Eachine Wizard 220 manual

[HighTechPauper]

Randy, i'm surprised you haven't started designing your first build

I actually have Virtue, in my mind! Since there are soooooo many choices and things are changing by the minute in this hobby right now, I'm still thinking about where I should go next and what upgrades I want. There is a huge knowledge curve in trying to put together the perfect build for me, I imagine it will wait till spring at least, and I really want to get more things working on my current setup which will help me when the new bird is actually in design/build/test phase someday.

 

[HighTechPauper]

Will do. Only just got the flight controller hooked up to the sim this morning. Then of course other things got in the way. Can practice a lot now it’s done. Just not sure how representative it is of the real thing

I think you mean the Remote Controller hooked up to the PC so you can use the sim, The Flight Controller is the board in the quad that controls all aspects of flight. Just wanted to make sure you get off the ground with the right vocabulary.

Randy

 

[embayweather]

Thanks Randy, it is one of the things that I am beginning to find out about, what various components and settings are. What surprises me most is no one has ever written about about flying this type of drone.

 

[HighTechPauper]

Yeah, I think it changes pretty rapidly but the basics have been the same for some time.

-Power Distribution Board (PDB) of one kind or another (think separate board, or built into the Flight Controller are the two most popular)
-Flight Controller (FC) board of one kind of hardware architecture or another (think F3, F4, Arduino (KISS) etc, orAIO All In One, etc) and some kind of flight control software (think Race Flight, Beta Fight as the most popular)
-Electronic Speed Controller (ESC)
-Motors
-Receiver

Edit: To fly FPV we also need the camera and Video Transmiter (VTX) thingies and a VTX antenna of some kind... Duh, stupid me, I was thinking propulsion.

That's the basic big pieces that makes up the thingy that goes up in the air Of course there are batteries and props but we wont consider those for the purposes of the basic quad.

There are a lot of variations out there, think 4 in 1 ESC's, or individual ESC's, that kind of thing, but they all have to do at least those 5 things somehow... and of course, some work better than others.

That's the take I've learned over the last 6 months anyway, I hope that helps a little.

 

[Wayno52]

And lots of spares lol

 

[HighTechPauper]

And lots of spares lol

That's a good subject too Wayne, my progression went something like this...

Buy quad, and receiver, finish building, fly, crash, break.
Order parts and wait (no flying), then repair, test, fly, and break again.
Order more parts but decide there are some that you need to have a small stock of or you will have to order/wait to get back in the air next time.
Decide you need more quads, buy 2 more.

Now some have asked "why do you need 3" and I reply "I need at LEAST 3 because it's too easy to break the first 2".

Since then I have always had at least 1 quad that is working and I have been a much happier camper!

 

[embayweather]

These thoughts are really helpful guys, I am taking it all in. One of the things that confused me at the beginning was “rates”. For me that was usually something I paid the local government to be allowed to live in my own home.
I believe that they are now how fast the craft varies it’s direction and alignment . Could be wrong though, please chip in if I am.
Been doing more sim today, can takee off and hover, sort of, but the craft keeps going up and down. Not good. Can fly in stabilised mode.

 

[HighTechPauper]

These thoughts are really helpful guys, I am taking it all in. One of the things that confused me at the beginning was “rates”. For me that was usually something I paid the local government to be allowed to live in my own home.
I believe that they are now how fast the craft varies it’s direction and alignment . Could be wrong though, please chip in if I am.
Been doing more sim today, can takee off and hover, sort of, but the craft keeps going up and down. Not good. Can fly in stabilised mode.

Essentially yes...

Rates are the setting of how far and how fast your 3 sticks (Yaw,Pitch,Roll) will move the quad in flight. Low rates and it goes slower, so not as far for a given stick input. and high rates it goes faster, so further for the same given stick input. I personally am still flying at stock rates, flying high rates won't make you a better pilot, but once you are a good pilot you can get more done, quicker, and with less stick movement by upping them. I did up my rates for a while and it was kind of nice to flip and roll quicker with shorter stick movements, but when I screwed up it just got me in bigger trouble. Next flying season I will get enough practice to increase my rates. but for now if I can fly stock really well then then I'll have the muscle memory to up them and get a real benefit.

That's as I understand it and how I am approaching it.

 

[embayweather]

Thank you for that confirmation. Clear.y I am most changing anything like that at the moment. They were set at the factory so whom am I to second guess them. That’s another reason I got a RTF so I did not have to play around with those 8n the early stages.

