Nimbus Tricopter VTOL

Definitely will be watching out for that and make sure all the organizations settings are retained, ahhh yes flight testing and weather don’t always agree with each other lol

David,

That’s a good plan and I highly recommend it. However, you will likely find that your initial autonomous flight is still nerve wracking. :sweat_smile:

I first did this years ago using my Bix3 QuadPlane and FireFLY6 VTOL wing. It was best to start with a simple autonomous flight plan, like below, and then evolve into more complex mapping missions as in my Mapping UAVs Web page. I made different versions that would accommodate the wind direction for that day.

FireFLY6 Simple Autonomous Flight from Gregory Covey on Vimeo.

Does this mission look logical? Or should Waypoint 9 be moved closer to Waypoint 8, to allow for Cruise-to-VTOL transition?

In my opinion, waypoint 9 is well placed, but i think waypoint 8 should be further away from waypoint 9, to try to do a smoother descend, because 20 meters in less than 90 meters will cause I higher speed than desiried when arriving to the VTOL_LAND waypoint and the transition will be very abrut and your Nimbus will rise some meters before landing. Take a look to this secuence of the video, that is what will happen:

https://youtu.be/FFw9VmvfV24?t=497

Another thing that I would do is to go to an altitude of 15 or 20 meters for VTOL_LAND, 30 meters is to highg, too much time in Q_ mode for landing, trying to draw lot of power from the battery for a long period of time.

A smoother transition will happen using RTL command for last waypoint, and decreasing altitude in the way I do in previous waypoints:

The result is this smoother transition (my Nimbus raised some meters due to I hand a higer value for Q_RTL_ALT than desired, but it did the transistion very smooth):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYyqo-egJ7A

1 Like

Good advise from rortega. Another technique for dropping altitude can be seen in the bottom most video of my Mapping UAVs Web page. It uses Loiter circles (waypoint 24) to gently glide down to a lower altitude for a transition and copter landing. The images below are from the mapping flight plan in the video. Also note that the rows can be skipped to allow for easier turns by the vehicle. Waypoint 23 is directly behind waypoint 24.

Hi David: Sorry to hear that, i was following your progress and hate to to see a fellow hobbyist give it up and i for one wish you would reconsider and if you don’t here’s wishing you the best in your future interests,Good Luck. B.K

I think that nobody here started flying his Nimbus VTOL with success in the beginnings, at more or less level all of us had frustration episodes, this is one of mine:

One year later, and some months since I bougth the GitUp G3 cammera, I’ve started doing mapping as a hobby:

(The original image has more resolution and quality than this jpg file).

I still have to practice and learn many thing to go ahead…

The FPV hobbist must have a predisposition for learning, not only with the aim of acquiring technical skills, but also an attitude directed towards the acquisition of certain emotional skills, such as resilience. Only then will he be able to overcome frustration and enjoy watching his creations flying.

2 Likes

If I was building a Nimbus from a kit or from scratch, the “predisposition for learning and acquiring technical skills” would be part of the process. But, I paid for a plane that was advertised as “Ready to Fly”, and it has been anything but. I’ll exercise better “emotional skills” when a product performs as advertised. For the money I paid for this thing, there should be minimal, if any, frustration to overcome. The fact that an expensive aircraft can be grounded or crashed because of the unreliability of a $12 servo takes all of the enjoyment out of this hobby for me. I don’t need each flight to be a roll of the dice, with the odds heavily in favor of another crash. All the technical skills in the world won’t help you if someone sells you unreliable junk.

But, thanks for your input anyway. You guys take care.

1 Like

You are absolutely right. Unfortunately, these days, profits come before responsibilities. It shows in every industry, in every level. Even in the climate talks in Madrid…

You spend a lot of your hard saved money and just because they can make a few pennies more by putting in rubbish servos, all your fun and passion is gone. It’s really a shame.

Speaking of cameras, I had to use my old S100 camera for some SAR missions, here is the cradle I made for it (use the previously posted landing gear plate to mount this to with standoffs).

S100 Internal Cradle v5.STL (413.4 KB)

1 Like

I would like to share with you how I solved the problems I had with the nose connector:

  • Servo issues in the fpv camera pan & tilt system.
  • Airspeed issues.

I designed this system on september and I’ve have tested it in my latest 3 flights. When I saw the design of the panel of Chad_Frazer a few days ago, I thought, Oops, it was ahead of me! :stuck_out_tongue:

I have uploaded to thingiverse just now, I think this would be help somebody else to solve many problems.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4050246

2 Likes

Nice Rortega!

Got a part number for those connectors??

1 Like

They are MPX 6 pin connectors. The link where I bought them are no longer available.

https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?SearchText=mpx+6+pin+connector

Looks like standard MPX connectors. You can find them on Banggood.

To Greg,Chad,and everyone Who follows and comments in this Nimbus VTOL thread So I’m Wishing everyone A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and after my first attempt at converting the Nimbus kit to be a VTOL and it ended badly with a fatal crash in mid Nov so i’m sure theirs a big box near my tree that Mrs Clause said to if you first don’t succeed Try again so i’m going to give this another try so all of you have a great Holiday Season and enjoy your Family and Friends. B.K

3 Likes

Today I made the last flight of the year with my Nimbus, and captured some pictures with the GitUp G3, this time with best results. Enjoy it!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Yeaar mates!

1 Like

Very nice! Thanks for sharing. Did you use Mission Planner to design the plan or another application? Can you post the mission? I am curious to see your Nimbus banking or turning radius.

Cheers and Happy New Year!

I used Mission Planner. I have on board video from the fpv camera with OSD data, and logs. I’ll share it asap.

1 Like

FYI - There is some interesting reading for FoxTech Nimbus owners in the thread below. At this point, they are still in the discovery phase.

Pixhawk 2.1 randomly reset parameters

1 Like

Hello Greg: I hope you and the family enjoyed the Holidays and now your building something and staying warm,well i ordered another MFD Nimbus Plane opened it up on Christmas morning only to find out they sent me the VTOL Kit not the Plane Kit that was supposed to come with Motors etc, I’ve sent them emails everyday but have not gotten any response so i guess i’m stuck with it and now trying to get motors that fit since my first motors do nothing but chatter since my crash in Nov and the wiring inside the nimbus is not the same and the previous set of wings do not work pnp and the new wings are wired different so far i’m starting from scratch again and so far i’m putting 2 ubec’s 3a 5v in Aux 3 for the tilt servos and one on chan 3 for the wing and vtail servo’s i tried 5-6 amp 5-6 volt ubec’s but they would not work on the pixhawk? it’s like it killed the power to the pixhawk IDK? any suggestions or idea’s Thanks