Emphasis on soaring
The emphasis with this setup is on soaring - all the mixing needed for a full house sailplane, with simple on/off control of the motor. Another goal was a high degree of motor safety - the setup uses a gesture-based motor arming system to help prevent accidental spinups.Achieving the right mix of features, safety and ease of use turned out to be an interesting challenge.
Iterative development
OpenTx's flexibility is a real boon when it comes to designing user interfaces. I started out by modding my existing F3J setup, with the addition of variable motor control. However, juggling four flight modes plus variable motor was too much work for the pilot. So I reduced the number of pure soaring modes from four to three.Next, I threw away the variable motor, and made it simple on/off. I did this for two reasons: first, ESCs don't work efficiently at part throttle. And secondly, variable motor really needs a variable elevator compensation mix - not difficult per se, but an extra thing for the pilot to set up. [edit 25 Feb 2016: variable motor is implemented on E-Soar Plus.)
Eventually I arrived at a setup which is simple yet satisfies all the key goals:
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| Control layout for E-Soar for Taranis. Supports all stick modes. |
The setup has been extensively flight tested on a Cularis, and is available free from OpenTx Clinic.
7 comments:
Hi Mike,
I tried last night the E-Soar on Taranis Plus, that had updated to the the latest firmware with the latest Companion version 2.1.7 and I could get the motor arming system to work. Does it have to do something with the firmware version?
Thanks,
Bill
Hi Bill, no reports of problems on 2.1.7. Please re-do your stick calibration. If that doesn't help, email me with the following info:
- X9D or X9E
- attach EEPE file
Great resource, thank you.
Bit of a beginner as regards programming and I would like to use a simplified copy of your plus eepe.
I would like to have the trims acting as trims and have actual deflections for camber/reflex programmed in as set deflections but adjusted slightly by S1 for thermal, and s2 for reflex.
I also have throttle on LS and use stickies on SF and LS for safe motor operation.
Before I start trying to change stuff around, would this be a fairly simple thing to attempt to do?
All achievable. However, set it up first as per guide, backup your eepe on and only then make changes. The Excel reference will point you in the right direction. If you still have specific issues then feel free to email me.
Hi, where can I find the Excel reference?
It's included in the .zip download.
Doh, thanks Mike.
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