faster, around 150.
Thank you, I will give that a try. In your experience which one is better for what I'm looking for? Turning off the Dynamic Position Hold or just bringing that GPS angle up? Thanks again!
HI Charlie I use MK exclusively. SO I understand what you mean, are you saying that you want the copter to be stable in latitude and longitude and then be able to override it with the sticks to go straight? If so I have found that you need to have a good amount of momentum going forward and that you can't go crawling but you can go slow. If you just try to go forward with your stick it wont straight it does need some amount of steering. What I found to work best is to go use your right stick to go forward and then use your yaw stick to steer it left and right instead of trying to use your forward stick to go forward and steer left and right. Also for GPS gain I use 95% which I found to work best. I leave all other GPS settings stock.
Dave, the best way I can describe it is when I'm in GPS HOLD, to go in forward flight it fights you very hard because it wants to hold that position. With stock DJI, in GPS mode when you're not touching the sticks it's a GPS HOLD, but as soon as you touch the sticks it stabilizes the flight but doesn't fight you to move. In MikroKopter even while you're trying to move forward in GPS HOLD it fights to maintain that position. I'm going to try and turn off Dynamic Position Hold and see what it looks like. Thanks!
Charlie I haven't used DJI yet but I can tell you that with MK you need a little bit of momentum to go forward in position hold. You really should use Dynamic position but I guess it doesn't hurt to try it to see what affect it has on it. Anytime I am in Position hold and I need to go straight I always am back a little further than I need to be then I start forward and get a steady speed. Sometimes if you just try to inch the stick forward (nick forward) the position hold will grab it but I can go very slow forward.
Charlie, since you are coming from DJI, I would recommend you try "Dynamic position hold off" first. Give it a try and tell us what you think.
Sorry to contradict, but Dynamic Position hold is specifically intended to allow you to reposition the "set point" -- that is the "Position Hold" point -- so to avoid the MK Navigation Control Board "fighting" you, you need to have dynamic position hold ON. See: http://www.mikrokopter.de/ucwiki/en/MK-Parameter/Navi-Ctrl 2 Dynamic PositionHold By switching on/off these function you can change the behavior of the Kopter in the function PositionHold. Function off: Is the function PositionHold (PH) switched on the movement of the Kopter will be directly controlled with the Nick- / Roll stick. Here the function PH will be switched off if the sticks are moved. At the new position and after releasing the sticks the function PositionHold (PH) will be switched on again. Function on: Also here you can fly the Kopter through movements with the Nick-/Roll stick to a new position. The function PH will be not switched on- and off but here the nominal values of the GPS coordinates will be shifted. Therefore a more accurate positioning is possible during windy conditions. The Kopter flies slower to the positions. Andy
I have tried all of the suggestions listed above, thank you to all who commented. I turned off Dynamic Position Hold and that did not match what I was looking for. Changing the GPS Angle to 150 helped a lot, and was more of what I was looking for. Would there any disadvantages to making that value even higher to 160 and up? Thanks!
I think you may be blazing a new trail for us, Charlie. I don't know anyone else who's increased the GPS angle. You might want to consider posting on the English language forum at mikrokopter.de and asking Holger or Ingo (of MK) your question. Let us know if you do that and get a definitive response. Andy.
Haha, didn't anticipate blazing a new trail! Unfortunately, I'm used to the DJI setup and like flying in their GPS mode, especially in any wind. I flew yesterday in a wind and it was significantly easier than in what I would call the manual mode on MK, but it still fights me a little, so that's why I'm thinking of moving the GPS Angle up to either 160 and up.
Yeah, I hear you Charlie. You don't realize you're blazing a new trail until you suddenly notice that there are no footprints ahead of you. It happens quite a lot in this field of sUAS. I like to fly with PH and AH on too -- by flying the set points it's easier to shoot tracking shots without having to compensate for wind deflection and worrying about altitude excursions. Andy.