Tag Archives: taranis

Featured, Helicopter, How tos

RC Helicopter Curves

This is how I do my curves on my helicopters. It is very basic set up and the curves and speed my change from heli to heli. This can be a good baseline for setup and you may tune your own curves from here.

First before setting up any curves make sure your helicopter motor is disabled.

The first thing I do is set up 4 curves, 2 throttle curves and 2 pitch curves. First let us look at the Normal mode Curves.

Normal Mode

Normal Mode Throttle Curve
Normal Mode Pitch Curve

 

I have set the throttle speed for normal mode at 80% throttle. When you throttle up the head speed goes from 0 to 80% by mid stick (point 1). That why the head speed will be full when you start to add pitch. Pitch will be at 0 when the throttle is at  when the head speed is 80 %. After this point you will not be adding head speed only pitch, as you move the throttle stick up. This way  when you switch to Idle up/stunt mode  the heli will not hop or drop. Also while in positive pitch if you switch to Idle Up/Stunt mode the head speed and the pitch will be the same. Note about negative pitch on normal mode — I always put some negative pitch on normal modes in case you need to hold the heli down tight during spin up, in windy conditions.

Idle UP/Stunt mode

 

Idle Up Throttle Curve
Idle Up Pitch Curve

When you switch to Idle Up/Stunt mode. You should be in a mild positive pitch. All positions above the center point (point 2should be the same in normal mode and Idle UP. Speed and Pitch will be the same. This way the heli will not move when you make the switch between modes.

Once the heli is off the ground you should switch to Idle Up and keep it there for the duration of your flight. This pitch curve gives you much more control during autos.

How tos

Open TX Companion 2.1.xx for X64 Fedora

opentx

Since they only release a 32 bit version of the RPM form Fedora, I had to build the x64 bit version from source. Here are the steps I used to build it. You should be able to follow these steps even if you have no build experience. You just need to cut an past these commands into a Fedora terminal.  This is a how to of for OpenTX Companion on Fedora, although it should work for OpenTX Companion on CentOS andOpenTX Companion on Redhat also.

First you need to get everything you will need to build Open TX Companion 2.1 .

As root run:
dnf install git gcc svn qt qt-devel cmake patch xsd gcc-c++ SDL-devel phonon phonon-devel avr-gcc-c++ PyQt4 fox-devel avr-libc xerces-c-devel
Run the following commands as a normal user:
  1. git clone https://github.com/opentx/opentx
  2. cd opentx
  3. git checkout master
  4. cd opentx/companion
  5. mkdir lbuild
  6. cd lbuild
  7. cmake ../src
  8. make clean
  9. make

Now become root and run:

make install

You should have Companion 2.1 installed and ready to go.

 

Enjoy

How tos

How to add and test a LUA script to Open TX Companion

LUA scripts can make the Taranis radio even more powerful. Here is a little how to with LUA scripts and testing of those scripts. The scripts used in the demo are listed below.

How to add a LUA script to Open TX Companion

OpenTX Companion Testing Telemetry Scripts 

This is the Temp LUA script.

tempscreenlua

temp.lua

— Temp Screen
— Version 0.5 Brad Kelley
— setup for Trex500
local escTemp = 0
local battTemp = 0
local function background()
escTemp = getValue(“Tmp1”)
battTemp = getValue(“Tmp2”)

end
local function run(event)
background()
print(event)

lcd.clear()

lcd.drawText(1,0,’Trex500 Temps’,INVERS)

lcd.drawText(1,15,’Batt Temp:’,0)
lcd.drawText(1,30,battTemp,DBLSIZE)

lcd.drawText(90,15,’ESC Temp:’,0)
lcd.drawText(90,30,escTemp,DBLSIZE)

end
return { background=background, run=run }

 

 

Here is the  Head speed Calc LUA script.

headspeed

head.lua

— Headspeed Calc
— Version 1.0 Brad Kelley
— setup for Trex500
local maingear = 162
local piniongear = 14
local rpm = 18000
local gearratio = 0
local headspeed = 0

local function init()
gearratio = math.floor((maingear / piniongear) * 100 ) / 100
rpm = getValue(“RPM”)
end
local function background()
rpm = getValue(“RPM”)

headspeed = math.floor((rpm / gearratio) * 100 ) / 100

end
local function run(event)
background()
print(event)

lcd.drawText(1,0,’Trex500 Headspeed’,INVERS)

lcd.drawText(1,15,’Main Gear:’,SMLSIZE)
lcd.drawText(60,15,maingear,SMLSIZE)

lcd.drawText(1,22,’Pinion Gear:’,SMLSIZE)
lcd.drawText(60,22,piniongear,SMLSIZE)

lcd.drawText(1,29,’Gear Ratio:’,SMLSIZE)
lcd.drawText(60,29,gearratio,SMLSIZE)

lcd.drawText(1,43,’RPM:’,SMLSIZE)
lcd.drawText(40,43,rpm,SMLSIZE)

lcd.drawText(90,15,’Head Speed:’,0)
lcd.drawText(90,30,headspeed,DBLSIZE)

end
return { init=init, background=background, run=run }

How tos

Thunder KK Pro and the Taranis

Leave a comment

I recently got a Taranis Transmitter and I love it. I started going through my models binding them with my radio. I got stuck on my 250 Quad running a cheap Thunder KK Pro. It took me a while to confugre my radio to work with this and the Spectrum satellite I am running on it. First I had to confirm that the Channels were set up correctly then I had to set the throttle to 125% so it would arm. I noticed that the rudder was backwards so I had to change that up. I didn’t find much info on the internet for this set up, so I figured I would write it up for you.

Here is my set up that is working great for me.

The main screen just basic stuff.
screen1

Here are the two flight modes I added.

flightmodes

Here are the basic inputs.

inputs

Here is the mixer setup.mixerServo setup.
servosThis is the one curve I used.
curvesThe special Functions screen.specialfuncThat is how i set up my Thunder KK Pro Flight controller for my little Quadcopter. If you need any more info or a shortcut. I included my eepe file 250Quad.eepe.