Well on advice, I checked the soldering of the wires to the PDB after Andrew's event, and mine did not look as bad, however I attempted to reflow the solder, so I could rule out a similar type of failure. The question I have, is did I make it better or worse. I think better, but would like to know if I should redo any of the connections before reassembling.
Looks real good. I only see 2 after shots but 4 before shots but from what I see its much better. Good job.
Dave here's an update from Holger on the MK Forum. http://forum.mikrokopter.de/topic-43632.html That is strange, we do not observe synthesis problems with our MKs here. We are building quite a lot MikroKopter and all of them hold the GPS position perfectly without any tuning parameters. In almost all customer-MKs with GPS problem, we see the same Reasons: - compass calibration - compass influence by Lipo or cables - no GPS Shield Anyway, if you want to try an old FC firmware like 0.88, you do not have to remove the ACC sensor or the solder bridge . Just install the firmware. The new ACC signal will have no influence there. Regards,Holger
Gary thanks. I responded to that thread. I alos have posted the issue on 3 difference spots on the board and nobody from MK has responded in a 3 week time frame. If you look dig hard enough on board there are severl others on there that have posted about poor PH performance with 2.0 in addition to those on this board and that's just the english posts, not sure even what's being posted in German like the thread Holger responded to. In addition to the thread you pointed out here's one of them http://forum.mikrokopter.de/topic-post490733.html#post490733 It would be nice if everyone that is having issues would post on the board so that Holger understands its not isolated to a couple users.
Added to the mikrokopter forum ... In English but I reckon google translate will work translating my poor English into poorer German
Another person posting the same issues (non cinestar as well) http://forum.mikrokopter.de/topic-43960.html
From this thread. I have the new ACC board on FC and just now updated from 0.90h to 0.91L (using file Flight-Ctrl_MEGA1284P_V0_91L_SVN_ACC-HH_MartinR). That required me to update to the new MKTool 2.00a and then Navi-Ctrl_STR9_V2_00a. I copied in my old settings manually and deleted the SETTINGS.INI file. I missed that 0.91J is in the tags/. It wasn't in branches/. What's the difference between those? Tags/ seems to hold everything, but branches/ not? Anybody know? (I work for a German software company, so if you tell me the reason is "over engineering" I will understand ) Even so after load and configuration 0.91L screens look just like 2.00a. That said, I cant figure out what values should be in Navi-Ctrl and Navi-Ctrl 2. Certainly not the same as what I had in 0.90h correct? Colin
Personally, I prefer to use the MK Tool "magnifying glass" tool to get a listing of the current "official" versions of the various firmware files. The problem with the Subversion Repository is that anyone can extract a version, tweak it, and put it back in to the repository -- you really don't know what's been done with a given version, how well it was tested, etc. Andy.
HI ColinOne question for you is why go to a beta version instead of directly to 2.0? IF I were you I would just upgrade to everything 2.0. I really don't think there's much difference between J and L that would cause any motor issues. When I was on the beta version of 91 I had 91L.As far as your motor data, IN MY OPINION, I wouldn't read too much into the Motor data's differences. You can spin your tail and not get any where. Like Steve I used to pay very close attention to motor data too but after hundreds of hours flying I came to the conclusion that while motor data is important for diagnosis, it can also lead you to spin your tail over nothing. Here's how I look at motor data now. Once you plot your normal flying data (lets say 50 flights of data)you can reference it to new data to see if something has changed.1. Any irregularities in the motor data compared to your reference data?2. Is there any one motor that sticks out such as too hot or drawing too much current? I use average temp and current not peaks because peaks can change if you hover rather easily.3. Does one motor heat up much quicker than the others?4. Is your GPS data good as far as magnetic field and inclination?5. Are you seeing any errors or red flags in the GPX files?6. Does the I2C error counter go up in number while you have the copter in the air?7. Are any of your motors very hot to the touch after landing?8. Are you experiencing unwanted yaw?If the answer is no to these questions your probably ok. Obviously you can put your mind at rest by looking for all the normal maintenance checks like motor bearings, bent shafts, and CG through MK tools). To me the differences between odd/even you see are exactly what Casey is referring to(to experiment with motor tilt to even out the motor data). Unless I am missing something and I know I could be, to me it sounds like your the perfect case of experimenting to see if the motor tilt helps your odd/even motor characterics.
Thanks Dave. I'm going to give it a shot. Thanks for your posts above with screen shots of values. That helps. Will post back results here of upgrade test flight. I did not tilt motors yet so this will be with motors straight. Will reply to part two back on other thread. Colin Colin
I'm still shaking. That was the scariest flight I have had in long time. Winds were 5-7 mph. See attached PDF for the configuration settings I used. Problems encountered: Slight (4m) counter clockwise toilet bowl in PH and AH Major (10m+) counter clockwise toilet bowl after a 360 degree yaw to the left while in PH and AH. Same with yaw to the right. Fast decent rate (no AH) Minor nick and roll stick movement translated to large kopter movement. I have always used a 30% expo on Nick and Roll. But this was as if I had none. User error trying to stop the motors with the new two stick thing. Any of these settings look out of whack?? Also, I got a 'NoSerialLink' NCFlag. Did I miss an MK Setting? Colin
Your experiences are consistent with some other folks who upgraded to 2.00 -- including me. I regressed back to 0.90j for those same reasons: toilet bowling and major uncommanded yaw twitching.... Andy.
Colin if you haven't already, please post on the Mikrokopter forum about your experiences. The more people that can report these issues the sooner they can get corrected. By the way, your motor data looks better now. I would go back to 0.90J like the rest of us.
Does anyone know how you can read the german posts over at the MK forum? I hit the english button and it takes me to a dead page. Specifically I would like to read this section http://forum.mikrokopter.de/topic-43632-2.html
Here's a link to Google's translated page... http://translate.google.com/transla...rum.mikrokopter.de/topic-43632-2.html&act=url
BTW, one of the interesting things I've observed (and I should say, I'm quite happily running 2.00a on my Cinestar), is that sometimes engaging PH results in some swaying, but if I correct it manually for a few seconds, then I can let go of the sticks and it works great. Not sure I mentioned that before, or if it's at all relevant. But again, I have an Andy-advised CS8/MK build with the ACC upgrade, and have been very happy with AH and PH.
I reverted to 0.91J. Flight characteristics were all back to 'normal'. I used these settings (attached). However, as reported in the other thread I have the 'odd motor pull' problem back again. It makes me suspect that that the variance is software related - not hardware related. The only difference is between the two flights was the software version. If you see anything odd in the settings doc please let me know. Thanks Colin