New Build: Baby Tricopter #2

[LitterBug]

Kevin,
I’d highly recommend you go with the RCExplorer F3FC racing if you plan on playing with dRonin. the F3FC Racing is well documented/supported for flying tricopters. That way you can go with both BetaFlight based TriFlight, and dRonin based TriFlight. Seppuku is dRonin only. The tail wag has NOTHING to do with CPU, and everything to do with yaw gain… Dropping back to TriFlight 0.5 solves the waggies in most cases.

Cheers!
LitterBug

[Axiom34]

How do I get Dronin on my BabyTricopter?

All the parts are from RCExplorer baby tricopter kit

[jihlein]

The F3FC is not officially support by dRonin, nor are the triflight enhancements. I maintain a private branch of the firmware that has both the F3Fc target and triflight. While the firmware still runs on F3 based targets, it won’t be long before the F3 processor no longer can support dRonin due to throughput issues. That being said, I just setup a DTFc F3 based tricopter last night and it flies just fine.

So my first question is what operating system are you using? If windows, I can create an installer package for you that will get you the dRonin GCS and necessary flight firmware for the F3Fc. Then you load the flight firmware onto the board with the STM DFUSE tool (you have to short the bootloader pins to enter DFU mode). After the inital flash, future dRonin firmware update can be done thru the GCS. I’ve never flown any of the *flight firmwares, but you may be able to use their config program to flash the dRonin firmware.

If you are running Linux, we might need to get @LitterBug to help, I believe he’s setup to build on Linux. He also has direct experience with dRonin on the F3Fc.

You could also setup a build environment, but that’s a lot of work……

After you get the firmware loaded, we can help you set it up. It’s pretty easy.

Tonight I’m going to setup my RCE Baby Tri with a Brain RE1 F4 controller.

[Axiom34]

Wow that would be awesome. I’m running windows 10.

I think this is so cool, I’m just starting to get into this side of the hobby and looking forward to learning alot.

I just looked up the BrainRE1 fc and I think I might have to use one in one of my next builds.
have you ever heard of these guys? https://www.alienflightng.com/flight-controllers/alienflight-controllers/

[jihlein]

@Axiom34:

I’ll get that installer package built in the next day or so, in the middle of kitchen remodel and that’s taking all my time at the moment…. 🙂

Regarding the alienflight controllers, I’m not sure there’s a compatible dRonin for them, I’d have to do some research there. I know the BrainRE1 can support both *Flight and dRonin, so that’s a nice controller if you are unsure which way you want to go long term.

[MadPoet]

@jihlein @litterbug not wanting to take over Litterbug’s post here, but I’d like to get in on this dronin stuff too. I am running a Mac, but could also use Linux if that is a problem. I had a look into a few month ago – but just didn’t know where to start.

RCExplorer Baby Tricopter with electronics kit.

[MadPoet]

@jihlein @litterbug further to my previous post, would this Brain FPV board also work: https://www.3dxr.co.uk/product/brainfpv-radix-fc/

I can’t seem to find the RE1 in the UK.

[jihlein]

@MadPoet unfortunately no, the BrainFPV Radix is not supported by dRonin. It needs to be the Brain RE1. I don’t have the link handy, but there is a list of supported boards on the dRonin website. The Seppuku is a good F4 based board. I don’t have any direct experience with it, but I know @litterbug does. It’s made by the same outfit that makes the DTFc, and that’s a very well made board, but only an F3.

I’m still swamped with other projects at the moment, but I’ve got some ideas on how to get both Linux and Mac based installers built…..

[jihlein]

@Axiom34 – Here’s an installer package created from myDronin branch. It includes an F3Fc target that has the triflight routines. You want to load the file EF_F3FX.hex that is in the dronin/build/f3fc folder. Loading this file will overwrite any existing *flight firmware. If you want to go back to *flight, you will have to short the boot pins to do the *flight reflash.

I think you can specify a hex file to flash from the *flight configurators. If so, that’s the easiest way to flash EF_F3FC.hex. If not, we can look at using the STM toolsets.

Start by running the installer package and seeing if you can run the dRonin GCS. Let me know how it goes.

https://1drv.ms/u/s!Am7KDquQANJl5lWSnLcm-yGLaWwp

Triflight on dRonin sets up differently, and has some additions over the betaflight version to help tune out the tail wags. It seems to work for me, we can go over the setup once we get you up and running.

