Spork's Journey
- Thread starter Spork
- Start date
Jackson
USA member at large
You can call it the Trump.
Spork
There is no spoon
Quick update: So I got around to shopping for a tiny critter (whoop-sized) and ended up going with the KingKong Tiny 6 65mm Micro FPV. @Jackson had posted a link about this one awhile ago and after checking out a couple other reviews - the deal was sealed. I also ordered the Eachine TX01 to mod my toy quad (HS-181) to support FPV. And finally, I didn't want to stick the crowbar in the wallet for goggles just yet, so I ordered one of these to view the FPV on my computer monitor.
So I should soon be all set to start annoying the cat and my wife by buzzing around the house.
Regarding my build, I've put in on hold for a bit as I do more looking into micros - I'm very fascinated by them. Also, last night my wife said "why don't you go ahead and get the expensive camera drone now" (meaning the Mavic Air) It is so very, very rare for Mrs. Spork to suggest that I spend money, seems almost irresponsible not to get it.
So I should soon be all set to start annoying the cat and my wife by buzzing around the house.
Regarding my build, I've put in on hold for a bit as I do more looking into micros - I'm very fascinated by them. Also, last night my wife said "why don't you go ahead and get the expensive camera drone now" (meaning the Mavic Air)
It is so very, very rare for Mrs. Spork to suggest that I spend money, seems almost irresponsible not to get it. 
Rick M
Absent-minded professor
You will have a blast with the Tiny 6. Grab some LiHV batteries for it when you can. No one in your house will be safe. I love my little one for just grabbing it and flying in the house on a rainy (or busy) day.
For your outside flying needs, there are a ton of good options not for brushless quads in the 90-130mm range that won't break the bank but are good flyers. My FC board just died on my Aurora 100, which I liked a lot. Knowing what I know now, though, I'm going to try something different, probably a Lizard 95 or maybe an Arfun 95 Pro.
For your outside flying needs, there are a ton of good options not for brushless quads in the 90-130mm range that won't break the bank but are good flyers. My FC board just died on my Aurora 100, which I liked a lot. Knowing what I know now, though, I'm going to try something different, probably a Lizard 95 or maybe an Arfun 95 Pro.
roger jones
Well-Known Member
Quick update: So I got around to shopping for a tiny critter (whoop-sized) and ended up going with the KingKong Tiny 6 65mm Micro FPV. @Jackson had posted a link about this one awhile ago and after checking out a couple other reviews - the deal was sealed. I also ordered the Eachine TX01 to mod my toy quad (HS-181) to support FPV. And finally, I didn't want to stick the crowbar in the wallet for goggles just yet, so I ordered one of these to view the FPV on my computer monitor.
So I should soon be all set to start annoying the cat and my wife by buzzing around the house.
Regarding my build, I've put in on hold for a bit as I do more looking into micros - I'm very fascinated by them. Also, last night my wife said "why don't you go ahead and get the expensive camera drone now" (meaning the Mavic Air)
.
I like the FPV computer idea. I already have one on a future shopping list.
A review on that and your micro would be interesting.
Mrs Spork sounds like a keeper
mozquito1
Well-Known Member
UAV futures recently had a 3" that was doing 97mph. This ain't around the house kit unless your Bruce Wayne.
Try have some fella called cal who gets a speed gun on it, then they fly @ him while he has a shield & helmet, defending himself. Don't know how they fly with all them pesky flies, flying everywhere.
Try have some fella called cal who gets a speed gun on it, then they fly @ him while he has a shield & helmet, defending himself. Don't know how they fly with all them pesky flies, flying everywhere.
Spork
There is no spoon
I will definitely post my thoughts on the little critter and how well it works.
Yeah, I may keep her around for a bit
Spork
There is no spoon
Thanks, yeah - I'm hoping it will be a lot of fun. I'll look into the batteries, but the kit I got comes with 5 - so well see how we go with those first.
So many quads in the size range. I've seen reviews for all three of those and all sound promising. Thanks.
Gyro Doctor
Electronics Tech for over 45 years
It is so very, very rare for Mrs. Spork to suggest that I spend money, seems almost irresponsible not to get it.
I've been tossing hints to the Mrs. about the need for some good FPV goggles and mentioned they're only around 3 or 4 hundred a pop,
with the really nice ones for 5 hundred or so and she just kinda looks at me like I've must have gone insane ... lol ... I'm hoping repeating
the process will lessen her reaction when I finally pull the trigger for a pair at around only $200
Spork
There is no spoon
I've been tossing hints to the Mrs. about the need for some good FPV goggles and mentioned they're only around 3 or 4 hundred a pop,
with the really nice ones for 5 hundred or so and she just kinda looks at me like I've must have gone insane ... lol ... I'm hoping repeating
the process will lessen her reaction when I finally pull the trigger for a pair at around only $200
This is a great strategy. I think it's because it's so similar to how they'll come home from shopping and tell us how much money they "saved".
