I'm like Pete, I like to have some goals and then compare every so often. In 2015, I gained a new hobby that has successfully scratched my itch for flying, which is ace as I can sneak out for a few hours, be in the fresh air and spend time with geeks. There is also something to spend my meagre pocket money on.
Gaming
- Play fewer computer games during the week. Save it for playing with friends. GTA V/Trove/etc have been great fun with Big R and EMW and I get a big kick out of them. All other games have left me cold, being too grindy. I'll still kick over a bit of MC, which I still enjoy.
- Release Icar Fleet Setting. It's so close now, I can taste it. I have even done the front cover, which pulled out all the stops. It'll get done in 2016
- Play Icar once a week. Has been OK on Roll20 but I do miss face to face gaming in a big way. I don't want to set up or fracture the group, so I will have to just live with it.
(I'd also like to release the deep space setting because it's 70% written already! It's not as big as the Fleet Setting. The only thing that'll stop me is that I'll still be playing the sodding thing!)
Drone
- Go to a national race (not compete).
- Go to the national expo (I enjoyed it this year)
- Build a second quad, I need a spare in case I total mine. I can do it much cheaper second time around and I want to build a smaller one I can fly in smaller spaces.
I want to find a place to fly during the week near my new job (Green Park) should be doable, not really a resolution, just a thing.
Writing
- Finish my novel. I have the ending. I have 78,000 words. It needs a fat edit.
- Write 250 words a day. I think I can do this. This year.
Edit - inspired by Pete's Strava insert, here's the one I keep in Google Spreadsheets. The first one is the whole year, the blue line is 250 words a day cumulative.
This one should update based on the daily progress. The Icar blog post put me way over target.
Social
Go out more. Simple as that. Get organised.
Beyond all that, I need to settle into my new job and start earning my wage. I want to reduce my overdraft but with Kate's therapy course (and her physio and driving lessons) and my dental work, it's been nigh-on impossible. More dental work is on the way (there's always something) but hopefully we can manage our cash better. There should be slack in the accounts, we just never seem to have any!
We're going to Devon on holiday this year. It'll be a cottage affair but beyond that I have no idea what it'll be about.
Your turn!
Comments
What is the race calendar like for drone-flying?
I'm not entirely sure there is a huge amount of free space near Green Park...what with AWE, all the development work, the solar farm and the lakes (I'm assuming flying over lakes is a somewhat bad idea?) despite it being quite green, I think a lot of it is quite restricted access (though I suppose you have quite an easy in...)
Last year's race calendar was quite sparse, there were probably 8 or 9 events. Next year it's going to be mental. Probably closer to 20 and many of them are in the South East, so not more than an hour away. The best thing about race events is that you can often "ride onboard" if you have goggles because they're transmitting over open analogue, so anyone can watch along. I'll post up dates when I'm looking at going.
Green Park is public land, weirdly. My exclusion is 50m from people, roads and buildings and up to 1000ft but I never go higher than 300ft. It's about being low and fast. There are some fields directly north of Longwater avenue that I'll scout out when I'm on the bicycle next week. I can easily be clear of re3, and there's always the old dog track, although I'm not sure how easy it is to get in there. My hobby often makes me feel like a criminal, you know.
Good set. I should write mine down this year... was zero point last as it amounted to 'get climbing'
Thank you, mate!
I can tell from your facebook feed that you did just that! I've found it's easier to hit them if life is a little more settled. I didn't quite feel that way in 2015, although I realised recently that I did quite a lot of stuff for my RPG Icar. It's so difficult to see what you have achieved, so easy to see the mountain left to climb.
I've added my word count graphs into the post!
Access to those fields may soon become very tricky, as they are going to build Green Park Village there...I believe the plans were signed off just before Christmas. I think the field above the tree-line is old landfill (if you zoom in on Google Maps you can see the methane vent pipes), and I would say that no-one would be daft enough to build on that, but people are stupid (Gill and I did briefly consider this development, but a combination of Taylor-Wimpey, proximity to the river, and the land being ex-landfill dissuaded us).
