The aerial video blog…

It’s been a little quiet around here lately.  Instead of writing, I’ve been spending time honing my drone and video editing skills.   Those efforts usually show up in other forums, but I thought I would share a few samples here today.

First Hyperlapse Test

Zabriskie Pond Seasons (timelapse)

360 Panoramic View of Zabriskie Pond

If you liked those you can subscribe to my new blog over at www.aviosaerialmedia.com/blog-page where I will be posting future work.

I have a LOT of aerial video and 360 panoramic work booked over the summer so there should be some interesting things showing up in the future!  Stay tuned!

Could Drone Registration Actually Increase Incidents?

 

Register it?

This week the Department of Transportation announced the formation of a task force to create a drone registration process with registration to begin as soon as the holiday season.

Setting aside my skepticism that any government body can design and implement a robust registration system in just two months, it occurs to me that this registration system might actually increase the number of drone related incidents.

How?

Up to now the legality of drones has been a bit of a fuzzy area with almost no regulations in place that cover this new field. This means that while they are not illegal, they have not really been approved by any official body either.

Under this setup enthusiasts (such as myself) are understandably wary when other people are about. I have literally set up to fly at a wide open space only to pack everything up before getting off the ground because a jogger showed up.

There are also quite a few people that want to buy a drone but have held back convinced that the Government was about to ban them outright.

By providing drone registration the government, at a stroke, legitimizes drones.  A situation similar to what six day-care centers discovered when they accidentally legitimized late pickups of kids by implementing fines.

Once my drones are registered I guarantee I won’t be packing things up when Mrs. Smith shows up to walk her dog.  I’ll still be safe and courteous but I will no longer be invisible, happy in the knowledge that if challenged I can whip out my registration card and show that I’m legit.  

Similarly people that have been waiting to see if drones will be banned will suddenly be given the green light just in time for Christmas.  DJI and 3DR may well be rubbing their hands in glee at the moment.

More people flying  +  less inhibition = more incidents

One would hope that the anticipated increased education that comes with registration would help keep incidents to a minimum but that, of course, assumes the buyers actually read the instructions.

You know what they say about unintended consequences…they are still consequences!

An “Exciting” Test Flight

Today was a test flight of the F550 and boy did it turn out to be eventful!

A little background.  A while back I had a minor crash when experimenting with batteries to find out why I was only getting 4 minutes of flight time when I should be getting much more.  Since I had to remove the top anyway I figured this was a perfect time to try move all of the electronics inside to give it a much cleaner look.

I got it all in there but the squishly little balls in the anti-vibration plate were heavily compressed (see picture) and I was worried that vibration would cause the APM Flight Controller (FC) to go a little loopy.

To quote the APM wiki.

High vibrations can lead to the copter rapidly climbing as soon as altitude hold is engaged.

I considered flying in the back yard but, since this was practically a full rebuild, I figured I had better give myself some room and there are lots of overhanging trees.  One of the few smart things I did today!

I set up instead at a local field with plenty of room, confirmed I had a good GPS lock, and decided to launch it in “Position Hold” mode, which should use the barometer to automatically hold altitude and the GPS to keep it in the same location.  the plan was to just let it hover until the battery was low.

I armed the motors, pushed up on the throttle and up she went!

She was climbing fast and at a height of about 30ft I backed the throttle off and it stopped right where I needed it…except…that never happened!  Instead she kept climbing like a rocket and, at the same time, started moving away from me.

By now I had the throttle all the way down and she still climbed, topping off at about 45 meters (almost 150′).

Of course, I did what any self respecting drone pilot would do.  I PANICKED!

After having it spin in place for a while I realized that it had sort of stabilized.  It wasn’t climbing anymore and it was staying in place.  But how to get it down?  I had the throttle at minimum and it was just hanging there laughing at me.

Figuring that vibration was messing with the barometer I switched to manual mode (Stabilize).  Of course…since I had the throttle at minimum that immediately turned all the props off and she dropped like a stone!

I quickly gave it throttle again, got it back up in the air, and after a frantic 30 seconds managed to get it back under control.  I had to keep on top of it all the time but it was flying now and responding to my inputs.  Phew!

