WOW man, I'm happy to see that you got it back in one piece!!!! That was a crazy ride!! Even though the gimbal yaw was not set it did have smooth video. Lol Awesome rescue reconnaissance with the other quad!
Had similar flying characteristics when I used those props on a windy day but behaves perfectly with little to no wind.. so now I refuse to fly with that style of prop. Glad you recovered the whirley bug in one peice!!
I've never had problems with 9450 props, in fact the opposite. Stock props and 9443 props can't fight the wind, especially carrying a camera and gimbal. The CX-20 uses Phantom motors and Phantoms use 9450 props.
I usually don't like music in the back ground a whole lot as I like to get an idea of how loud some models are but you have great taste and it made the vid even more enjoyable! You live in a crowded but lovely hood as well. Great vid.
Thanks. When I listen to quadcopter videos with the sound of motors, somebody inevitably calls from the other room "What's that noise?" I compromise and just turn down the on-board audio -26 dB, but using copyrighted music means I cannot monetize these videos which most people seem to do. Also, my DJI Phantom 3 has no audio and I ain't singing for you guys. Yeah, they stuck a lot of houses on this hill but my other house in Maui has lots of acreage: ruclips.net/video/eSjrKf3adWk/видео.html ruclips.net/video/OvP6jxwCeFg/видео.html
+Eric Newman Lol! No please give us your best. And I would almost trade house to live in Cali, beautiful weather almost all year there. Great for hobbies like quads etc. Happy to see you found it, and enjoy The XX and Lauren as well. Take care and bring us more vids.
thanks for sharing this Eric. always pass Yorba linda... real neat to see the aerial footage. you off the 57? from Pasadena here, just bought my first cx20.. doing as much research as possible.
Cool video though, using the other to find it. Also, the bad battery at the end, they do crazy things in those cases. There was another video of a cx-20 by quadcopter101 (?) with it landing god knows where after power dropped in flight due to a junk battery. Arm/Take off in loiter, make sure it has a good gps lock too.
I had this happen, but I was lucky enough to recover before it fell. I believe the ESC's are weak and the DJI props put a little more torque on the motors. This in turn makes getting away from prop wash very difficult, seemingly any altitude loss will invoke erratic over corrections by the FC. I tuned this out for the most part by increasing throttle hover to 600 and climb rate to .813, this allows the FC to react with more power before prop wash takes hold. Hope this helps!!
+Ever Sky I agree that the ESCs and motors take more strain when carrying a camera and a gimbal, but this carried a tiny Mobius camera, not a GoPro, and it was in slow level flight on a fairly calm day. Technically the 9450 props are more efficient and should cause less current draw under the same conditions than the stock props. Adding weight and upward acceleration makes the current really jump, but lots of people use these same motors with 4s lipo batteries You bring up a good point about the prop wash causing severe instability than many people are unaware of, although this problem occurred in level flight. Many inexperienced pilots lose altitude by going straight down, where the prop wash can create Vortex Ring State and a loss of stability. It's best to corkscrew downward always maintaining forward velocity.
+Andrew J All props can cause Vortex Ring State. I've had the least problems with 9450s. I never fly straight down, but rather corkscrew down to lose altitude. You can see in the video it had good forward velocity when the problem occurred. The next flight after it was retrieved and calibrated it went crazy and flew away. Even Return Home had no effect.
Glad you had it back I lost mine but had it back when a fisherman at a pond near where I had been flying it found it when he hooked it under water it had been there for 9 weeks I am trying to repair it so far all lights work but there is a continuous beeping low battery sound I have just had new parts (receiver and Power board so we will see I didn't know they had a built in alarm either. Is that true of all CX 20's once again glad you found it. Keith North Wales U.K.
If it's been in the water it might cost more to repair than it's worth. I believe all CX-20s have a low battery alarm but I added a Lost Quadcopter alarm for only a few dollars.
+Eric Newman wich Landing gear are you using? Total weight that you added?(including camera, gimball and fpv gear and removing the orifinal Landing gear) :)Thanks a lot, i really need to know this!However, really interesting video! :)
Somewhere below you'll find links to the landing gear, which I do not suggest. The retractable landing gear for the CX-20 are much better. I don't have that CX-20 any more so I can't give you the weight, but the CX-20 with carbon fiber retractable landing gear, a 3-axis gimbal, Mobius or GoPro camera, and 5.8GHz transmitter with antenna can easily be lifted with 9450 props with plenty of power to spare.
+Eric Newman really? Some people i know say that with the weight of a retractable gear + just a gimball you will get a really low flight time. Maybe adding a bigger battery i will solve the problem but i don't really want to burn the motors :) Thanks for the reply!
Maybe they're using really heavy landing gear, but mine were carbon fiber. You should get nine minutes of flight time with a 2800 mA-hr battery. I got 19.25 minutes flight time with a CX-20 using the US Robotics' 5100 mA-hr IRIS+ 3S 8C Lipo battery lifting a 2-axis GoPro gimbal, Mobius camera, and a 600 mW 5.8 GHz FPV video transmitter. Watch: ruclips.net/video/77Zi247RXNc/видео.html The CX-20 uses Phantom motors -- You won't burn them out.
Hi, thank you very much for sharing this video. I had the same problem, it was windly, cloudy day and Return to Home mode did not work and the quadcopter fly away. I could not find my drone again, I have checked many streets and areas but drone was not seen. My question is, how can I secure the quadcopter if any loss, is there any gps tracker or gsm tracker that I can attach it to the quadcopter and if any loss situation happens I can find its exact place? What do you recommendation for this situation? Thank you in advance. Cheers.
+Serhan Engin hi depeding on your budget, there is the flytrex gps which is $145,then the lower end tk102,gps106 which all take a phone sim to find gps.hope this helps
hello eric, that's not the lost copter alarm, it's the battery low alarm. :) and the battery swollen means it was fully discharged, its a danger to charge it again. put it aside :)
Hi Eric first of all let me thank you for the video and info. I also have a Cheerson CX20 open source and have had good flights with it most of them in manual mode. Now after reading what some of you have mention about calibrating the compass brings a question to mind. Quad Noris said that you have to calibrate the compass in mission planer. Are you tell that the so call quad copter dance does not calibrate the compass like they say in the instruction. Pleas elaborate for I do not want to depend on the GPS mode if that is correct. Thanks again for sharing the video.
+Skydive Driver I've calibrated the CX-20 compass in APM Planner and through the mode called up from the controller. I don't notice a difference. I've also flown a CX-20 once with the China factory calibration and it was fine. I have, however noticed a big difference in the stability after the hover calibration. If you take off and it flops over or goes to one side you need to perform the hover calibration. ruclips.net/video/-5b0Xeps4cM/видео.html
Thanks for the come back Eric. Yes I have done the hover calibration before. I also do the compass calibration along with the hover every time hang something new on it. Thanks aging. Blue Skys Jim
Sorry about the crash! How long are you "here"? We're going to Lancaster for the long weekend. Gimbal is excellent ... very smooth and stable. You should buy some hiking boots - About $25 for "Ozark Trails" at Wal-Mart!
Are you kidding? When crap falls out of the sky that's the highlight of my day. If it's my crap and I can find it, that's like Christmas. Next video is where four screws backed out of a motor on the Maui CX-20 and it fell from the sky. The wiring was in a panty wad and that motor failed. I got a new motor from China and soldered it in last night. I am no longer "here" -- I am now "there" -- I arrived in Maui last Sunday night. Hiking boots... Pfffff. In Hawaii, bruddah... Rubba Slippahs.
+E. De La Rio Thanks. I bought them at Banggood and I thought they would be good because the 3-axis Mobius gimbal was so tall and they allowed a lot of forward view, but I found that they were very unstable for landing. I switched to Banggood 's retractable landing gear for the CX-20. No videos yet.
Mine was complete junk. After two weeks I finally got it to where it would fly correctly then at 300 ft, one motor just stopped and it dropped like a rock. It was less than 100ft from me horizontally. Motors tested fine. Two escs were broken. The body was shot and I had wiring damage. I rebuilt it and took it out, Everythign seemed fine until I hit RTH and it veered off sideways into a wall of trees which again destroyed the fragile shell. Since then I just bought a 450 frame and built a new one from scratch using the motors and ESCs from the cheerson. New APM 2.7, New TX and RX, new GPS/compass combo unit using a mast pole to get it away from the other electronics. Foil over the top to reduce possible interference. This one flies like a champ. I can only assume that the cheap APM knockoff FCs they use and the proprietary TX/RX are to blame for this misbehavior.
I had the motor mount screws back out in a CX-20 and the motor came loose and the quad fell from the sky near me. The motor had to be replaced. This one was undamaged after this video, but after it was retrieved and calibrated it flew away and RTH wouldn't work. I think it lost GPS lock. I think rebuilding with a proper frame and guts is a good idea. I thought of the same. I have two CX-20s but one will not bind to the transmitter / unlock the props. I'll look at in in Mission Planner. I've been flying my Phantom 3 Pro instead lately.
+Eric Newman Is that phantom worth the expense? Can you program waypoints and such? I've had the binding problem and the iuunlock problem. The unlock was solved by reinstalling the firmware, then uploading the default settings file for the CX20 that I saved before tinkering in case I had to go back to factory. The Binding problem though I never solved. It was intermittent. I ended up replacing it with a Flysky transmitter/receiver set. The cool thing on that is that I can pop the receiver into several different vehicles and the transmitter lets me separate profiles for each one. The CX20 transmitter and receiver are proprietary and you can't swap out one without the other.
I still have two CX-20s but one doesn't bind and I don't fly the other anymore. Yes, I do believe that the Phantom is worth the extra expense. Much longer range, good camera, and far superior gimbal. A few weeks ago the Phantom 3 Pro was on sale for US$799 and the Phantom 3 Standard is now around $450.
+RalphDroid I'd say between 300 meters to as much as 1500 meters in perfect conditions. There's a guy here in Maui that modified his CX-20 for more than a 3 mile range. I've had three CX-20s and never had one go out of range, but this one never worked right and after it was retrieved and calibrated flew off never to be seen again.
Wow I've been reading all the comments on this video and it sounds like a lot of your are very knowledgeable on this drone. One quick frustrating problem I'm having: Where in the hell do you buy extra motor mount screws for this drone? I've purchase a new motor and "hardware set" and none of em' can with the fricken motor mount screws (4 per motor)...???? Grounded in Colorado..sigh...
