FBL Gyro Spirit Pro 'Bank Switching'

[Heliman450]

Hi all,

Elsewhere, I've been deeply involved in helping to setup the Spirit Pro gyro and benefiting from the whole experience. I'm now going along the path of setting up the 'Bank Switching' feature.

Here, I've attached a rewrite of the relevant section from the Spirit user manual to expand its content. I've got to the point where I have three, identical banks and am ready to go through setting up the banks with the varying settings to satisfy my current needs.

Any feedback will be much appreciated.

 

[Smoggie]

Bank switching is a really useful feature, you can use it for all sorts of things. My setup is pretty simple so my three banks are identical except for head gain. I found that I needed to reduce head gain when running lower RPM and the banks are the perfect way to do that. I just use my 3 position flight mode switch to change banks.

 

[Heliman450]

Hi Steve, I've also gone the same route for simplicity. I changed the switch over to another position on the Tx. to make it more easy to reach whilst flying. I'm thinking through exactly what I want to put in each bank before starting this evening.

 

[Heliman450]

Hi again all,

I've completed the programming for the Spirit Pro and have attached some screen shots below.

The first stage of the setting up was to programme my three flight modes in the Tx. to have the same throttle, pitch and gyro settings so that the Spirit Pro receives the same signals for flight control when switching between banks. The pitch and throttle settings don't matter to the Spirit Pro for the purposes of bank setting at this point.

The second stage was to initialise the helicopter and connect the unit followed by opening up the 'Diagnostic' Tab. The bank switch on the Tx. was first tested to confirm correct channel function. The green indicator band under the 'Bank' title changed with each switch position change to confirming correct functionality.

The third stage was to work through each bank in the software making the required changes to the 'Bank Switching' functionality. 'Bank 0' will be my 'Normal' flying mode with stabilisation. 'Bank 1' will be a 'Rescue (Normal)' option with a 'Rescue Collective Pitch' setting of 40% (+5.5 degrees of pitch). 'Bank 2' will also be a 'Rescue (Normal)' option but with a 'Rescue Collective Pitch' setting of 50% (+7.0 degrees of pitch). After assigning the settings for each bank the settings were saved to my laptop and to the unit before switching to the next bank to be programmed using the software drop-down options in the bottom-right corner of the window.

The final stage will be to set all the tuning parameters in the Tx. (D/R and Expo) to be the same for each of the three flight modes so that I have an identical starting point with only the Spirit Pro's functions slightly different. In the future, I can change these to have, for example an option for a 'Rescue (Acro)' setting in the gyro. Of course, then the Tx. settings will need to be changed to make the new flying mode possible.

Note that when the unit is connected to the software, the Tx. switch doesn't change the active bank in the software. I show this by taking two screen shots designated with the ending '...._01_S' and '...._02_S'. The first one shows the green band indicating the next band to be selected and the software's bank selection in the bottom right of the window showing first the currently selected bank and then in agreement with the Tx. switch.


If you have any queries, get back to me.

 

[Smoggie]

Phil,

Experimenting with the different rescue modes is interesting but in practice once you have decided which you prefer you only want one. Rescue by it's nature is something you need to activate in a panic situation, so the last thing you need is the confusion of having different options. For my money 'Rescue Normal' (with a 0.2s delay) is the best option. This means that the heli recovers initially to the nearest orientation, climbs away, then if the 'nearest orientation' was inverted after the delay it flips to upright. This has the best of both worlds in that it has the fastest rescue (like 'Rescue Acro') but the heli finishes in the upright orientation (like 'Rescue Normal').

I found that I needed at least 60% collective to make a snappy recovery, but you can adjust this as you test. You need to be a bit careful with rescue, if you rescue from inverted the flip back to upright is very violent. Maybe they fixed it in recent updates but a few people suffered boom strikes and disintegration of their heli when they hit rescue from inverted. To prevent this the 'old' fix was to limit how high the cyclic ring setting was adjusted. I've not yet tried an inverted rescue with my new XLPower 520, i admit to being a bit scared in case it blows up!

 

[Heliman450]

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the feedback. Of course this is a new experience for me, both with the setting up process and the next steps in my simple flying capabilities. I fully realise that once I'm more confident with the extended flying manoeuvres I hope to develop that when/if I need a rescue function then I will only have one.

I'd be interested to know what your 60% setting produces as pitch degrees. When I'm 'flying' I currently don't use much more than 5.5 degrees. Of course, as more pitch equates to a more rapid rate of ascent, this is what I need to be more careful about at the moment. I intend to throw my bank switch from a stable hover to test how rapidly it rises with the two settings so that I can first get used to that, hence, having the 3-Position switch set the way it is. It isn't possible to assign less that 10% steps and the difference in my setup is 1.5 degrees, which I suspect will be plenty fast for me. Having seen some of your videos, I'm sure that you can take control of the higher rate of climb no problem.

P.S. My reference to the 'Acro' setting is more tongue in cheek for me as I doubt that I will be going that far for a good while yet, if ever

 

[Smoggie]

I have it set to 70% at the moment. I have +/- 1.5 degrees pitch range so 70% should be close to 9 degrees, give or take. The thing with rescue is you might have to use it when the heli is plummeting to earth and already low, so it's important that you have enough pitch to quickly arrest the descent.