It was about this time that I realized I never actually hooked up the little beeper to the battery so that it would beep when it was getting low.  No worries though, I had set it to auto land on a low battery warning so I decided to just let it ride.

Unfortunately the jamming in of the FC seemed to have pushed it off kilter and it took constant backward / left pressure on the controls to keep it in place.

All was fine for a while until, suddenly, it took off for the sky at a great rate of knots with no input from me!, topping out this time at around 100′.

Again I put the throttle all the way down to no avail, and then (stupidly) put it in Stabilize mode again.  And, just like before, it dropped like a stone again!

After moving the connections inside

I powered up but this time wasn’t quite fast enough (perhaps because less power was available) and the best I could manage was a crash at a speed low enough to cause pieces to fly off, but not damage anything permanently.

It wasn’t all bad news.  The flight time was better (7 minutes) but still not good enough.  And the gimbal I had mounted to replace the one that went nuts every time the thing took off seems to be working perfectly.

Sadly though it looks like I will be spending a happy evening moving everything back on the top.  Not hard to do…just a PIA.

Building an F450 Quadcopter – She’ll no take the strain Captain!!

I added a gimbal, larger battery, FPV TX and LED lights to Gerry (my daughter’s name for the quad).  But what happens when you add too many farkles to your quadcopter build?

When flying around on a perfectly calm day it was OK, but still lost altitude on runs and would occasionally stall and twitch.  But anything more than a breeze and Gerry was all over the place and a constant assault of wind would actually cause it lose so much altitude that it would crash.

Why is this so?

This picture from the log tells an interesting story – at least it is interesting to me.

Red line is Throttle In (what I’m doing). Green line is Throttle Out (what the flight controller sends to the motors).

Blue line is altitude (graphed on the right).  Time (min) can be seen across the top.

The flight controller has a value (THR_MID) that adjusts the throttle so that the middle on the controller provides enough power to hover.  For example if the quad is heavy then it might take 60% of throttle to actually maintain a hover and this allows the user to still position the throttle in the mid point.  These can be graphed showing the Throttle In (from the transmitter) and Throttle Out (how much power the flight controller is sending to the motors).

The problem is that if the THR_MID is way off then switching between modes that automatically adjust (Loiter, Pos. Hold, Alt. Hold) and ones that don’t (Stabilize) can cause a sudden change in the throttle being applied.

At the 1 minute mark on the graph we can see the throttle is between 40-60% in Pos Hold mode and the quad should be holding altitude.  But on this day it was windy and we can see as the altitude goes up and down and the throttle is bouncing off the 100% mark.  Clearly it is struggling to keep the quad at the right altitude.

Just before the 3 minute mark I switched to stabilize, the Throttle Out drops to the same value as Throttle In and the quad starts to fall…FAST!

I immediately give it full throttle but it’s not enough to stop it hitting the deck in what can best be described as a ‘hard landing’.

I tried again and the quad was really struggling to maintain altitude – you can see Throttle Out bouncing off 100% repeatedly. Despite the APM putting out near 100% the 5 min mark it continues to lose altitude and my desperate application of full throttle does nothing. It hits the deck again and I decide it’s time to go home.

If you were to place a ruler on the green throttle out line and draw a straight line that best fit the data; you will see that it has an upward slope. The reason for this is that the battery voltage is dropping as the battery runs down.  Since motor speed is a function of voltage fewer volts = less lift.  Basically the quad is under powered for the weight it is carrying.

I tried using a smaller battery to cut weight but it still lost altitude, was still twitchy (where it would periodically stop to correct itself) and near the end of battery life it started going up and down in a very odd fashion.

Frankly it felt possessed and I started to wonder about exorcism as a real option!  I later figured out this was because it was starting to start the auto land because the battery was low, but then as it dropped the voltage would climb and back up it would go. 

At home more googling and chatting with friends on Quadcopters (yes, I now consider many of these folks friends) and a possible solution emerged.

The PILOT_ACCEL_Z value is used to tell the APM how fast it can climb.  By bringing this down from 250 cm/s to 50 cm/s it should mean that the APM flight controller won’t ask for more than the quad can give and that should stop it getting confused.  I also properly calibrated the battery so that the auto land didn’t kick in too early, as it was consistently under reading the actual voltage by about 1v.