Thanks for the headsup, mate. I'll scout it out, if it can serve me for a few lunchtimes, that would be grand. There's a place in Bracknell woods that's really good but it's a bit of a trek. There's also lots of trees.
Do you get much issue with the POV camera and exposure adjustments? It was notable on the video that the camera you've using swaps quite slowly, and then suddenly... In a shaded area like the forest, that must be a real pain!
Oh, something else I was thinking of, though not 100% sure on what you have available.
Go Pro have a free tool called Dashware (Link to Site) which take various telemetry and allows you to build dashboards that overlay your video. Cyclists obviously use it for speed, power, HR, elevation etc etc, but it has loads of flight options in there as well... I don't know if drones have a telemetry capacity, or if you could bolt one on (at a pinch you could get a cycling one, but they only record at a rate of 1fps effectively, and may not respond quick enough for a rapid-moving drone), but it would be pretty cool if you could get speed/heading/altitude (G-Force?) overlaid on these videos.
The POV camera reacts much better (it's a security camera really) but you still get some fade. I think the HD cam I have can do that but I'm buggered if I've managed to get it set up correctly. Also, there are telemetry options coming out of one's bunghole. Most feed straight to the goggles but the telemetry isn't as interesting as you might thing when you hooning along at 3-5 feet off the dirt! Some capture pretty detailed stuff but I'm more about getting it fast and "locked in" (technical term for feeling just right).
The video above is particularly shit because I set the flight controller up wrong!
Babyc's right about the Green Park Village, it's all boarded off. There is another field that's open between the construction site and RE3 but it was waterlogged. Purely out of interest, I walked down to the car park of the old dog track and although it is concrete-blocked off to stop travellers, there is a massive hole in the fence that I snuck through and got 5 batteries of flight time with no crashes! Really glad that there is somewhere really close that I can fiddle with settings and practise during lunchtime, even if it is a bit boring without trees to fly around! :)
even if it is a bit boring without trees to fly into.
Fixed ;)
HAHA! Yes, that's fair, mate. You bastard. To be fair, I hate the rate (open loop gain bit like a digital pre-amp) set farrrrr too high. I've reduced it down to something sensible now and it's much easier to fly. The new PID controller comes with stock values for PID so you only really need to mess with the rates and expo in the flight controller.
I've not really got into the tree crashing element the tri is too big and not really maneuverable enough for that. I did pick up a racing quad kit end of last year (the flight test versacopter 280 3s setup) flew it once but for some reason it was wildly unstable wobbling all over the shop and it smashed into concrete bending one of the motors. Might have been the flight controller it's a naze32 rev6 which had just come out and it seems to have some issues. I replaced the bent motor redid the broken bits of the frame but it must have damaged one of the other motors less noticeably as it wouldn't spin up just did that juddering thing. Not got round to replacing that yet.
The Rev6 has had some problems but I think they're mostly sorted. I'm still on Naze32 Rev5 running BetaFlight and the Luxfloat controller. It's ace. I haven't had to do any PID tuning, just set the expo, rates and the TPI cut off (a gain reduction from a given throttle level) to reduce oscillations I get just around full throttle.
I think my next quad will be a scratch built 180 running 3s, Naze32 Rev 6, Little Bee 20A Esc, with 4045 bullnose props. There's a chap that I fly with that has three (different frames) and they go like shit of a shovel. By his own admission he's not a very quick pilot. He likes them for indoor and carpark flying.
I keep looking at little quad builds 180 or 150's recon I could put something together fairly cheaply around 100 bucks for parts but really should get the one I've already paid for going first :D
Was looking at the new Vortex250 pro which they do in ATF just needs the transmitter everything else on board and it uses a OSD for all the configuration and control looks like it goes like a rocketship too but little on the pricey side at 500 bucks.
