OpenPilot CopterControl board

[SQRT(-2)]

Has anyone used this as a FBL system? How does it work? I have done some looking and I can't seem to find much about it. I would love to support them and it looks like a good deal. Besides if it is good, $90 for a FBL controller is a good deal, and with my money situation, a good deal is required.

http://www.openpilot.org/

[Dr. M]

That looks promissing. And they say the're sold out, which means there must be a good number of people out there trying these thigs on...

One thing I have to say is that those cables and board don't really look sturdy enough to handle the power-hungry servos we run today on machines 450 and bigger. Can you really pull 3+ amps thru those tiny wires they have pictured?

[SQRT(-2)]

If it is not, I could run power lines for the servo around the board. As long as the board gets power and the signals it needs, it should be ok, it is not like the board does anything to the power but pass it on.

[wolfdown]

Its not setup to draw power from the RX, those wires are only for the PWM signal.

You connect the BEC directly to the board at an open terminal or with a Y cable.

[SQRT(-2)]

Oh, that makes a difference.

Have you had experience with it? Wolf Down?

[wolfdown]

I actually have a CopterControl board. I just haven't converted my heli to FBL yet. So I never used it. I was going to try it out as a gyro first, but then my ESC burned up, and then after I replaced that, one of my servos went bad.

I also was hoping to get some type of case for it. But i don't know if theres one out yet.

[SQRT(-2)]

Cool. Can't wait to hear how it works. I hope to have the money by the time the next batch comes into stores.

I would look for little plastic cases you find in stores, some sort of pill box may work, just cut some holes for wires and mount it to the inside with gyro foam.

[Ozz58]

After reading their forum, it looks like it's not working very well on helis. They also have lost their best heli programmers in the last few months.

Here is a snip-it from one post from a heli guy complaning about support.

We also had a guy that got in touch on Helifreak called Mike who offered to help and I gave him a free CC + FOSS JTAG but he never did.

Alright someone named Mike let us know what happened.

Craig

[wolfdown]

Yea, I was following it earlier this year. At that point it seemed like they were not really interested in heli stuff too much. Back then they were telling everyone to run the gyro in rate mode. Also I think the 120 CCPM stuff wasn't complete, or atleast it was hard to get it working with the GUI.

I really want to get back into it, just have too much stuff going on. What I need is a second heli, so I won't feel bad if the CopterControl doesn't work out as great. Cause then I'll have something to fly while I work on the CopterControl bugs.

[SQRT(-2)]

How hard was it to get a CC board? They say they sold out really fast.

The thing that makes me frustrated is watching someone fly with it does not tell me how it is performing. How good is the pilot? A poor pilot will drift around like crazy no matter how good the board is working. We need more heli guys using this thing. How else are they going to get more feedback and work on the heli side of things? They seem to be Multi rotor fiends, Helis need better representation.

[wolfdown]

The project has attracted a lot of people recently. Before it wasn't as hard to get a board. Also heard they had a falling out with one of the board makers, so there was a big stretch when nothing was available.

[SQRT(-2)]

I scored a board from a guy on the forums (who I will keep quiet so he does not get swamped by questions if he has any other boards).

I guess I will be seeing how it works soon. I look forward to experimenting with it. I'll tell you how it works.

Now I need to come up with a cheep laptop to take to the field and the money to buy it with! I have a friend who may loan me hers for such an experiment though.

[BaconRaygun]

I am actually looking to get one of these too.... I'm working on a UAV and have been looking at all of this open source hardware for a few months now.

[SQRT(-2)]

Ok, got the board this morning and was able to figure quite a bit out. I still have problems, for some reason the cyclic does not seem to respond enough to affect flight. It could be my FBL head made from a FB head does not transfer the movement correctly. I had some rough 'landings' so things are shaking a bit, so I will have to do some work before the next flight.

[SQRT(-2)]

Made the head better and fixed the heli. I was able to get a flight this afternoon. She is shaking though, I don't think it is mechanical, I need to adjust some of the settings on the board.

There is a guy doing 3D with one of these things, so they are capable boards, just a little difficult to get setup. Hopefully things will get better as more people put these on Helis and give feed back and the process is refined. For Quads and other multi copters, they are pretty well established, you can set one up in 15 minutes form box to air. A lot of people have done them, but only 9 people have put these things on helicopters so far. (According to the number of users on the Forum who have reported doing so and been awarded a badge for doing so)

[Rotorshake]

SQRT(-2)

Do you have an update on how this is doing?

I have a couple of these boards, one on a quad and one spare and looking to FBL one of my larger single rotor birds.

[SQRT(-2)]

Had to wait till I got some Trex 500 FBL links in. Needed them to complete my FB to FBL head conversion.

I have made a couple of test flights today. So far the only problems have been when I made a mistake installing the TT tail and the shaft was slipping. I will try some more flights today when the wind dies down. I have no laptop, so adjusting settings is a little inconvenient. I am also in new Territory for me, never set up a FBL system.


This is the FBL head I made, I only had to remove the FB assembly, cut the arms on the arms that rotate the swashplate with the head, Glue the part that slides up and down to the two rods so it does not slide down and fall off and allow the Swashplate to not rotate with the head, flip the blade holders over and run arms form a Trex 500 FBL head form the swash to the blade grips. So far it appears to work well.

Made a noob mistake and messed around on the ground too much and she flipped on me. I will have to replace or rebuild at least one servo now.