550 Pilot's lounge

Wow!! That looks ultra smoorh. I like your skids. Which are those??

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OI Photography said:
Just to provide some evidence that I do actually fly my 550 sometimes, I had my "2nd-assitant photographer" (who is also my chef...and driver...and facilities operations manager...) grab some quick footage today with the best cell phone we had on hand lol.
Nice machine you got there, OI... I like how nice it flies and your control is smooth...

My f550 will take it's maiden flight within the next week, (if I have the balls to fly it)... I just have to balance the props and get a nice calm, flying day... Been windy every day for the last two weeks here. I won't even take my P1.5 out right now...

Anyway, stay tuned....
 
Nice rig OI Photography!

Today should be nice with winds only 7 or 8 mph. I'm hoping to get some time on the controls again today.

U.M.
 
OI Photography said:
Just to provide some evidence that I do actually fly my 550 sometimes, I had my "2nd-assitant photographer" (who is also my chef...and driver...and facilities operations manager...) grab some quick footage today with the best cell phone we had on hand lol.

It's mostly 10 minutes of boring simple maneuvers (I was just testing the battery and some controller settings), and the vid quality is crap, but it clearly shows how stable this thing can be...which is still my favorite part of owning one :D

Rock solid. Very nice. I have yet to get a still day to fly. Even in the desert, it was a brisk 15 mph. However, that is even more reason to have a heavier airframe. The P2 will bounce around a lot - the 550 will still bobble but it is darn stable.

Yours was like it was photo-shopped in.

Loved the clearance lights coming on after take-off. Show off! ;-}
 
Thanks for all the kind words...I honestly can't take too much credit for the stable flying, I had about every advantage in my favor at the time: absolutely no wind, it's fairly heavy, and I have a wookong on it. But as you can see, it looks like I have everything dialed in just right so far. The caveat is that now no matter how tight I get my Phantom, this makes it look about as stable as a 5-year old on Easter morning :D

ladykate said:
Loved the clearance lights coming on after take-off. Show off! ;-}

Are you talking about the blinky red/green lights underneath? You might be looking a the status lights on my 100A current sensor and my BEC...they're both tucked up underneath and don't come in to view until you can see that angle. I don't have anything set up to switch on or off at a certain altitude, although I believe that's something I can set up in my Taranis using the variometer (altitude sensor) I have onboard the 550. I have toyed with the idea of having landing lights (like the round LED 'headlight' for a Phantom, pointed straight down) that switch on at 10ft or less.

Oh, almost forgot...I went ahead and uploaded the onboard gopro vid from that same test flight yesterday I posted earlier. It's not any more exciting than the other one, but it does also illustrate how smooth that baby is...absolutely no hint of jello whatsoever, and the standard gopro mount is just bolted to straight to the bracket on the front of the landing gear. The gear and bracket do have their own anti-vibration measures, and it looks like they work beautifully.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPSDXmeSZ1M[/youtube]
 
I just finished installing my new skids. I did not work on the COG and it flew right on with no issues. I figured the placement of the HERO3 more forward would make it tilt forward but that did not happen. So I'm guessing the NAZA worked out the balance for me in-flight. None the less i'll work out the COG later.

Is that center rod between the skids really necessary?

F550_zpsa6cbbf16.jpg


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FangsCPO said:
Is that center rod between the skids really necessary?

I think so. I super glued it so it wasn't loose. Without it, the skids seem to be a bit flexible (too much).
 
ladykate said:
FangsCPO said:
Is that center rod between the skids really necessary?

I think so. I super glued it so it wasn't loose. Without it, the skids seem to be a bit flexible (too much).

I see that.....I'll super glue them.
 
FangsCPO said:
ladykate said:
FangsCPO said:
Is that center rod between the skids really necessary?

I think so. I super glued it so it wasn't loose. Without it, the skids seem to be a bit flexible (too much).

I see that.....I'll super glue them.
I agree, the center rod makes the skids much more stable. I did without it for a while, and sometimes they would separate terribly when the weight of the 550 was put on them. You can glue it on as others have done, or I just drilled a small hole in the brace and the connecter it goes into and secured them onto the main skids with a zip tie in case I ever wanted to remove it later.
 
ladykate said:
FangsCPO said:
Is that center rod between the skids really necessary?

I think so. I super glued it so it wasn't loose. Without it, the skids seem to be a bit flexible (too much).

That makes three of us then! Super glue the ends on, makes a good bit of difference in rigidity.

U.M.
 
Uncle Meat said:
That makes three of us then! Super glue the ends on, makes a good bit of difference in rigidity.

U.M.


If you don't do something (super glue, bolt, zip tie) then, if you pick it up by the gear, the cross piece will come out of the coupling and fall. Couldn't have that... I look bad enough at times anyway... dropping parts would complete the image.
 