Good luck with getting the FPV goggles.
Spork
There is no spoon
So the new baby arrived today. Mrs. Spork wouldn't let me open the box until our chore list was done because she knew exactly what would happen.
It was a long and sordid affair getting the thing flying. I spent about 30 minutes figuring out how to bind it and then another hour and a half trying to figure out why my roll and pitch sticks were reversed. On about the fourth video, I happened to notice that I had forgotten to set the mode to Mode 2. I felt so dumb, but I'm getting kind of used to that, heh.
Then the next hour or two I spent checking out more videos on getting the Taranis switches setup for Arming and Flight Mode, with the obligatory Amber voices, as well as trying to figure out why the motors seemed to not be in sync and the little quad would just flip over and try to drill a hole in the carpet. In the process, I ended up flashing the FC to the latest BetaFlight and eventually discovered that some combination of Air Mode being on, along with random crap I tried with some of the settings were to blame. The flashing reset everything, so then I had to watch another video on getting the settings back to factory. LOL - it was pretty frustrating, but I learned quite a bit in the process.
It came with 5 batteries and I burned through 2 of them jacking around in BetaFlight. I got to have a little fun flying 2 packs LOS - the FPV receiver hasn't arrived yet. I can say it flies - but poorly. It regularly drops to the ground from a stable hover with no stick input - then bounces back up - but not to where it was. In addition, all of the controls are way to strong with very little input - so I need to learn how to fix that.
I will say that this little sucker is like a little bullet compared to my HolyStone 181. Anyway, I went back and watched and read some more - played with trying some Project Mockingbird settings (for fun) - which made things worse for the last pack. So, it'll be back to default settings again to start over.
Anyway, I can't say things are peachy yet. Going to spend some more time reading/watching/figuring out what's going on and how to remedy while I wait on the batteries to charge. Some of my reading led me to threads on RCGroups where people were saying it's best to buy an Beta65 and move the FC and camera over - not something I'm interested in doing yet. Would love some input from anyone who has one of these or similar on suggestions for improvement.
Lots of frustration over the last few hours, but also lots of learning. After seeing others happily flying theirs, I gotta think I'll figure things out soon and be in happy flying land. Also, I hope my sad story helps others get flying quicker by avoiding some of my dumb mistakes.
Oh and here's a baby pic with the charger appearing to give me a laser light show.
It was a long and sordid affair getting the thing flying. I spent about 30 minutes figuring out how to bind it and then another hour and a half trying to figure out why my roll and pitch sticks were reversed. On about the fourth video, I happened to notice that I had forgotten to set the mode to Mode 2. I felt so dumb, but I'm getting kind of used to that, heh.
Then the next hour or two I spent checking out more videos on getting the Taranis switches setup for Arming and Flight Mode, with the obligatory Amber voices, as well as trying to figure out why the motors seemed to not be in sync and the little quad would just flip over and try to drill a hole in the carpet. In the process, I ended up flashing the FC to the latest BetaFlight and eventually discovered that some combination of Air Mode being on, along with random crap I tried with some of the settings were to blame. The flashing reset everything, so then I had to watch another video on getting the settings back to factory. LOL - it was pretty frustrating, but I learned quite a bit in the process.
It came with 5 batteries and I burned through 2 of them jacking around in BetaFlight. I got to have a little fun flying 2 packs LOS - the FPV receiver hasn't arrived yet. I can say it flies - but poorly. It regularly drops to the ground from a stable hover with no stick input - then bounces back up - but not to where it was. In addition, all of the controls are way to strong with very little input - so I need to learn how to fix that.
I will say that this little sucker is like a little bullet compared to my HolyStone 181. Anyway, I went back and watched and read some more - played with trying some Project Mockingbird settings (for fun) - which made things worse for the last pack. So, it'll be back to default settings again to start over.
Anyway, I can't say things are peachy yet. Going to spend some more time reading/watching/figuring out what's going on and how to remedy while I wait on the batteries to charge. Some of my reading led me to threads on RCGroups where people were saying it's best to buy an Beta65 and move the FC and camera over - not something I'm interested in doing yet. Would love some input from anyone who has one of these or similar on suggestions for improvement.
Lots of frustration over the last few hours, but also lots of learning. After seeing others happily flying theirs, I gotta think I'll figure things out soon and be in happy flying land. Also, I hope my sad story helps others get flying quicker by avoiding some of my dumb mistakes.
Oh and here's a baby pic with the charger appearing to give me a laser light show.
Spork
There is no spoon
Um, why yes, it is almost 3am. LOL.
Good news and bad news - reflashed the FC (easiest way I knew to undo everything). Reset everything to stock. It flies much better now, however it is still doing the whole dropping to the ground every 10-15 seconds. Very annoying, but at least I'm getting some half way decent flying. Time for bed and more experimenting tomorrow.
