Hello,
I have managed to do my first flight test. This test was meant to see how the drone is responding and test RC failsafe. However, i would like to ask for general recommendations from someone who is more experienced. My next step is to do a flight for with some aggressive maneuvers in order to use the logs with compass fitting tool. Then I will go for auto-tuning but after your recommendations. Your help is much appreciated. Also, below i listed some doubts.
I noticed that there’s ‘motors interlock enabled’ which i did not understand it and I am pretty sure that I have not set up such thing. Any ideas?
RPM is not equal between all motors. This is very important for me as I will apply system identification and parameter estimation using this drone. So i would like to seek for accurate rpm measurements. Any ideas why the rpm’s are not equal for all motors (motor D, number 3, channel 9 is the one that have highest rpm). Also I noticed that the temp varies differently. Anyone can help me with this?
I am not the best pilot, but i felt that thrust is very sensitive to thrust input (meaning, I could take off with very low throttle stick input). Any ideas how could I reduce it a bit? Could it be from the transmitter side?
Logs show that I have high vibration along y-axis (maybe not so high because I did not yet do any aggressive maneuvers) but I was wondering why it could be the highest compared to other axis?
The copter flew normally. Also before flying the motors are well aligned (all perfectly planner)
Also motor A,B,C,D is correct and rotation of each motor is correct.
In the logs you will see that I was testing RTL when radio link is lost. could it the cause of showing motors interlock?
No i did not configure it. I dont even know what is the parameter that could trigger this function.
I am flying using a radiomaster boxer. so very basic flying. I have switch to arm and disarm. Also i have telemetry radio link from gcs to drone using a holybro module
I have added the param list in the log link in my first post. I hope this would help give you a better idea and thanks again for your effort
I have applied radio calibration. The only thing i noticed compared to other multicopter i am flying is that the thrust is super sensitive. But again i can be wrong about how I am interpreting it as im not a professional pilot. The drone flew and did attitude inputs so controlling issues except thrust reaction is highly responsive
The motor interlock message is just the arming message. It’s normal. It has nothing to do with Heli in this case.
There is a twist in your arms. The X500 uses round arms and you need to make sure they are all 100% level with each other. I have my students make adjustments until the PWM values are less than 50 spread. At 100 you will be getting a yaw coupling moment every time you pitch and roll. The quad will fly with it, but the tune will never be as good as you can get it.
You have the RTL height at 2.5m, that is very low. You might wish to raise that a bit.
The vibrations are a bit high, but fixing the motor twist might help that. Also make sure you dont’ have any wires or cables bouncing on the controller. Make sure all the parts are secure.
You should also configure the notch filter before going to much further.
In stabilized mode the throttle is very touchy if you aren’t used to flying that way. The thrust hover values on this are really high, but it doesn’t match how it’s flying.
Set:
INS_LOG_BAT_MASK,7
INS_LOG_BAT_OPT,4
Do a short hover, about 1 minute, in Alt-Hold. Then we can set the hover values, the PSC_ACC values, and the notch filter.
@Allister Glad to hear the Motor interlock is normal, I’m so used to it being overwritten by an array of early log messages that I never realized its presence.
I’m watching this closely as I have a new x500 that I am still working on the final touches
Might be a stupid question but any recommendations about ensuring the motor are all planner?
The X500 have a nice design that the beginning of the carbon fiber arm have a locking mechanism to ensure that its oriented properly but it could be that the motor mounting side is twisted a bit. However, I am currently checking the frame and cant see any twist
It’s not a software change. It’s the physical position of the arms. The arms need to be rotated until the motor shafts are all perfectly level with each other. I’ll dig around for a photo of what I’m talking about.
You need to loosen off the four screws right at the end of the shaft (I circled two in red, but the other two are on the other side, you’ll figure it out) and get the motor level with each other.
millimeters matter here.
Do you have access to a 3d printer? If so, I have made an adapter that will go over the motor shaft to give you a good place to measure from.
Yes i do have a 3D printer.
Do you think a bubble water level can do the job? maybe considering the table inclination first as a reference where the drone is placed on
I really appreciation your support! I will do the changes and will do fly tests tomorrow. I will keep you posted if you dont mind. I think the rest of points that I had doubts about can be neglected as my flight test is not a good since the motor/motors are twisted.
However, I have one last concern: data flash logs sampling rate can be manipulated? can I increase the frequency (or sampling rate of a some logged data) I am aiming for the 12 states logs and i am using matlab to check the logs. I calculated the sampling rate for the ESC rpm data and got 10 Hz, which is very low.