Häufig gestellte Fragen und Hilfen zur Fehlerbehebung
Setup
I am trying to access the menus but if I press the button either after powering on or before, the A light never goes solid or blinks. Also if I hold it for 10 seconds it doesn't appear to perform the factory reset.
Um in eine der Menüebenen zu gelangen muss das Gerät vollständig initialisiert haben. Dies erkennt man daran, dass das Lauflicht zwischen den LEDs A bis G und H bis N vollständig erloschen ist und nur noch die Status LED blau oder violett leuchtet. Erst dann kann man durch einen kurzen Tastendruck in das Parametermenü eintreten oder durch einen längeren Tastendruck das Setupmenü aufrufen. Um die Werkeinstellung wiederherzustellen muss man sich im Setupmenü befinden! Das heißt es muss mindestens die LED bei Punkt A dauerhaft leuchten und man darf den Taster nicht mehr betätigen. Erst dann kann man durch Drücken und langes Festhalten des Tasters den Reset ausführen. Bedenken Sie, dass der Reset nur die Daten von Parameter und Setupmenü auf die Grundeinstellung zurücksetzt. Sollte das Microbeast z.B. wegen falscher Empfängereinstellung nicht starten oder aus anderen Gründen nicht (mehr) starten, so ist ein Reset nicht hilfreich. Daher lässt sich der Reset auch nur im Menü selbst aufrufen und nicht an anderer Stelle. Sollte ein solches Problem vorliegen beachten Sie bitte diese Hinweise.
Here you can see a list of collected data: http://www.beastx.com/service_servoliste.html
This list is not intended to be complete or accurate! Please ask the servos manufacturer about his recommandations regarding servo specs and usability in helicopters with flybarless systems.
- Neutral impulse: The neutral impulse normaly is 1500-1520µs on any servo. Only special high speed tail servos use a different impulse and are normaly fitted to a specific gyro -> Futaba gyros 760µs -> logitec gyros 960µs. Microbeast supports all types of different neutral impulses for the tail servo. On cyclic you are not able to adjust the pulse.
- Update frequency: The higher the frequency the faster the control loop will work and the more accurate the system will perform. But also the servos will be more burdened as they get more work to do and the current consumption will greatly increase.
- If using a digital servo it definitely should be capable of more than 65Hz. So if we have a unknown servo we carefully increase framerate step by step by testing on the workbench and then fly shortly and check servo temperature very often. If there are no abnormalities like extreme heat production we again increase the framerate and again test carefully.
NOTE: This procedure can lead to damage and severe injury if not obtaining safety rules. If you want to be on the safe side go with 65Hz unless the manufacturer doesn't give you another classification. We cannot tell you the specs of a servo unless we don't have any data of this specific servo ourselves. Please ask the servos' manufacturer. We do not produce or sell any servos, we only give you the possibility to use those servos. Therefore we do not accept liability for incorrect setting.
The servo list on the website only is a collection of some servos' data. It does not say that if a servo is not on the list that you must not use it. If a servo is not on the list we simply did not test it ourselves or we could not find any data about it. Also we can't know any servo on the market. In fact Microbeast is compatible to nearly any servo on the market. Anyhow when choosing a servo for your flybarless helicopter you should note this: Servos for flybarless usage
Setupmenü Punkt E - Wie kann ich das Servohorn vom Heckservo auf 90 Grad trimmen?
Ich finde kein passendes Servohorn, dass sich exakt im 90 Grad Winkel zum Heckrohr aufstecken lässt. Microbeast/Trajectory/Ar7200BX hat offenbar keine Trimmfunktion!? Darf man über den Sender trimmen?
