Maiden flight with Naza M Lite with GPS

I forgot the GoPro microSD card at home so I don't have any video to show you today!

I have tried first without the gimbal and the camera, just in case the Naza does some funny things and I end up crashing the quad and braking any of them. I have calibrated the compass, no problems at all, and waited until the green light indicates more than 6 satellites have been found.

• Manual mode: It seems to fly ok. I've never used this mode yet, I don't feel confident at all!

• Atti mode: It feels to me that the flight is really good. I've noticed that the quad keeps the direction with no yaw apparently. I had this issue with the KK2 before, and had to be correcting it with the TX all the time. 

• Atti GPS mode: I can't complain at all! Flying with this mode is not as aggressive as atti, but you release the sticks and the quad remains in that position, even if it's windy. 

• Course Lock: After you plug your battery in, it takes about 30 seconds or maybe less to automatically record the nose position. So when you activate Course Lock, no matter the position of the quad is, that you only have to think on that starting position. It's a bit confusing but you get used to it in no time.

• Home Lock: Be aware that you have to be further than 10 mts from the TX in order of having this feature working. No matter where the quad is or the nose position, It will come to you once you bring it backwards with the TX. Notice that it will enter into Course Lock one the quad is less than 10 mts from you.

• Return To Home: I accidentally tried this feature, because my TX ran out of battery. I had this beep warning me about it but I thought I had more time for flying. It is fantastic! It should have been a crash without the Naza. Instead, the quad went up 20 mts, came to the vertical where I was, started descending slowly, and it gently and smoothly landed. Wow. I am impressed! 

• Voltage protection: I had it ON the first time. It works fine, when you have not enough battery it lands itself (in atti or atti GPS modes). But in my opinion it does it really soon, even if you set up the parameters as you want. I was used before to the voltage alarm connected directly to the battery, so I've switched this feature off and I land when it starts beeping, giving me a bit more of flight time.

• Remote gain settings: I haven't noticed any change on the quad behavior when I've modified the gains... I'll test it better next time!

Be aware not to fly close to power line towers. At least in my case, as soon as I got closer (less than 120 mts), the quad started doing weird things (atti and atti gps), loosing a bit of control. It seems to enter into failsafe but I'm not sure what is going on...

And just for your information, fully loaded (FPV and battery, gimbal and battery, GoPro = 1.8kg) and using the 4000mAh Turnigy battery, I had 8.5 minutes of flight time. I went up to 10 minutes with the 5000mAh one.

Replacing KK2 board with NAZA M Lite with GPS

I've been thinking for long to get a flight control board with GPS, in order of improving safety when flying, and another nice features.

There are several boards available, but I've decided to buy the DJI NAZA M Lite with GPS. It's not the most advanced model, but it has the features I want and it's affordable.

For entry-level enthusiasts, DJI now brings out the most cost-effective solution, the NAZA-M Lite flight control system. As the simplified version of NAZA-M, it inherits the high reliability and stability of NAZA-M. The innovative All-in-one design simplifies installation and saves space and weight. It contains inner damping, controllers, 3-axis gyroscope, 3-axis accelerometer and barometer in its light and small Main Controller. It can measure flying altitude, attitude and therefore can be used for autopilot/automatic control.

 

 

It offers three types of control modes:

• GPS Atti. Mode (with GPS module): when you release the sticks, it locks the current position.
• Atti. Mode: when you release the sticks, the attitude is stabilized.
• Manual Mode.

Then, there are three options for the Intelligence Orientation Control (IOC)

• Course Lock: the forward direction is the same as a recorded nose direction (the nose direction is recorded when the battery is connected)
• Home Lock: the forward direction is the same as the direction from home point to the multi-rotor.
• Deactivated

Another useful features are

• Failsafe mode: when the communication between the main controller and the transmitter is disconnected and the GPS module is used, you can set Return To Home (RTH) so the multi-rotor will come back to the taking off position and land by itself. You can also set the failsafe for landing wherever the multi-rotor is at that moment.
• Low voltage protection: in order to prevent your multi-rotor from crashing or other harmful consequences caused by low battery voltage, the multi-rotor will descend and land if you are using GPS atti mode or atti mode.
• Gimbal stabilization: the system will adjust the gimbal and camera according to the attitude of the multi-rotor after setting the parameters the first time.

Physical set up

Versatile Unit, directly welded to the frame.

Front

Front connections 

Left

Right

Top

Back

Configuring the Futaba S8FG. I use the SBUS for connecting the the Naza main controller (MC) with the Futaba R6208SB receiver. Just one cable :). I´ve created a new model and selected the following channels:

• ch5: Remote gain control
• ch6: IOC: three positions: off, course lock, home lock
• ch7: Flight mode: three positions: manual, atti, atti GPS
• ch8 Tarot T-2D gimbal pitch control.  I preffer to connect the gimbal pitch cable directly to the receiver at this point, and being able to control its orientation using the right slider of the transmitter. If you connect it to the F2 port of the Naza MC, the gimbal  will automatically be orientated depending on the multi-rotor attitude, and as far as I know, you won´t be able to control the pitch...

Model type

Channel selection

Channel selection

The next step is reversing the channels, if needed. In my case I had to reverse the rudder and the right slider for the gimbal.

Channel reverse

I guess the settings for activating the fail safe depends on your transmitter. In my case I used the Throttle and the ch7 for activating it. I´ve tried two ways of doing it:

• When the signal is lost (either the multi-rotor is out of range or you switch the transmitter off) the fail safe is activated. 
• Sacrificing the manual flight mode position and configure it for activating the fail safe manually. If you do this, then you won´t be able to calibrate the compass from now on until you configure the manual position again. For this reason I prefer the option 1, and be able to have manual flight mode and calibrating whenever I want.

Fail safe

Fail safe

Relating the end point configuration, I have the first 4 channels and the IOC with the default values, and I have only modified the remote gain control, the flight mode to be more precise with the selection, and the gimbal pitch control.

• When the signal is lost (either the multi-rotor is out of range or you switch the transmitter off) the fail safe is activated. 
• Sacrificing the manual flight mode position and configure it for activating the fail safe manually. If you do this, then you won´t be able to calibrate the compass from now on until you configure the manual position again. For this reason I prefer the option 1, and be able to have manual flight mode and calibrating it whenever I want. 

End point

End point

The following videos have been really useful to me in order of having the quad working with the Naza. Well, I could not configure the home lock, for some reason the VU shows the red light, but I´m into it.

Naza and Futaba SBUS connection

Naza installation and setup guide (3 parts)

You should read as well the quick start guide for the Naza M Lite with GPS. You will find how to use the software and many other tips and things to have into account.

From this page of DJI, you´ll need to download the Assistant Software and the Driver installer. Follow the previous video and you won´t have any problem at all :).

And now let´s wait until it stops raining and get this thing into the air to check the behavior!!