That's kinda funny cuz I was flying my other CX-20 in Maui and all 4 motor screws backed out and the motor came loose and the CX-20 fell to the ground with a wild motor on wires flailing about. Lucky for me, I cut out circles of bright fluorescent orange and green duct tape and put them on the bottom of the motor pods to help see the orientation of the CX-20, and they captured all 4 screws. I'll put the video up someday. By the way, that motor went bad and had to be replaced. All that said, like you I get frustrated with these tiny-ass metric screws so I always buy extra, like: www.banggood.com/Cheerson-CX-20-RC-Quadcopter-Parts-HM-2_5x6-Screw-CX-20-027-p-917978.html www.banggood.com/Cheerson-CX-20-RC-Quadcopter-Spare-Parts-M2x8-Screw-CX-20-028-p-917979.html www.banggood.com/Cheerson-CX-20-RC-Quadcopter-Parts-PM3x6-Screw-CX-20-026-p-917981.html Since I had them, I don't know what size they are, but I do know that the CX-20 uses the same motor as the DJI Phantom (that's why DJI Phantom props fit). When I Google what screws fit a DJI Phantom motor I get M3x9mm screws: www.ebay.com/itm/151704213909 Otherwise you can take a screw to a real mom and pop hardware store and they should have one. Good luck.
+Eric Newman W.O.W Eric, I am super impressed how you have bent over backwards to provide me info on the screws. I swear I looked on Banggood for those screws and none were available, BUT now they are there. My frustrating search is over and I will name my first born child after YOU!
Yorba Linda, California. These have better and more recent views: ruclips.net/video/7gkqnf1WnT0/видео.html ruclips.net/video/B9dYmNYOhJM/видео.html ruclips.net/video/KnFBLQdvIAQ/видео.html ruclips.net/video/NkIiBpc2AVY/видео.html ruclips.net/video/ZD6Er1fChuM/видео.html
I started out with the cheap $45 2-axis gimbals from Banggood but they really don't work well, no matter how well you tune them. Three-axis gimbals are more expensive but are best for videos but are sometimes hard to set up for a clean follow in the yaw axis and they sometimes slip and point the wrong way in high winds. I guess I'd suggest a ~$90 2-axis gimbal to start out, or a 3-axis if you know somebody to help you set it up. You need 9450 props when lifting a gimbal.
Don't you check the KP solar weather index before you fly? Anything above 4 and you're asking for problems and combined with not calibrating the compass.. It's good you got it back, fly safe.
I check the Kp now but the apps didn't have it back then. I don't think the compass was to blame -- I calibrated the compass using Mission Planner once retrieved and it flew away again. I only fly Phantoms and a Mavic now.
the flight controller is mounted on some pretty crappy double sided tape which causes a lot of vibrations to the flight controller making flight a lot more unstable. your cx seems to be moving/wobbling around quite a lot during the flight and gets a pretty wild wobble going right before the crash. if you replace the tape with small amounts of an anti vibration gel tape (zeal or kyosho) and make sure there are no wires tapping the FC, you will reduce your vibrations considerably and make it a lot more stable in air. you have fPV, so fitting a minim-osd would have given you various info on your video feed like GPS location, distance, direction and Alt from home etc. 900mhz telemetry wouldnt go astray either. the beeping is not a lost drone alarm, its a low battery alarm.
My CX-20s have different flight controllers and I don't remember which this one had. Probably the white one with double sided tape and a zip-tie. Read the other replies and you'll see that after calibration, it still had a problem and flew off. Thanks for the link - Good stuff.
thats the common FC found in quanum nova aswell, if you can get rid of the vibrations you can get a much more stable flight. replace the tape as previously mentioned and use your flight logs (download from the FC) to see how much you can reduce any vibrations. If the FC has vibrations it will cause it to falsely try compensate and cause the "toilet bowl" effect as yours was doing in the vid.
That CX-20 flew away. I haven't opened up the BNF replacement but the controller from this video won't unlock the props so I need to work on that before addressing the flight controller mounting. Or buy another Phantom, which sounds better to me. :)
+FotoAmg AmgFoto I always get 9.5 to 10 minutes with this configuration and a 2700 - 2800 mA-hr battery. Now I use 3000 mA-hr batteries. I use a quality Lipo balanced charger. I'll admit the flight did seem like it had the battery ran dead. The battery swelled during the time it took to find it so it had to be recycled, but on the next flight with a 2700 mA-hr battery it flew 10 minutes. Eventually it went crazy and flew away. Something was wrong with this one. I have two other CX-20s, two V303s, a XK Detect X380, and a Phantom 3 Pro. And some 250 racers.
+Eric Newman interesting that you can get 10 minutes with such big landing gear and 3D gimbal, camera and fpv and 9450 props! I land after 5 minutes for safety reasons and never went to 9 minutes only when tested hovering flight time 2 meters above ground, but without gimbal and all the extra stuff.
+FotoAmg AmgFoto The landing gear was carbon fiber and very light. The camera was a light Mobius. Not a GoPro. I usually get around 9.5 - 10 minutes before the LVA connected to the balance connector goes off, and I'd probably get at least another minute after that. Here is a 9:45 CX-20 flight with a single battery, heavy gimbal, camera, and a 600 mW FPV transmitter: gimbal, camera, and a 600 mW FPV transmitter Here is a 19.25 minute flight with my CX-20, second battery, gimbal, camera, and a 600 mW FPV transmitter: ruclips.net/video/77Zi247RXNc/видео.html Try upgrading your props and see if you don't get longer flight times.
Cool! Right now it's for 192.69 dollars. Current best price: couponsfromchina.com/2017/05/18/cheerson-cx-20-quadcopter-active-coupon-price-gearbest/ I bought one ruclips.net/video/jA0tVNRWy3k/видео.html
Obviously the crash was from flying with an uncalibrated compass. Is this the open-source version? If so you should calibrate the compass in Mission Planner and turn on Compass Learn in the parameters. It'll fly fine in stablize/manual mode with an uncalibrated compass but once you call on a gps feature especially RTH/RTL it doesn't know which way is which to reach the GPS coordinates so it'll fly off and then it likely entered VRS and crashed.
+Eric Newman oh, in the video you said it wasn't calibrated. Which version is this? I assume it's not the open-source since you were trying to calibrate it manually? the open-source version is so much better then the others. I'm not too familiar with the software for the other versions. How do you know the compass offsets were properly calibrated?
+Ryan Devall It's an open source version. I've calibrated the compass in CX-20s using Mission Planner and changed the maximum tilt angle (not on this video's flight), but it's easier and better using the built-in routine. Less magnetic interference outside and you don't have to deal with the USB cable. Honestly, on this flight it acted like the battery died but it was only 6.5 minutes into a normally 9 - 10 minute flight. Like I said, it was calibrated (compass and accelerometer hover calibration. And freaked out and flew off on the next flight. My other CX-20s don't do that, but I have one that doesn't bind easily.
+Eric Newman you should join the Cheerson, Quanum Nova FB group. lots of information and people with more knowledge than you can ever imagine. If you turn on Compass Learn you won't need to do a compass calibration. It'll self calibrate. Is that what you were doing though? Everyone in the group uses MP to calibrate their compasses manually but with learn "on" you just fly for a minute in all directions your compass will learn it's offsets.
+Ryan Devall I've looked over the CX-20 forums, but I don't do Facebook. I'll look into Compass Learn but I generally fly in the same areas, and recalibrate in new areas. Thanks for the info.
+Mark Scott It really depends on what you want to do and how much you want to spend. The CX-20 is fast and allows manual flight (as opposed to the smart mode only). It's also inexpensive and available in an open source version where you can fly a pre-programmed flight. The CX-20 seems to be finicky and less reliable than others in the ~$250 price range. If you only plan on flying it in the smart mode (like a Phantom), I'd suggest the V303, or the XK Detect X380 (which has a better flight time).
Here are the carbon fiber landing gear but I do NOT recommend them -- The CX-20 it too top-heavy with them: www.banggood.com/Glass-Fiber-Highten-Landing-Gear-Kit-For-DJI-F450-F550-Multicopter-FPV-p-944066.html I prefer the CX-20 retractable landing gear but it uses one of the two spare channels: www.banggood.com/Eachine-Electronic-Retractable-Folding-Landing-Gear-for-CX-20-CX20-Quanum-Nova-p-978461.html There are so many 3-axis gimbals and I don't know what camera you're using (I used a Mobius but I also use GoPros). I used this one: www.banggood.com/Eachine-Light-3D-3-Axis-Brushl-p-979563.html Just search and look for reviews. You probably only want to operate tilt axis and let the yaw axis operate in Follow mode.
+Shoreline Films That's a great question -- I go back and forth on my opinion. The CX-20 flies faster and has more control options, and is open source so you can change parameters and set pre-programmed courses. The V303 flies like a Phantom, and has been much more reliable and trouble free in my experience (of two V303s and three CX-20s). The V303 also takes 9450 props if you drill them out. I bought an XK Detect X380 which is basically a V303 with a huge battery but I haven't flown it yet - - I planned on putting 100W of LED lights on it for photography at night.
+Joseph Smalley I bought them at Banggood and I thought they would be good because the 3-axis Mobius gimbal was so tall and they allowed a lot of forward view, but I found that they were very unstable for landing. I switched to Banggood 's retractable landing gear for the CX-20 but one leg sticks sometimes and haven't flown with them yet.
+Quad Noris Thanks. Yes, it it open source. I finally did get the compass to calibrate and I calibrated the accelerometers but it still acts squirrely. I did try connecting to Mission Planner but it wouldn't connect through a port. I use the same laptop to tune gimbals with SimpleBGC_GUI_2_XX.
Mine right out of the box flew perfect but when I started modifying it then I had to tune up pids that control how fast the quad reacts I'd bet your connection problems are probably due to a driver not getting installed correctly if you do a fresh install of mission planner that would help you calibrate and update firmware if needed . or just get everything tuned up. .. also keep in mind when connecting to mission planner you do need to set the proper com port and baud rate
+Eric Newman That could be all the mission planner driver really does is make a serial port in windows to enable communications from the quad to pc ... when the drivers are installed and you plug in your quad you should see a new serial port open up in your device manager
+Quad Noris I'll just do a fresh install of Mission Planner on a different PC. In what way did you change your PID constants when you added the extra weight of the gimbal and camera? Tomorrow I'll fly a newly reconfigured and very heavy WLtoys V303 with a 3-axis gimbal, GoPro, 600 mW 5.8 GHz transmitter and antenna, and a second 2200 mA-hr Lipo battery. Test flight got over a 15 minute flight time.
To me (I'm by no means an expert, though) it looks like the drone jerked around (like the WL Toys did that one time, but a little stronger), fell a bit, and while trying to recover entered VRS state. I have no idea why either of your drones would be erking around like that in the first place, though.
