Hi, new here! Vector on bixler, gain and pids? Help!

[BlueFlyer]

And now can only fly it with an autopilot and fpv?

You give the average phantom owner a quad without self level and see how quickly he crashes it. Yet can fly the phantom with all it's bells and whistles with no problem.

That's because he doesn't "need" to know how to fly a quad without self level, the technology exists for him to get a great experience without the need to learn the old fashioned way.

Same concept with fixed wing. The tech exists for people (should they be financially inclined) to jump straight in with a full autopilot setup which makes it easier to fly a plane and get the experience they want without the need to learn to fly "properly".

Is that right? Is it wrong? Who's to say what's right or wrong?

Snooze is happy with his mini talon and vector setup, and is having a great FPV experience from it... that's all that matters.

[Billy_boy_2010]

You give the average phantom owner a quad without self level and see how quickly he crashes it. Yet can fly the phantom with all it's bells and whistles with no problem.

That's because he doesn't "need" to know how to fly a quad without self level, the technology exists for him to get a great experience without the need to learn the old fashioned way.

Same concept with fixed wing. The tech exists for people (should they be financially inclined) to jump straight in with a full autopilot setup which makes it easier to fly a plane and get the experience they want without the need to learn to fly "properly".

Is that right? Is it wrong? Who's to say what's right or wrong?

Snooze is happy with his mini talon and vector setup, and is having a great FPV experience from it... that's all that matters.

I see your point- and it stands fairly true.......until you have to land line of sight for some reason, perhaps in a pressured situation. And then it doesn't provide me with much comfort.

Whilst eventually we will learn to rely entirely on technology (self driving cars, self flying planes, machine surgeons etc)- for a long time to come there will be a human to keep an eye on the machine. And that human will need to be competent ;)

Dog relying on some home built system isn't quite the same as a self level system in a mass produced drone.

[Loopdreams]

One of the most successful FPVers on this forum went "All-in" for his first FPV build, 1.2 video, dragonlink UHF for control, Tornado Autopilot, MFD AAT Tracker, and a Skywalker.

He doesn't regret for one moment, ignoring the same old same old "advice" of buying a trainer, learning to fly los, then slowly and gradually advancing up to the full blown system.

Just like in the multirotor world, there are people who want the quick fix of the full fixed wing FPV experience that they see from people who've been in the game for years. Some take to it like a duck to water, others don't.

Sure, not saying it's impossible just that it's not the easiest way as the pages and pages of guffwuffle on flight controllers and crashed planes in threads like this are testament to.

[SnoozeDoggyDog]

Lol- didn't you crash your axn at least a handful of times? And now can only fly it with an autopilot and fpv? The talon is harder to fly and less robust.

Did your axn parts really cost you £150? ;)

Yes, I had a bad experience with the axn. Nothing prepared me for no stability. I can say from experience the mini train is no less robust than an AXN. In fact judging from from my uncontrolled decent from 300+ feet with a 4s 8000mah battery on board the Talon is more robust than the axn.

The total cost of my axn was:
AXN £45
Servos £20
D4R RX 20
ESC £8
Vtx £25
Batteries I'm not quite sure about but let's say £30

It all  mounts up very quickly.

[Nozer]

lol, self destruct.

In the vector GUI, there's a page where you set the RTH altitude. When RTH is engaged, it will try to get to that altitude and point to the home position as quickly as possible. This might be why it tries to bank hard to one side or drop out of the sky. It's trying to get to the altitude that's been set in it's memory.

One other thing to check is that the control surfaces are reacting to stability mode in the right way and that they're not reversed.

On the ground, in the garage/shed/workshop or wherever you do your building/fiddling/testing... put the plane in 2D mode and physically roll the plane left and right. When the left wing drops towards the ground, the left aileron should also move towards the ground. When the left wing rises to the sky, the left aileron should also rise towards the sky. If this is not happening you need to reverse your channel direction in your taranis and re-run the TX wizard.

When you point the nose to the ground, the elevator should move up to the sky and when you point the nose to the sky, the elevator should move towards the ground. Again, if this is the wrong way around you need to reverse the channel in the taranis and re-run the tx wizard.

It might be worth doing a range test with the D4R and the Taranis to see how much range you're getting before a failsafe... the failsafe might be engaging and disengaging so fast that the OSD doesn't have enough time to display it on screen before it's back to normal.

so...

1. Check the control surfaces are moving correctly in 2D mode
2. Do a range test with your D4R/Taranis
3. Check what the RTH settings are in the vector GUI and change them to suit your requirements.

Let us know what the results are of the above :)

Thqnks for trying to help :)

All surfaces move correct. And stabilisation works fine. (A bit unstable and wobbly, but flyable.)

RTH settings should be fine. Actually not much there to mess upp.
I have the height set up to 100m, and when it crashed i were flying at  ~70-80m. So vector should have pulled up, not down.
Have disabled the feature for RTH under a certain height.

Only thing i havn't done is check my range.
RSSI varnings happens after ~400m.

[SnoozeDoggyDog]

This thread isn't really about the do's and donts of your, my first set up. It isn't my thread. But we are all different. Some respond to differing learning techniques. I started with custom built 250 quads, built micros and also owned a phantom 3 advanced. But flying quads is like comparing driving a car to a motorbike in as much as they are different.