I took Gerry out for a fly and…what a difference!  Smooooooth flying.  None of the crazy jerkiness that it had before and almost no altitude loss.  It did eventually start to lose altitude but it was now controllable and could be recognized for what is was – a battery that was getting low.  Sure enough each time the altitude loss started to occur the low battery beeper would go off.  I ran through three batteries and walked away with a smile on my face.

So, there we have it.  I now have a quad that flies beautifully and is no longer possessed.  With the smaller batteries flight times are short but the future plan is to upgrade the battery to a 4S  (which can output up to 16.8v) which should mean the quad has enough power that I can start to increase the PILOT_ACCEL_Z rating to give it a little more zip.

*** Pro Tip ***

If you want to know what value THR_MID should be set to, fly in stability mode for a couple of minutes, land and then check the value being displayed in TRIM_THROTTLE.  If it is over 700 you have a seriously underpowered copter.  Under 300 and you are massively overpowered.  

Adjusting your THR_MID value to the same as TRIM_THROTTLE will make transitions between manual and automatic (atl. hold, pos. hold etc.) modes much less troublesome.

Building an F450 Quadcopter – Adding a Mobius Camera and Gimbal

Sheraton Mahwah

Multirotors are amazing tools for capturing stunning video and photos from angels and locations that would previously have been impossible.  But spend any time watching aerial video and you will quickly realize that image stabilization is a must if you want keep your audience from feeling seasick.

Some of this can be done with software but, while this helps, it does so at the expense of quality. If you are really serious about it you are going to need a stabilized gimbal.

For those not in the know a gimbal is a piece of equipment that will keep your camera stable regardless of what the platform it is on is doing.  I’m sure there’s a good explanation involving sensors and things but I prefer to think of it as magic.

Here’s what one looks like in action.

And here’s what it looks like in the natural world

Gimbals are so important that the first drone film festival, held in New York on March 7th, wouldn’t accept submissions that were not shot using a gimbal.

Mobius

For the camera I opted for the Mobius Actioncam. This little sturdy camera has proven itself to have comparable quality to a GoPro but at about 1/3rd the cost and weight.  Having already lost one GoPro while filming I didn’t want to risk that kind of money again.

Of course the GoPro is practically a standard and so there are many more gimbal options to choose from if you go in that direction.  For the Mobius there was only one gimbal that fit and reviews of that were mixed, but I decided to go for it anyway.

What did I get myself in to?

The HobbyKing video said that the gimbal could be assembled in 10 minutes.  

As soon as I opened the pack and saw all the little pieces I knew that wasn’t going to happen, but it really wasn’t that hard to do and with some patient following of the instructions I had it all together in a little over an hour.  One thing that helped was downloading the PDF version of the instructions so that I could zoom in and save my poor old eyes from unnecessary strain.

To power it I made a special lead which could go in between the power lead and the battery with pigtails coming off and used JT connectors so that I can disconnect the gimbal easily.

Now it was time to flash the firmware which was achieved by following the instructions in this video.

By far the longest part of this was that I had to downgrade my kids laptop from Windows 8 to Windows 7, since the software provided only runs on Windows 7 or XP.  Why the gimbal isn’t provided pre-flashed is beyond me.  

APM Configuration

I wanted to be able to control the tilt of the camera by remote and just two wires are needed to set this up.  I was a bit confused initially because all the pictures I saw showed the 9 pins with the wire going to the top.

Only when looking at the gimbal under a magnifying glass did I discover it was upside down and I really needed to be hooking up the bottom pin.  I configured the APM to use pin 11 on the for control (off of channel 6 from the controller) and as soon as I did that everything magically worked.

That left the last task of finding a good place for it on the quad.  I wanted it to be placed forwards so that there would be less chance of legs showing in the pictures.  That meant moving the battery (previously slung underneath) to a new location inside but positioned towards the back of the quad and moving the receiver from the top of the platform to the bottom.  Nothing too difficult and the use of a few well placed zip ties and we were good to go.

