My quad is flying, but some questions remain

[Ruud Westerhout]

Hi all,

took me a few hours of nice and calm building and the quad was standing RTF before me. I read at some places that the ESC should all be taugth separately what the 100% throttle was, so I programmed them separetely. By the way, nice trick to find out which cable goes to which ESC, as I already forgot that during buidling. I then put my TC to 0 - 40% - 80% and tried to fly.
Oops, forgot to set the reverse for the AIL - ELE and RUD, as I have a JR radio.
But after that, nice flying. And really long, as I have 3S 2100mAh batteries.
During all this flying I left the green wire off and had the GU-344 set to HOV mode and the gain somewhere in the middle.
It took a little trimming on the radio, but it was flying OK.

Now I am ready for my next tries and I am getting some question pop up in my mind :
-am I able in some way to install a HeliCommand additional to the GU-344 ?
It would be my understanding to put the gain of the GU-344 off (minimum) and put them in the order RX - HC - GU-344.
Is this possible ? Anybody done it already ?
Or is this not necessary, as actually both the HC as well as the GU-344 have 3 piezo's inside, maybe I can expect this kind of behaviour from the GU-344 without the HC ?

-it is written in the manual that the gain should be steered with a switch, not a potentiometer.
I am doing this (or going to anyway) but wonder. Can I correct (something like trim) the gain in the radio menu while I am flying, to see the immediate result, or is this not allowed.
I mean, switch to HOV mode, see in the radio that it is at 50%, and while flying move it up to 60% to see if that makes it more stable

-I actually noticed that I never really programmed the ESC. I just learned them each what the 100% is like and that's it.
Should I program all the ESC to some certain "perfect settings"and if yes, can anybody hint on the best settings. Honestly I f.e. do not even know if I need the brake to be on (or off), the battery seems to be at LiPo anyway, no reason to touch, the cutoff mode I do not understand either. Any hints to the best setup would be appreciated.

As I am using a small LED to show when my cells on the 3S 2100mAh get underneath 3.2V per cell I am coming down in time. The battery each charge for another 1.550 - 1.600 mAh after that although I get way over 10 Minutes of flying time (including the bigger battery and a HeroGoPro Camera on the top.

Nicely made, Gaui, keep up that good quality !

Would appreciate some answer from those of You with experience in the above.

with best regards,
Ruud

[Tahoe Ed]

It appears that you have set up the Gaui on your transmitter in Heli mode. I would recommend that you set it up in ACRO mode per the instructions. Then set the travel on you throttle to 75-80%. I would plug the green wire into port 5 on the GU344 rather than have it loose. I am not aware of anyone trying to put a HC on a Gaui. I am not sure why you would want to put an expensive stabilization unit on an entry level quad in the first place but if you have one sitting around you can try and let people know your results. I would get the 330 out of hover and put it into cruise mode. I think that if you have the gain in the middle it is a bit high and you may want to move it between 7:30 and 9:00 from the off position. It seems that this works best for most people. If your quad is flying fine with just setting the throttle end points then leave the esc's alone with the factory defaults. If you start to have problems then try to do a full program. You can use your transmitter to control the gain on the GU344. To do this, you need to plug the green wire into your receiver and assign a switch to it. This will disable the gain pot on the GU344. It will also remove the built in expo so you may want to adjust your transmitter. I use 70% D/R and 30% expo on AIL, ELEV and RUD. I tried using the transmitter to control the gain but found that the pot on the GU344 worked better for me. If you decide to try it, start with setting your travel to +36 to -36. Make sure that when you move the switch that the light on the GU344 changes from Red(Cruise) to Green(Hover). Adjust the travel to suit your flying style. Good luck!

[Ruud Westerhout]

Hi Ed,

First off, thank You for this reply, highly appreciated.
You are absolutely right. I had the radio in heli mode. My first question back to You : from what information in my post did You understand that I am in heli mode.
And of course, what actually changes in the radio when I change it to Acro ?
I just did change it, and I will just give one battery a go to see the result.

After writing my first post of this thread I already gave the connection of the green wire a go. The switch makes the led change from red to green, that's working nicely. But I could not find the perfect feeling for me yet. I had some idea that the quad was reacting when I move the ail or elev through the midpoint. Ideally I would like to see it float, and just slithly drift away, but without shaking.

HeliCommand. Well it is not actually lying around, but yes, I have three and can try one out. Do not know when this will happen, will keep You informed. But actually I was quite sure that somebody would have done this already.

regards,
Ruud

[Tahoe Ed]

The throttle curve gave me a hint. For the Gaui it should be set up for a linear curve with the travel limit set at 75-80% for high stick. I think that you will like it better in Cruise Mode (Red light) vs Hover Mode (Green light). It is still very stable. I can hover mine in my living room in a 1.25mx1.25m space. For additional stabilization, some use the FY20A and one person set up a CoPilot II on his. Sounds like you are close to getting yours where you want it. Cheers.

[SFACV]

Hi, I am curious too about the ACRO vs HELI mode on the TX. I have mine set to Heli so I can use throttle hold. My throttle curve is 13% - 75% I found that dropping the throttle caused some unwanted control issues. Keeping a bit of throttle when flying around keeps things upright a little easier. May change this in the future but for now it keeps me from having another wreck. Another advantage is for hand launching, I can set the throttle and then launch with my left hand and turn off throttle hold and have instant access to aileron and elevator with the right. When catching you can hold your left hand under the heli and hit throttle cut with right and let it drop right into your hand.

[Ruud Westerhout]

I did change my Radio to Acro and was a little disappointed in JR, as it immediately reset the whole model. Well yeah, if You know, this is not a problem, You create a copy. But I did this 1st time, so I lost all settings .

While in Acro, I see that the complete menu is changed, have to "get used to this", but nothing special. The throttle curve is still a 7 point curbe to me, although the flight modes are missing, so I still put it at 0 ..40..80.
Played around with DualRates, Expo etc. but actually could not find a reason why the quad would fly differently in Acro than in Heli mode, if all details are set alike.

The Throttle hold is a good "find", I did not notice this yet. I was not using it yet, but would find it a real plausible reason not to go to Acro, as soon as I am hand-launch/land.

So in the long run I might switch back to Heli (but I will keep a copy this time )

Thanks guys for the input !

Ruud

[SFACV]

Ruud,

You will find that changing the setup from Heli to Acro will reset the model in all radios (in my experience anyway). Not sure why Acro is recommended either. you have the same endpoints and rate options. I am sticking with heli if for no other reason than to keep the throttle hold feature. Just set it up as you would a heli with mechanical mixing instead of CCPM. Ignore the pitch channel unless you need it for running camera/etc.

Later,

[tomcarpenter]

My JR radio is in heli mode and it flies fine.

[Delta77]

A few year late on this thread it seems, I just hope there some of you out there still !

I've just set one of these up for a friend and got it hovering ok dispite a fairly gusty wind which is typical here in good old blightly - anyway I want to make it more locked it for my friend who is not a heli flyer like me and will be learning - so noting the advice above re the throttle limit, I set in down to 80% on the DX6i he has.

Now I also set the travel right down to 40 or 50 % for the Aileron & Elevator should I have done this or should I leave at 100% for the GU344 to control better, as I did not really see any effect by doing so, but then again it was windy ! ?

Cheers in advance of any replies !