This video was from two years ago. Back then I had two CX-20s and two V303s (most of which could still fly). I think most of the jerkiness you see is from the first use of the not-fully-tuned 3-axis gimbal with Mobius camera. The CX-20s and V303s are great for learning, but now I only fly DJI Phantoms and a Mavic Pro. The range and performance is far beyond others.
Eric Newman Well, ok, that makes sense (I've seen it a lot that rather cheap or old gimbals an be jerky) but at least in case of the V303 the drone itself did do that one big kinda jerky movement (where the gimbal actually smoothes it out quite well). But since the gimbal may have been jerky on the CX-20, there is no way of knowing if it was jerking like that, too. Regardless, I have to say that I'm impressed and very glad that you found the time to answer a comment on a video that's two years old. That's rare on RUclips and I respect that.
That was actually a fairly good 3-axis gimbal and I have tuned that same gimbal so it worked very well. You have to balance the gimbal, remove torsion from wiring, and adjust the gimbal's PID constants for each axis so it works well. I liked my CX-20s and V303s and thought they were smooth. Switch to DJI 9450 props and it flies like an early Phantom, but with crappy range. It's just that Phantoms are so cheap now, especially factory refurbished ones. I saw a Phantom 3 Professional for $499. Two mile range and great 4K video.
LVC alarm was going off in flight and you were lifting a 3 axis gimbal. That's the result right there, about 7 minutes of flight and then it cuts. The stock battery doesn't give you much flight time with that kind of weight and power being drawn. Also, why would you fly without calibrating the compass? I know it wouldn't let you, but that just means don't fly until you can figure that out. Live and learn. I'm glad you found it in good shape.
I've tried many times to calibrate that compass, and contacted Banggood. It won't enter the compass calibration mode. I'll continue to mess with it when I get back. I have a nearly identical configuration with a CX-20, 2-axis gimbal (not 3), camera, and 600mW transmitter and it gets over 12 minutes of flight time. It's a good thought, thanks. Next time I'll keep it close and time it.
+Eric Newman Is it open Source, BigFlyShark, or Zero version? They all seem to have different methods to calibrate the compass. Take a look in the compass tower and see.
I have two of the CX-20 open source from Banggood. One calibrates fine: Power up CX-20, and within 5 seconds turn on the controller and immediately put the right joystick to the lower right and wait for the lights to alternate. The California one in this video wouldn't go into the calibration mode. I was getting 14 minute flight times before the gimbal. I have a 13.5 minute flight here: ruclips.net/video/JHSiUZdEC0k/видео.html and I know I can get over 10 minutes with the gimbal and the 600mW transmitter. I'll try to calibrate it again including the hover calibration, and watch it closer next time. I wouldn't have let it get that far away but it seemed to be flying fine. I'll probably replace the gimbal on the CX-20 here in Maui. It's the cheap Banggood 2-axis with a perfectly balanced Mobius and I set the power and PID parameters from scratch several times, but it still loses lock on the pitch axis occasionally. Increasing motor power doesn't help. Also the pitch axis has high frequency oscillations with D>4. Never seen a derivative value under 8 and usually at least 10. It's hard to tune a Mobius on a GoPro gimbal. I just got a second WLtoys V303 but it didn't have the spare servo channel pigtails coming out the bottom like the first one does. I guess I'll open it up and get them. On the other one I control the pitch axis only with the irritating camera up/down buttons. If I get a 3-axis gimbal, do you know if you can control yaw with the model transition/photo buttons?
+Eric Newman A gimbal and camera will cut your flight times drastically. The fact that the LVC was blinking and flashing shows you that it only will get 7 minutes or so with the stock battery. Change to Carbon Fiber and you'll notice longer flight times. Are you sure it's open source? Do you have the little green compass or the GPS in the tower? Sometimes they like to pull those scams. Have you connected to Mission Planner to calibrate there?
I've flown the CX-20 a lot with the gimbal and transmitter. I just haven't posted many videos because the gimbal isn't perfect. It was sold as open source and has the power and extra channel connectors on the bottom. Dunno if there is a compass or a GPS on the top tower. Never used Mission Planner software. What do you do with it? Besides calibration, can you do waypoints?
The control is at 2.4 GHz and that FPV is at 5.8 GHz and I've never had them interfere. A real concern is the 5.8 GHz FPV transmitters interfering with the very faint GPS signal. I have two CX-20s and two V303s, all with 5.8 GHz 600 mW transmitters. I put the antennae on the very bottom and make sure the bottom of the GPS antennae are shielded. I bind them with the FPV transmitters off then switch them on after GPS lock. They've never lost lock but the GPS in the V303 seems to be better than the CX-20.
+Mr. swagy Lauren got it -- "Intro" by The Xx. I put the artist information in the lower left near the beginning of the song -- See 0:25. I love The Xx's music.
+razorseal I should have just hovered it close to me on it's first flight, but I've had other CX-20s and I trust it. Most places are good about initial problems with quadcopters but I doubt you'll have any problems. The CX-20 is usually a good quadcopter. I do have some advice: Attach an 808 keychain camera or a Mobius video camera to a baseball cap and video your flight in case there are problems -- or to show it picture-in-picture in a video. You can see mine at 1:02. But this time I left the damn lens cap on. Pfffff.
Which props did you use? The 9450 props work great with the CX-20 motors. 9443 props do not have enough pitch to lift a camera and gimbal. I've never experienced vortex ring state. Try keeping forward velocity as you spiral to lose altitude rather than flying straight down.
+Eric Newman best to just get a cheap 10 dollar bluetooth that plugs into telemetry. Its been a life saver for me. When mine hits green, it's still not safe to fly (4 sats and HDOP of of only 4 or 5) should have 2 or lower with at least 8 or 9 locks to fly in any GPS assisted modes. Also, I could barely ever get more than 4 sats, and did the tin foil mode to shield the GPS in the dome at the center of the quad (still inside with secured into place with foil tape. I get solid GPS lock inside the house now with 9 sats and HDOP of 1.45 or so!
+TorontoR You plug a bluetooth gizmo into a separate telemetry board that in turn plugs into the flight controller? They don't ground the copper GPS shield. Adding a wire from the copper shield to ground will attenuate the electronic RF noise to the GPS better. I keep the 5.8GHz FPV transmitter off while it's locking, then wait a little longer. I've three CX-20s - two in California and one in Maui and only had problems with this one but on two separate occasions. Something is hosed up on this one. The compass took many attempts to calibrate and on a later flight Return Home didn't work. This flight acted like the battery died but I always get 9.5 - 10 minutes of flight time -- not 6.5 minutes.
+Eric Newman you're right, copper would be better, didn;t have any laying around but the foil is working fine. Got this Bluetooth module for datalink: www.amazon.com/Apm2-5-Pixhawk-2-43-Bluetooth-Module/dp/B00VEQM6II I only got it to take the guess work out to ensure I have good GPS lock prior to launching.. Its range is only about 50 feet or so, and therefore wouldn't use it to control and fly though. The App on the phone gives audible feedback and (app called Tower). The module is plug and play with our FC. I know some of the older ones required soldering, but if your Copter is a recent one than the port is there. Mine had a port, however if you need to solder this is a good guide to follow: github.com/jlnaudin/x-VTOLdrone/wiki/TUTO:-Connecting-the-telemetry-to-the-Cheerson-CX-20-(aka-the-Quanum-NOVA)
+TorontoR Good to know -- Thanks. I've been flying my Phantom 3 Pro lately but that would be a nice CX-20 mod. I think my CX-20s came with copper shields, unless I'm thinking of the V303. The Home Depot sells rolls of self-adhesive sheet copper for slug and snail control. Copper ain't cheap.
Hello i have a question can i do a fpv livefeed with this cam www.gearbest.com/rc-quadcopters-parts/pp_143774.html im fairly new to quads. i have only flown small toy quads before and the v303 is my first real quad. the cam has a mini usb port and a sdscard reader. help please
I am not familiar with that camera but it says "USB 2.0 with AV output" so you just need the mini USB connector for that camera and use the single video connection and ground, and input it to a 200mW to 600mW 5.8 GHz 32 channel transmitter, get a cloverleaf circular polarized antenna, some goggles (screens are hard to see in the daylight, even with shades), and you're good to go. The 3-leaf cloverleaf is for transmitting, and the 4-leaf is for receiving. Maybe that A/V cable is the same as a Mobius or GoPro A/V cable. Maybe not.
Most FPV kits come with a camera you don't need and a whip antenna you don't want. I don't know the angles you will mount stuff. A 200 mW transmitter is probably good enough but I'm paranoid about losing signal when I can't see the quad, so I get the 600 mW. This one has a good antenna: www.banggood.com/Eachine-5_8GHz-600mW-32CH-AV-Wireless-Q-Transmitter-TX-Module-JST-Plug-p-975911.html?p=OW23211676484201505B The antenna can mount pointing up or down, but keep it as far away from the GPS antenna on the top of the V303 as possible to avoid interferrence. The transmitter works on 12 volts. Mount the metal part of the transmitter to a piece of metal like a heat sink or it will overheat. I use the gimbal mount or a sheet of aluminum. I'd also put an on/off switch on the transmitter power so you don't waste the battery waiting for a GPS lock.
i relly dont want a another cam any kits with transmitter and reciver but without a cam what about dis mybestbuyever.com/el/quadcopter-accessories/31884-diy-58g-200mw-720p-fpv-set-for-wltoys-v303-rc-quadcopter.html
Mine's crashed all three times i flew it, fly's fine at first then completely loses control of itself, flip's over and fly's itself into the ground at full speed, 2 new shell's, propeller's and leg's, my Go Pro is still alive, but i'm getting worried about this thing, in stable mode it's fine but sort of loses itself, return home sometime's work's, but that's really unstable, manual mode work's fine, path mode is self destruct mode, that's when thing's get really bad, so far my cheerson cx 20 is unstable and need's a parachute lol
+Ted Finch I think I can help you with that. I have two CX-20s and one did that after I replaced a motor. It needs recalibrated. Try the accelerameter calibration and then the hover calibration: ruclips.net/video/-5b0Xeps4cM/видео.html The method varies slightly depending on which CX-20 version you have. It worked for me on one of my CX-20s, but it apparently was not the issue on this one.
Ah thankyou eric newman alway's a good idea to read the manual first, thank's so much for your help, i'm goin to test it again later and see how we go :)
Eric Newman, so i just finished testing it and all went really well, the quad this time was really stable after doing a remote calibration and a compass calibration, positioning mode work's fine and return home mode worked perfect after testing 3 times, so far so good, i think though it all depend's on how good the gps connection is to the quad and maybe i should only use these function's when in a emergency lol, Thankyou very much for your help :)
Yeah I know. The battery gets 9+ minutes with that configuration. It took a long time to acquire GPS lock and time while trying to calibrate the compass but the props were off and the battery voltage was good prior to take off.
