[karla]

Thank you Cliff, yes I do.

The good thing with 433 mHz is the penetration though, and as I am just now flying line of sight this is still such an overkill at 100mW I am sending. This is despite the fact that I not only mounted it horizontally but also I am using a 1/4 wave length antenna and not the recommended 1/2 wavelength. But its so much more convenient for me - a clumsy guy, to bring in my car without smacking the antenna around here and there
I feel really confident the control signal will not fail me - and believe me I have spend a lot of time on getting the OPlink to work Trust it with my heart now.

So, today (video is a little 'more of the same') I did find a new place to fly where I can stretch out in full forward. Its not ideal since there are some water to the left but I feel its enough of land to point to if things go bad. Good things are, there are no people, no dogs, no kids, no buildings, no cars Unbelievable in Beijing. However, its kinda far away so I have little time to fly there.



The purpose today was to try turn the nob of tilt rotors to at least 25 or 50% forward flight.
However, as I started out it was a lot more wind that last time and the pitch was going back and forth and it did not feel comfortable. Before doing smt out of comfort zone then at least need to have a safe retreat place, like a comfortable hover. So did fly some 4 rounds and two LiPos to get PIDs better in this wind. Not really happy with result though, will take more time. I do have a good feeling about it though.

BTW, I am using Attitude with INS13 now for stabilization. The external mag is beautifully aligned.

[TheOtherCliff]

You might try AutoTune, but look at the new PIDs before flying them.

[karla]

Interesting idea.
However, when I set Autotune as a Flightmode I get the red Config error warning.
I assume this is because this is a Custom craft?

[TheOtherCliff]

That sounds like a good guess.

I haven't checked the code but I wonder if disabling sanity check would allow you to do it...

[karla]

  yes it worked.
But will autotune work?
I don't know how it can figure out correct settings - its really magic
But if you think I can give a try, then can I also give it a try on my Heli's?
Too good to be true?

[TheOtherCliff]

The main problem with AutoTune seems to be bad results afterward, not crashing while flying the AutoTune flight.

It does induce 75% of full control step outputs.  I would guess a typical heli would handle that OK, and I would try it on a smaller cheaper heli, but I wouldn't want to be the first one to try it on a Trex 700.

I would definitely try it on the tiltrotor but check the PIDs before flying them.  Especially check for PIDs that are zero.

If it doesn't break because of the large control inputs, then it should be safe to try it up fairly high with a finger on the FMS, ready to switch to Attitude mode.

[karla]

Thanks again Cliff.
This is a bit odd, the next day when I tested and wanted to use Autotune I could get around the Red Config error on the flight mode page, but the Health gadget had a red Config Alarm. Will not arm. The only way to get it green again was to remove AutoTune as flight mode. After doing that, there was still an Orange warning on the ?-box. That did not go away until I put the sanity Checks back in operation. Maybe there is another workaround I don't know. Would be interesting.

Anyway I tuned the Pitch manually and got better hover stability.

Unfortunately I leave tomorrow on a long trip and can't bring the wing along.
I don't expect I can update this project until end of September
- Turning the nob for forward transition and forward flight seems a cliff-hanger until then - sorry.

[emjay]

Hey Karla (and many others)

It has been a little while since our last comms. You are making some serious progress! The Mako looks great.

I saw this machine advertised today.  Check out the GCS view in the video.   Looks familiar to me.




Video of it hovering.



But have not seen any transitioning yet.

MJ

[karla]

Hey Emjay!

Thanks and good to hear from you mj.
Yes, thats really interesting, surely based on LP, encouraging
Hope they publish a video when they fly hover mode and also the transition to and from it.
K

[karla]

Oh these guys seem serious about this, aiming for supersonic, manned flights!?

Anyway, it seems to me from the videos that for hover they are not using OAT (oblique angle tilt), nor FAT (forward aft tilt), but using the small rudder below the motors for stability and control.
Interesting.
Seems they got the hover okay and also the forward flight okay, but how about the transition?
... and using CC3D according to the videos...

[f5soh]

They are using a revolution board and LibrePilot
CC3D do not support current sensor.

[karla]

Hope everyone had a good summer!
At least I had Now back and have resumed this project.

First thing I took it to the field and finally turned the nob for forward transition and forward flight. The tilt rotors worked fine and the wing started to accelerate forward. Then there was a mishap, the gear on the starboard tilt house derailed in a yaw correction of a wing gust. Likely due to the servo was not totally fixed and had moved. The motor tilted forward and hit the wing, resulting in a crash. Not so bad but the motor had broken off from its fix and broken the tilt house.



To fix damages and resolve this from happen again I:
. 3d printed a new tilt house
. enhanced the motor fix to the tilt house with longer screws and stronger fundament
. glued the servos with hot glue before securing with the normal 2 screws
. redesigned and 3d printed 'fatter' gears that will sit on the wing spar (prevent derailing)
It turned out well, and its working better and more reliable and feels durable.

Next thing was to fly it around in hover mode to make sure it worked. Then the motor on the other side started to run unclean and stutter. Had to fix that. Recalibrated all ESCs and eventually replaced the ESC. Still some stutter. Then by accident I moved around the wire (signal wire pair) running from the FC to the ESC and the stutter stopped. It seems the wire was touching the Power Distribution Board and got some disturbances there? I don't know if that can happen but rerouting the wire made the stutter go away. So I assume it sorted for now.
Will resume things after the Chinese Holidays.
Still have a good feeling about this design.



Anyway, this summer I had a chance to fly some of my other standard fixed wing, using hand launch and landing in the grass. Getting better after training at not crashing at launch or at landings
That was one of the drivers for me to explore a VTOL craft to begin with.


Edit:
I forgot to mention the third issue. I was so happy and impressed with the configuration of the Revo Nano board getting three functions out of the FlexIO port: PPM, A 7th port out to control rear motor/ESC and the volt/current meter input. However, I was using a OPLink receiver for the PPM and it occasionally ended up in failsafe mode, then coming back online again. I could not figure out why or repeat the problem. When recalibrating the transmitter manually it first became better for a while but then failsafed next time. In the end i could not even complete the manual transmitter calibration process. Channels were  jumping and jittering around after I had already done the min and max movement with the sticks.
(actually I tried with another OPlink rx as well, but it did not solve the problem, so its maybe some issue after the rx)
I just did not have the patience to spend more time on it, but replaced the Revo Nano + OPLM Rx for a Revo board I had idle.
Then all is stable and no failsafe.
Took some days to complete though.

[karla]

Heyjo some progress here,
Today I did turned the nob for forward flight and it did fly away!
I made the first left turn since the field is very small but I could not make it climb fast enough over a tree so it was crash, however mild and not fatal. Sorry i do not have a video.
Will rebuild and retry next weekend.

[karla]

 
My Beijing park announced they have now banned all flying aircrafts.
Have to find a new field.
Spend all Sunday browsing around some 20+ km radius.



Think I found a place, tucked away from everything enough I hope, however need to buy a pair of sturdy rubber boots to be able to walk out and pick up my VTOL in the muddy field, if have to land not VTOL.

[karla]

Last weekend I was at the site at two different times, but both times it was just too much traffic with people walking, on bikes, scooters and cars and trucks around the field. It does not feel safe or comfortable for test flying. Its really difficult to find a place for fixed wings here. Its easier with helis and quads. I will continue but now considering to bring the plane to my fields in Europe in December or Hainan in Feb.