I've had a Crazyflie (6 DOF) for a while now and for the life of me, I can't fly it worth anything. I can get it to lift off, fly about a little, but it's just too crazy to really keep under control. I had a buddy come over who has LOTS of experience in flying things like quads/helis/jets and the such and even he couldn't keep the thing stable (he did fly it much better than I did of course). It likes to do things like hit walls, thrust too hard up high and such. There is no one such thing it does wrong, but it will NOT hover. Neither of us could hover the thing.
I've already gone through 5 or 6 pages of the forums looking for ideas on what to check, and I can't find anything wrong. My motors are all in the right place (matching the marking on the arms with the solder-pads and altering black/white) and all the blades are installed in accordance with the Wiki on assembly. (If you don't believe, which I'm sure you won't, I can upload some images. I'll just have to take some).
Let me know what information to gather to see what can help with this.
Side-Note: My crazy radio seems to loose connection to the crazyflie intermittently but consistently. I can't say it's every 5 mins or anything, but it definitely doesn't stay connected. I have tried a few different configurations for the radio too.
I'm running this with a pseudo-PS3 controller in Windows 7 (bootcamp on a MacBook Pro).
Thanks.
Crazyflie won't hover -- hard to fly
Re: Crazyflie won't hover -- hard to fly
Do you have any input lag while flying the Crazyflie? I had similar problems - the Flie going completely crazy, hardly seeming to respond to commands (and completely impossible to hover) and it turned out there was a significant delay between me using the controls and the commands being sent to the Flie. Unfortunately this has only ever happened to me once, so I can't say what actually caused it. I completely believe you've assembled everything to correctly; if you hadn't, you wouldn't even be getting off the ground 
One thing to try might be experimenting with the Bitcraze VM, using VirtualBox within OS X. This should help us narrow down the problem by using a known-good OS configuration. If you need a hand getting set up with the VM, post here and I'll try to help you out.
One thing to try might be experimenting with the Bitcraze VM, using VirtualBox within OS X. This should help us narrow down the problem by using a known-good OS configuration. If you need a hand getting set up with the VM, post here and I'll try to help you out.
Re: Crazyflie won't hover -- hard to fly
Thanks for the swift response
I started downloading the VM last night and will give it a try later this evening. I was thinking the same thing... Better to get to a known working configuration.
As far as input lag -- Yes. But I can't say it happens all the time, but I do believe it happens a decent amount of the time. I'll try the VM and see if anything changes.
I started downloading the VM last night and will give it a try later this evening. I was thinking the same thing... Better to get to a known working configuration.
As far as input lag -- Yes. But I can't say it happens all the time, but I do believe it happens a decent amount of the time. I'll try the VM and see if anything changes.
Re: Crazyflie won't hover -- hard to fly
It could also be caused by a bad radio connection due to interference. Try adjusting the radio channel and bit rate from the bootloader menu. Try e.g. channel 80 and 2Mbit which tend to be good in WiFi areas.
Re: Crazyflie won't hover -- hard to fly
I have adjusted the radio configuration a tad, I'll try your suggestion too given that I'm in a WiFi Radio-Active Site 
there's at least a hundred networks in a 1,000 foot radius!
there's at least a hundred networks in a 1,000 foot radius!Re: Crazyflie won't hover -- hard to fly
Alright. update time.
So.... I've got the VM downloaded, (had to run it through VMWare's OVF Tool to convert it to a Parallels compatible VM) and it's booted.
I can attached the CrazyRadio and verify a connection is established to the Crazyflie.... √
I can't however get the PS3 (some cheap thing off Amazon, Gasia I think) controller to work as an input device. It is detected, and the Crazyflie software SEES the input, but no input is actually detected. Positive throttle is not increasing throttle in the Crazyflie Client. Trying to re-map the controller to custom values doesn't work -- it's not detecting the input.
Not sure what to do here. The PS3 is attached via USB to the computer.