Serhan Engin, After I retrieved this CX-20 I calibrated everything including compass and the hover calibration, and it went crazy again and Return Home didn't work. It just flew off. This was my second of three CX-20s and the others were fine. As for tracking it, I have a highly directional 5.8 GHz antenna which I can put on my video receiver and track the FPV signal until the battery dies: www.banggood.com/3D-Pro-5_8GHz-Omnidirectional-Spring-Antenna-16dBi-RP-SMA-Connector-p-935613.html?p=OW23211676484201505B There are also Tile-type bluetooth trackers for keys that work tracking your quadcopter, but at a fairly short range. There are also more expensive and longer distance trackers.
+Eric Newman I have a CX-20 and while flying with a gopro it was acting very similar. I did some research and found out you must change the location of the GPS to avoid interference with the Camera and other things. I don't know if you isolated your GPS before flying with a camera, but it seems to be a problem for many people.
+Jonathan Espinal I have two CX-20 configurations like this and I was concerned about interference from the 5.8 GHz transmitter to the GPS antenna. I opened it up and verified that there was a copper shield under the GPS antenna and I mounted my 5.8 GHz video antenna on the very bottom at landing gear level as far from the GPS as I could. The other CX-20 maintains good GPS lock with the 5.8 GHz transmitter on. It could be something like that because after this CX-20 was recovered, recalibrated and flown again it flew off and Return Home didn't work.
Very possible, my first CX-20 did the same thing, I set it to return to home and till this day I have no idea where it went. I guess they're a hit or miss, because the one I have now works perfectly fine.
Matt- I had problems flying in wind with stock propellers and it's been great since I switched to 9450s. This was a different CX-20 with stock props: ruclips.net/video/6drHe8DuHo4/видео.html
great vid man.hey I wish we could make China send us replacement quads for those of us who've lost ours like this though! f...ers are getting away with alot of money!
+Y. lou I think the CX-20 is a great GPS quadcopter for the money. Yeah, this one was screwy, even after I calibrated the compass and accelerometers. The CX-20 is available open source so you can use Mission Planner and set waypoint routes to follow, and has two spare RC channels. I also like the WLtoys V303.
I thought about that but it was acting quirky before. That was an easy 6.5 minute flight and I had a freshly charged battery that should have been good for 12 - 14 minutes. That CX-20 is in California and I won't be able to mess with it for a few weeks. Just got a V303 delivered by DHL today in Hawaii !!! I'll try a 3-axis gimbal on it and another 600mW 5.8 GHz 32 channel transmitter. I also learned that DJI 9.4 inch Phantom props fit the V303 if you drill out the first part before the threads with an "O" lettered drill bit. Unlike the CX-20, the stock props on the V303 are decent. I use 9450 props and balance them.
I haven't really needed longer flight times, but thank you for the tip. I have a DJI Phantom 3 Professional which is good for about 25 minutes. Well' I had a defective DJI Phantom 3 Professional delivered, had to pay to return it, and it's been a month. There is no customer service worse than DJI's.
yes i have already ordered the xk detect bottom shell :D just a quick note the trasmitter screw isnt the same as the v303 screw but ill figure it out :/
+Over & Back Sorry. I've crashed my V303 into a stadium lamp post. ... Twice. The second video is almost ready to upload. First time no damage: ruclips.net/video/AjGuTx4DvTI/видео.html Second time it needed a new motor. Oh, and my 250 Racer hit a palm tree and was alright: ruclips.net/video/rnqcNMNZE2Y/видео.html
+Eric Newman .......I'll take a peek. Thanks. Got my Typhoon supposedly being repaired at the "Official Typhoon Repair Facility" in California. Couldn't understand the guy, sounded like he was from Pakistan and speaking through a can. I got tired of saying "what, pardon & excuse me" so I just kept saying yes with a few no's sprinkled here & there.. I have no idea what the hell he was telling me & I don't expect to see it again until sometime in the next century....if then. No more Yuneec for me. I've bought more props to replace my shattered ones to keep Yuneec stock soaring. Just received an MJX-101. Love it at $125 vs. Typhoon's $1,249.
+Over & Back Good look with the repairs. The Q500 is a good quadcopter. It's big. I like the way everything is in the controller. I hate DJI's approach of requiring a tablet or phone to operate it. The MJX-101 looks like fun, but GPS, FPV and a gimbal are nice. The I've been mainly flying my Phantom 3 Pro but I left it in Maui and I'm in California right now.
+Eric Newman .....You're in California? Could you go by Yuneec's office & pick up my Typhoon? I'd pay you. I know if you don't, I'll never see it again. And tell that Pakistani guy to improve his pronunciation. Yes, I do agree about the excellent video & photo quality of the Q500 camera etc. But I'm on pins & needles every time I fly the sucker. Honestly, I've bought about 30 props in the last 90 days. BTW: Have you ever tried to replace a motor on a Typhoon? If you don't know how to cuss....you'll learn.
+Over & Back I'd love to pick up your Typhoon. You are more than generous. :) I don't know squat about replacing Typhoon props. How hard can it be? I have five gimbaled camera quads and I rarely replace props on them. I've never replaced props on my DJI Phantom 3 Pro. I have two carbon fiber 250 racers with FPV, OSD, and GPS. I replace those props like crazy. Regarding being nervous when flying your expensive quadcopter, I know exactly what you mean and that will pass with experience. Look into quadcopter flight simulators. Also, I have that DJI Phantom 3 Pro but still like flying my cheaper CX-20s and V303s cuz I'm more likely to take risks with 'em.
LOOKING AT WHERE YOU LIVE I GET THE NOTION, THAT MONEY IS NOT THE ISSUE FOR YOU... ALL THESE CONFIGURATIONS NEED T BE DONE BEFORE YOU TAKE OFF, NOT AFTER,,, NO GPS LOCK, NO FLIGHT!, AND DEFINITELY NO FPV FLIGHT FIRST TIME!! BUT YOU MAY LEARN AFTER THE THIRD OR 4TH ONE...:)
I actually own two of them and very familiar with them. but never lost one... used mission planner to adjust accordingly to experience of others, and they fly perfectly, never crashed, never left my eye sight... I don't do fpv, its not accurate, and not safe.. you never know what kind of wind condition are 1/4 a mile away from you... if I ever own an army drone.. I will do fpv...:)
+Jack Scarpon Then I'm surprised that you didn't notice that it had acquired GPS lock. I too have two CX-20s but both have retractable landing gear, 3-axis gimbals, and 600mW FPV. I only use Mission Planner to change the maximum tilt angle. While waypoint courses sound interesting, I'd rather fly by hand. I understand that FPV isn't for everybody. Mainly it's for those who want properly-framed video or pictures. You don't have to fly FPV, but it certainly helps frame the shots. You can even forget the gimbal if you don't mind shaky seasick videos. I also agree with wind conditions being dramatically different a short distance away -- A comment that you will see that I have made many times here. That's especially noticeable in Maui with the micro-climates and strong winds in the gulches. Happy flying, No-FPV-Jack
Yeah, I've heard about the East-Coast weather recently. Obama is in Los Angeles taping the Ellen show today so there's literally a no-fly zone all over L.A. He was in Oahu, Hawaii right after Christmas and there was a no-fly area over the entire island so folks couldn't fly their new Christmas drones. Hope you can get in some snow-flights. Just keep your lipo battery warm!
HAHAHA You're blaming the propellers when clearly you "HAVEN'T" done any of your pre-flight checks! You neglected all of that! You "HAVEN'T' put forth the effort to fly your $200-some quadcopter in a manner to be able to fly it day after day. Clearly YOU should not HAVE one....Blaming the propellers....pshhhhhhh. It was all pilot error since before take-off. Well at least you were able to retrieve it and it didn't suffer any damage, so good on you for that.
Propellers??? WTF are you talking about? The CX-20 won't fly with a camera and gimbal without 9450 props. Propellers had nothing to do with this. There was no problem until several minutes into the flight.
Kind of funny how some people can be so rude given internet anonymity. Anyway, I wouldn't rule out the props. I put the DJI props on my CX-20 and they got the wobble of death in high winds. Could be they were not balance or were knock-offs but they sent the feedback loops into overcompensate. Maybe different PID values for center of gravity too! Also, I'd check the magnetometer is not loose. Mine was.
Should I? I've had two DJI Phantom 3 Professionals. Just flew one 2 hours ago. They fly well but have a lot of problems and DJI's customer service is shit. ruclips.net/video/ckLJ8BBGezA/видео.html
The V303 is way better than the CX-20, but the CX-20 is still great for $220 (I got the one in this video for $199). The V303 flies in a GPS smart mode, the CX-20 can but shouldn't. The CX-20 uses the same motors as the DJI Phantom. I hated the way it flew until I put DJI Phantom 9450 props on it and it was an amazing transformation. The CX-20 flies fast and accurate in the manual mode. So it falls from the sky now and then.
My second V303 arrived today (I have two houses). $288.88 at Banggood with $23.33 shipping (which they upgraded to DHL free for me -- Got it in Hawaii in a week). Looks like they're $256.07 at Gearbest with a huge $67.00 shipping charge. Banggood wins by $10.86. I've used Gearbest in the past but not any more -- they have an impossible checkout process. I wanna try a V303 without landing gear (not retractable) for a 3-axis gimbal but the compass and antenna are in two of the four legs. I'll see if I can move them.
I guess your FPV setup consists of A/V and 12 V power supply cables, a 5.8 GHz transmitter on a small heat sink, an antenna, and probably a switch or connector on the 12V power. I'd put it all on the bottom, behind the camera, with the antenna pointing downward.
WOW man, I'm happy to see that you got it back in one piece!!!!
That was a crazy ride!!
Even though the gimbal yaw was not set it did have smooth video. Lol
Awesome rescue reconnaissance with the other quad!
+Christopher Jacques
Thanks. Three axis gimbals take a lot more time to set up than 2-axis, but are smoother.
Merry Christmas!
Had similar flying characteristics when I used those props on a windy day but behaves perfectly with little to no wind.. so now I refuse to fly with that style of prop. Glad you recovered the whirley bug in one peice!!
I've never had problems with 9450 props, in fact the opposite. Stock props and 9443 props can't fight the wind, especially carrying a camera and gimbal. The CX-20 uses Phantom motors and Phantoms use 9450 props.
I usually don't like music in the back ground a whole lot as I like to get an idea of how loud some models are but you have great taste and it made the vid even more enjoyable! You live in a crowded but lovely hood as well. Great vid.
Thanks. When I listen to quadcopter videos with the sound of motors, somebody inevitably calls from the other room "What's that noise?" I compromise and just turn down the on-board audio -26 dB, but using copyrighted music means I cannot monetize these videos which most people seem to do. Also, my DJI Phantom 3 has no audio and I ain't singing for you guys.
