Nimbus Tricopter VTOL

Thanks - will change my flight planning procedure and try again
The rudder movement might be that it went from CRUISE to VTOL
without a command (or a none standard command) and switching to QLOITER
over another CRUISE command ( very quickly) did not register properly.

Will check and report back in a week or so.

Hello guys, we just tested the Nimbus V1 with 12000mah 6s, flew 40mins with still nominal values on each cell. AUW was 5kg`

Hi Michael,

Which 6s 12AH pack was that? The Multistar 12C one?

Cheers!

Hello Greg, We use ACRA 30c.

BTW our V2 arrived. Hinges was improve on the tail, Servos were much smoother. Air speed sensor has only 1 hose. Tilt arms improve.

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Very nice! It’s good to see hinges on the control surfaces.

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Guys, We wanted to set the AMP draw on the MP with our NIMBUS, if you guys already have a baseline can you help me out on this.

Michael,

I’m not sure what amp draw you are setting. My setup is very close to a V2 so here is a graph from my recent flight using a light camera payload up front (no mapping camera underneath).

During the “Hover” period, the plane was ascending. For FBWA, the ground speed was 20m/s.

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Greg i was refering to the AMP use during flight. on the HUD bottom left side you will find the battery volt and the ampere consume during flight.

Ok, I see now. On my setup, which is not an official V2, I am using a calibrated Mauch Power Module and that information comes with it to be entered into the BATT_AMP_PERVLT parameter via Mission Planner. In my case, BATT_AMP_PERVLT is set to 64.73156, BATT_VOLT_MULT is 10.00387, and BATT_CAPACITY to 10000.

The only V2 model I have params for is Gordon’s and it reads BATT_AMP_PERVLT is 48…which may just be a default setting.

Thanks for this @GregCovey

Update:

After more than 50 flights we had a mishap during our take off yesterday. Every works fine on the ground.

During take off at QLOITER the RC pilot looses control of the aircraft at 30mtrs. He said that there was no pitch and roll inputs.

Making the aircraft drifts by itself. Can you guys help me analysis the logs.

Oh, that sucks! Sure post a log. What happened to the Nimbus?

Sorry It did not load on my post. Here is the Logs,

Nimbus had a broken wing and tail fin, which are repairable. It now works already. But I think there is an issue somewere when we test it on the ground.

About how far into the flight after arming was the mishap?

The first thing I see is that the flight controller thinks it was commanded to CRUISE mode and then back to QLOITER at your 30 meter height. I have seen this issue make my Convergence VTOL crash as well. In my case, I accidentally changed flight modes incorrectly on the 6-position knob but APM Plane didn’t recover properly using v3.9.8 firmware.

Below, the blue is altitude, green and red are Roll and NavRoll respectively.

It was only 30secs during take off before the incident happens. My pilot was telling there was no input on. Nimbus maybe just around 100 mtrs away from the LZ.

It seems weird that it transition to cruise mode. The 2 Fmode on the switch should be FBWA.

BTW thanks GReg for initially checking our LOGS.

50 long range flight for the nimbus was great already.

We were able to hover the NIMBUS V2. S1= Mavlink Telem has different approach on connection.It uses higher baudrate. System Motors Idle once arms. D16 Rc have the spring on the Throt. Expect it always in mid position. The funny thing is the RC was in MODE 1. It can be easily fixed if your a mode 2 flyer by going to Mapping Channel menu.

Motor power seems satisfying. Tricopter Tune was very stable in windy condition. Will try to maiden it in Fixedwing this coming weekend. Will let you know on the updates.

It looks like there was some trigger event on C8. Is that your mode switch? The APM started it’s transition sequence and never returned.

Yes Ch 8 or Radio 8 is our flight mode

Thanks to Rolf’s (@Rolf ) suggestion, my SDP33 AS Sensor arrived today. I’ll be away on vacation this week but will install it and test it out on my Nimbus next week.

I’ve had decent luck with that sensor as well. I have seen some ratio drift over time, but as long as you keep track of it then it’s okay.

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