So.... I've got the VM downloaded, (had to run it through VMWare's OVF Tool to convert it to a Parallels compatible VM) and it's booted.
I can attached the CrazyRadio and verify a connection is established to the Crazyflie.... √
I can't however get the PS3 (some cheap thing off Amazon, Gasia I think) controller to work as an input device. It is detected, and the Crazyflie software SEES the input, but no input is actually detected. Positive throttle is not increasing throttle in the Crazyflie Client. Trying to re-map the controller to custom values doesn't work -- it's not detecting the input.
Not sure what to do here. The PS3 is attached via USB to the computer.
Re: Crazyflie won't hover -- hard to fly
While running an imitation on an imitation sounds like enough of a problem, your description sounds a lot more like severe packet loss due to excessive radio interference. I do not think the radio chip on the CrazyRadio uses frequency hopping or other spread spectrum tricks, so it is going to be very susceptible to interference from other radio sources. IMHO, you should probably try moving the operating frequency as far from any local WiFi, Bluetooth, cordless phone, or other ISM band radio interference as possible.mire3212 wrote: I'm running this with a pseudo-PS3 controller in Windows 7 (bootcamp on a MacBook Pro).
FWIW I had so many problems with a real PS3 on a real Windows system that I gave up and ordered an Xbox 360 controller that comes prepackaged with drivers that work. Still wait for it though.
Re: Crazyflie won't hover -- hard to fly
zak wrote:Tne thing to try might be experimenting with the Bitcraze VM, using VirtualBox within OS X. This should help us narrow down the problem by using a known-good OS configuration. If you need a hand getting set up with the VM, post here and I'll try to help you out.
Well Zak, at this point I'm not able to get the VM able to fly the quad because it't not detecting the input from the fake PS3 controller. I know I can use MotionJoy to make the input work, but now we're back to using Windows... doesn't do much good trying to isolate the OS/Configuration.
Any ideas?
Re: Crazyflie won't hover -- hard to fly
Ok - this sounds fairly strange. Just to see if it is input lag rather than radio interference, can you try connecting to the Flie in Windows, holding on to it and then manipulating the controls? If you can see how client responds to the controller as well as how the Flie appears to be interpreting its movements, that might give us a clue as to whether input lag is in fact the problem.
Also, have you tried changing the 2.4 GHz channel that the Flie is using as suggested by tobias? It might be a good idea to run a quick scan to see which channels are being used nearby so you can choose the one that's best for your Flie. This can be done from within OS X - go to /System/Library/CoreServices and run 'Wireless Diagnostics' (this may be in a folder called 'Applications' if you're on 10.9; if you're using 10.7 it may be called 'WiFi Diagnostics'). Enter your password, ignore the initial screen and select Window -> Utilities then run a scan to see who is using which channel nearby.
If all this fails, we can see about getting your controller running within the VM. It might take a bit of work, but since the VM and Crazyflie client already see it, most of the hard stuff is probably already done. Let's see how we go with the other options first though.
Also, have you tried changing the 2.4 GHz channel that the Flie is using as suggested by tobias? It might be a good idea to run a quick scan to see which channels are being used nearby so you can choose the one that's best for your Flie. This can be done from within OS X - go to /System/Library/CoreServices and run 'Wireless Diagnostics' (this may be in a folder called 'Applications' if you're on 10.9; if you're using 10.7 it may be called 'WiFi Diagnostics'). Enter your password, ignore the initial screen and select Window -> Utilities then run a scan to see who is using which channel nearby.
If all this fails, we can see about getting your controller running within the VM. It might take a bit of work, but since the VM and Crazyflie client already see it, most of the hard stuff is probably already done. Let's see how we go with the other options first though.
Re: Crazyflie won't hover -- hard to fly
Hey Zak, thanks for the response. I know it's been like a week but it's been crazy. I'll hopefully get a chance to try this tomorrow or the following day and I'll post the results.