Yeah, they stuck a lot of houses on this hill but my other house in Maui has lots of acreage:
ruclips.net/video/eSjrKf3adWk/видео.html
ruclips.net/video/OvP6jxwCeFg/видео.html
+Eric Newman Lol! No please give us your best. And I would almost trade house to live in Cali, beautiful weather almost all year there. Great for hobbies like quads etc. Happy to see you found it, and enjoy The XX and Lauren as well. Take care and bring us more vids.
+wild300zx
Actually when it comes to great weather and beautiful quad flying, Maui kicks Cali's ass. Thanks for the kind words.
enjoyable and informative, great music
thanks for sharing this Eric. always pass Yorba linda... real neat to see the aerial footage. you off the 57? from Pasadena here, just bought my first cx20.. doing as much research as possible.
a good documentary and thanks for sharing it, do you recommend the CX20 or another quad ?
if it wouldn't enter compass calibration mode why even take off ? its the cx-20's way of saying more checks needed something is up lol
Then "I don't trust it" so let me put it in RTH mode and give it complete control.
Cool video though, using the other to find it. Also, the bad battery at the end, they do crazy things in those cases. There was another video of a cx-20 by quadcopter101 (?) with it landing god knows where after power dropped in flight due to a junk battery. Arm/Take off in loiter, make sure it has a good gps lock too.
I had this happen, but I was lucky enough to recover before it fell. I believe the ESC's are weak and the DJI props put a little more torque on the motors. This in turn makes getting away from prop wash very difficult, seemingly any altitude loss will invoke erratic over corrections by the FC. I tuned this out for the most part by increasing throttle hover to 600 and climb rate to .813, this allows the FC to react with more power before prop wash takes hold. Hope this helps!!
+Ever Sky
I agree that the ESCs and motors take more strain when carrying a camera and a gimbal, but this carried a tiny Mobius camera, not a GoPro, and it was in slow level flight on a fairly calm day. Technically the 9450 props are more efficient and should cause less current draw under the same conditions than the stock props. Adding weight and upward acceleration makes the current really jump, but lots of people use these same motors with 4s lipo batteries
You bring up a good point about the prop wash causing severe instability than many people are unaware of, although this problem occurred in level flight. Many inexperienced pilots lose altitude by going straight down, where the prop wash can create Vortex Ring State and a loss of stability. It's best to corkscrew downward always maintaining forward velocity.
+Andrew J
All props can cause Vortex Ring State. I've had the least problems with 9450s. I never fly straight down, but rather corkscrew down to lose altitude. You can see in the video it had good forward velocity when the problem occurred. The next flight after it was retrieved and calibrated it went crazy and flew away. Even Return Home had no effect.
Glad you had it back I lost mine but had it back when a fisherman at a pond near where I had been flying it found it when he hooked it under water it had been there for 9 weeks I am trying to repair it so far all lights work but there is a continuous beeping low battery sound I have just had new parts (receiver and Power board so we will see I didn't know they had a built in alarm either. Is that true of all CX 20's once again glad you found it. Keith North Wales U.K.
If it's been in the water it might cost more to repair than it's worth.
I believe all CX-20s have a low battery alarm but I added a Lost Quadcopter alarm for only a few dollars.
+Eric Newman wich Landing gear are you using? Total weight that you added?(including camera, gimball and fpv gear and removing the orifinal Landing gear) :)Thanks a lot, i really need to know this!However, really interesting video! :)
Somewhere below you'll find links to the landing gear, which I do not suggest. The retractable landing gear for the CX-20 are much better. I don't have that CX-20 any more so I can't give you the weight, but the CX-20 with carbon fiber retractable landing gear, a 3-axis gimbal, Mobius or GoPro camera, and 5.8GHz transmitter with antenna can easily be lifted with 9450 props with plenty of power to spare.
+Eric Newman really? Some people i know say that with the weight of a retractable gear + just a gimball you will get a really low flight time. Maybe adding a bigger battery i will solve the problem but i don't really want to burn the motors :)
Thanks for the reply!
Maybe they're using really heavy landing gear, but mine were carbon fiber.
You should get nine minutes of flight time with a 2800 mA-hr battery. I got 19.25 minutes flight time with a CX-20 using the US Robotics' 5100 mA-hr IRIS+ 3S 8C Lipo battery lifting a 2-axis GoPro gimbal, Mobius camera, and a 600 mW 5.8 GHz FPV video transmitter. Watch:
ruclips.net/video/77Zi247RXNc/видео.html
The CX-20 uses Phantom motors -- You won't burn them out.
Great shoes for walking in the hills.
Hi, thank you very much for sharing this video.
I had the same problem, it was windly, cloudy day and Return to Home mode did not work and the quadcopter fly away.
I could not find my drone again, I have checked many streets and areas but drone was not seen.
My question is, how can I secure the quadcopter if any loss, is there any gps tracker or gsm tracker that I can attach it to the quadcopter and if any loss situation happens I can find its exact place?
What do you recommendation for this situation?
Thank you in advance.
Cheers.
+Serhan Engin hi depeding on your budget, there is the flytrex gps which is $145,then the lower end tk102,gps106 which all take a phone sim to find gps.hope this helps
Awesome dude..
+AAStew Vlogs
Thanks.
Nice music selection
Thanks!
+Eric Newman what's the name of the song at the beginning?
hello eric, that's not the lost copter alarm, it's the battery low alarm. :) and the battery swollen means it was fully discharged, its a danger to charge it again. put it aside :)
Hi Eric first of all let me thank you for the video and info. I also have a Cheerson CX20 open source and have had good flights with it most of them in manual mode. Now after reading what some of you have mention about calibrating the compass brings a question to mind. Quad Noris said that you have to calibrate the compass in mission planer. Are you tell that the so call quad copter dance does not calibrate the compass like they say in the instruction. Pleas elaborate for I do not want to depend on the GPS mode if that is correct. Thanks again for sharing the video.
+Skydive Driver
I've calibrated the CX-20 compass in APM Planner and through the mode called up from the controller. I don't notice a difference. I've also flown a CX-20 once with the China factory calibration and it was fine. I have, however noticed a big difference in the stability after the hover calibration. If you take off and it flops over or goes to one side you need to perform the hover calibration. ruclips.net/video/-5b0Xeps4cM/видео.html
Thanks for the come back Eric. Yes I have done the hover calibration before. I also do the compass calibration along with the hover every time hang something new on it. Thanks aging.
Blue Skys
Jim
Sorry about the crash! How long are you "here"? We're going to Lancaster for the long weekend.
Gimbal is excellent ... very smooth and stable.
You should buy some hiking boots - About $25 for "Ozark Trails" at Wal-Mart!
Are you kidding? When crap falls out of the sky that's the highlight of my day. If it's my crap and I can find it, that's like Christmas. Next video is where four screws backed out of a motor on the Maui CX-20 and it fell from the sky. The wiring was in a panty wad and that motor failed. I got a new motor from China and soldered it in last night.
I am no longer "here" -- I am now "there" -- I arrived in Maui last Sunday night.
Hiking boots... Pfffff. In Hawaii, bruddah... Rubba Slippahs.
I really like those landing skids. Where did you buy those from? Mahalo!
+E. De La Rio
Thanks. I bought them at Banggood and I thought they would be good because the 3-axis Mobius gimbal was so tall and they allowed a lot of forward view, but I found that they were very unstable for landing. I switched to Banggood 's retractable landing gear for the CX-20. No videos yet.
Can you tell me about your landing gear setup? Looks nice and sturdy.
+Warthawgg
There are two replies down below where I talked about these landing gear. In the end, I really didn't care for them.
Mine was complete junk. After two weeks I finally got it to where it would fly correctly then at 300 ft, one motor just stopped and it dropped like a rock. It was less than 100ft from me horizontally. Motors tested fine. Two escs were broken. The body was shot and I had wiring damage. I rebuilt it and took it out, Everythign seemed fine until I hit RTH and it veered off sideways into a wall of trees which again destroyed the fragile shell. Since then I just bought a 450 frame and built a new one from scratch using the motors and ESCs from the cheerson. New APM 2.7, New TX and RX, new GPS/compass combo unit using a mast pole to get it away from the other electronics. Foil over the top to reduce possible interference. This one flies like a champ.
I can only assume that the cheap APM knockoff FCs they use and the proprietary TX/RX are to blame for this misbehavior.
I had the motor mount screws back out in a CX-20 and the motor came loose and the quad fell from the sky near me. The motor had to be replaced.
This one was undamaged after this video, but after it was retrieved and calibrated it flew away and RTH wouldn't work. I think it lost GPS lock.
I think rebuilding with a proper frame and guts is a good idea. I thought of the same.
I have two CX-20s but one will not bind to the transmitter / unlock the props. I'll look at in in Mission Planner. I've been flying my Phantom 3 Pro instead lately.
+Eric Newman Is that phantom worth the expense? Can you program waypoints and such? I've had the binding problem and the iuunlock problem. The unlock was solved by reinstalling the firmware, then uploading the default settings file for the CX20 that I saved before tinkering in case I had to go back to factory. The Binding problem though I never solved. It was intermittent. I ended up replacing it with a Flysky transmitter/receiver set. The cool thing on that is that I can pop the receiver into several different vehicles and the transmitter lets me separate profiles for each one. The CX20 transmitter and receiver are proprietary and you can't swap out one without the other.
I still have two CX-20s but one doesn't bind and I don't fly the other anymore. Yes, I do believe that the Phantom is worth the extra expense. Much longer range, good camera, and far superior gimbal. A few weeks ago the Phantom 3 Pro was on sale for US$799 and the Phantom 3 Standard is now around $450.
Yorba Linda WOW that place is a dream :-)
+Ruben Torres
Really? You clearly haven't seen my other house. :)
Great video!. what's the actual range on the cx20?
+RalphDroid
I'd say between 300 meters to as much as 1500 meters in perfect conditions. There's a guy here in Maui that modified his CX-20 for more than a 3 mile range. I've had three CX-20s and never had one go out of range, but this one never worked right and after it was retrieved and calibrated flew off never to be seen again.
Wow I've been reading all the comments on this video and it sounds like a lot of your are very knowledgeable on this drone. One quick frustrating problem I'm having: Where in the hell do you buy extra motor mount screws for this drone? I've purchase a new motor and "hardware set" and none of em' can with the fricken motor mount screws (4 per motor)...???? Grounded in Colorado..sigh...
