Category: RC & FPV
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PID looptime: why it is not only about frequency
Last 18 months was an extremely good period of time for all mini-quad enthusiasts. Progress, hardware and software both, was just incredible. Who could have guessed that in less than 2 years mini-quads will evolve into main group of drones with such excellent flight characteristics. Just take a look at looptime. When I entered the…
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Hands on: JJPro P175 4" mini-quad
Thanks to GearBest I have a new quadcopter to test and review: JJRC JJPro P175 True-X 4″ min-quad. First of all, it is Ready-To-Fly (RTF) product. Everything required to fly is inside white box: JJPro P175 comes assembled with accessories and radio transmitter:
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Tip: how to secure XT60 plugs
I had a problem with my FPV goggles: I was constantly breaking battery cable near XT-60 plug. One not careful enough grip and cable was ripped away. I’ve decided to fix it and permanently secure the cable with epoxy glue. Sure, I could use hot glue (that looks ugly) or Sugru (that is expensive), but…
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How to install and configure Betaflight
Latest Betaflight 3.0 is a new quality for flight controller software. It brings many new, cool, features comparing to previous versions. If you fly mini-quad or micro-quad, you have to check what Betaflight 3 has to offer. This tutorial will show how to install Betaflight 3 and how to configure it so mini-quad can go…
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How to measure gyro noise frequency with Blackbox
Betaflight (and INAV) lowpass filter tuning can be a hard thing to do if you have not idea what is noise frequency you want to cancel. Sure, you can blind test or read tutorials. But what if I tell you, you can measure it quite precisely using only Blackbox logs? Or measure rotation speed of…
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Air Crash Investigation: gone in 6 seconds
“What goes up, must come down”. I had an opportunity to face this old truth 2 weeks ago, when my 600mm quadcopter felt from 30 meters straight into water. It was supposed to be a simple flight: take off fly few hundred meters away with GPS assist engage Return To Home and land Dozens of…
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PWM, OneShot125, OneShot42, Multishot and DSHOT comparison
Two years ago it was simple: you wanted to connect ESC to a Flight Controller or radio receiver, you were just doing it. There were only one (maybe 2) protocols that allowed to pass information to ESC. It was a standard PWM protocol. And it was enough. No, with faster hardware, mini or even micro…
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How to tune PID I-term on a FPV drone
With this entry I want to initiate short series of articles showing how to tune multirotor / quadcopter PID controller. Let’s call it a continuation of Blackbox series, but this time I will not relay only on Blackbox data. Yes, I will show few examples how given scenarios looks on Blackbox logs, but all steps…
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DIY wireless telemetry link for UAV
Telemetry link between UAV (drone, airplane, boat) and laptop/mobile/ground station device can be very useful. Not only to get current drone position, altitude or battery level, but also, when wireless link provides such a possibility, to update drone parameters in-flight. Some radio links, like OpenLRS provides such a possibility out of the box. They include…