I can say and would say to anyone new to buy something with stability built in that you can turn off. My first ever fixed wing flight was with an e15s. I flew that for 40mins without incident and landed 3 times. Not a hiccup. Never did I feel intimidated by it. By flight 3 I had the stability controls turned down. I wanted something else, the next step so to speak. I was advised to get something I wouldn't mind smashing up and learn to fly properly.

Jump forward to the AXN and you all know how badly it went for me. Yes I did learn how to use a glue gun but it there was no need. It was time I had precious little of for fannying about. I had no one to fly with or buddy box with. Stability controls give you time to think, it was for me my buddy box or person on my shoulder saying "relax, now level up and apply X control"

As for fpv vs Los ... That's a whole other argument. But this isn't my thread!

The vector in my inexperienced opinion is excellent.

[SnoozeDoggyDog]

When I flew with a d4r 450m was about what I would get out to before rssi warnings. I think that's about normal dependant on placement.

[FPVSteve]

450m on a Frsky receiver is very poor you should get treble that before you even get the first telemetry warning.

[BlueFlyer]

Yeah I must admit I got much further with the cheap rc system that came with my RTF bixler 6 years ago

[SnoozeDoggyDog]

OK, maybe it was bad placement. I'll take that.

D4R-ll for sale!

P

[Nozer]

I have had a feeling that 450m is on the short side...
And now that seems to be confirmed...
I can accept that the range sucks. But i have felt an irrational behavior of the vector only 100m away.
Might be frozen servos. Might be RX acting up...might be a lot of things.
For starter i have rearranged the rx and the antennas. Hopefully that will make some difference.
But the main concern here is IF failsafe kicking in...why the heck did it do the "spiral_of_death" and smacked into ground?
Everything is setup per manual and it really should have RTH instead.


I see same opinions on this forum that i see everywhere else :)
The "learn to fly manual and ditch all kinds of flightcontrollers".
I really see why a lot of ppl have these opinions, i do.
To be honest, i actually agrees to most of it.
If you are new to the game. Then its tempting to go all in with stabilisation just for safety in the beggining when you are learning. It will save a lot of money.
Problem is that a lot of "kits" ppl buy, planes, helicopters, quads etc. are so factory tweaked that it will not in any way resemble the way the craft flies manually. You might not even have the option to fly manual.
But electronics have an impact on ppl, so ppl buy...

Next problem is that in many cases the experience of flying disapers when its pre manufactored machines. You kinda loose the whole flying experiende, ends upp bored and sell your stuff..
And even if you try to go all manual, you will have problems because you are in a whole new world when you let go of your "traning wheels".

Then on the other hand we have ppl like me. That wants stabilisation, gps and all kinds of help...just because i have done this for so long, and sometimes its a bigger relaxement just to fly and have that safety..

I started with rc helis about 15years ago. Flown them on a decent level with 3D flight. Could do anything i wanted and so on..,
But 5years ago our first daughter was born. After that i did not have time or opportunity to fly and fix my helis. So i started with quads instead. Cheaper, easier to repair. And most of all, more durable.
Under the following years i started with fpv racing.
Small race quads that i built myself...
About half a year ago a flying buddy made it from quads to planes, and i followed.
Things got out of hands and i now have 6 planes :)
Some gliders, some 3D planes.
A few of them i fly fully manual. And a few of them have stabilisation. And the "star of the fpv fleet" got a vector for christmas :)
For me, its not a problem to fly manual. But it is a help with stabilisation, and especially on a fpv plane i want to be relaxed and enjoy the flight. So for me stabilisation isnt a must, but its a damn nice thing to have!

[FPVSteve]

All that means nothing if the plane doesn't fly properly without stabilisation. As the saying goes, you can't polish a turd (but you can roll it in glitter).

The flight controller shouldn't have to fight the plane to keep it level for instance. Sorry, but it sounds like either the plane wasn't set up properly, you hadn't tweaked the gains correctly, or you had another setup issue (such as control surfaces).

It's usually the experienced guys who think "meh, it'll be fine" but make a stupid error such as reversing ailerons when stabilisation is turned on because they've done it a million times and take it for granted.

The fact is: a vector just works. So you had an issue with the plane, somewhere.

[Loopdreams]

This is just utter nonsense.  In the first post he said he's not good enough at flying to be able to even fly and land a Bixler successfully without a flight controller but now he's got 6 planes some of which he flies manually including 3D planes and he used to be a 3D helicopter flying champ.

[Nozer]

Loopdreams

That is  not a nice attitude!

Sorry if someone has been offended or in any other way been upset...
Yes, i flied helicooters. And yes, i was quite good at it.
I stated in my first post that i have got 6 planes.

And there is a whole different story to fly planes than to fly helis and quads.
I can make my way with a plane. But that is if the plane reacts and functions as it should.
If the weather is nice with no winds, and good visibility so i dont loose orientation.
I am a beginner with planes. But i can fly...
But to tune a FC, and perhaps getting into situations where it misbehaves,  is more than i can handle.
I can barely recover from anything at all. So anything the vector woud do, would lead to a crash.

[Loopdreams]

Sorry but if you can fly 3D planes and helicopters to a good standard then there's no way that you would be struggling to recover an out of shape Bixler.