That's kinda funny cuz I was flying my other CX-20 in Maui and all 4 motor screws backed out and the motor came loose and the CX-20 fell to the ground with a wild motor on wires flailing about. Lucky for me, I cut out circles of bright fluorescent orange and green duct tape and put them on the bottom of the motor pods to help see the orientation of the CX-20, and they captured all 4 screws. I'll put the video up someday. By the way, that motor went bad and had to be replaced.
All that said, like you I get frustrated with these tiny-ass metric screws so I always buy extra, like:
www.banggood.com/Cheerson-CX-20-RC-Quadcopter-Parts-HM-2_5x6-Screw-CX-20-027-p-917978.html
www.banggood.com/Cheerson-CX-20-RC-Quadcopter-Spare-Parts-M2x8-Screw-CX-20-028-p-917979.html
www.banggood.com/Cheerson-CX-20-RC-Quadcopter-Parts-PM3x6-Screw-CX-20-026-p-917981.html
Since I had them, I don't know what size they are, but I do know that the CX-20 uses the same motor as the DJI Phantom (that's why DJI Phantom props fit). When I Google what screws fit a DJI Phantom motor I get M3x9mm screws:
www.ebay.com/itm/151704213909
Otherwise you can take a screw to a real mom and pop hardware store and they should have one. Good luck.
+Eric Newman W.O.W Eric, I am super impressed how you have bent over backwards to provide me info on the screws. I swear I looked on Banggood for those screws and none were available, BUT now they are there. My frustrating search is over and I will name my first born child after YOU!
You're too kind Bruce. I just hope that your first born is a boy :)
Eric im more fascinated with the terrain in which you live!! (and fly)! Whereabouts is this? Its fantastic.
Yorba Linda, California. These have better and more recent views:
ruclips.net/video/7gkqnf1WnT0/видео.html
ruclips.net/video/B9dYmNYOhJM/видео.html
ruclips.net/video/KnFBLQdvIAQ/видео.html
ruclips.net/video/NkIiBpc2AVY/видео.html
ruclips.net/video/ZD6Er1fChuM/видео.html
Thanks Eric me and the wife will take a look.
Enjoy.
Hey Eric just got a cx-20, I really want a gimbal, I need one cheap thou, any ideas?
I started out with the cheap $45 2-axis gimbals from Banggood but they really don't work well, no matter how well you tune them. Three-axis gimbals are more expensive but are best for videos but are sometimes hard to set up for a clean follow in the yaw axis and they sometimes slip and point the wrong way in high winds. I guess I'd suggest a ~$90 2-axis gimbal to start out, or a 3-axis if you know somebody to help you set it up. You need 9450 props when lifting a gimbal.
Okay thanks
Don't you check the KP solar weather index before you fly?
Anything above 4 and you're asking for problems and combined with not calibrating the compass..
It's good you got it back, fly safe.
I check the Kp now but the apps didn't have it back then. I don't think the compass was to blame -- I calibrated the compass using Mission Planner once retrieved and it flew away again. I only fly Phantoms and a Mavic now.
the flight controller is mounted on some pretty crappy double sided tape which causes a lot of vibrations to the flight controller making flight a lot more unstable.
your cx seems to be moving/wobbling around quite a lot during the flight and gets a pretty wild wobble going right before the crash.
if you replace the tape with small amounts of an anti vibration gel tape (zeal or kyosho) and make sure there are no wires tapping the FC, you will reduce your vibrations considerably and make it a lot more stable in air.
you have fPV, so fitting a minim-osd would have given you various info on your video feed like GPS location, distance, direction and Alt from home etc.
900mhz telemetry wouldnt go astray either.
the beeping is not a lost drone alarm, its a low battery alarm.
+Obliv69 www.rcgroups.com/forums/showpost.php?p=29345896&postcount=6654
My CX-20s have different flight controllers and I don't remember which this one had. Probably the white one with double sided tape and a zip-tie. Read the other replies and you'll see that after calibration, it still had a problem and flew off.
Thanks for the link - Good stuff.
thats the common FC found in quanum nova aswell, if you can get rid of the vibrations you can get a much more stable flight.
replace the tape as previously mentioned and use your flight logs (download from the FC) to see how much you can reduce any vibrations.
If the FC has vibrations it will cause it to falsely try compensate and cause the "toilet bowl" effect as yours was doing in the vid.
That CX-20 flew away. I haven't opened up the BNF replacement but the controller from this video won't unlock the props so I need to work on that before addressing the flight controller mounting. Or buy another Phantom, which sounds better to me. :)
have you ever looked at the 3DR solo?
6.5minutes with gimbal, camera fpv stuff can drain battery to zero. It was also very windy, as It fought with the wind at the end.
+FotoAmg AmgFoto
I always get 9.5 to 10 minutes with this configuration and a 2700 - 2800 mA-hr battery. Now I use 3000 mA-hr batteries. I use a quality Lipo balanced charger. I'll admit the flight did seem like it had the battery ran dead. The battery swelled during the time it took to find it so it had to be recycled, but on the next flight with a 2700 mA-hr battery it flew 10 minutes. Eventually it went crazy and flew away. Something was wrong with this one. I have two other CX-20s, two V303s, a XK Detect X380, and a Phantom 3 Pro. And some 250 racers.
+Eric Newman interesting that you can get 10 minutes with such big landing gear and 3D gimbal, camera and fpv and 9450 props!
I land after 5 minutes for safety reasons and never went to 9 minutes only when tested hovering flight time 2 meters above ground, but without gimbal and all the extra stuff.
+FotoAmg AmgFoto
The landing gear was carbon fiber and very light. The camera was a light Mobius. Not a GoPro. I usually get around 9.5 - 10 minutes before the LVA connected to the balance connector goes off, and I'd probably get at least another minute after that.
Here is a 9:45 CX-20 flight with a single battery, heavy gimbal, camera, and a 600 mW FPV transmitter:
gimbal, camera, and a 600 mW FPV transmitter
Here is a 19.25 minute flight with my CX-20, second battery, gimbal, camera, and a 600 mW FPV transmitter:
ruclips.net/video/77Zi247RXNc/видео.html
Try upgrading your props and see if you don't get longer flight times.
you should always compass calibrate especially if you do a return to home if it doesn't want to compass calibrate then don't fly it.
Cool! Right now it's for 192.69 dollars. Current best price:
couponsfromchina.com/2017/05/18/cheerson-cx-20-quadcopter-active-coupon-price-gearbest/
I bought one
ruclips.net/video/jA0tVNRWy3k/видео.html
Obviously the crash was from flying with an uncalibrated compass. Is this the open-source version? If so you should calibrate the compass in Mission Planner and turn on Compass Learn in the parameters. It'll fly fine in stablize/manual mode with an uncalibrated compass but once you call on a gps feature especially RTH/RTL it doesn't know which way is which to reach the GPS coordinates so it'll fly off and then it likely entered VRS and crashed.
+Ryan Devall
No, after it was retrieved the compass was calibrated and it did something similar. I have two other CX-20s and they are fine.
+Eric Newman oh, in the video you said it wasn't calibrated. Which version is this? I assume it's not the open-source since you were trying to calibrate it manually? the open-source version is so much better then the others. I'm not too familiar with the software for the other versions. How do you know the compass offsets were properly calibrated?
+Ryan Devall
It's an open source version. I've calibrated the compass in CX-20s using Mission Planner and changed the maximum tilt angle (not on this video's flight), but it's easier and better using the built-in routine. Less magnetic interference outside and you don't have to deal with the USB cable. Honestly, on this flight it acted like the battery died but it was only 6.5 minutes into a normally 9 - 10 minute flight. Like I said, it was calibrated (compass and accelerometer hover calibration. And freaked out and flew off on the next flight. My other CX-20s don't do that, but I have one that doesn't bind easily.
+Eric Newman you should join the Cheerson, Quanum Nova FB group. lots of information and people with more knowledge than you can ever imagine. If you turn on Compass Learn you won't need to do a compass calibration. It'll self calibrate. Is that what you were doing though? Everyone in the group uses MP to calibrate their compasses manually but with learn "on" you just fly for a minute in all directions your compass will learn it's offsets.
+Ryan Devall
I've looked over the CX-20 forums, but I don't do Facebook. I'll look into Compass Learn but I generally fly in the same areas, and recalibrate in new areas. Thanks for the info.
Hey Eric, would you recommend the cx-20?
+Mark Scott
It really depends on what you want to do and how much you want to spend. The CX-20 is fast and allows manual flight (as opposed to the smart mode only). It's also inexpensive and available in an open source version where you can fly a pre-programmed flight. The CX-20 seems to be finicky and less reliable than others in the ~$250 price range. If you only plan on flying it in the smart mode (like a Phantom), I'd suggest the V303, or the XK Detect X380 (which has a better flight time).
thanks eric i appreciate the time.
can someone pass me the link of the landing gear and a link of an 3-axis cheap gimbal pls. very good video!! :D
Here are the carbon fiber landing gear but I do NOT recommend them -- The CX-20 it too top-heavy with them:
www.banggood.com/Glass-Fiber-Highten-Landing-Gear-Kit-For-DJI-F450-F550-Multicopter-FPV-p-944066.html
I prefer the CX-20 retractable landing gear but it uses one of the two spare channels:
www.banggood.com/Eachine-Electronic-Retractable-Folding-Landing-Gear-for-CX-20-CX20-Quanum-Nova-p-978461.html
There are so many 3-axis gimbals and I don't know what camera you're using (I used a Mobius but I also use GoPros). I used this one:
www.banggood.com/Eachine-Light-3D-3-Axis-Brushl-p-979563.html
Just search and look for reviews. You probably only want to operate tilt axis and let the yaw axis operate in Follow mode.
+Eric Newman ok thanks very. much I'll buy the retactable gear and I've already found a cheap gimbal. I like your videos :D
Thanks. Good luck.
Which do you prefer? The CX20 or the V303?
+Shoreline Films
That's a great question -- I go back and forth on my opinion. The CX-20 flies faster and has more control options, and is open source so you can change parameters and set pre-programmed courses. The V303 flies like a Phantom, and has been much more reliable and trouble free in my experience (of two V303s and three CX-20s). The V303 also takes 9450 props if you drill them out. I bought an XK Detect X380 which is basically a V303 with a huge battery but I haven't flown it yet - - I planned on putting 100W of LED lights on it for photography at night.
What Landing gear are you using?
+Joseph Smalley
I bought them at Banggood and I thought they would be good because the 3-axis Mobius gimbal was so tall and they allowed a lot of forward view, but I found that they were very unstable for landing. I switched to Banggood 's retractable landing gear for the CX-20 but one leg sticks sometimes and haven't flown with them yet.