Good news and bad news - reflashed the FC (easiest way I knew to undo everything). Reset everything to stock. It flies much better now, however it is still doing the whole dropping to the ground every 10-15 seconds. Very annoying, but at least I'm getting some half way decent flying. Time for bed and more experimenting tomorrow.
Spork
There is no spoon
Update on the (supposed) poor performance. After watching some more videos and flying 10 packs today, I think I've determined that the problem with the dropping to the ground turns out to be 95% the dummy controlling the sticks. Well, sort of. For background, previous to the Tiny6, my only real quad experience is with my toy from HS. The majority of my flying experience though is with my Taranis inside Liftoff and FPV Freerider. All of which hover and can fly slowly with zero issues. Turns out that these things suck at hovering and suffer from prop wash pretty bad when attempting to hover or fly slowly - as I was doing to get the feel of it before I stepped on the gas. There have been quite a few "DOH!" moments this weekend. Anyway, now that I've got more practice with it and have reset my expectations, this little thing is pretty dang fun. I can't say I love it yet, because I haven't tried out FPV with it yet - still waiting on a package from BG. We shall see soon enough.
Anyway, just wanted to clear things up for anyone who has read any of my drivel and concluded that it's a crap quad. Far from it.
Also, another nice thing that happened - not sure how, but my first few packs only lasted maybe 2ish minutes - didn't time it - but it was noticeably short. Today I timed a few and was getting 5.5 to 6 minutes. Pretty surprising. I also measured battery voltage on a few packs today and they were all at 4.19-4.21 at the start but 2.9-3.0 right after landing. Interestingly, the crept back up to 3.1-3.2 after 5-10 minutes. Isn't this too low? I noticed some low voltage configuration in BF, but this one doesn't have any telemetry so it just drops to the ground unannounced when out of power. Will this kill my battery life?
Anyway, just wanted to clear things up for anyone who has read any of my drivel and concluded that it's a crap quad. Far from it.
Also, another nice thing that happened - not sure how, but my first few packs only lasted maybe 2ish minutes - didn't time it - but it was noticeably short. Today I timed a few and was getting 5.5 to 6 minutes. Pretty surprising. I also measured battery voltage on a few packs today and they were all at 4.19-4.21 at the start but 2.9-3.0 right after landing. Interestingly, the crept back up to 3.1-3.2 after 5-10 minutes. Isn't this too low? I noticed some low voltage configuration in BF, but this one doesn't have any telemetry so it just drops to the ground unannounced when out of power. Will this kill my battery life?
Rick M
Absent-minded professor
Check the markings on your batteries for their "nominal" voltage. I think the ones for that quad should be 3.8V, meaning they're LiHV (Lithium High Voltage), which should charge to 4.35V when full. Standard LiPo batteries are nominally 3.7V and should charge up to 4.2. I wouldn't run them that low for sure. You probably want to set a timer for 3:30 - 4:00 and test. I'd suggest running down to no lower than 3.3V, but I'd be interested to hear what the others have to say about this number.
Spork
There is no spoon
Also, I'm starting to think about my build again and really liking the Armattan Jalapura frame - probably in the 3" with a RunCam Split.
Thanks, Rick, They are 3.7v 250mah and charge right up to 4.2 with the included charger - so guessing they standard LiPo. I thought so on the low voltage, but didn't worry too much about it because I saw the low battery stuff in BF - initially not realizing that it doesn't work with this guy. It was only after watching some videos about solving some of the problems with this quad that I thought to test them.
I'll figure out how to set the timers on my Taranis and try playing with some times so I stay above 3.3v.
Thanks, Rick, They are 3.7v 250mah and charge right up to 4.2 with the included charger - so guessing they standard LiPo. I thought so on the low voltage, but didn't worry too much about it because I saw the low battery stuff in BF - initially not realizing that it doesn't work with this guy. It was only after watching some videos about solving some of the problems with this quad that I thought to test them.
I'll figure out how to set the timers on my Taranis and try playing with some times so I stay above 3.3v.
Gyro Doctor
Electronics Tech for over 45 years
That sounds like it could be ground effect. That happens when you're hovering too close to the ground (especially a smooth floor and less so in grass) because
the props are basically pulling in their own turbulence and losing lift. When practicing hovering stay several feet off the ground. You may also want to adjust your throttle curve.
Yes that's taking them too low. They "creep back up" because all LiPo batteries have a recovery period where the voltage builds back up on it's own a little bit, but it's still
not good for them to be drained that low.
That's not a very good way of gauging things but it's better than nothing. The battery levels after whatever flight time is a function of the type of flying done within that time.
Gentle flying may yield still good charges left on them (not harmful but not as much fun either), while aggressive flying may drain them too low in less than that same time
(harmful). I'd advise you to get one of those cheap battery monitors for about $2 so it starts beeping when it's time to land.