Edit: I looked at the inav configurator and there is an option to “Load Firmware [Local]”. I believe this will allow you to choose the EF_F3FC.hex file and flash it.

[Axiom34]

@jihlein thanks for all of your effort, it’s really cool what you can do. I’m looking forward to testing this out this weekend.

[Axiom34]

@jihlein I managed to get the hex file onto my board and am able to run dRonin GCS and it recognizes the board. It does prompt when I plug in the board saying “the firmware version on your board does not match this version of GCS. Do you want to upgrade the firmware to a compatible version?” I figured that was probably normal and ignored it. However is seems that the Vehicle set up wizard doesn’t like that. So it seems like gonna need to set stuff up manually which isn’t a problem. I’m just unfamiliar with dRonin so don’t really know how yet, but i’ll mess around with it. Also how do i set up the tailtune stuff? and under the flight data tab of GCS is it normal to see the virtual model inverted when i plug in my f3fc?

Thanks in advance, looking forward to learning something new.

[jihlein]

@Axiom34, the firmware/gcs mismatch is not normal, it means I likely messed up making the installer unfortunately. I haven’t done that in a while, so I’ll generate a new one from scratch and post it tonight. Sorry about that. Simply uninstall the current one, and reinstall the new one. Connect your F3Fc, and let it upgrade the flight firmware. The setup wizard should work then. That should help you with the basic tricopter setup (not too sure here – I setup everything manually, so no direct experience with the wizard). It would be a good idea to just setup the tricopter mixer and get that flying, then we can enable the triflight stuff.

If I recall correctly, the two versions of the F3Fc don’t setup the same, the gyro is 180 degrees out of phase between the two. What you will need to do is on the attitude tab, run the automatic yaw detection and the automatic level detection, this should bring the virtual model into the correct orientation. I’m hoping @Litterbug can jump in here and help – I don’t have an F3Fc board to help guide you here, he’s got the most experience with it.

As far as triflight goes, in the configuration pane, in the UAVObject browser on the right, under settings, you will find a TriflightSettings object. The EnableTriflight object defaults to Disable, you must Enable it and save it. This object will only be active when the Tricopter mixer is selected on the Vehicle pane, so make sure that’s done first.

The limits on the tail servo deflection need to be setup on the output pane, not thru the tailtune function. I simply find that easier and coded it that way.

Motors should be connected to PWM 1,2, and 3, the tail servo to PWM 4. This way you can set the ESC update rate and servo update rate independently. I should note that I’ve never tried this with any of the digital ESC protocols, I simply use SyncPWM.

I think the servo fdbk is on ADC2. Again, sorry to be so vague on some of this as I don’t have the F3Fc in front of me.

Tailtune will need to be assigned to a switch on the Input pane, under Flight Mode Switch Settings.

Once all this is setup, you can run the ground based tailtune by selecting the mode from your TX, and then pulling the pitch stick back. Once it has completed successfully, you should see the ServoSpeed object updated in the UAVO browser.

There is also a TriflightStatus data object in the UAVObject browser. This object gives insight to the status of many of the internal triflight variables. It will tell you if the module successfully initialized, what channel it thinks the rear motor and tail servo have been setup on, the Servo Angle, and a few others. Very helpful for diagnosing setup problems.

Like anything, it’s probably overwhelming at first, but once you understand the flow, setup goes pretty fast. It is very different from *flight setup.

We might consider either a new thread at this point, or possibly taking this offline. You can contact me directly at jihlein”at”hotmail.com.

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[jihlein]

@Axiom34 – please try this one……

https://1drv.ms/u/s!Am7KDquQANJl5lZoXx6jV0OD10vJ

[LitterBug]

Back from Vaca in another world, and now it appears I have a lot of work to do before FliteFestEast18! I’ll pull your latest Git and give it a whirl too.

Cheers!
LitterBug

[LitterBug]

@axiom34, I can provide screenshots from my F3FC Racing Baby Tricopter builds if you like. I should also be able to help with any questions you have. Trying to get both babies and both mini tris on this latest version before FliteFest East next week, and possibly get my gynormous 550mm HK Y-3 tri going too. Looking forward to meeting @David there too.

Cheers!
LitterBug

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