If you have an open source version with updated firmware you have to calibrate the compass using mission planner software
+Quad Noris
Thanks. Yes, it it open source. I finally did get the compass to calibrate and I calibrated the accelerometers but it still acts squirrely. I did try connecting to Mission Planner but it wouldn't connect through a port. I use the same laptop to tune gimbals with SimpleBGC_GUI_2_XX.
Mine right out of the box flew perfect but when I started modifying it then I had to tune up pids that control how fast the quad reacts I'd bet your connection problems are probably due to a driver not getting installed correctly if you do a fresh install of mission planner that would help you calibrate and update firmware if needed . or just get everything tuned up. .. also keep in mind when connecting to mission planner you do need to set the proper com port and baud rate
+Quad Noris
Maybe Mission Planner doesn't like the USB to serial converter I'm using for the gimbal setup. I'll mess with it. Thanks.
+Eric Newman That could be all the mission planner driver really does is make a serial port in windows to enable communications from the quad to pc ... when the drivers are installed and you plug in your quad you should see a new serial port open up in your device manager
+Quad Noris
I'll just do a fresh install of Mission Planner on a different PC. In what way did you change your PID constants when you added the extra weight of the gimbal and camera? Tomorrow I'll fly a newly reconfigured and very heavy WLtoys V303 with a 3-axis gimbal, GoPro, 600 mW 5.8 GHz transmitter and antenna, and a second 2200 mA-hr Lipo battery. Test flight got over a 15 minute flight time.
To me (I'm by no means an expert, though) it looks like the drone jerked around (like the WL Toys did that one time, but a little stronger), fell a bit, and while trying to recover entered VRS state.
I have no idea why either of your drones would be erking around like that in the first place, though.
This video was from two years ago. Back then I had two CX-20s and two V303s (most of which could still fly). I think most of the jerkiness you see is from the first use of the not-fully-tuned 3-axis gimbal with Mobius camera.
The CX-20s and V303s are great for learning, but now I only fly DJI Phantoms and a Mavic Pro. The range and performance is far beyond others.
Eric Newman Well, ok, that makes sense (I've seen it a lot that rather cheap or old gimbals an be jerky) but at least in case of the V303 the drone itself did do that one big kinda jerky movement (where the gimbal actually smoothes it out quite well).
But since the gimbal may have been jerky on the CX-20, there is no way of knowing if it was jerking like that, too.
Regardless, I have to say that I'm impressed and very glad that you found the time to answer a comment on a video that's two years old. That's rare on RUclips and I respect that.
That was actually a fairly good 3-axis gimbal and I have tuned that same gimbal so it worked very well. You have to balance the gimbal, remove torsion from wiring, and adjust the gimbal's PID constants for each axis so it works well.
I liked my CX-20s and V303s and thought they were smooth. Switch to DJI 9450 props and it flies like an early Phantom, but with crappy range. It's just that Phantoms are so cheap now, especially factory refurbished ones. I saw a Phantom 3 Professional for $499. Two mile range and great 4K video.
LVC alarm was going off in flight and you were lifting a 3 axis gimbal. That's the result right there, about 7 minutes of flight and then it cuts. The stock battery doesn't give you much flight time with that kind of weight and power being drawn. Also, why would you fly without calibrating the compass? I know it wouldn't let you, but that just means don't fly until you can figure that out. Live and learn. I'm glad you found it in good shape.
I've tried many times to calibrate that compass, and contacted Banggood. It won't enter the compass calibration mode. I'll continue to mess with it when I get back. I have a nearly identical configuration with a CX-20, 2-axis gimbal (not 3), camera, and 600mW transmitter and it gets over 12 minutes of flight time. It's a good thought, thanks. Next time I'll keep it close and time it.
+Eric Newman Is it open Source, BigFlyShark, or Zero version? They all seem to have different methods to calibrate the compass. Take a look in the compass tower and see.
I have two of the CX-20 open source from Banggood. One calibrates fine: Power up CX-20, and within 5 seconds turn on the controller and immediately put the right joystick to the lower right and wait for the lights to alternate. The California one in this video wouldn't go into the calibration mode.
I was getting 14 minute flight times before the gimbal. I have a 13.5 minute flight here: ruclips.net/video/JHSiUZdEC0k/видео.html and I know I can get over 10 minutes with the gimbal and the 600mW transmitter. I'll try to calibrate it again including the hover calibration, and watch it closer next time. I wouldn't have let it get that far away but it seemed to be flying fine.
I'll probably replace the gimbal on the CX-20 here in Maui. It's the cheap Banggood 2-axis with a perfectly balanced Mobius and I set the power and PID parameters from scratch several times, but it still loses lock on the pitch axis occasionally. Increasing motor power doesn't help. Also the pitch axis has high frequency oscillations with D>4. Never seen a derivative value under 8 and usually at least 10. It's hard to tune a Mobius on a GoPro gimbal.
I just got a second WLtoys V303 but it didn't have the spare servo channel pigtails coming out the bottom like the first one does. I guess I'll open it up and get them. On the other one I control the pitch axis only with the irritating camera up/down buttons. If I get a 3-axis gimbal, do you know if you can control yaw with the model transition/photo buttons?
+Eric Newman A gimbal and camera will cut your flight times drastically. The fact that the LVC was blinking and flashing shows you that it only will get 7 minutes or so with the stock battery. Change to Carbon Fiber and you'll notice longer flight times. Are you sure it's open source? Do you have the little green compass or the GPS in the tower? Sometimes they like to pull those scams. Have you connected to Mission Planner to calibrate there?
I've flown the CX-20 a lot with the gimbal and transmitter. I just haven't posted many videos because the gimbal isn't perfect. It was sold as open source and has the power and extra channel connectors on the bottom. Dunno if there is a compass or a GPS on the top tower. Never used Mission Planner software. What do you do with it? Besides calibration, can you do waypoints?
You had Fpv gear on it interferes with the connection from the transmitter to quad connection
The control is at 2.4 GHz and that FPV is at 5.8 GHz and I've never had them interfere. A real concern is the 5.8 GHz FPV transmitters interfering with the very faint GPS signal. I have two CX-20s and two V303s, all with 5.8 GHz 600 mW transmitters. I put the antennae on the very bottom and make sure the bottom of the GPS antennae are shielded. I bind them with the FPV transmitters off then switch them on after GPS lock. They've never lost lock but the GPS in the V303 seems to be better than the CX-20.
What music is that at the beginning
+Mr. swagy Intro by The xx
+Mr. swagy
Lauren got it -- "Intro" by The Xx. I put the artist information in the lower left near the beginning of the song -- See 0:25. I love The Xx's music.
lets just hope mine doesnt do this when arrives!
+razorseal
I should have just hovered it close to me on it's first flight, but I've had other CX-20s and I trust it. Most places are good about initial problems with quadcopters but I doubt you'll have any problems. The CX-20 is usually a good quadcopter.
I do have some advice: Attach an 808 keychain camera or a Mobius video camera to a baseball cap and video your flight in case there are problems -- or to show it picture-in-picture in a video. You can see mine at 1:02. But this time I left the damn lens cap on. Pfffff.
You're lucky... Mine flew away and I never found it...
You're not the first. Later this same quadcopter was calibrated and then flew away. Go Home did nothing.
Sorry. I'm sticking with Phantoms now.
My cx20 worked perfect and once I put the Dji phantom props I got vortex ring state because there bigger
Which props did you use? The 9450 props work great with the CX-20 motors. 9443 props do not have enough pitch to lift a camera and gimbal. I've never experienced vortex ring state. Try keeping forward velocity as you spiral to lose altitude rather than flying straight down.
Did you wait until the gps was locked in a signal???
+MrJoeymook
Always. You can see the green solid light at 0:50 indicating sufficient GPS satellites.
+Eric Newman best to just get a cheap 10 dollar bluetooth that plugs into telemetry. Its been a life saver for me. When mine hits green, it's still not safe to fly (4 sats and HDOP of of only 4 or 5) should have 2 or lower with at least 8 or 9 locks to fly in any GPS assisted modes. Also, I could barely ever get more than 4 sats, and did the tin foil mode to shield the GPS in the dome at the center of the quad (still inside with secured into place with foil tape. I get solid GPS lock inside the house now with 9 sats and HDOP of 1.45 or so!
+TorontoR
You plug a bluetooth gizmo into a separate telemetry board that in turn plugs into the flight controller?
They don't ground the copper GPS shield. Adding a wire from the copper shield to ground will attenuate the electronic RF noise to the GPS better.
I keep the 5.8GHz FPV transmitter off while it's locking, then wait a little longer. I've three CX-20s - two in California and one in Maui and only had problems with this one but on two separate occasions. Something is hosed up on this one. The compass took many attempts to calibrate and on a later flight Return Home didn't work. This flight acted like the battery died but I always get 9.5 - 10 minutes of flight time -- not 6.5 minutes.
+Eric Newman you're right, copper would be better, didn;t have any laying around but the foil is working fine. Got this Bluetooth module for datalink: www.amazon.com/Apm2-5-Pixhawk-2-43-Bluetooth-Module/dp/B00VEQM6II I only got it to take the guess work out to ensure I have good GPS lock prior to launching.. Its range is only about 50 feet or so, and therefore wouldn't use it to control and fly though. The App on the phone gives audible feedback and (app called Tower). The module is plug and play with our FC. I know some of the older ones required soldering, but if your Copter is a recent one than the port is there. Mine had a port, however if you need to solder this is a good guide to follow: github.com/jlnaudin/x-VTOLdrone/wiki/TUTO:-Connecting-the-telemetry-to-the-Cheerson-CX-20-(aka-the-Quanum-NOVA)
+TorontoR
Good to know -- Thanks. I've been flying my Phantom 3 Pro lately but that would be a nice CX-20 mod.
I think my CX-20s came with copper shields, unless I'm thinking of the V303. The Home Depot sells rolls of self-adhesive sheet copper for slug and snail control. Copper ain't cheap.
Hello i have a question can i do a fpv livefeed with this cam www.gearbest.com/rc-quadcopters-parts/pp_143774.html im fairly new to quads.
i have only flown small toy quads before and the v303 is my first real quad.
the cam has a mini usb port and a sdscard reader.
help please
I am not familiar with that camera but it says "USB 2.0 with AV output" so you just need the mini USB connector for that camera and use the single video connection and ground, and input it to a 200mW to 600mW 5.8 GHz 32 channel transmitter, get a cloverleaf circular polarized antenna, some goggles (screens are hard to see in the daylight, even with shades), and you're good to go. The 3-leaf cloverleaf is for transmitting, and the 4-leaf is for receiving.
Maybe that A/V cable is the same as a Mobius or GoPro A/V cable. Maybe not.
oh ok do u have a link to where 2 buy fpv kit?