With the weather finally starting to warm up I’m looking forward to getting back out there and capturing some nice shots of the area. 

Only thing left to do on the quad now is add FPV!

 

Note:  An alternative that I considered was a kit that transforms the Mobius into a GoPro form factor – affectionately known as a “Gobius” – which allows for a much wider range of gimbals.

Gobius

 

 

Building an F450 quadcopter – Setting up Flight Modes

After the first flight there were a couple of obvious items that needed to be addressed.  More flight modes and getting rid of the wobble.

First the flight modes.  

I had only figured out how to set up the controller to allow for two different flight modes (stabilze and altitude hold).  With so many modes available on the APM this seemed like a shame.  It took a while but by carefully following the instructions on this page I was finally able to get myself up to six flight modes by using a combination of 2-way and 3-way switches.

Along the way I had an epiphany that the controller sends out frequencies (or something that can be counted) and that the APM looks for values from the different input channels being in ranges (because it isn’t exact).  So a value between 1,231 and 1,360 (for example) can be assigned to a particular flight mode.

Great!  A mystery solved.  Now all those calibration movements make sense.

Not only did I manage to assign the six flight modes, but on the extended tuning I was able to assign Channel 7 to a switch on my controller that would automatically tell the quad to land.  This has been a real life saver because even when it starts going crazy, switching to land will calm it down and bring it down to Earth better than I can do.  

Building an F450 quadcopter – Beware Idle Hands

 The first time I ordered something from China it was supposed to arrive in 2 to 4 weeks.  It took 7!

When I decided to build a quadcopter I found a kit on eBay that seemed just the ticket.  The price was good and the seller had great reviews but, unfortunately, they were in China.  Expecting the same delays I found myself nosing around various website the following weekend and came across a ready to fly H100 very similar to the one I was planning to build.

The controller wasn’t as fancy as our build (no GPS) but it down from the regular price of almost $500 to just $200.  

My mind got to reasoning this way.

• The parts aren’t going to arrive for a quite a while, so if I buy this I’ll have something to fly until the other one is ready.
• Having a pre-built one nearby will help with figuring out where things go.
• I’ll be able to upgrade the controller and add a GPS later and can then either have two fully features quads or could sell one (perhaps even at a profit).
• I had a little extra income which would more than cover the cost of this.
• That price was so good…I’d be throwing money away if I didn’t buy one!

After putting it into and out of the shopping cart a few times, I finally pulled the trigger.  Since it was only coming from California it would arrive on Friday…the parts for the build arrived the Wednesday before!  

Not only that but the weather turned nasty bringing wind, ice and snow with the result that the maiden flight of this machine ended up occurring about 5 minutes before the maiden flight of the our build.

Thanks Mr. Murphy – you did it again!

Building an F450 quadcopter – Maiden Flight!

We finally had a break in the weather long enough to get outside and get up in the air!

Before leaving there was some question about which two flight modes I should start with.  Key candidates were Stabilize, Altitude hold and Loiter.  I finally opted for the first two.  Stabilize because it doesn’t rely on anything fancy, and then Alt. hold to make flying a little easier.

The result?  In a word – awesome!  It’s been a while since I was able to fly and it was great to finally get back into the air.   See for yourself.

The F450 has some wobble to it.  Nothing terrible and it should be something we can fix using the Autotune feature of the APM.

S. loved it and wanted to try it out, but was too nervous.  That’s actually good as I would really like things 100% sorted before she does that.  But in the car on the way home she told me she wants a little quadcopter that is all her own 🙂

What a wonderful journey!

I’ve shared my parts list including links to where I bought things in case anyone is interested.  You can see those details here.

Building an F450 Quadcopter – Day 7 – A very low first flight

Having seen one too many videos where the quad flips over on takeoff I was understandably nervous about trying our new baby out.  It seemed that at every turn there were little details that needed to be checked and re-checked.

For example, we checked the rotation of the motors and S. then fitted the props according to their direction.

Later I noticed that we had the exact opposite of what was shown on the APM website.  Our props should have looked like this but were not. So, when S. wasn’t looking, I switched them.  

