Mikado UI sensor on a nitro for reciever pack?

[andypaddlerking]

Hi all

happy new year to all.

As the title suggests I'm interested to know if anyone has fitted a Mikado UI sensor on a nitro heli to get the info from their receiver pack. I only really fly nitro models so don't own any powerful electric heli's. I also run a voltage regulator setup to get my servos at 6.0v so would this effect the data and also is it worth the time and effort to do this.

Thanks folks

[dcope17]

It resets each flight so it will only tell you how much mAh you used in that one flight, not keep track and tell you when you need to recharge your Rx pack.
It will work to tell you when the voltage gets low. You can set an alarm for that... but if you manually check the voltage you'll learn that you can safely do X number of flights before recharging and the UI sensor will become useless for the most part.

EDIT: you will get the Rx voltage w/o the UI sensor and if you use a regulator, it will remain at what the regulator outputs.
If you did HV servos and straight from a 2s LiPo, no need for a UI sensor to give your Rx pack voltage as the Vbar will tell you that.

[GregCA]

Also note that the manual for the U/I sensor says

"Attention This sensor is designed for measuring flight
pack voltage and current. The measuring resolution is not
suitable for receiver batteries only (e.g. on nitro nitro helis)."

http://www.mikado-heli.de/downloads/...I%20Sensor.pdf

[andypaddlerking]

pefect response guys

that's gives me what I wanted to know.

[Laughingstill]

Originally Posted by andypaddlerking

Hi all

happy new year to all.

As the title suggests I'm interested to know if anyone has fitted a Mikado UI sensor on a nitro heli to get the info from their receiver pack. I only really fly nitro models so don't own any powerful electric heli's. I also run a voltage regulator setup to get my servos at 6.0v so would this effect the data and also is it worth the time and effort to do this.

Thanks folks

The pack voltage is displayed on the tx screen...why would you need the U/I sensor?

[Codepox]

I am looking at putting a U/I sensor on my nitro heli for two reasons:

1 - I want to keep track of all my flights, the VBar Control Flight Analyzer is excellent but the flights will only show up if the heli is equipped with a U/I Sensor

2 - This is currently the only way to turn on flight parameters logging so I can see how the governor performs (throttle % + RPM)

I think it will make sense to be able to turn on logging with no sensors, at least you can see the receiver voltage, throttle output, RPMs, ... but you can only do it in the U/I sensor sub menu which is only visible if the U/I Sensor is detected.

[Laughingstill]

You can see all that with the VBAR GOV

[Codepox]

Originally Posted by Laughingstill

You can see all that with the VBAR GOV

I don't understand your post, can you explain?

Currently, to turn on flight parameters logging, I turn on "Write Logfile" box in the U/I Sensor App.
This generates a "csv" file for each flights with parameters: Battery Voltage, BEC Voltage, Amp, mah, Throttle %, RPMs, ..
I then open that file in the Vbar Control Flight Analyzer software and I can see all the graphs.

Can you do this without a U/I Sensor?

[Andy from Sandy]

The OP is using Linus's program. It only makes sense so Linus says if you have the U/I sensor. It then graphs the flight like you might have seen from other ESC logs showing load on the pack during the flight.

[Laughingstill]

Originally Posted by Andy from Sandy

The OP is using Linus's program. It only makes sense so Linus says if you have the U/I sensor. It then graphs the flight like you might have seen from other ESC logs showing load on the pack during the flight.

Ok, gotcha...nope, can't do that without the U/I sensor...

[Codepox]

Originally Posted by Laughingstill

Ok, gotcha...nope, can't do that without the U/I sensor...

OK, that's too bad.
It will be nice to be able to do it without having to buy and install a $100 sensor that serve basically no other purpose than turn on the logging function to a CSV file.
Hopefully Mikado will make it available in a future update, that will be very useful for everybody flying Nitro.

Thinking more about it, another way to implement it will be to have the possibility to turn on logging to a CSV file when a temperature sensor is installed to also monitor the motor temperature.

[andypaddlerking]

After I had some time to have a think about the pros and cons of putting a ui sensor on my nitro helis. There seem tons of reasons to have the functions available which have all been listed by some of you guys already. The problem is the cost of this with a ui sensor in the UK costing about £70 each! can Mikado develop a ui sensor setup specifically for the nitro/gasser receiver pack folks out there as I now loads of people would love this and snap it up if the price was acceptable. can this be done?

[George J]

Battery checker, job done!

[busterboy]

Originally Posted by George J

Battery checker, job done!

+1

[Andy from Sandy]

We already get rx voltage down feed. I have during the very cold weather received a warning that the voltage was low.

I am using LiFe rx packs and I set the alarm in the v-bar control to 6.2 volts. Normally the pack will stay at 6.4 volts.

[andypaddlerking]

The problem with just using the battery checker is I don't get any of the pack telemetry and lipo log info which would be really helpful to me and my application. Also as I said in my first post I run a voltage regulator on my nitros as my servo run at 6v so the vcontrol voltage read out wont work that well to tell me when im near my 20% battery capacity mark as its being regulated. I cant justify spending £300 on a set of hv servos id be happy with just for that feature to work. A nitro or rx pack ui sensor would be a super helpful tool I think do you guys not agree?