Review X5 with Gluonpilot 2

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Review X5 with Gluonpilot 2

Postby Tom » Wed Jan 02, 2013 11:40 am

You can't imagine how long I've been waiting to get this bird airborne! I wanted the X5 so badly because it looks so cool, fits my car and has a huge canopy. I got mine from BevRC, but hobbyking also sells them. It appears I got an older version with different winglets. The new version is slightly larger.

I received it this summer, but due to the delays with GP2 and (very bad) weather it got its maiden today. Flight report.

Build
The X5 is easy to build because it arrived as 1 big piece. The canopy is huge and the wings are large (1 meter span, cord +- 25cm). The winglets are also big. I'm thinking of replacing them with something smaller and ligher someday.

After trying various configuration, I decided to mount all the autopilot equipment in the last (and smallest) compartment of the large canopy. This leaved us 1 compartment for the battery and the middle one for payload.
DSC_1535_small.jpg
DSC_1535_small.jpg (122.6 KiB) Viewed 41076 times


The locosys GPS and XBee with stick-on antenna fitted perfectly. As you can see, the new GP2 software allows you to mount the system at any 90° angle! I tried to mount the Corona RX as far away as possible from all noises. A ground test with collapsed antenna was > 100m before the servos started jittering. The RX is amazing!

To improve the visibility I colored the winglets and bottom wings in orange. An all-white wing becomes impossible to see at 300m altitude!

I installed a SK3 1200KV motor (everybody knows I like my planes light) with a 3s 2200mAh battery, which will be replaced by a 3000mAh one (to avoid the 30grams lead I had to add). Total weight around 800grams. Not a funjet, but still OK :-)

They include a stupid system for screwing on the canopy using 2 nylon bolds. Doesn't look easy and fast! I replaced it with the multiplex click-on system, but it doesn't look strong enough. I added some tape before takeoff just to make sure.

Maiden

The weather was really nice (but cold), but rather windy. Still perfect for a maiden!

IMG_0093_maiden.jpg
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On the bottom there is a hole and handle so you get a real good solid grip when launching this plane! Launching was no problem, it needed a little bit trimming before flying straight. After some trimming I switched to stabilized mode. No problem either! It rolled a bit sluggish but OK. In autopilot mode I had only 1 circle defined at 100 meter. It tracked nicely but was blown away when flying downwind. It appeared to be 6m/s wind at 100 meter! Combined with an untrimmed plane he didn't track the circle spot-on, but it wasn't too bad!

There was some minor wiggle around pitch and roll. The wings don't contain any carbon bar, so this might be the reason. Another reason could be the (too?) large winglets. Of course we're talking about 6m/s wind as well.

Landing was really easy. It glides better than expected! Slightly pull up during landing for a gentle touchdown.

Power was enough, but obviously no verticals :-) Flight time was around 15minutes with around 1500mAh used (often flown at 100% throttle). Expected flight time when properly tuned and with the 3000mAh battery will be around 30 minutes.
Next step will be to include an FPV camera with OSD and later an Ixus camera for mapping my town!


Conclusion
The X5 is a real workhorse. Solid, lots of room and easy to fly. Due to the thick wing and large winglets it's not a speed demon and it flies like a truck. However for some applications this is exactly what we want. There is some minor wiggle around pitch and roll in flight, so expect to do some tuning if you want to get rid of this.

This is a plane which I can recommend to people expecting not the highest performance but a nice looking wing to fly. I expect the payload bay (+- 11cm x 6cm) to take around 200grams without any problems.
Performance with the Gluonpilot 2 is excellent!

People interested can download the flight log. Replay it with the Gluon Control Station version 0.9!
20130102_111736_x5_maiden.zip
(114.02 KiB) Downloaded 1565 times
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Re: Review X5 with Gluonpilot 2

Postby fba » Sun Jan 06, 2013 9:19 pm

Hello I am a newbie UAV. I´m interesting to use for photogrammetry and mapping works. I like two models for do it, Multiplex Mentor and BEVRC x-5, using a 150-200 payload camera
Has Gluonpilot , now or in the future, this photogrammetry capabilities?

