The folks at MK are brewing a new alt sensor board, I wonder if it will have sonar? http://forum.mikrokopter.de/topic-post466429.html#post466429
I've emailed the folks at QC to find out whether they'll be carrying it. I'll let you know what I hear. Andy.
Hello Shaun, Yes, this looks promising. Good to see the MK is getting busy again. We should have some samples in house pretty soon and will have the parts available for customers ASAP. Greetings, Adam
So this a retrofit for the existing MK FC board? That's cool. I wonder...will it improve flight stability even with AH turned off?
That's nice. MK guys should start working on new products as they are falling behind in the competition. In additon, ıf MK guys add 6S support to their FC and BL Ctrls, they will be back for the heavy lift guys.
@Adam, agreed, I am glad to see them back in the game as well. I almost felt like they were falling off the map so to speak. @Steve, I wonder if it will plug into the female ports on the Nav board. That seems like the only place this would be able to plug into unless there is some existing data port that I am missing on the FC . It will be exciting to see this. @Ozkan, They really do need to beef up the power and capability of the BL controllers. They are rated at 30A but I would guess they would catch fire at this power draw unless you were flying in freezing temps. In Vegas one of my number 8 BL reached 100C near 20A that was at night when it was only 70'ish F outside. All my others were around the same temp, with the same power pull. I did a regression to confirm if there were anomalies and the relationship to temp/amp was about the same for each BL. I was carrying an FS100 with 18-200mm glass, so I was a few pounds heavier then flying a 5D with a poly lens. I cant imagine what the temp that the BL would have been if I was flying in the daytime when it was ten degrees warmer with the sun radiating on the board. They rate these at 35A I would be afraid to approach that limit unless it was a super cool winter day. I would guess they would get overheated and fail real fast. They need some catching up to do, because their competition is really taking off. They are still hovering, no pun intended, in the hobbyist market mindset IMO. They will loose fast. When I was at NAB, I saw the TurboAce guys. Not to talk about a FF or MK competitor, but last year I got a flight demo from them in Orange CA. I was not that impressed with their rig. I thought it was a knockoff Mikrokopter Octo, just using WKM. In one year they now have a RED capable monster that they displayed. If MK wants to get back into the pro game, they will need to make more robust power systems for the heavy lifters. I doubt they will be able to hold the hobby market for too much longer since their are a plethora of hobby grade Flight control systems out there that are much less expensive for similar capabilities.
Hi Adam are you guys at QC going to offer the installation of this new board on to customers FC 2.1 boards I saw on MK site that they already are offering the board with instructions on how to do a customer installation or they also do it for you for an additional fee
Its a new accelerometer I guess I was way off with my assumption. I was hoping for a sonar like my APM 2.5. Oh well https://www.mikrocontroller.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=773
Hello Jose, Yes, we will provide the install service and firmware for folks with MK flight controls. This fee will be around $60 for parts and service. Greetings, Adam
That's awesome, Adam. Any idea of the timeframe? And does the Navi board, mx20 or MK_Tool need to be upgraded, too?
German MK guys also upgraded their FC 2.1 ME with this AC upgrade. They are selling it already soldered. I think all distributors will get the finished product in their next orders.
Its Great that MK is developing and upgrading, it is also nice that we don't have to discard components to do an upgrade its just an add on
Hello Steve, Let us perform the update to a few of our systems to get a better idea of parts we will need for this service. Another video demonstration from an MK beta-tester: Looks like the new algorithms with the ACC-Baro datafusion are working great! Greetings, Adam
Basically they are using a better accelerometer to compare atmospheric pressure variations to actual sensed movements. If the baro senses a change but the Accel dose not then the system will discard the what the baro is sensing and normalizes the altitude information to the new barometric pressure. From the video it looks real promising for getting a good low altitude run to a climb shot.
I wonder how much clearance you have between the new board on top of the FCB and the battery tray after the mod? I'm using slightly longer standoffs to space my FCB away from the PDB and I think I would need longer battery tray standoff's. I spaced the FCB board away a little because the motor pig tails were just getting smooshed against the PDB. I can't find anything in M3 longer than 50mm though.
I have the same thing. I figure there will be about an 1/8 of an inch clearance still left. Judging by the pictures the thing does not look too much thicker than the FC board and current Acc.