I"ve looked at some of the atf 145's or 200's but they all seem to save space by intergrating the esc's into the quad's arms which seems foolhardy plus they seem to be made of pcb material which cracks pretty easily.
Think the naze rev6 in the versacopter was fried or dodgy was getting scalding hot to the touch with just usb which isn't a good sign.
Swapped it out with an multiwii (hobbyking kk2 I think) I had lying around I was toying with some brushed stuff with it. Took the thing out at lunch today flew pretty well after a few mishaps that required new props and in one instance some duct tape. It also doesn't idle the props when armed and you can't read the screen except when right above it which is somewhat precarious so telling when it was armed and ready was tricky.
Tried the little camera and transmitter package I built (following this guide http://blog.oscarliang.net/diy-micro-fpv-setup-vtx-camera-v2/ ) for fpv the camera worked pretty well the signal was strong for such a tiny unit. However it was a bit too high dynamic range the ground completely dark the sky vivid blue. Might take it somewhere with less shadows and more space to really open it up. Tried acro mode briefly flew for a bit till I lost it and ended up in a cartwheel and another broken prop.
Still the most successful flight thus far by the metric of the machine still being functional when I finished.
Congrats! Props are the new fuel!
The vortex is awesome, a friend here has one. Solid bugger. I'd go 180 if I were you. There is a sweet spot with 18xx motors, 20A ESC, 4s batteries and bullnose 4" 4045 props. Tricky to get an HD camera on though. I can write up my parts list if you like - most of it is China or stateside... Suppliers in USA much better stocked than over here.
Picked up a replacement controller for the versacopter though what I was getting was a naze rev5 but it turned out to be a emax skyline 32 acro which is a naze clone but different board it is cleanflight compatible tho. Tried to load betaflight on it but it had this issue where the motors just constantly spun as soon as it got power tried fiddling but couldn't get it to work so reverted to cleanflight and that seemed to work fine.
Wanted to take it out today but don't have the time as I've got a book club thing this evening which means leaving earlier so don't have the time to wander off at lunch.
I'd be interested to see your thinking on the 180 I've been looking at the 150's mostly that's a 3s setup with 1306 motors 20amp esc but I've seen quite a few floating around that suggested it might be a good way to go. Seen a lot of guides of how to cut down props to make your own bullnose ones of any size as finding smaller bullnose props seemed more difficult. I've been using hobbyking for a lot of stuff they are china based (they have usa warehouses but they don't stock as much and often take a long time to get things as it's just coming from china anyway) they have a pretty good range of bits. Was considering 3d printing the frame for a 150 or 180 myself since then if it takes a tumble I can just run off another one. but my good printer is a bit too small for that sort of footprint. Might manage a 150 if I made it in bits.
There is a setting to turn off props when armed. It's on the first page of cleanflight.
I'm currently having a conversation with someone about 220 vs 180. I'll put together the 180 parts. 4045 bullnose DAL props are the best way and just order a bunch in one go. Don't bother with tri-blade.
If you're likely to crash, don't 3D print the frame. Get yourself carbon fibre and you can go into the ground at 30mph and not worry. If the frame goes, all your innards will too!
This wasn't armed this was at power on the moment you plugged in the battery and the esc's booted it span all the motors up. I thought it might be a oneshot issue so I turned that off but that seemed to switch the motors to full throttle. I gave up at that point there's no way I could use it in that state put cleanflight back on it.
The 3d printing was more for the possibility of flexibility the idea I could try out some different frame configurations like angled motors or a V tail.
Would have though 220 is not much different from a 250 I guess it's lighter but still large enough for 2204's and larger more powerful props.
I was dreading looking at this because I know that I've not been writing much this year. All told, I've done quite well, especially since Kate became pregnant in February.
Gaming
Drone
Writing
Social
I need to settle into my new job and start earning my wage. Done
I want to reduce my overdraft. Done
So, not bad all in all. Now to work out what I want from 2017. With Naomi around that's going to be tricky.