First Flight with IRIS - Bit chin!

Lounge DroneTrest
1

Finally went out and flew the IRIS, absolutely fan bloody tastic :smiley:

Was nice and calm with just the slightest breeze when I set off for the playing fields, by the time I got there it had turned a bit stronger but I thought sod it, after walking there I was going to try it anyway.

Hooked up the Nexus 7 with the radio, turned on bluetooth and turned on headphones, started Droidplannerā€¦

Fired it up in Stabilise, Armed, Switched to Loiter all with verbal confirmation in the headphones, stuck the throttle forward and up it went. Quite scary for almost 10 seconds then I was hooked, left, right, forward, back, up to I guess about 20 meters, cut throttle and dropped it down flat out and hit throttle about 3 foot up and back to hoverā€¦

A blind man with no arms could fly this thing, its just brilliant, absolutely brilliant!

Anyway nexus whispers in my ear battery level 90%, 80%ā€¦ 20%, 10%ā€¦ Then ā€œLoading Landā€ and down comes IRIS as gentle as a butterfly. A guy stood watching says ā€œNice landing, that was a real gentle touchdownā€ I nearly took the credit but decided honesty is the best option and told him it landed its self because the battery was low.

So stuck in a 3s 4AH battery, I bought a medium sized boat full of them, and up again. The wind picking up all the time and now getting gusty enough that I would not have attempted to fly it had it been 20 minutes earlier. IRIS held position really well, letting go of the controls it did not move above 600mm with the gusts, pretty impressed I have to say.

Tried flying in Stabilise mode for a short while, managed perfectly well although of course needed much more concentration to counter the wind so went back to Loiter :smiley:

After 4 batteries I decided to time a flight, with the 4000ma 3s I got 17 minutes which was not bad I donā€™t think given that it was quite breezy now so it had to work to hold position.

All in all I am really, really chuffed, I canā€™t wait to get the gopro bolted on now - I was not going to risk the go pro as well as IRIS on the first flight LOL

Only thing I am a little bit concerned about is the YAWā€¦ In loiter when I rotate in Yaw it seems to rotate around a point about 2 foot in front of the copter rather than the centre of the cross - a bit like circle mode but a tiny circle? Not sure why that is but will have a play when its nice and calm and see if it still does it, but I did turn on simple mode with loiter and set IRIS spinning in yaw while moving left and right (looked really impressive I have to say) and it appeared to track left and right correctly - I will try it again next time I go out but spin slowly instead of flat out and see what that does.

So, that was my first ever flight, bitchin :smiley:

2

Another great story! Thanks for sharing, if you ever manage to break a prop let me know and I will get some spares sent to you!

And for anyone else who is interested we should have the Iris Quadcopter back in stock in a couple weeks!

3

I have a set of CF props ordered actually, I bought an x4 for playing with in the house and they had cf 10x4.7ā€™s so I got a couple of setsā€¦

I did damage two props in the house, not sure how it was that the trailing edge got damaged butā€¦ Then the other two props developed damage at the tips, really odd because I have definitely not had any more impacts at all! The cause became apparent earlier today when I spotted my bloody bengal cat chewing on the ends of the prop!!

4

I have had another couple of flights, wind was getting too scary for my liking so I quit while ahead.

This time I bolted the gopro on the front, dropped flight times of course - with standard battery about 10 mins, with the 4Ah about 12 mins but I also brought it back down as soon as I got the 10% warning rather than waiting till it landed in failsafe.

Will upload the video to the tube of you later, its currently converting in the gopro software which will take about 3 months on this laptop! I expect it will be well jellyfied because the bloody cat has eaten chunks out of the props but it is my first ever aerial video so I donā€™t care :smiley:

Should say the handling did not really appear to be any different with the extra weight of the gopro, nor with the extra weight of the 4Ah battery AND gopro, in fact given that the wind was considerably worse than the other day I would hazard a guess and say it was maybe more stable for it.

5

Great stuff, looking forward to the vid!

Which brand of 4Ah battery did you go for Louise? Iā€™m still using the stock 3.5 ATM and really need to get some extra packs.

6

I got Zippy brand from HobbyKing, they were cheap as chips so figured worth a shotā€¦ Well cheap as chips compared to anything local anyway!

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=32191

Ā£18.48 now, I think I paid Ā£15 not entirely sure. They fit OK, snugger fit than the stock battery actually, the only problem is the door is tricky to close because they are a tad longer. The wires and connectors get snagged by the reinforcing ribs in the door, I poke one end of the joined connectors into the body where the wires come out so it sits between the ribs when the door closes.

Flight times are not dramatically increased, but then its only 0.5Ah more power anyway, but having 6 x 4Ah and one x 3.5Ah is much better than one 3.5 LOL

Still working on video, bloody gopro crap audio synch issuesā€¦ Honestly I paid Ā£300 quid over for that bloody camera and I donā€™t think there is two uses of it goes by without some problem or another Grrr anyway, I think its sorted now so having to convert again, for the millionth timeā€¦

7

here you goā€¦

Nothing special and may render you airsick due to the wind blowing it about, or the jelly effect due to cat chewed props, but besides that - Enjoy :smiley:

At about 2:30ish I landed, battery door came open and it was annoying me, I think the battery door/ space is the only downside so far - a little bit of extra room in there would have made extended batteries so much easier.

8

Cool, thanks for the link. Sounds like they just about fit so I will orders some of those.

I was surprised how little jello was present really, much better than my GoPro HD hero1 which is almost unwatchable.

Must say, for a first flight - that was pretty bloody good.

9

Yes they fit fine, of course you need to remove the bullet connectors and replace with XT60 and shorten the leads a bit but you can get them in and shut the door with a bit of practice before hand.

I have to say I was also quite surprised how little jello there was, there are some quite serious chunks missing from the props! I think I would have been thrown out of the model airplane club starting an engine with a prop in that state! I was a bit nervous when it was flying at head level in case it threw off a chunk!

I did balance them but they are hardly aerodynamically balanced LOL I canā€™t wait for the CF props to come because pretty much all the info I have found says that vibration is greatly reduced with those which would mean zero vibration in this case.

The video was not my first flight, the video was flight 6ā€¦

I first flew it on 26th and used 5 batteries before the wind gusts reached a point where I was frightened of losing control, that was really the first time I ever flew a copter - I have a T-Rex 450 buried in the spare room somewhere but the best I ever did with that was a few seconds hover at 2 or 3 feet! I have flown fixed wing plenty, but that is a whole different kettle of fish - or used to be but IRIS is much closer to fixed wing to fly with loiter mode.

This thing is so much easier to fly, co-ordinated flying is next on the agenda but I donā€™t think I will attempt that near the floodlighting LOL At the moment the grass is all wet through so not going to rub its belly in it.

10

Thanks for sharing the video. I too am quite impressed with the lack of jello considering the props have bits missing! (did you balance them after the cat got a hold of them?)

Hope everyone has a happy new years! :fireworks:

11

I did balance after cat attack, but where they are chewed they are bent and distorted so aerodynamics would be different on each end as they spin if you see what I mean.

Have just repaired tv remote after same pest of a cat picked it up and dropped it in a cup of coffee! He is worse than 20 kids I swear he is!

12

Another video, I was at the local model shop nattering and a few people wanted to see it fly so obliged.

Bit scary flying it so close to the road though!