 

[HighTechPauper]

I would make some changes to the stock bird before I flew it much. I would upgrade BetaFlight to 3.2.2 and I would upgrade my ESC's to BLHeli 16.7. After that I would change my ESC Protocol to Multishot or DShot300.
It flies so much better in my opinion than the stock ESC Protocol of Oneshot125, but you can certainly fly with it.

There are some pretty good videos from Project Blue Falcon (RIP JC) or Joshua Bardwell on how to flash your FC to Beta Flight 3.2.1 with the Chrome Beta Flight Configurator and you do the same thing only pick 3.2.2 instead.
There are also videos by those guys and how to flash your ESC's with Chrome BLHeli Configurator.
You will want to install the Google Chrome Browser and the 2 Configurators. Any questions let me know as I have done all this stuff many times.

 

[embayweather]

Sorry for the delay I am nit ignoring you I have been away for my treatment. thank you for those in depth thoughts HighTechPauper, I think I understand what you are saying. I am just thinking at the mo I would like to get her in the air first before I play with things I only partially understand. I have also got to find out whether I can do those things on my Mac. I will view the videos first over the weekend, and see what is possible. I guess such alterations will void any guarantee I may have too. I am not too concerned about that, especially if I can get her up in the air and functioning first.
It will not be this week d though. Bitterly cold and lots of snow forecast which means the country will grind to a halt.

 

[HighTechPauper]

No worries Embay, I was not feeling neglected

You are right, it flies ok with what is in it, but updating the Beta Flight on the FC to at least 3.2.1 will dramatically improve it from the stock 3.0.1 that came on mine. Perhaps yours being newer maybe it is upgraded already.

Don't be fooled, this stuff has no warranty/guarantee. Pretty much anything you throw into the air is out of warranty the first time you plug in a battery and fly it.

I don't know how to do this stuff with MAC but I know it can be done, Youtube or others will be able to help you with the MAC part but my guess is that there is a Chrome Browser for Apple/Mac and that once loaded and running that there is Configurators for Beta Flight and BLHeli also.

 

[embayweather]

I have the Chrome browser on my iMac as I use it for Kittyhawk on my Phantoms and Spark. I briefly tried looking at the app to make those adjustments that have mentioned and it appears I can get them showing in Chrome. Whether they work is another matter.
Hopefully I will try that soon to see if they connect

 

[VirtueViolater]

my guess is that there is a Chrome Browser for Apple/Mac and that once loaded and running that there is Configurators for Beta Flight and BLHeli also.

I do believe you are right

 

[VirtueViolater]

Whether they work is another matter.
Hopefully I will try that soon to see if they connect

Once you get betaflight, you'll first have to download a couple drivers/bootloaders to be able to connect to your fc

 

[HighTechPauper]

With PC's Embay, you can have trouble with the Serial Port Drivers needed to talk to the UART on the FC over usb, I don't think you have the same troubles with mac. You should be able to plug the mac into the usb on the Wizard FC and the FC will get power and you should be able to "connect" on the configurator for BetaFlight. You will need to power up the wizard with a battery to be able to connect with the BLHeli configurator as the ESC's need power for the FC to be able to talk to the ESC's through the "passthrough" interface.

Any questions/issues/problems just let us know.
Hoping you get the weather to fly a little in the near future

 

[embayweather]

Therein might lie the problem, the drivers. I will try and investigate that this weekend. With all the snow we have been promised, I should have plenty of time.

 

[embayweather]

Thank you all for your amazing help. It really has been a great experience finding so many kind people prepared to help just because they can. A very rare event in my experience.
I will certainly keep posting my progress in th hope that the thread will help other beginners in the future.

 

[HighTechPauper]

One more thing in case it hasn't been said before...

NO PROPS!

My rule of thumb is I don't do anything but fly with props on. You spend plenty of time in your quad life removing and replacing props that a few extra times won't kill you, but have something go wrong or not be set up correctly and the motors spin up without command, and believe me it happens, and the quad takes off into your face/ceiling/wall/dog/baby, then you'll wish you had removed the props.

 

[embayweather]

That’s my rule of thumb too especially as I want to keep both!
Been doing more training on the sim today. Not doing well. It does not want to stay in place. Is this normal? I have tried all the trims but I am still getting drift. Any advice please? Get another sim? I am Freerider.