Some questions on ESP8266 Flight Controller

[eskhisov]

Hello Kris, I just bought SuperFly Hackable ESP8266 Flight Controller and it looks much more beautiful than pictures. Thank you. I have couple of questions. In your description, you say "Solder a 1.25-inch-long, 28-gauge insulated copper wire to the solder pad for a simple but effective RF antenna." Is it necessary for WiFi to work? Also, I do not really see a solder pad on the board. Can you point to it on the board?

Another question. Is the only way to program the board is FTDI connection? I have 5V FTDI cable, this one https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9718. Will it work or will it destroy the board?

And last question is around battery. I have been using LiPo batteries, like this one, https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13851. How would you recommend connecting it to the board?

Thank you, Eduard.

[kriswiner]

See attached. 3V3 FTDI only.

On Mon, Jun 17, 2019 at 9:18 PM Ed Skhisov notifications@github.com wrote:

Hello Kris, I just bought SuperFly Hackable ESP8266 Flight Controller and it looks much more beautiful than pictures. Thank you. I have couple of questions. In your description, you say "Solder a 1.25-inch-long, 28-gauge insulated copper wire to the solder pad for a simple but effective RF antenna." Is it necessary for WiFi to work? Also, I do not really see a solder pad on the board. Can you point to it on the board?

Another question. Is the only way to program the board is FTDI connection? I have 5V FTDI cable, this one https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9718. Will it work or will it destroy the board?

And last question is around battery. I have been using LiPo batteries, like this one, https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13851. How would you recommend connecting it to the board?

Thank you, Eduard.

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[eskhisov]

Ok, thank you. I do not see anything attached, though.

[kriswiner]

Can you see it now? If not, send me e-mail at tleracorp@gmail.com, github might not support attachments.

On Tue, Jun 18, 2019 at 6:33 AM Ed Skhisov notifications@github.com wrote:

Ok, thank you. I do not see anything attached, though.

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[eskhisov]

One more question :-) Does the wire for antenna has to be 28 AWG? I have 22 AWG Hook-up Wire. Will it work?

[kriswiner]

Yes, almost any gauge will work.

On Thu, Jun 20, 2019 at 8:29 PM Ed Skhisov notifications@github.com wrote:

One more question :-) Does the wire for antenna has to be 28 AWG? I have 22 AWG Hook-up Wire. Will it work?

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[eskhisov]

Great, thank you!

[eskhisov]

Does the board come loaded with the sketch, or do I need to load EM7180_MPU9250_BMP280_BasicAHRS_esp8266.ino?

[kriswiner]

Yes, I loaded the attached sketch on your flight controller.

On Fri, Jun 21, 2019 at 2:51 PM Ed Skhisov notifications@github.com wrote:

Does the board come loaded with the sketch, or do I need to load EM7180_MPU9250_BMP280_BasicAHRS_esp8266.ino?

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[eskhisov]

thank you

[eskhisov]

I hooked it up with FTDI cable to the laptop with Arduino IDE running. It turned on without battery. There is solid green light near battery connection and blinking red light between SCL and TX PTHs. The Serial Monitor in Arduino IDE shows garbage. I connected FTDI TX to RX, FTDI TX to RX, FTDI GND to GND, FTDI VCC 3.3V to 3V3. I hoped to see some Serial output. Am I doing something wrong?

[kriswiner]

Yes, FTDI can only supply 100 mA at most, not enough to power this board. Use FTDI RX to board TX, connect GND, and then use a 3.7 V 1 S LiPo battery to power the board.

On Fri, Jun 21, 2019 at 4:36 PM Ed Skhisov notifications@github.com wrote:

I hooked it up with FTDI cable to the laptop with Arduino IDE running. It turned on without battery. There is solid green light near battery connection and blinking red light between SCL and TX PTHs. The Serial Monitor in Arduino IDE shows garbage. I connected FTDI TX to RX, FTDI TX to RX, FTDI GND to GND, FTDI VCC 3.3V to 3V3. I hoped to see some Serial output. Am I doing something wrong?

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[kriswiner]

You should also solder an antenna onto the board to reduce the current draw from the wifi. 31 mm 24 - 28 gauge insulated copper wire would do.

On Fri, Jun 21, 2019 at 4:44 PM Tlera Corporation tleracorp@gmail.com wrote:

Yes, FTDI can only supply 100 mA at most, not enough to power this board. Use FTDI RX to board TX, connect GND, and then use a 3.7 V 1 S LiPo battery to power the board.

On Fri, Jun 21, 2019 at 4:36 PM Ed Skhisov notifications@github.com wrote:

I hooked it up with FTDI cable to the laptop with Arduino IDE running. It turned on without battery. There is solid green light near battery connection and blinking red light between SCL and TX PTHs. The Serial Monitor in Arduino IDE shows garbage. I connected FTDI TX to RX, FTDI TX to RX, FTDI GND to GND, FTDI VCC 3.3V to 3V3. I hoped to see some Serial output. Am I doing something wrong?

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[eskhisov]

That worked! Thank you very much!