I took her out today with the new landing skids. I'm not happy. I lost 2 minutes of flying time and I'm not a fan of having the battery hang from below. It flew better with the battery on top and the GPS kept everything level when I tried it for a few minutes yesterday. I will go out tomorrow and fly it for the max time with the battery on top and see how much flying time I get. The landing skids are great but not at the price of loosing 2 minutes.
 
FangsCPO said:
I took her out today with the new landing skids. I'm not happy. I lost 2 minutes of flying time and I'm not a fan of having the battery hang from below. It flew better with the battery on top and the GPS kept everything level when I tried it for a few minutes yesterday. I will go out tomorrow and fly it for the max time with the battery on top and see how much flying time I get. The landing skids are great but not at the price of loosing 2 minutes.


Did you allow for the CG change? That will make the NAZA do a little less work.
 
ladykate said:
FangsCPO said:
I took her out today with the new landing skids. I'm not happy. I lost 2 minutes of flying time and I'm not a fan of having the battery hang from below. It flew better with the battery on top and the GPS kept everything level when I tried it for a few minutes yesterday. I will go out tomorrow and fly it for the max time with the battery on top and see how much flying time I get. The landing skids are great but not at the price of loosing 2 minutes.


Did you allow for the CG change? That will make the NAZA do a little less work.

Yup, I had her balanced pretty good but I came up with 2 minutes less flying time. I'm going to do some slight modifying so I can keep the battery on top.
 
FangsCPO said:
ladykate said:
FangsCPO said:
I took her out today with the new landing skids. I'm not happy. I lost 2 minutes of flying time and I'm not a fan of having the battery hang from below. It flew better with the battery on top and the GPS kept everything level when I tried it for a few minutes yesterday. I will go out tomorrow and fly it for the max time with the battery on top and see how much flying time I get. The landing skids are great but not at the price of loosing 2 minutes.


Did you allow for the CG change? That will make the NAZA do a little less work.

Yup, I had her balanced pretty good but I came up with 2 minutes less flying time. I'm going to do some slight modifying so I can keep the battery on top.

I'm interested in what you find out. The more I look at my current setup, the more I want to try a different config. I'm thinking about moving my GPS mast to the very front or rear of the top plate, placing the battery dead center on the top plate, and ditching the Neewer FPV skid for a stock set of 450/550 legs and a batwing mount for the Zenmuse/Gopro.

U.M.
 
Uncle Meat said:
I'm interested in what you find out. The more I look at my current setup, the more I want to try a different config. I'm thinking about moving my GPS mast to the very front or rear of the top plate, placing the battery dead center on the top plate, and ditching the Neewer FPV skid for a stock set of 450/550 legs and a batwing mount for the Zenmuse/Gopro.

U.M.

Not me. I fell in love with the skid and fore/aft decks. I get about 9 mins+ out of the machine and that works for me (using the stock battery - 3s Storm 5500 mah) I used it last night to test out a gimbal that was suspect (as it ended up, it was just fine). The 550 is my testing/experimental machine and it really flies nicely with the skids. Of course, I think many of us are experimenting so taking the skid off and trying something else makes perfect sense.

I'm sure there are stick legs out there that are better than those plastic legs from DJI, though.

BTW: If you want a long flying larger machine, I just got an advertisement for an 8xxx motor with 25" props. They claim over an hour of flight with a 10 amp 6s on a quad (big quad).
 
I finally got my scale in and weighted my all-up-round 550 and it came in at 2340 grams!!! **** that's a lot heavier than I thought it would or should be. I haven't even added my FPV stuff yet! I've got to find a way of reducing some weight here. I feel flying this at close to its max suggested weight of 2400 grams is probably hurting the performance.

U.M.
 
ladykate said:
BTW: If you want a long flying larger machine, I just got an advertisement for an 8xxx motor with 25" props. They claim over an hour of flight with a 10 amp 6s on a quad (big quad).

I'm curious to see the details on that...was it the T-motor U series?
 
OI Photography said:
ladykate said:
BTW: If you want a long flying larger machine, I just got an advertisement for an 8xxx motor with 25" props. They claim over an hour of flight with a 10 amp 6s on a quad (big quad).

I'm curious to see the details on that...was it the T-motor U series?

Here are the motors: : http://www.foxtechfpv.com/foxtech-motor ... -1420.html
http://www.foxtechfpv.com/foxtech-motor ... -1421.html

Test Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hR1rga-HzQ

Here is the prop: http://www.foxtechfpv.com/2685-carbon-f ... -1441.html


It's for the Tmotor U8 or Foxtech 8108. They don't show a built quad - just say it can do it.
 

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