Help with programming (Ethos)

[Shoelace]

Hey everyone, I'm getting pretty frustrated and am in need of an answer to something that's probably very simple. I'm trying to program crow in my new plane. Somehow I've done this twice before using the preset butterfly mix with zero issues, but now no matter how much I try I can't seem to swing this.

The issue is that if I am using the mix, when I try to set the ailerons to go up when I move my throttle stick down, it's just not setting. So, for example, if I dial in the weight of the aileron to -75%, then as I do that, the ailerons are going up while the flap stays neutral. If I were to reverse this weight then obviously they go down. I need to set this so that they stay neutral and then only are deployed when I activate the throttle. I've tried doing, "After first position," and "After last position," with no difference in effect.

I'm sure I'm just missing something SUPER simple here, but I just can't seem to figure it out.

Thanks.

 

[HENNY]

Firstly "After last Position" and "After fist Position" is where this added mix appears in the mix screen menu. In does not have any influence on the mix. You could used the edit "Move function to place it any where on the mix screen. First position would place it above the Aileron mix if you are using Mode-2 ( Throttle on the left hand stick.)

I don't use Butterfly so am trying to help you without usage experience.
So here are a couple of items you need in Butterfly mix screen. Not the Aileron screen.

Name will be Butterfly, which you selected when you clicked add mix from the pop up menu.
Active condition can be always on or allocated to a switch.
Input needs to be Throttle
Curve can be Butterfly then select from the menu.
Channel count 2 ? If you are using two separate channels and 2 servos..
Weight is now adjusted to move this Butterfly mix addition into the Ail channel This could be + or - adjust to get the desired movement
Output1 of this mix sent to Ch1 (AileronR) Aileron Right in my case.

Weight2 + or - adjust to get the desired movement
Output2 of the mix sent to Ch7 (AileronL) Aileron Left in my case.

So the Butterfly mix is an additional input to the Aileron channel and is completely separate to the Aileron channel. Meaning you have independent control of Butterfly parameters.

Hope this helps.

 

[Shoelace]

Okay... Thank you. One thing happened that I didn't mention where I just did a custom (Free Mix) and the crow was working, but then it somehow overrode my aileron mix to where that stopped working. So this must have been a, "First position/Last position" issue?

Thanks for your help. I'm working today but will try this out when I get home tomorrow.

Oh: and when you say, "Channel count will be 2." Wouldn't the channel count for butterfly be 6? 2 for flaps, 2 for aileron, 2 for elevator (V-Tail), or am I missing something here?

 

[thenated0g]

Found this on youtube, havent watched myself yet. good luck

 

[HENNY]

Okay... Thank you. One thing happened that I didn't mention where I just did a custom (Free Mix) and the crow was working, but then it somehow overrode my aileron mix to where that stopped working. So this must have been a, "First position/Last position" issue?

Thanks for your help. I'm working today but will try this out when I get home tomorrow.

Oh: and when you say, "Channel count will be 2." Wouldn't the channel count for butterfly be 6? 2 for flaps, 2 for aileron, 2 for elevator (V-Tail), or am I missing something here?

First Position last position is simply where it appears in the mix menu list.
The video list above does a good job in explaining the setup.

 

[Shoelace]

Thanks. In this video he has it set to use, "After Flaps." I'll try that and see if I have some success. Also, he doesn't add any down elevator but that should be easy to do if the ailerons are behaving.

 

[Wayne]

The video will get one started, I do like how he split the flaps away from crow. I had not seen that done before. Makes sense for a power plane.

For butterfly you really want the elevator in there too. Not sure why he is doing it without. I then set the elevator weight to the throttle trim since I do not use throttle trim for anything, it makes the elevator compensation super easy on the first flight.

Setting up curves can be handy too, but since you are just after the basic operations..

Mix order should not matter too much. It does play a roll when mixing is getting complex.

As I recall I do not use the "flap" mix on my gliders. I just checked, one of my models does have the flaps mix, but it is not being used. For me I use a curve to allow small flap changes in the first 50% of travel, and crow on the last 50% of throttle stick travel. This basically gives me (simple) camber, flaps and crow all on the throttle stick. No hunting for switches. (I fly slope, and really don't care much for cambering the entire wing.)

 

[Shoelace]

Well, I didn't have the issue with my Sunbird or ASH, but I wiped out my flaps mix and was then able to set up my crow braking fairly easily.

The thing that was SO frustrating, was that when I had my flaps set at neutral with my stick not engaged to use crow, when I would try to set the weight of my ailerons, they would begin to move before any input was made with the throttle. So then it would offset everything. Once I tried deleting the flaps mix, that stopped happening. Why that is, I don't know and I guess I don't even care at this point as I was never going to use flaps alone anyhow.

So, I guess that's done now. Hopefully we'll have some wind soon so I can finally launch this thing off a cliff.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Wayne]

I have had many "radio fights" trying to set up flaps on many different radios. On my old Futaba's every plane was a fight. With OpenTX, every plane was a lot of tuning, but not much fighting. With Ethos, sometimes it goes super easy, and sometimes I get into a loop of reversing and adjusting, getting very confused, and toss the whole mess out, and start fresh a little later and it goes smooth. Sometimes I get in my own way.

It happens.

 

[Shoelace]

I have had many "radio fights" trying to set up flaps on many different radios. On my old Futaba's every plane was a fight. With OpenTX, every plane was a lot of tuning, but not much fighting. With Ethos, sometimes it goes super easy, and sometimes I get into a loop of reversing and adjusting, getting very confused, and toss the whole mess out, and start fresh a little later and it goes smooth. Sometimes I get in my own way.

It happens.

EXACTLY

 

[RC-Soar]

There's an article on my Ethos Hangar site on how to set up crow brakes, using the Butterfly and Offset mixes:

How to program crow brakes in Ethos

Explains how to program sailplane crow brakes in Ethos

rc-soar.com

 

[Wayne]

That is the best write up on the subject I have ever seen. Well done!

p.s. Mike is the master of glider programming!

 

[Shoelace]

I'm not even going to mess with it tonight, but Ethos... What the hell, man? I was gonna do a little mix of aileron and flap that I could switch on and off. So as I was goofing around with it I decided to delete it and then try another one, but now it has completely screwed up my crow mix, even though that aileron flap mix is gone.

There's no good reason why this should happen. I didn't adjust anything on the mixes that are there, only added and deleted one. I definitely take ownership on my own failings on this OS, but c'mon. How can this affect a mix that was perfectly sound when it's not even there anymore?

 

[HENNY]

I'm not even going to mess with it tonight, but Ethos... What the hell, man? I was gonna do a little mix of aileron and flap that I could switch on and off. So as I was goofing around with it I decided to delete it and then try another one, but now it has completely screwed up my crow mix, even though that aileron flap mix is gone.

There's no good reason why this should happen. I didn't adjust anything on the mixes that are there, only added and deleted one. I definitely take ownership on my own failings on this OS, but c'mon. How can this affect a mix that was perfectly sound when it's not even there anymore?

Sounds like you may have hit the delete key. It happens, just move forward with all the help you have received.

 

[Wayne]

May I suggest you grab an old plane that still has gear, and play around with programming on it. Build some time with the new radio. Switching to a new brand takes a bit of time to learn.

 

[gnichola]

One thing you might find useful when you have mystery motion is to go to "per channel view"

Once in there you can "open" a channel, like ch6 in the image below and see all the mixes affecting that channel. Tapping on any of the mixes will give you the option to edit, delete etc. but the main thing being that you can see what is driving each output.

 

[adamhenry]

You better charge that TX looks a but low. lol