Cyclops Storm wants to commit suicide!

[FPVSteve]

Have you tried adjusting the gains? If the elevator isn't moving much, perhaps you need to increase the gain?

[_tj_]

Just what I was about to put.

The gains / or angle limit need increasing.

[jweaver]

Have you tried adjusting the gains? If the elevator isn't moving much, perhaps you need to increase the gain?

Set them at 100% and changed the angle to max.. And there is almost no movement....

I have now reproduced the initial fault.. And this has got everything to do with "Heading Hold" rather than a problem with the gyros.

If I get a GPS lock and then enable PA, the Ailerons work normally for a few seconds and then shift to put the plane in a left or right roll.. Interestingly, when I tilt the plan to match the position of roll, its exactly 25%.. It will do this consistently and then suddenly swap, so that you then get a roll in the opposite direction, again at 25%

Video is uploading and the problem is pretty apparent.. If I turn of "Heading Hold" then PA appears to works perfectly (with the Ailerons keeping the plane level).

I did wonder if the GPS was 'drifting'.. But its position was rock solid down to 0.00001 of a degree.. If I moved North 10 ft.. My co-ords moved north.. If I moved West, again, my co-ords moved west.

From my calculations 0.00001 degree is about 3.5ft.. And that seems in keeping with what I saw when I moved around.

At no point have I seen any anomalies in the HUD.. P&R works as expected.. And my GPS position is static, so this looks entirly software.. Hopefully someone can give me some thoughts on what to do next..

Jon

Edit: Here is the video.. Sorry if its hard to follow.. It was very difficult to aim the camera, hold the plane and move it around keeping everythjing in shot. Especially when my neighbor then shouts across asking questions about what I was doing..

http://youtu.be/qapMW-QNw50

Look at 40seconds... Up to this point the plane would level out to the right.. Suddenly it reversed and wanted to go to the left.. Then again at 46 seconds, where it reversed back again.. Same thing happens at 1:11, 1:19, 1:21: 1:24

I started to rotate around thinking that it was related to the direction.. But found no pattern...

Its not like you can let it fly like this, as soon as it does this in the air, it rolls over out of control, so I can't even let it do this to visualize what its doing.

[elmattbo]

Do you have the roll limit set to 25? If so that would explain why it aims for that roll angle. Also, apologies if we've covered this before but heading hold does not work when the aircraft is stationary even with a GPS fix. If you look at the actual heading on the osd it will be all over the place and that's what the storm is chasing. The reason is that the storm  uses a sequence of GPS fixes in a certain direction to establish heading, so once you go off flying it works this out and heading hold becomes reliable.
As for the elevator thing... Not sure. I'd be tempted to start from scratch and set it up again. Unplug everything and have a look at the videos by bmsweb, I found them useful. Also there is a manual on the rcg cyclops storm thread. Have a look in thread attachments and it should be there. It's a little out of date but the basics haven't changed.


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[elmattbo]

In the meantime, go and fly it anyway using the storm as an osd, it's a short flying season, so don't miss it over this! Stay within a reasonable range for video and you'll be fine and you've always got the rth arrow on the osd ( don't forget to zero it before you fly!).


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[FPVSteve]

^ Good advice, you might find it does exactly what you want once it's in the air.. Just get some altitude and flick back to manual if things go pear-shaped... give it a shot.

[jweaver]

^ Good advice, you might find it does exactly what you want once it's in the air.. Just get some altitude and flick back to manual if things go pear-shaped... give it a shot.

When it was in the air, it became totally uncontrollable.. As soon as the ailerons went had over left/right, the plane would go into a hard turn, and drop out of the sky.. I suspect because the Elevators arn't moving enough and are unable to hold its altitude.

As suggested above, I could just ignore the PA mode.. But would have to avoid RTH as well, which would mean reprogramming the failsafe on my RX (not a big deal) and flying without any safety net.

I think I will just fly my other models for now and will get this resolved/understood before I fly it again..

Here is a video of my elevator movements.. First of all, manual with lots of travel and then PA, with an almost imperceivable amount of movement..

https://youtu.be/Rru0wrdqX7U

[_tj_]

I'm gonna blame the weather for the cyclops dysfunctions.

Today my Tornado decided to lose every satellite it found before take off, during flight.

Luckily I know the area, but came back again.
Best not to switch to RTH, never know where it might end up lol.

[FPVSteve]

According to http://www.uavforecast.com/ the KP index was high today in my area (6!) which might explain that _tj_ ...

I'm having a right pain in the arse trying to get my Tornado to behave consistently. I forsee a flashing coming on, but it's going to be a right pain in the arse trying to get it off the plane so I can plug into the board.

[_tj_]

Ah right.

I was in Epworth today.
Never had it before.

But took it out the hawkeye after it stalled and broke the other wingtip this time.
Put it in my skycruise and flew well.

I think the hawkeye is cursed lol.

[jweaver]

I have ordered a programmer.. Going to re-flash it (Plus I have the option to go to 2.2).. I don't know what else to do now....

[FPVSteve]

I am having this EXACT issue today with my Tornado ... went out nice and early, flew brilliantly in manual mode as always.. then tried to dive + turn in RTH and PA mode. Very annoying!!!

It has to be gyro related - it can't be vibration because it was also doing it with the motor off.

ALL is perfect on the ground.

I'm currently going on the gyro drift theory due to temperature. Next test will be to leave the plane on the ground powered on for 10 mins, then unplug, then power up, hit "reset gyro", then retry the tests.

If that doesn't solve it, I'm not sure what to do next. Nothing has changed since my last flight (which was perfect - however the plane had been outside in the car overnight, so was at ambient temperature... this time the plane had been indoors before I flew).

[FPVSteve]

Stolen from RCGroups:

Actually I mentioned something about the gyros in my first video review. Have a look , and you'll see.
The first thing I noticed was , I calibrated the gyros and made sure P and R was perfect 0 at home before going out to the field.
When I got to the field , suddenly P and R was off .. like when the plane was level R was +15 or something like that... so I needed to recalibrate again on the field.
Then I went flying , everything seemed normal ... expect when I did rolls and loops the gyros got confused and showed wrong P and R values,
but after maybe 10 seconds or so , they were back to normal.

Acording to BEVRC the reason why the gyros got confused when doing "acrobatics" was because they were cheap sensors..... fair enough, I can live with that.
But the thing about gyro drift or whats going on, you guys need to be careful about ... because if you are in serious trouble , and need the assistance of RTH ,
it might Return to Ground instead ,as seen in the video.

A guy commented on youtube saying "This is classic temperature delta to the IMU after takoff."

Some sensors (especially cheap or older ones) suffer from drift which can be caused by a temperature difference. Years ago it was common practice to let the model "sit" for a short while to avoid drift as the model was taken from a warm environment (car) and placed in a cold environment (outside). Worth a try buddy.

[FPVSteve]

Also, from the creator of the OSD:

very important!!! The OSD will enter auto detection mode during the first power on, the main board should be placed strictly horizontally and statically, avoid any movement or vibration. If there is any error during the detection, there will be error shows on the OSD screen, cycle the power and do it again.
The attitude neutral point is very important

extraline , at home I calibrate and make sure P and R is perfect 0.
When I go out to the field , I need to re calibrate because P and R is no longer 0 , is this because of temprature?

yes i think so. must reset GYRO when you outside.

[_tj_]

I always reset my gyro before first flight of the day at place of flight.
Mainly because they can sit in the loft for months before I fly them again.