Back to “normal”, and some clarity.
I re-set the screws for the right stick all the way back out. Then I tightened down the F2 screw for the throttle, as the almighty Machine had instructed. I took off and got up to my 300 ft switchover point, and went into Manual. A few seconds later, I hit the Brake to get back to Normal mode, and everything was…well…normal. So back into Manual mode for more putzing around.
I think I’ve figured out the cause for the right control stick weirdness that I saw on the last flight, and if I’m right, it had nothing to do with the friction on the right stick.
I’m still getting that “Remote Controller Control Stick Error”, but it’s intermittent. I’m going to try re-calibrating the RC, and see if that makes any difference. I would think it would tell me if that’s what it wanted, since it seems to know my mother’s maiden name, but perhaps not. Suggestions?
When I was zipping around in Sport mode before moving to Manual, I would sometimes lose the control signal very suddenly. By then I had also gotten a flight sense (vs an intellectual sense) for how long it takes it to stop from a full speed Sport mode run. After one “lost signal” RTH, when the video came back on-line, the drone was moving toward a rock ridge at a much lower elevation than I wanted. I’m not 100% sure it would have cleared the ridge. I brought it home without incident, but in response I increased the RTH altitude substantially, to 300 meters, as insurance against the possibility that it would lose signal, and drift into a canyon, before pointing home for the RTH…pointing right at the canyon wall. Problem solved.
Since then, I’ve pretty thoroughly imprinted in my brain a 3D map of where I can go without losing signal. I haven’t triggered a “lost signal” RTH in a long time. Now, I’m fighting with an overly conservative “low battery” auto RTH. This happened again this flight, and I watched the behavior carefully. Sure enough, I couldn’t get it to come home…but now I think I know why.
It won’t let me move the drone laterally until it gets to it’s RTH altitude! In Sport mode, I had it set at 300 meters, which would almost certainly climb it out of any canyon, clear of the rim, in the case of a “lost signal” RTH, with a braking drift into a canyon.
But I’m not doing any ridge running or canyon diving in Manual mode. Well, at least not intentionally! For the more restricted locations where I’m flying in Manual mode, a 100-meter RTH setting will work just fine. I’ll try that on my next flight. That’s my “reference altitude” for Manual mode anyhow, so if it does go into it’s demonically possessed low battery RTH, it will stop climbing quickly, and just start coming home.
I ended up landing…without incident…with only 5% battery reserves left, which is lower than I’d like. But The Machine concludes that it can’t make it home, and tries to land, when it can actually make it home just fine. It wouldn’t let me climb at all in that condition, until I got very close to home, and then it would let me climb a little, enough to make a smooth landing. Does the RTH routine dynamically decide how much it will let you climb, based on where you are relative to the home point? That would be cool if true, but I didn’t expect that.
The turning sluggishness is abating, as I coordinate the turns more, and turn more aggressively. But it still seems to respond like a barge when I’m trying to turn. Probably some latent expectation on my part of a background auto-stabilization process, which is gone in Manual mode.
Overall, my feel for the controls has improved enough that I pushed it up to 82 mph, and flew at that speed in a mostly controlled manner for a bit. Loud sucker! But as I expected, my brain is continuing to discover and integrate the right way to combine the stick motions, to get the aircraft motion that I want in response. The translation between a combination of thrust and attitude, to get an aircraft response, is starting to emerge, and gel.
Probably my last FPV Manual for today, what with breaking the 80-mph barrier. Besides, my Minis are feeling neglected! Can’t have that!
I re-set the screws for the right stick all the way back out. Then I tightened down the F2 screw for the throttle, as the almighty Machine had instructed. I took off and got up to my 300 ft switchover point, and went into Manual. A few seconds later, I hit the Brake to get back to Normal mode, and everything was…well…normal. So back into Manual mode for more putzing around.
I think I’ve figured out the cause for the right control stick weirdness that I saw on the last flight, and if I’m right, it had nothing to do with the friction on the right stick.
I’m still getting that “Remote Controller Control Stick Error”, but it’s intermittent. I’m going to try re-calibrating the RC, and see if that makes any difference. I would think it would tell me if that’s what it wanted, since it seems to know my mother’s maiden name, but perhaps not. Suggestions?
When I was zipping around in Sport mode before moving to Manual, I would sometimes lose the control signal very suddenly. By then I had also gotten a flight sense (vs an intellectual sense) for how long it takes it to stop from a full speed Sport mode run. After one “lost signal” RTH, when the video came back on-line, the drone was moving toward a rock ridge at a much lower elevation than I wanted. I’m not 100% sure it would have cleared the ridge. I brought it home without incident, but in response I increased the RTH altitude substantially, to 300 meters, as insurance against the possibility that it would lose signal, and drift into a canyon, before pointing home for the RTH…pointing right at the canyon wall. Problem solved.
Since then, I’ve pretty thoroughly imprinted in my brain a 3D map of where I can go without losing signal. I haven’t triggered a “lost signal” RTH in a long time. Now, I’m fighting with an overly conservative “low battery” auto RTH. This happened again this flight, and I watched the behavior carefully. Sure enough, I couldn’t get it to come home…but now I think I know why.
It won’t let me move the drone laterally until it gets to it’s RTH altitude! In Sport mode, I had it set at 300 meters, which would almost certainly climb it out of any canyon, clear of the rim, in the case of a “lost signal” RTH, with a braking drift into a canyon.
But I’m not doing any ridge running or canyon diving in Manual mode. Well, at least not intentionally! For the more restricted locations where I’m flying in Manual mode, a 100-meter RTH setting will work just fine. I’ll try that on my next flight. That’s my “reference altitude” for Manual mode anyhow, so if it does go into it’s demonically possessed low battery RTH, it will stop climbing quickly, and just start coming home.
I ended up landing…without incident…with only 5% battery reserves left, which is lower than I’d like. But The Machine concludes that it can’t make it home, and tries to land, when it can actually make it home just fine. It wouldn’t let me climb at all in that condition, until I got very close to home, and then it would let me climb a little, enough to make a smooth landing. Does the RTH routine dynamically decide how much it will let you climb, based on where you are relative to the home point? That would be cool if true, but I didn’t expect that.
The turning sluggishness is abating, as I coordinate the turns more, and turn more aggressively. But it still seems to respond like a barge when I’m trying to turn. Probably some latent expectation on my part of a background auto-stabilization process, which is gone in Manual mode.
Overall, my feel for the controls has improved enough that I pushed it up to 82 mph, and flew at that speed in a mostly controlled manner for a bit. Loud sucker! But as I expected, my brain is continuing to discover and integrate the right way to combine the stick motions, to get the aircraft motion that I want in response. The translation between a combination of thrust and attitude, to get an aircraft response, is starting to emerge, and gel.
Probably my last FPV Manual for today, what with breaking the 80-mph barrier. Besides, my Minis are feeling neglected! Can’t have that!