I'll shoot a video of what rescue looks like with these settings.

 

[Heliman450]

Hi Steve, I'm not sure what you mean by "+/- 1.5 degrees". Is it a typo and you meant +/- 15 degrees?

One of my objectives in going through the process of activating more features for myself with the target of producing a video was to try to quantify the scale of changing the values in the software. When I measured the 'Rescue Collective Pitch' setting, I wanted to know exactly what it is set to. The result with 50% setting was +7.0 degrees of pitch. I have +/- 12 degrees, so would have expected 6.0 degrees. Of course, with more experienced flyers such as yourself it probably doesn't matter too much as you could probably rescue the situation anyway.

These days, I can deal with lots of challenging situations without panicking but my repertoire is very limited compared to many, hence, wanting to have the rescue as insurance. I also want to help those around me to understand what they're doing and find a less crash intensive way to get people started.

In my club helicopters are considered to be something bad. As I've been a member longer and am doing my work as caretaker, more of the opponents have told me that they've tried it before but crashed too often so gave up. I think that their opposition is more to do with their own failures to master it. I'd like to change that by using my 550 as a demo model to show that even an old git like me can learn it without paying a teacher a load of money, which is the way for everything here. Fingers crossed.

 

[Heliman450]

Hi all, I spent a very enlightening time at the field this afternoon.

After confirming that the 'Fail Safe' features were still in the Spirit Pro, I started at the field by testing the 'Rescue Collective Pitch' setting. Having never used it before, I was obviously a bit cautious, so I first set the pitch curve to give me the higher setting of 50% rather than the 40%. With the pitch curve max'ed out at 50% (+6 degrees), the heli climbed very slowly but steadily. I concluded that Steve's assessment was correct and that a figure of 70% would probably be better. I changed the Spirit Pro setting via the Jeti to give the required 70% (I haven't as yet confirmed the degrees this gives) and continued with another test. This time from a stable hover about 3 metres above the ground and threw the 'Bank Switch'. The heli climbed very well out of the hover and was well within my capability to control it.

The next test was to see if I could control anything during the 'Rescue (Normal)' function to check out the 'Stick Priority' (set for the default 8). I was able to get some response but "controlling it" was a bit of an overstatement! What surprised me and I haven't read anywhere is that the unit went to 'Fail Safe' and the heli began to drift gently down towards the ground. I switched back to my 'Bank 0' setting and the motor span up again and climbed out of the descent.

I didn't try this again during today's session but will test it again soon to confirm what I witnessed was indeed the 'Fail Safe' and not something else. I'd prefer the heli to be closer to me when I test again. I increased my 'Stick Priority' setting to 10. So will combine the two aspects of the settings at the same time.

I was very pleased with the Spirit Pro's performance during some gentle flying backwards and forwards. This was reinforced with my somewhat extreme D/R and Expo settings. At the extremes of my left/right passes, the heli slowed up when the sticks were released and drifted slowly in the direction of the last stick input until corrected and brought back under control. My conclusion was that with some experience, a beginner would be well able to fly around within a short time of getting used to the 'feel' of things.

Bye for now and enjoy the rest of the weekend.

 

[Smoggie]

Hi Steve, I'm not sure what you mean by "+/- 1.5 degrees". Is it a typo and you meant +/- 15 degrees?

Sorry, that was typo. I meant +/- 12.5 Deg

As for 'rescue Normal' causing the motor to power down and the heli go to failsafe.. that is very much NOT what it should do. I cant offer any explanation for that other than the chance that the load on the servos when you hit rescue is overwhelming the Rx power supply and it's causing a 'brown-out' re-set of the receiver or FBL.

Regarding stick priority. Usually you dont want to have much if any control of the heli during rescue. The reason is that in the panic situation where you are fighting the controls and at the last moment you hit rescue, you may easily forget to centre the sticks. If the sticks still have authority then the heli would not return to a stable upright position as it should, but would keep rolling, flipping or spinning according to whatever stick input you are holding. It's better in most circumstances that during rescue the sticks have very little of no effect so you just let the Spirit take over all control and get the heli out of trouble. Once you release the rescue switch/button then you have control as normal, bear in mind that you would only have rescue active for a second or so.

 

[Heliman450]

Hi Steve, thanks for the feedback, much appreciated that you keep watching my threads.

Unfortunately, the heli was quite a distance away from me and my test was to see if I could bring it back closer. I don't think the servos were under any great stress but they are around maybe six years old. You'll probably know better than me when the 550E came on the market. According to the guy in my local model shop, it hadn't flown very much at all before I bought it second hand from them.

Weather's not good for the next few days so I don't expect much stick time to practise my newest feature but I'll bear in mind your comments on its use.

 

[Heliman450]

Hi Steve, latest update........

I've setup a spring switch to control the 'Rescue (Normal)' function and have set it to 70% 'Rescue Collective Pitch' setting. This gives +9.7 degrees when activated, which is a bit more than I currently use at the top end of my 'Flight Mode'. Currently, I'm only using two flight modes, one for hover and close-in, low level practise. The other is for my more distant 'flying' and attempts at more challenging stuff to come where I might need to hit the switch.

Thanks for your feedback giving your own figures for the various functions.