weekends testing results, and new plane

[Canberrauav] weekends testing results, and new plane
tridge at samba.org tridge at samba.org 
Sun Jun 26 23:32:52 EST 2011 

Jack and I did a bunch of testing today, following up the testing that
Steve, Darrell and I did yesterday.

We confirmed the following:

 - new magnetometer works well
 - undercarriage on skywalker works well (after minor adjustments)
 - pitch calibration offset works well
 - new code flies well
 - pink wings do make the skywalker more visible :-)

Here is a photo of Steve with the re-fitted skywalker:

  http://photos.tridgell.net/v/CanberraUAV/SkyWalker/IMG_20110625_115104.jpg.html

Today Jack and I concentrated on getting his SkyRaider working with
his APM. The results were quite mixed! The ground setup went fine, but
then we got some bad values out of the gyro in flight. 

The first thing we thought of was the voltage from the NiMH pack to
the APM, so we swapped out that NiMH pack for a 3S LiPo and my castle
UBEC, thus giving a steady 5V. That flew a bit better, but the gyro
values drifted while in flight, so by the end of the flight it was
tipped over on its side!

To check which component was giving trouble we swapped components over
to my SkyWalker. We confirmed that Jacks IMU on my SkyWalker flew
fine, which leaves us with a few possibilities to test next time:

 - Jacks APM could be bad
 - it could be a config setting in his APM (I'll check those)
 - it could be that I used a magnetometer, and Jack didn't (the
   magnetometer can allow the gyro to re-zero in flight)
 - it could be the code version (Jacks code is a few days older than
   mine, not likely to cause a problem)

Jack will be doing some tests at home to see if he can produce the
drift problem.

Meanwhile, I bought a new plane off Rick, another CMAC member. It's a
Senior Telemaster, which is a really big trainer, and can carry a huge
load. It was used by one of the teams in the OBC in previous years
(Team Telemaster). It has an 8 foot wingspan. It should easily carry
all our gear as a test platform.

I'm hoping to have it flying sometime this week, with a new
motor/prop/ESC.

Some photos of the telemaster:

  http://photos.tridgell.net/v/CanberraUAV/Telemaster/

specs on it are here:

  http://www.hobby-lobby.com/srtele_arf.htm

Cheers, Tridge

[Canberrauav] weekends testing results, and new plane
Chris Gough christopher.d.gough at gmail.com 
Mon Jun 27 09:12:39 EST 2011 

Hi Tridge, Jack.

Do the two aircraft differ much in vibration?

Chris Gough

On Sun, Jun 26, 2011 at 11:32 PM,   wrote:
> Jack and I did a bunch of testing today, following up the testing that
> Steve, Darrell and I did yesterday.
>
> We confirmed the following:
>
>  - new magnetometer works well
>  - undercarriage on skywalker works well (after minor adjustments)
>  - pitch calibration offset works well
>  - new code flies well
>  - pink wings do make the skywalker more visible :-)
>
> Here is a photo of Steve with the re-fitted skywalker:
>
>  http://photos.tridgell.net/v/CanberraUAV/SkyWalker/IMG_20110625_115104.jpg.html
>
> Today Jack and I concentrated on getting his SkyRaider working with
> his APM. The results were quite mixed! The ground setup went fine, but
> then we got some bad values out of the gyro in flight.
>
> The first thing we thought of was the voltage from the NiMH pack to
> the APM, so we swapped out that NiMH pack for a 3S LiPo and my castle
> UBEC, thus giving a steady 5V. That flew a bit better, but the gyro
> values drifted while in flight, so by the end of the flight it was
> tipped over on its side!
>
> To check which component was giving trouble we swapped components over
> to my SkyWalker. We confirmed that Jacks IMU on my SkyWalker flew
> fine, which leaves us with a few possibilities to test next time:
>
>  - Jacks APM could be bad
>  - it could be a config setting in his APM (I'll check those)
>  - it could be that I used a magnetometer, and Jack didn't (the
>   magnetometer can allow the gyro to re-zero in flight)
>  - it could be the code version (Jacks code is a few days older than
>   mine, not likely to cause a problem)
>
> Jack will be doing some tests at home to see if he can produce the
> drift problem.
>
> Meanwhile, I bought a new plane off Rick, another CMAC member. It's a
> Senior Telemaster, which is a really big trainer, and can carry a huge
> load. It was used by one of the teams in the OBC in previous years
> (Team Telemaster). It has an 8 foot wingspan. It should easily carry
> all our gear as a test platform.
>
> I'm hoping to have it flying sometime this week, with a new
> motor/prop/ESC.
>
> Some photos of the telemaster:
>
>  http://photos.tridgell.net/v/CanberraUAV/Telemaster/
>
> specs on it are here:
>
>  http://www.hobby-lobby.com/srtele_arf.htm
>
> Cheers, Tridge
> _______________________________________________
> Canberrauav mailing list
> Canberrauav at canberrauav.com
> http://www.canberrauav.com/mailman/listinfo/canberrauav
>



-- 
.

[Canberrauav] weekends testing results, and new plane
tridge at samba.org tridge at samba.org 
Mon Jun 27 09:31:50 EST 2011 

 > Do the two aircraft differ much in vibration?

yes! well done Chris!

Jacks plane has the APM secured firmly to the fuselage of a glow
plane. It will vibrate a lot.

My plane is foam, with an electric motor, plus I have an extra layer
of foam holding the APM, and velcro below that foam. So I have great
vibration isolation.

The vibration could easily be causing the gyros to drift.  That is a
well known problem, and I really should have thought of it yesterday.

Jack, can you try adding some vibration isolation to the APM on your
SkyRaider for Wednesday?

Cheers, Tridge

[Canberrauav] weekends testing results, and new plane
tridge at samba.org tridge at samba.org 
Wed Jun 29 21:06:15 EST 2011 

Hi Chris,

Just a quick update on the testing that Jack and I did at CMAC today.

First off, we tested the Senior Telemaster, and it flew really
well. The motor/prop/ESC/battery combination worked very well, with
long flight times and good control. It is a very gentle flyer, but it
can lift a huge load, so should be great for more UAV testing.  This
evening Jack and I moved the servos further back in the fuselage to
give more room for mounting the pandaboard, radio, cameras etc. So now
we're all set for more testing.

Next we tested Jacks SkyRaider with good vibration isolation. The
SkyRaider was the plane that behaved so badly with the APM on Sunday,
so we wanted to test the suggestion from Chris that it was the
lack of vibration isolation. With a thick layer of foam and no other
changes it flew with the APM very well! So it looks like the vibration
was indeed the problem. Thanks for the great thought Chris!

I'll be flying again this weekend with the Telemaster, see you at CMAC
if you want to come and look!

Cheers, Tridge

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