Category: Uncategorized

As long as quality is decent, there is nothing better like "el cheapo" electronic components. Just like below $5 Matek PDB-XT60 Power Distribution Board with integrated 5V and 12V BEC. Preparing to build a new 220 racer I just got my Matek PDB from Aliexpress. Quality, at a first glance looks good. Laminate nicely cut,…

After a short brake, let’s return to Blackbox series with new entry: “How much gyro noise is too much?”. Almost all PID tuning tutorials states: reduce vibrations that affects gyroscope and accelerometer readouts. Yes, this true: any vibrations that appear during flight affects gyroscope and accelerometer readouts are bad and should be kept as low…

You finished your build, you connect LiPo, power up flight controller, apply throttle (no propellers of course) and you see that one or motors are spinning in wrong direction. How to fix that? You can not do it, for example in Cleanflight Configurator. ESC communication protocol does not allow to change BLC motor direction. There…

Modern drones utilize many different sensors to archive flight. Some of them are required to fly, some are only optional and they can only improve flight performance. This entry will be a summary of those sensors, with short description and information how drone utilizes data from them. Gyroscope Gyroscope, or shorter gyro, is the only…

Below is a video I’ve recorder 2 weeks ago, showing almost fully automatic mission performed by INAV. The only “non automatic” phase in this flight was take off. Besides regular nice views, this video presents a feature that will be available in future INAV 1.2: refactored and greatly improved MAGHOLD controller. MAGHOLD known from previous…

Few hours ago official release of iNav 1.1 has been published. Comparing to few month old version 1.0, there were many changes, including few very very important. In my personal order of importance they are: Default settings for Position Hold and Return To Home has been retuned, so they behave almost perfectly. Take a look…

It is still too early to decide if new Turnigy Graphene are worth the money, but after 3 flying weekends with them I do have some thoughts about them already. They discharge differently than Turnigy Nano-Tech I’m using in parallel. Discharge curve seems to be flatter Voltage drop on high load is much smaller comparing…

This video was taken few weeks ago during my tests of Waypoint Mission implemented in iNav. Hardware setup: Transporter Q7.6 600mm quadcopter frame SPRacingF3 Acro with BMP085 external barometer Beitian BN-880 (ublox Neo-M8M) 10×4.5″ APC props EMAX GT2218/08 1100KV motors 5000mAh 3S battery Software setup: iNav pre 1.1 Default navigation PIDs Slightly tuned FP-PID, quite…

This video was taken last weekend during tests of latest changes implemented in iNav, as well as new GPS module Beitian BN-880 I shortly described here.Mission plan: Take off in Angle mode, Engage 3D Position Hold Fly away 100m Return to Position Hold Engage Return To Home mode Summary: Beitian BN-880 performed well. Quadcopter returned…