Nein, trimmen Sie auf keinen Fall über den Sender. Dies würde einen ständigen Steuerbefehl und damit eine konstante Drehung verursachen, beeinflusst jedoch nicht direkt die Servoposition. Wenn das Servohorn nicht genau im 90 Grad Winkel aufgesteckt werden kann, so ist dies nicht weiter problematisch, da das System im Flug sowieso ständig Korrekturen ausführt. Wichtig ist, dass der Heli generell mechanisch korrekt abgestimmt ist: in der Mittenposition des Servos sollten am Heckrotor ca. 6 Grad Anstellwinkel gegen das Drehmoment anliegen. Bei Servovollausschlag in Richtung gegen das Drehmoment sollten 40 Grad Pitchwinkel am Heckrotor anliegen, in Steuerrichtung mit dem Hauptrotordrehmoment sollten ca. 20 Grad anliegen.
You only have to adjust one direction, whether it's left or right, it doesn't matter. Important is to exactly adjust 6° when the blades are aligned on the aileron axis as this teaches the unit the servo throw. Push the aileron stick to adjust the pitch and when the blade pitch is 6° simply push the button briefly and that's it.
When getting the 6° too early this shows that you may not use full servo resolution (not using the full throw). This can be solved by using longer blade grip linkage arms, reducing the swashplate inner diameter (shorter linkage balls) or larger swahplate outer diameter (longer linkage balls). Or simply by screwing the linkage balls on the servo horns further in (but this will reduce both cyclic and collective - the cyclic/collective ratio will not change).
Dass die Status LED bei Punkt J blau ist, stellt keine zwingende Vorraussetzung dar, die unbedingt erreicht werden muss. Es ist allerdings empfehlenswert, diesen Status zu erreichen und es zeigt, dass der Helikopter mechanisch gut für den flybarless Betrieb geeignet ist. Wenn hochwertige, schnelle, kräftige und präzise Servos verwendet werden, wird man aber auch bei anderen LED Farben keinen spürbaren Unterschied merken. Speziell bei kleinen Helikoptern ist es aber umso wichtiger, dass möglichst der ganze Servobereich genutzt wird (die Status LED also blau anzeigt), da hier die Servos und die Mechanik üblicherweise spielbehaftet sind und meist nicht ganz so präzise arbeiten, wie es bei größeren Modellen der Fall ist.
Grundsätzlich ist bei Punkt J aber einzig und allein wichtig, dass genau 6 Grad zyklischer Weg eingestellt werden. Die Farbe der Status LED hat hingegen nur informativen Charakter.
Startup
MICROBEAST does not finish initialization. What can I do?
- Watch the running LED lights during the init phase: If the lights A - G light up the sensor's rest positions are beeing calibrated. H - N show determining the RC channels and their center positions. Initially, the chase is from A - N. If a step is done, the light passes only between A - G or H - N. Can one step not be completed, either the unit is not receiving a valid signal or the MB was moved during the process (e.g. due to wind, vibrations, etc..).
- Check whether the receiver sends control signals and that all cables are properly connected to the MICROBEAST. In particular make sure the plugs are inserted with correct polarity and not offset to the pin connectors of the MICROBEAST.
- Only applies to Microbeast with firmware V2.0.0 and up: Is the correct type of receiver selected in the receiver setup menu? See Setup receiver type - Microbeast, Trajectory
The brand new MICROBEAST only shows a red flashing LED or even nothing. What's wrong?
Check very carefully whether all cables are plugged in correctly and all the plugs are connected properly at the correct position (Beast & receiver!). Especially in the vertical direction, not just 2 pins must sit on the header. Also make sure that the polarity is correct on all connections.
Inflight
Helicopter tips over when trying to take off or tilts to one side in flight.
Please check whether everything works properly on the ground. When giving collective pitch input the swash should move up and down properly. When giving cyclic input it should return to zero after a few seconds. This is also especially after turning on Idle up or switching between flight conditions in the transmitter. Make sure that there are no trims, mixers, etc. in any flight condition and also make sure that the sensor directions for aileron and elevator are setup correctly (Setup menu point M)!
