Naza GPS

My Naza GPS arrived today. 



Weekend at Bernie's also arrived.  What to do first?

What? You got one already? I gotta see that thing work when it's running.....

I installed the GPS unit in my DJI F550 and flew a battery already.  While the F550 was in the air hovering in GPS mode I tried pulling it in all directions with my hand and it returned to the hover position each time.  Very cool!

I've flown a couple batteries today and I can say that in light wind the Naza really locks in any hover position I put it at.  I'm very happy with this device so far.
If the weather clears up a little I will get some video and post it.

Do you think you will be brave enough to try out the RTH feature?

Oh yeah, as soon as I figure out the setup.  It relies somehow on the transmitters "fail safe" and the Engrish manual is a little vague.

...or I could just go for it.

BTW: "Weekend at Bernie's" won.

Yeah, that is the stuff we talked about before. You cant use a spektrum with any kind of possible signal loss RTH system. Only Futaba, Jr, frsky, or uhf systems will do. But maybe you can bind a Jr Rx to a Spektrum radio?

Well, unless they do it off the throttle channel, but that would be waaay sketchy, so I bet not?

How about programming an unused switch to trigger failsafe.  That's really not failsafe, but it would give you a way to manually trigger the return to home function.  The switch just needs to modify the attitude/manual channel.

...Tiger

For manual activation of RTH you can setup most anything to work, the issue with Spektrum is that in the event of loss of signal the Rx leaves every channel output exactly where it was except the throttle which just shuts off. So a banking turn at the time of signal drop stays at a banked turn, not a stick centering auto level stop crashing signal. And something on a RTH activation port would need to change state.

This is why I was asking you about your Futaba 10 and why I will have one someday 

Yep!  I know about the Spektrum.  Just one of the reasons I don't fly with one.    Always seemed funny to me that JR could get things right and Spektrum is always so far behind the curve.  Another thing that bugs me is that the timer can't work off the throttle.  That seems like such a no brainer.  You'd think that would have been fixed on the DX-000002.  I guess they did it on the DX-8.  Maybe they just don't want to compete with the JR.  Just seems dumb to me.  There are still lots of fancy features they could save for the JR.

...Tiger

Just found a thread specifically for the NAZA GPS on RcGroups:

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1666903


...Tiger

Impressive video of the NAZA and GPS performance:

...Tiger

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Tr9qR8WaZA0[/youtube]

John - Just saw this on RCG and it sounded kinda like the problem you talked about today with the new firmware.

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showpost.php?p=21986085&postcount=1565


Help with Gains Needed (I think)
I think I need a good “primer” on how to set gains. I'm flying a Next Level 650 with the Naza GPS. Prior to the upgrade, I didn't have this issues. Now however, I'm getting a lot of "twitching" (in GPS or Atti mode). I would expect some because of the wind, but didn't have this much prior to the upgrade and I have a friend with a similar setup (no GPS yet) and he flies in much more wind without this kind of twitching.

The Spectrum will 'failsafe' the throttle and servo's to what ever positions was programmed into the receiver at the time of Binding

Failsafe is set when binding the radio to the receiver. After you initiate the bind process with the bind buttons as described in the Spectrum Manual, hold the radio's controls in the desired failsafe position. In other words holding the radio as desired while in the bind process will set the failsafe. It is all explained step by step in the Spektrum manual

Our requirement of the failsafe would be airframe dependent. For my heli's I prefer upon signal loss to have my heli on ground as quick has possible even if this is a CRASH which it no doubt it will be! I like to have my failsafe set my throttle to ZERO w/ zero Pitch. Others have different thoughts in this regard, this is what I prefer my failsafe to do

Regardless my point being what the Spectrum's 'failsafe' feature does or what we need it to do upon signal loss is entirely optional. Although as the name of the feature imply for safety reasons there are certain recommendations to what settings should be used which is different for each airframe in question

    [size=1.2em][shadow=grey,left]w00d[/shadow][/size]

EDIT: Found

It depends on what Spektrum receiver you are using. AR500, AR600, AR61xx, AR62xx, NO. You need one that supports Pre-Set Failsafe. I am using AR7000 in mine and it does support Pre-Set Failsafe. AR9000 series (JR921) works as does AR8000.

You set the Pre-Set Failsafe during Bind by removing the bind plug AFTER applying power to the receiver. It will continue to remain in the bind mode. That way, you can set other than just the throttle to a preset value. To make the NAZA failsafe function, you need to preset the channel you are using to control Attitude/Manual so it highlights the Failsafe mode. Once you get this condition set in the receiver, when it loses communication with the transmitter, it will set the throttle channel to the 10% recommended value (or whatever you set during bind) and set the channel used for Attitude/Manual switch to a value that moves the Naza slider to failsafe position, not Attitude or Manual

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showpost.php?p=21053432&postcount=14

I'm getting the impression that Naza Controller will ignore the spectrum failsafe in favor of it own. So whatever the Spectrum failsafe is setup for upon signal loss the Nazo failsafe will handle the fight regardless. I could be corrected but after reading the Naza setup docs this is what I get




[hr]

This thread also has info:

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showpost.php?p=21686794&postcount=707

It jives with what the DX7 manual says too on page 21. It looks to be a two step process where you have to bind the receiver twice. The Spektrum DX7 manual is also poorly written in this regard.

That twitching the guy described and what he has in the video is not what I had at all.  Like I was saying yesterday the oscillations would start small and progress to extremely violent.  It turned out that one of the arms had rotated.  Remember the "Dihedral" in the GAUI 500X?  After looking into the problem more last night I saw one arm was rotated more than the others.  I twisted it as much as I could back by hand and although that arm is not yet at the same angle as the others the problem has almost gone.  Makes sense.
I will have to look and see if I stripped the inner or outer key that holds the tubular arms at that preset angle.

[quote author=Tiger link=topic=1416.msg9847#msg9847 date=1340592988]
How about programming an unused switch to trigger failsafe.  That's really not failsafe, but it would give you a way to manually trigger the return to home function.  The switch just needs to modify the attitude/manual channel.

...Tiger

[/quote]

I had read a thread on another board where they did that.  Doing so will allow me to flip a switch and do a return to home, which is cool, but what I really want is to have the hexacopter return to home, or at least back into radio range, when control signal is lost.

This is a decent video on setting up a Spektrum DX7 for signal loss fail safe. It is for a airplane but the principal would be the same.

GPS - So if I understand this correctly, all you need to do is program a RTH switch (handy to have anyway) like I suggested and then turn that switch on when you bind.

...Tiger

I think this post explains it clearly. Using a three position switch, which the DX7 has one of.

http://forums.openpilot.org/topic/10541-how-to-setup-fail-safe-on-dx7/

What I don't agree with in that post is using the middle position of the three position switch as the fail safe (return to home). That would mean that switching from GPS attitude mode to manual mode would always pass through a fail safe. That doesn't seem like a cool idea.