[eskhisov]

What is the difference between Software and Hardware Quaternions? Also, it seems that what is loaded on the board is different from what's on Github, e.g. board seems to also generate Linear acceleration values (also software and hardware). Is there additional code or documentation somewhere?

[kriswiner]

Software quaternions means using Madwick fusion on the host MCU (ESP8266), hardware quaternions means generated on and read from the EM7180.

As linked from the product page:

https://github.com/kriswiner/EM7180_SENtral_sensor_hub/wiki

https://github.com/gregtomasch/EM7180_SENtral_Calibration

https://github.com/simondlevy/Hackflight

On Sat, Jun 22, 2019 at 2:00 PM Ed Skhisov notifications@github.com wrote:

What is the difference between Software and Hardware Quaternions? Also, it seems that what is loaded on the board is different from what on Github, e.g. board seems to also generate Linear acceleration values (also software and hardware). Is there additional code or documentation somewhere?

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[eskhisov]

Thank you, that helped to understand how the board works. However, I still have a dilemma. I would like to start making modifications from the point of the sketch that is already loaded on the board. None of the sketches in the repositories that you pointed to matches the output I am getting, which tells me that board has some other software loaded. This is the typical output I am getting: rate = 2197.16 Hz ax = -5.37 ay = -984.78 az = -74.18 mg gx = 0.00 gy = 0.00 gz = 0.00 deg/s mx = 111 my = -200 mz = -165 mG Software quaternions: q0 = 0.61 qx = 0.33 qy = -0.65 qz = 0.30 Hardware quaternions: Q0 = 0.61 Qx = -0.66 Qy = -0.32 Qz = 0.30 Software yaw, pitch, roll: 250.58, -85.82, 176.41 Software Grav_x, Grav_y, Grav_z: -4.56, -997.33, -72.82 mg Software Lin_ax, Lin_ay, Lin_az: -0.80, 12.55, -1.36 mg Hardware Yaw, pitch, Roll: 66.58, 0.28, -94.22 Hardware Grav_x, Grav_y, Grav_z: 997.28, 4.97, -73.60 mg Hardware Lin_ax, Lin_ay, Lin_az: -0.80, 12.55, -1.36 mg MS5637: Altimeter temperature = 44.79 C Altimeter temperature = 112.62 F Altimeter pressure = 834.13 mbar Altitude = 5282.48 feet

The only sketch I could find that matches this output is EM7180_SENtral_sensor_hub/EM7180_LSM6DSM_LIS2MDL_LPS22HB/EM7180_LSM6DSM_LIS2MDL_LPS22HB_ESP32.ino But that one is for USFS based on ST hardware, not MPU9250.

So, I was wondering if you can share the exact sketch that's loaded on the board?

[kriswiner]

I already sent this to you.

On Sat, Jun 22, 2019 at 3:25 PM Ed Skhisov notifications@github.com wrote:

Thank you, that helped to understand how the board works. However, I still have a dilemma. I would like to start making modifications from the point of the sketch that is already loaded on the board. None of the sketches in the repositories that you pointed to matches the output I am getting, which tells me that board has some other software loaded. This is the typical output I am getting: rate = 2197.16 Hz ax = -5.37 ay = -984.78 az = -74.18 mg gx = 0.00 gy = 0.00 gz = 0.00 deg/s mx = 111 my = -200 mz = -165 mG Software quaternions: q0 = 0.61 qx = 0.33 qy = -0.65 qz = 0.30 Hardware quaternions: Q0 = 0.61 Qx = -0.66 Qy = -0.32 Qz = 0.30 Software yaw, pitch, roll: 250.58, -85.82, 176.41 Software Grav_x, Grav_y, Grav_z: -4.56, -997.33, -72.82 mg Software Lin_ax, Lin_ay, Lin_az: -0.80, 12.55, -1.36 mg Hardware Yaw, pitch, Roll: 66.58, 0.28, -94.22 Hardware Grav_x, Grav_y, Grav_z: 997.28, 4.97, -73.60 mg Hardware Lin_ax, Lin_ay, Lin_az: -0.80, 12.55, -1.36 mg MS5637: Altimeter temperature = 44.79 C Altimeter temperature = 112.62 F Altimeter pressure = 834.13 mbar Altitude = 5282.48 feet

The only sketch I could find that matches this output is EM7180_SENtral_sensor_hub/EM7180_LSM6DSM_LIS2MDL_LPS22HB/EM7180_LSM6DSM_LIS2MDL_LPS22HB_ESP32.ino But that one is for USFS based on ST hardware, not MPU9250.

So, I was wondering if you can share the exact sketch that's loaded on the board?

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[eskhisov]

Yes, I loaded the attached sketch on your flight controller.

Oh, I see. There was no attachment again :-( Can you send it to eskhisov@kiksense.com?

[kriswiner]

github can't do attachments, that's why I request you ask your questions via regular mail.

On Sat, Jun 22, 2019 at 5:38 PM Ed Skhisov notifications@github.com wrote:

Yes, I loaded the attached sketch on your flight controller.

Oh, I see. There was no attachment again :-( Can you send it to eskhisov@kiksense.com?

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[eskhisov]

Will do