Fortunately I had woken up that morning with an idea that would allow the quad to fly a little, but not enough to flip over if things go wrong.  It didn’t take long before I had it lashed to our table tennis table and we were ready to try her out!

With S. videoing the first test was a spectacular non-event.  I powered up and slowly increased the throttle until full throttle was reached.  We had plenty of noise but absolutely no lift at all!  Then I realized.  S. had been right all along and I had switched the props which were now pushing it DOWN!

A quick switch of the props and we were back in business.  This is when I thanked my lucky stars that I didn’t trust myself to try it without a safety net.  Every time it lifted up it would go wild and try to flip over.  Fortunately the string kept it in place, but it was all over the place and none of the controls made any sense!  See for yourself!

I checked things over again and realized my mistake.  I had plugged the motors into the APM board with output 1 going to motor 1, output 2 going to motor 2 etc. in a clockwise pattern.  However, as you can see from the diagram above, the ONLY motor I got right was number 1!

Switching the connections on the flight controller had us finally up and running.  It now behaved, didn’t try to flip anymore, and I could lift it up and move it backwards, forwards, left and right.  Forward and backwards was reversed because for some reason the APM sets it up to expect the ELE control to be backwards.  No problem, it just took 30 seconds to change that on the transmitter.

While it seemed to be working it was very twitchy and super sensitive to the controls – nothing like my Phantom which was very docile.  

I posted the video on the quadcopters FB page and our good Samaritan made a comment about how twitchy it seemed. I then found out that the latest version of the Mission Planner software has a sliding scale from 1 to 100 where the higher the number the faster it responds.  Guess where mine was set…yup…100!  I backed that off to 80 which seems to have calmed things down nicely without taking all the fun out of it.

One last thing.  Remember I said that my motors were the exact opposite of the picture on the APM website?  I was under the assumption that it didn’t matter as long as they the same rotation was on the opposite corners.  Turns out that is incorrect and that not having it the right way around is going to cause problems with yaw (spinning on its axis), and possibly more.  So, after some gentle teasing by my friends about not knowing how to fit props, I switched the bullet connectors so that they now all spin the right way.

After all those changes I put it back on the “test rig” and what a difference!  It was beautifully smooth and easy to control.  See for yourself.

So, that it is.  There are still many tweaks to do, such as setting up the battery failsafe and adding LED lights, but really the next big step is to wait for a clear day and take her out.  I can’t wait!!

Building an F450 Quadcopter – Day 6 – Ready to Fly?

Finally the weekend arrived and, with the new flight controller in hand, we could get to work.  S. was at a sleepover again so on Friday I performed the ESC calibration and confirmed that in all motors were finally working!

Unfortunately when I tried to run a normal flight test (minus the props) the double flashing red LED told me the pre-arm checks were failing.

I pondered the problem for a while and then realized the FC was in loiter mode which requires a GPS signal to work.  There’s not much GPS signal reaching my basement!  Switching it to “stabilize” mode had it firing up and we were finally ready to put everything together.

I waited for S. to arrive and we set to work.  She installed the anti-vibration plate, flight controller and radio receiver.  I put the GPS post together and she added the GPS to that.  The post had a little hinge on it and I couldn’t understand why, so when S. asked me which way it should go I told her it didn’t matter.  I figured out later that it allows for lowering the mast for transport.  By pure luck it turned out we had installed it correctly.

We had a hard time figuring out where to put the power module and it ended up awkwardly squeezed alongside the battery.  That might need to be moved if we decide to go for a larger battery in the future.

S. checked the motor rotation, installed the props and then, all too soon, it was ready to fly!  It wasn’t pretty but we were both over the moon with it.

S. had insisted that we set up my phone to record a time-lapse video, which I had to admit was fun to watch.  See below.

Not much to do now but give it a test flight, or so I thought.  With the conditions outside being 13f and 20-30mph winds it looked as though we would have to hold off for now.

To be honest I was nervous about this first flight.  I’ve seen a lot of videos where something small or silly caused the quad to flip and when it happens, it happens FAST!  

I went to bed worrying about that and, as is often the way, woke up with an idea on how to make that first flight almost foolproof!

Next post:  The first flight (why second guessing your daughter is a bad idea).