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Flight school

Posted: Thu May 09, 2013 2:14 am
by jweather
Hopefully this will help somebody else... I would love to see this documented better on the wiki:

Expectations
- expect the Crazyflie to be wildly unstable for your first few (hundred) flights, depending on skill level. I've never flown anything but paper airplanes before, so I had a bit of a learning curve.
- try it out in a large, padded room. The more room you have to correct your mistakes before hitting a wall, the better.
- Hovering might be one of the hardest things to do. I actually have better luck when I'm trying to make it go somewhere than when I try to keep it still.

Control layout
- one stick controls thrust (up/down) and yaw (rotation). You should set the yaw (see below) to match your gamepad's orientation and leave it for now.
- the other stick controls pitch and roll, this will start your Crazyflie moving horizontally in the given direction. Release (center) stick to stop moving -- assuming it's trimmed correctly.

Startup orientation
- when you turn on the Crazyflie, that yaw (rotation) orientation is what it will try to hold. Orient it the same way you and your gamepad is facing so it will be ready to go. The on/off switch is on the front right corner, or look for the M1 marking on the bottom.
- if you turn it differently on the ground, it will begin rotating (yawing) immediately on takeoff to reach its target yaw -- I didn't understand this for a while
- when you crash land (which is every landing initially), the yaw orientation will likely change. Reboot it or use short hops with the thrust while adjusting yaw to get it back where it should be before you try to steer again (unless you're much more spatially minded than me)

Trim
- trim is likely needed to offset imbalances in the weight or motor/prop efficiencies. If it consistently drifts one direction on takeoff, apply trim in the opposite direction. Forward = positive pitch, apply negative trim if it drifts forward. Right = positive roll, apply negative trim if it drifts right.
- You can reduce the amount of trim needed by centering the battery better. Try putting the sticky tape on first wherever it will fit, then center the battery on the PCB, not the tape.
- you can set up buttons on your gamepad to adjust trim, this is much more intuitive than using the GUI. You cannot currently assign D-pad buttons to adjust trim.
- trim may change after scuffing up the props a bit!

Finally... this thing is awesome! Thank you so much for your hard work, Bitcraze.

Re: Flight school

Posted: Thu May 09, 2013 8:34 am
by foosel
Also: use a piece of colored tape (I used blue 3m 2090) and mark the arm of motor 1 with it, this helps you to determine the forward facing side of your copter.

Re: Flight school

Posted: Thu May 09, 2013 8:40 am
by smiler
Another thing that might help with orientation is to put the client into X-mode. Then the bright blue led will indicate the direction of the tail.

Re: Flight school

Posted: Thu May 09, 2013 9:09 am
by marcus
Hi,

Good tips and instructions!
jweather wrote:Hopefully this will help somebody else... I would love to see this documented better on the wiki
We created a page on the wiki for tips and tricks on flying but we haven't had the time to fill it out properly. If you want to help out with the instructions then drop me an email at <mynick>@bitcraze.se and I will set you up with an account.

/Marcus

Re: Flight school

Posted: Thu May 09, 2013 12:44 pm
by skube
smiler wrote:Another thing that might help with orientation is to put the client into X-mode. Then the bright blue led will indicate the direction of the tail.
Are you sure? According to this page, when in X-mode the blue LED will be on the right.

Re: Flight school

Posted: Thu May 09, 2013 1:45 pm
by jweather
skube wrote:
smiler wrote:Another thing that might help with orientation is to put the client into X-mode. Then the bright blue led will indicate the direction of the tail.
Are you sure? According to this page, when in X-mode the blue LED will be on the right.
Yes, the diagram is wrong -- the blue LED is the tail in client X-mode. I haven't quite gotten the hang of X-mode yet... I can't tell if it's changing how the pitch and roll trims are applied, or I just can't remap my brain that fast.

Re: Flight school

Posted: Thu May 09, 2013 2:29 pm
by marcus
jweather wrote: Yes, the diagram is wrong -- the blue LED is the tail in client X-mode.
Thanks for pointing this out, I've uploaded a corrected image (I'm really happy I manged to find the source svg :D )

/Marcus

Re: Flight school

Posted: Thu May 09, 2013 7:39 pm
by jtang613
Also somewhat related is my post on the learning approach I used:
http://forum.bitcraze.se/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=126#p583

Re: Flight school

Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2016 10:54 am
by lakshmipoola
Buddy @jweather, you saved my day. I was about to give up on my CF2, till I stumbled on to your post. I was going nuts not being able to figure out my CF2. With your explanation I got it stabilized and actually enjoying flying my CF2!!! Thanks :)

Re: Flight school

Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2016 12:18 pm
by jweather
Nice, glad to hear it.