- Beim Abheben so wenig wie möglich, am besten gar nicht, steuern. Einfach Motor hochlaufen lassen und dann zügig Pitch geben. Erst wenn der Heli in der Luft ist, kann die Regelung arbeiten und Steuerbefehle ausführen. Steht der Heli hingegen am Boden bliebe ein Steuerbefehl wirkungslos und das Regelsystem würde durch immer weiteres Erhöhen des Steuerausschlags krampfhaft versuchen, eine Drehbewegung auszuführen. Sobald dann der Heli durch Erhöhen des kollektiven Pitch "leicht" wird, fällt er schlagartig um. Also unbedingt vor und während des Startvorganges auf gerade Ausrichtung der Taumelscheibe achten.
Tilting in flight: Remove the main rotor blades and let the helicopter run in all speeds on the ground (beware of the rotating parts!). Again the swash should move straight up and down when giving pitch inputs. If at a certain speed it starts to tilt in one direction and this will depend on the rotor speed then that is almost certainly a vibration problem which confuses the sensors in the Microbeast. Trying different adhesive pads might help (smoother or firmer mount) or installing the unit in another location. But especially in the electric helicopter that brings in most cases nothing and there certainly is an error somewhere on the helicopter.
This can be: slightly bent hub of the tail rotor, jammed or defective ball bearings, tail blades / tail rotor is not properly balanced, engine bell not balanced / comes at a certain speed to vibrate or motor bearings damaged making the motor shaft vibrate, slipped ball bearings in the torque tube tail drive system or installed in the wrong position, main gear wobbles / unbalanced; motor shaft bends and runs rough, ... actually everything that rotates on the helicopter can be the cause of such a vibration. On electric helicopter you normaly should not hear, feel or see any mayor vibration (no vibrating tail fin or skids). Then it should normally be possible to attach the Microbeast only with a very thin adhesive pad on electric helis.
On nitro helis the situation can be slightly different as the motors do shake the more or less. This can lead to shaking of the Microbeast unit itself and will make the rotor pane wobble. So here trying different pads or a sandwich made of two pads and a metal plate may help to stabilize the unit better. Also the wiring can be the cause of such a shaking. But when the swash tilts as explained above the cause normaly is some very high frequent (abnormal) vibration and trying around with different kinds of gyro pads only disguises the real cause and may not help 100%.
Is the movement, however, abruptly or suddenly (similar to the twitch in a radio interference) this can especially be caused by static charges from the rear belt. Here a uniform electric potential across the entire helicopter should be done. The use of graphite spray, using a different rear belt or simply changing the belt tension can help.
One could also consider a voltage fluctuation of the receiver power supply. It is necessary that this is stable enough, especially in terms of duration and whether the cable cross-sections and the connecting system are of sufficient size. The power supply should be dimensioned at least twice or three times as strong as expected since very high current peaks can occur in milliseconds which make the voltage sag dangerously low. In this context it may happen that the helicopter flies normally for a few minutes and then suddenly turns or rolls away in flight or even after landing the swash plate turns by itself to one direction. This is a sign that the Microbeast made a quick reboot in flight but because of the severity or duration of power failure it could not completely reload all calibration and sensor data. In this case the cause must be found and rectified and it mustn't/shouldn't be flown anymore since the receiving system was apparently close to a total failure.
(Please do not confuse: A slight tilt of the swash plate when the heli is standing on the ground is absolutely normal when the so-called integrators are not fully discharged. This only will happen after approx. 30 seconds without moving the helicopter or touching the sticks, then the swash returns to its normal position. This also depends on the position of the throttle stick - in the middle position is the discharge at the fastest. A bug in the above named manner is present when the swash moves downright by itself to full-stop also after correcting with the sticks and only cycling power off and on can resolve this problem.)
Der Heli rollt nicht schnell genug über die zyklischen Drehachsen. Kann man dies verbessern?
The roation speed is only determined by the length of the stick signal (and especially has nothing to do with your cyclic pitch adjustment at setup points J or L and also has nothing to do with the cyclic pitch when steering cyclic on the ground!). So increasing/decreasing the stick throw, mostly done by increasing/decreasing servo throw or using Dualrate in the TX for the specified function, will increase/decrease roation rate.