Thanks
Francisco
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Re: Review X5 with Gluonpilot 2

Postby fba » Sun Jan 06, 2013 9:21 pm

Hello I am a newbie UAV. I´m interesting to use for photogrammetry and mapping works. I like two models for do it, Multiplex Mentor and BEVRC x-5. I hope use a 150-200 payload camera.
Has Gluonpilot , now or in the future, this photogrammetry capabilities?

Thanks
Francisco
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Re: Review X5 with Gluonpilot 2

Postby Tom » Sun Jan 06, 2013 10:20 pm

Hello,
Yes gluonpilot has excellent capabilities for mapping! Cameras can be triggered in various ways and routes can be generated.
The only thing lacking is better documentation for these specific features ;-) But hey: we've got email and a forum :-)
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Re: Review X5 with Gluonpilot 2

Postby icebear » Wed Jan 09, 2013 7:02 am

Nice to see the X5 finally airborne Tom - thanks for a good review. It looks promising so far and I look forward to more news when you have had time to trim it out!
Happy New Year! :D

/Björn
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Re: Review X5 with Gluonpilot 2

Postby small_rc » Mon Mar 04, 2013 3:09 pm

I have an X-5 under construction. I made some changes to get the canopy to stay on. The directions say to cut the canopy nose off and glue it into the fuselage. I did this and then added a tab to the front of the canopy to hold the front edge down.
IMGP0752b.JPG
Marking the front side of the canopy where the tab is to go.
IMGP0752b.JPG (116.28 KiB) Viewed 40855 times


Then I cut and glued in a light plywood tab or tongue to hold the front edge down.

IMGP0758a.JPG
Here is the tab glued in place
IMGP0758a.JPG (128.32 KiB) Viewed 40855 times


And this is what it looks like with the canopy in place. Will add some magnets about 2/3 of the way towards the back of the canopy to hold the sides down.

IMGP0760a.JPG
Overall shot on a very messy workbench
IMGP0760a.JPG (204.43 KiB) Viewed 40855 times


The GPS is recessed in the port or left wing and sealed in flush with the surface using white bathroom silicone sealant. You cannot even see it in the last picture.
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Re: Review X5 with Gluonpilot 2

Postby Tom » Thu Mar 14, 2013 3:03 pm

Very nice work!

Some people ended up with a very smooth flying X5, with the following mods:
* Add a carbon spar to stiffen the floppy wings
* try to bend the winglets to a 90° shape instead of the 45°-ish now used (use hot water)

Apparently this vastly improved the behaviour of the plane.
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Re: Review X5 with Gluonpilot 2

Postby kempo » Sat Apr 20, 2013 6:15 pm

Hi Tom, small_rc ,

did you had the chance to make more flights using X5 wing and Gluonpilot ? How is the wing behaving ?

Thank you.
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Re: Review X5 with Gluonpilot 2

Postby Tom » Sun Apr 21, 2013 8:17 am

Yes, after doing some modifications with it I am quite happy with it:
- add a carbon spar in the wing (really needed!)
- make sure your motor is heavy enough because the X5 has a thick airfoil. (I use 8x6 @ 1200kV, 3s and this is more than good. 7x4 on the same motor was not powerful enough)
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Re: Review X5 with Gluonpilot 2

Postby kempo » Sun Aug 04, 2013 3:25 pm

Hello Tom, with your permission i will continue your topic with the build log for my x5 wing.

I have read the wiki but i sill have some questions:

- i want to connect from my receiver ( a frsky one: http://www.frsky-rc.com/product/pro.php?pro_id=24# - the receiver is has direct PPM output ) the PPM wire to the Gluonpilot board but i cannot found the informations regarding the connection - where i must connect.

- the gps connection, as here : http://static.rcgroups.net/forums/attac ... CF6865.jpg it seems ok ? I did not found the wire signification on the gps.

Thank you.
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