Skywalker 1900

[FPVSteve]

I've decided I want to try this flight controller in my AXN first before I trust it in the Skywalker, so I'll be sticking it in the air this weekend to see how it works. If the AXN  goes in so be it, but I'd be slightly annoyed if it took out my new plane for some silly reason :laugh:

[BlueFlyer]

I think you're doing the right thing Steve, by the looks of things you're taking that next step. Would be a shame to lose all your hard work at this stage.

Storm OSD would be a minimum for a Skywalker build in my opinion, I'd even stretch for a Vector if I could afford one.

[Brucey]

I've decided I want to try this flight controller in my AXN first before I trust it in the Skywalker, so I'll be sticking it in the air this weekend to see how it works. If the AXN  goes in so be it, but I'd be slightly annoyed if it took out my new plane for some silly reason :laugh:

Good call Steve

[UAV Aviation]

Hi Steve, I have the T1000FC fitted in my UCF, it works good for the amount of USD it cost. You are right though about that you don't have manual control any more when the GPS is plugged in, it is stab, HDG or RTH from there on. But as I said for the price it is not bad. The other thing which you don't want to forget is that when you fly at different places you have to reset the home location!!! It will NOT do that by itself at power up.

[wgt40w]

Hi Steve, I have the T1000FC fitted in my UCF, it works good for the amount of USD it cost. You are right though about that you don't have manual control any more when the GPS is plugged in, it is stab, HDG or RTH from there on. But as I said for the price it is not bad. The other thing which you don't want to forget is that when you fly at different places you have to reset the home location!!! It will NOT do that by itself at power up.

I wonder what would happen if you fitted an rc switch into the T1000FC GPS wiring - would that allow for stabilisation 'Off' ????

[UAV Aviation]

That could work 😄. And then it's a good thing it remembers its RTH location and it does not resets its home location at power up👍. Will try it on the UCF.

[wgt40w]

I'll be very interested in your trial as I have a T1000FC that I will be fitting into my next airframe - when it comes.

[BlueFlyer]

The other thing which you don't want to forget is that when you fly at different places you have to reset the home location!!! It will NOT do that by itself at power up.

OMG, that's just asking for trouble... I know we all strive to be as safe as we can, and some of us have checklists (whether mental or physically written down) but this is just another thing to remember.

I know I'd forget to do this at least once

[UAV Aviation]

Happened to me already 😳 luckily I knew the shortcomings of the T1000 and recognized it and switched off the RTH and NAVed back home manually 😜

For the GPS on / off RC switch I will let you know Steve.

[wgt40w]

The other thing which you don't want to forget is that when you fly at different places you have to reset the home location!!! It will NOT do that by itself at power up.

OMG, that's just asking for trouble... I know we all strive to be as safe as we can, and some of us have checklists (whether mental or physically written down) but this is just another thing to remember.

I know I'd forget to do this at least once

I don't know about anyone else, but for each of my airframes - all controlled from different memory programs on the same tx - I keep in my toolbox an A4 sheet of paper, one for each airframe, listing which are the relevant tx switches, the c of g, which lipo to use and what each tx Channel does, how to initiate the electronics or OSD, if fitted, etc.

These sheets help me not to forget !!

[UAV Aviation]

Yeah... I have different pieces of paper, this sounds more organized. An other thing to do 😄

[FPVSteve]

Well one of the first things to do will be to test RTH after takeoff .. if anything is dodgy then it's time to land. So if I do forget, I'll be able to get it back.

Thing is though it's not a huge deal ... I generally fly out of the same spot anyway so if it remembers "home" then great :laugh:

Tbh it's nothing I didn't have to do with the Suppo OSD ... you have to reset position to mark "home" every time regardless, to calibrate it.

[FPVSteve]

Hi Steve, I have the T1000FC fitted in my UCF, it works good for the amount of USD it cost. You are right though about that you don't have manual control any more when the GPS is plugged in, it is stab, HDG or RTH from there on. But as I said for the price it is not bad. The other thing which you don't want to forget is that when you fly at different places you have to reset the home location!!! It will NOT do that by itself at power up.

I wonder what would happen if you fitted an rc switch into the T1000FC GPS wiring - would that allow for stabilisation 'Off' ????

I'm sure I saw this mentioned on RCGroups but I can't for the life of me find the thread.

It may potentially work but if I'm honest, I don't actually mind the limitations of stabilised flight for this airframe... the SW is not exactly being built for aerobatics, I want nice steady video with a slow cruise.

The plan is to do plenty of narrated videos looking around with the camera, if the plane flies itself without me having to worry about stray gusts of wind then great as far as I'm concerned :)

[UAV Aviation]

Yep that's the reason I bought mine 😄

[FPVSteve]

So I started adding some of the leccy bits... I've decided I can't be bothered testing the flight controller in the AXN first so I'm going all in, if it crashes it crashes. I wired it up, it seems to work as I'd expect and it doesn't lock out the controls at all so I'm sure (he says) it'll be fine. How many people test their FC's in another aircraft first anyway?

First up was to position the ESC and feed the wires through to the motor, the signal wire to the Rx and the 5A UBEC powering all of the flight control stuff.



Here's the UBEC on the underside, showing the power leads splitting cleanly to the front of the plane where the battery will sit, and the UBEC output going to the Rx. Both have LCFilters on them to get rid of any noise.



I then mounted the GPS receiver on the tailboom and fed the cable through into the fuselage:



This feeds into the T1000FC which in turn communicates with a FrSky D8RII+ receiver. I will be mounting the 2.4GHz antennas in a V and they will feed out each side of the fuselage in some plastic tubing. undecided whether to mount them upwards or downwards yet... it won't make any difference though.



Obviously there is some cable tidying to do :P