The presets in parameter B are nothing else than different preset dualrate/expo curves inside the MB. When using these it is recommended not to change the output signal in the TX as especially when using expo this will bend, compress or stretch the curves leading to very strange flight behavior (it just is not like adding 5% of expo as the curves between TX and Microbeast will multiply and not sum together!) If you like the feeling of course you can do this. For example a slight increase in stick throw for increasing the roll rate will not significantly deform the Microbeast's internal curve and can be done with no problem. But easiest thing would be to switch flight behaviour to "blue=TX" and adjust the curves in your transmitter as you like (therefor I'd suggest to start with 70% D/R and 25% expo on cylic and 85% D/R and 40% expo on tail). When setting parameter B to "blue = TX" these internal curves in MB will be disabled. So 100% stick should give 100% rotation rate. This may vary depending on TX brand as any manufacturer use another signal output as maximum. So this can be at 107 or 110% or also at 95%. Manufacturers calculate expo curves different, so we can't tell you what our preset curves correspond to which TXs expo values as we use our own expo and there is no data available for comparing. We did outfly these values and programmed them in the source code so we can't tell what these are in Futaba or JR percentages.
- Falls trotz Einstellung per Sender und maximalem Servoausschlag die Drehrate nicht reicht: Setupmenü Punkt L in der Anleitung nochmal genau durchlesen. Mit dem Heckknüppel den zyklischen Ausschlag optimieren bzw. auf das maximal mögliche vergrößern. Mindestens 12-14° zyklischer(!) Pitch sollten vorhanden sein.
Bei Setupmenü Punkt L den Steuerweg auf keinen Fall weiter begrenzen als nötig. Es gibt nicht zu viel zyklischen Ausschlag, nur zu wenig.
Further observations
Warum werden die Servos wärmer als vorher beim Betrieb mit Paddelrotorkopf?
Da bei einem Flybarlesssystem ähnlich wie bei einem Heckkreisel das Regelsystem andauernd am steuern und korrigieren ist, werden die Servos wesentlich häufiger bewegt als wie wenn Sie manuell angesteuert werden. Hinzu kommt die oft höhere Servoansteuerfrequenz die es der Regelung ermöglichen soll möglichst häufig Steuerkommandos an die Servos abzugeben. Zudem müssen die Servos aufgrund des Wegfalls der zahlreichen Mischhebel und der Unterstützung durch die Hilfrotorebene wesentlich höhere Kräfte im Flug aufbringen.
Dies führt neben einem höheren Stromverbrauch auch zu einer stärkeren Wärmeentwickling der Servos die im Normalfall unkritisch ist. Allerdings kann diese Erwärmung unter ungünstigen Bedingungen auch in einen kritischen Bereich kommen z.B. bei sehr hohen Lufttemperaturen oder auch wenn die Servos in der Nähe von anderen Hitzequellen wie Elektromotoren verbaut sind. Abhilfe schaffen eine Reduzierung der Ansteuerfrequenz sowie Reduzierung der Eingangsspannung. Dies führt allerdings immer auch zu einem schlechteren Wirkungsgrad der Regelung!
Servos react somehow "notchy" at high frame rate. Is MICROBEAST damaging my servos?
If the servos are approved by the manufacturer to this driving frequency, this is a normal effect. The servos get new positioning signals four times faster than if they are connected to a conventional remote control receiver. Especially servos with brushless motors run very hard and direct which causes slightly jerky movements in modes with high servo framerate. This is totally harmless to the servos and you will not notice in flight operation.
From MICROBEAST firmware version V2.0.0 onwards a special software filter was installed which slightly mitigates these rough servo movements.
Why do the swashplate servos run very slowly when testing on the bench?
This is absolutely normal. The movement of the stick gives the MICROBEAST only a command to control the helicopter. The sticks do no longer control the servos directly. So you cannot say exactly what the MICROBEAST will do with the servos when you push one of the sticks.