Most FPV kits come with a camera you don't need and a whip antenna you don't want. I don't know the angles you will mount stuff. A 200 mW transmitter is probably good enough but I'm paranoid about losing signal when I can't see the quad, so I get the 600 mW. This one has a good antenna: www.banggood.com/Eachine-5_8GHz-600mW-32CH-AV-Wireless-Q-Transmitter-TX-Module-JST-Plug-p-975911.html?p=OW23211676484201505B The antenna can mount pointing up or down, but keep it as far away from the GPS antenna on the top of the V303 as possible to avoid interferrence. The transmitter works on 12 volts. Mount the metal part of the transmitter to a piece of metal like a heat sink or it will overheat. I use the gimbal mount or a sheet of aluminum. I'd also put an on/off switch on the transmitter power so you don't waste the battery waiting for a GPS lock.
i relly dont want a another cam any kits with transmitter and reciver but without a cam
what about dis mybestbuyever.com/el/quadcopter-accessories/31884-diy-58g-200mw-720p-fpv-set-for-wltoys-v303-rc-quadcopter.html
what does mw do?
better range?
Mine's crashed all three times i flew it, fly's fine at first then completely loses control of itself, flip's over and fly's itself into the ground at full speed, 2 new shell's, propeller's and leg's, my Go Pro is still alive, but i'm getting worried about this thing, in stable mode it's fine but sort of loses itself, return home sometime's work's, but that's really unstable, manual mode work's fine, path mode is self destruct mode, that's when thing's get really bad, so far my cheerson cx 20 is unstable and need's a parachute lol
+Ted Finch
I think I can help you with that. I have two CX-20s and one did that after I replaced a motor. It needs recalibrated. Try the accelerameter calibration and then the hover calibration: ruclips.net/video/-5b0Xeps4cM/видео.html
The method varies slightly depending on which CX-20 version you have. It worked for me on one of my CX-20s, but it apparently was not the issue on this one.
Ah thankyou eric newman alway's a good idea to read the manual first, thank's so much for your help, i'm goin to test it again later and see how we go :)
+Ted Finch
Chinese owner's manuals? Better info on RUclips. Good luck.
Eric Newman, so i just finished testing it and all went really well, the quad this time was really stable after doing a remote calibration and a compass calibration, positioning mode work's fine and return home mode worked perfect after testing 3 times, so far so good, i think though it all depend's on how good the gps connection is to the quad and maybe i should only use these function's when in a emergency lol, Thankyou very much for your help :)
+Ted Finch
Glad it now works better. I don't test the Return Home feature any more -- just keep it for in emergencies.
By the way that beeping was Lvc.
Yeah I know. The battery gets 9+ minutes with that configuration. It took a long time to acquire GPS lock and time while trying to calibrate the compass but the props were off and the battery voltage was good prior to take off.
gimbal did pretty good...lol
Thanks, except I couldn't bet the gimbal 'Follow' to ever work right.
Serhan Engin, After I retrieved this CX-20 I calibrated everything including compass and the hover calibration, and it went crazy again and Return Home didn't work. It just flew off. This was my second of three CX-20s and the others were fine.
As for tracking it, I have a highly directional 5.8 GHz antenna which I can put on my video receiver and track the FPV signal until the battery dies:
www.banggood.com/3D-Pro-5_8GHz-Omnidirectional-Spring-Antenna-16dBi-RP-SMA-Connector-p-935613.html?p=OW23211676484201505B
There are also Tile-type bluetooth trackers for keys that work tracking your quadcopter, but at a fairly short range. There are also more expensive and longer distance trackers.
+Eric Newman Thank you for your advices.
+Eric Newman I have a CX-20 and while flying with a gopro it was acting very similar. I did some research and found out you must change the location of the GPS to avoid interference with the Camera and other things. I don't know if you isolated your GPS before flying with a camera, but it seems to be a problem for many people.
+Jonathan Espinal
I have two CX-20 configurations like this and I was concerned about interference from the 5.8 GHz transmitter to the GPS antenna. I opened it up and verified that there was a copper shield under the GPS antenna and I mounted my 5.8 GHz video antenna on the very bottom at landing gear level as far from the GPS as I could. The other CX-20 maintains good GPS lock with the 5.8 GHz transmitter on. It could be something like that because after this CX-20 was recovered, recalibrated and flown again it flew off and Return Home didn't work.
Very possible, my first CX-20 did the same thing, I set it to return to home and till this day I have no idea where it went. I guess they're a hit or miss, because the one I have now works perfectly fine.
+Jonathan Espinal
The CX-20 is the only quadcopter I've ever had that lost GPS and flew away.
Matt- I had problems flying in wind with stock propellers and it's been great since I switched to 9450s. This was a different CX-20 with stock props: ruclips.net/video/6drHe8DuHo4/видео.html
great vid man.hey I wish we could make China send us replacement quads for those of us who've lost ours like this though! f...ers are getting away with alot of money!
good video, choose some music that fits!
+wayne alexander
Thanks. I'd say that Broken by Lauren Hoffman fit perfectly.
then you advice me to buy anyway
+Y. lou
I think the CX-20 is a great GPS quadcopter for the money. Yeah, this one was screwy, even after I calibrated the compass and accelerometers. The CX-20 is available open source so you can use Mission Planner and set waypoint routes to follow, and has two spare RC channels. I also like the WLtoys V303.
Should have bought a form 500.
Where can I buy this
undercarriage
+RoyalMusicSpain
Undercarriage? The carbon fiber landing gear are from Banggood, but I didn't like them and switched to retractable gear.
+Eric Newman Ok, thanks and like👍
It was shot down by Anti Drone Artillery!!
Twice?
also maybe the battery died?
I thought about that but it was acting quirky before. That was an easy 6.5 minute flight and I had a freshly charged battery that should have been good for 12 - 14 minutes. That CX-20 is in California and I won't be able to mess with it for a few weeks. Just got a V303 delivered by DHL today in Hawaii !!! I'll try a 3-axis gimbal on it and another 600mW 5.8 GHz 32 channel transmitter. I also learned that DJI 9.4 inch Phantom props fit the V303 if you drill out the first part before the threads with an "O" lettered drill bit. Unlike the CX-20, the stock props on the V303 are decent. I use 9450 props and balance them.
if u want longer flight time on ur v303 u can change your bottom shell to a xk detect for about 30 dollars.
and use a 5400mah battery
I haven't really needed longer flight times, but thank you for the tip. I have a DJI Phantom 3 Professional which is good for about 25 minutes. Well' I had a defective DJI Phantom 3 Professional delivered, had to pay to return it, and it's been a month. There is no customer service worse than DJI's.
yes i have already ordered the xk detect bottom shell :D
just a quick note the trasmitter screw isnt the same as the v303 screw but ill figure it out :/
You're going to be lifting a lot of weight with the bigger battery.
Well, I rammed my Typhoon into a Florida palm tree. Total loss. Typhoon props shatter like glass. Hey, I like your house. Invite me over! We'll party!
+Over & Back
Sorry. I've crashed my V303 into a stadium lamp post. ... Twice. The second video is almost ready to upload. First time no damage: ruclips.net/video/AjGuTx4DvTI/видео.html
Second time it needed a new motor.
Oh, and my 250 Racer hit a palm tree and was alright: ruclips.net/video/rnqcNMNZE2Y/видео.html
+Eric Newman .......I'll take a peek. Thanks. Got my Typhoon supposedly being repaired at the "Official Typhoon Repair Facility" in California. Couldn't understand the guy, sounded like he was from Pakistan and speaking through a can. I got tired of saying "what, pardon & excuse me" so I just kept saying yes with a few no's sprinkled here & there.. I have no idea what the hell he was telling me & I don't expect to see it again until sometime in the next century....if then. No more Yuneec for me. I've bought more props to replace my shattered ones to keep Yuneec stock soaring. Just received an MJX-101. Love it at $125 vs. Typhoon's $1,249.
+Over & Back
Good look with the repairs. The Q500 is a good quadcopter. It's big. I like the way everything is in the controller. I hate DJI's approach of requiring a tablet or phone to operate it.
The MJX-101 looks like fun, but GPS, FPV and a gimbal are nice.
The I've been mainly flying my Phantom 3 Pro but I left it in Maui and I'm in California right now.
+Eric Newman .....You're in California? Could you go by Yuneec's office & pick up my Typhoon? I'd pay you. I know if you don't, I'll never see it again. And tell that Pakistani guy to improve his pronunciation. Yes, I do agree about the excellent video & photo quality of the Q500 camera etc. But I'm on pins & needles every time I fly the sucker. Honestly, I've bought about 30 props in the last 90 days. BTW: Have you ever tried to replace a motor on a Typhoon? If you don't know how to cuss....you'll learn.
+Over & Back
I'd love to pick up your Typhoon. You are more than generous. :)
I don't know squat about replacing Typhoon props. How hard can it be? I have five gimbaled camera quads and I rarely replace props on them. I've never replaced props on my DJI Phantom 3 Pro. I have two carbon fiber 250 racers with FPV, OSD, and GPS. I replace those props like crazy.
Regarding being nervous when flying your expensive quadcopter, I know exactly what you mean and that will pass with experience. Look into quadcopter flight simulators. Also, I have that DJI Phantom 3 Pro but still like flying my cheaper CX-20s and V303s cuz I'm more likely to take risks with 'em.
LOOKING AT WHERE YOU LIVE I GET THE NOTION, THAT MONEY IS NOT THE ISSUE FOR YOU...
ALL THESE CONFIGURATIONS NEED T BE DONE BEFORE YOU TAKE OFF, NOT AFTER,,, NO GPS LOCK, NO FLIGHT!, AND DEFINITELY NO FPV FLIGHT FIRST TIME!! BUT YOU MAY LEARN AFTER THE THIRD OR 4TH ONE...:)
+Jack Scarpon
I guess you're not familiar with the CX-20. Do you see the solid green light at 0:47? That means GPS lock.
I actually own two of them and very familiar with them. but never lost one... used mission planner to adjust accordingly to experience of others, and they fly perfectly, never crashed, never left my eye sight... I don't do fpv, its not accurate, and not safe.. you never know what kind of wind condition are 1/4 a mile away from you... if I ever own an army drone.. I will do fpv...:)
+Jack Scarpon
Then I'm surprised that you didn't notice that it had acquired GPS lock. I too have two CX-20s but both have retractable landing gear, 3-axis gimbals, and 600mW FPV. I only use Mission Planner to change the maximum tilt angle. While waypoint courses sound interesting, I'd rather fly by hand.
I understand that FPV isn't for everybody. Mainly it's for those who want properly-framed video or pictures. You don't have to fly FPV, but it certainly helps frame the shots. You can even forget the gimbal if you don't mind shaky seasick videos.
I also agree with wind conditions being dramatically different a short distance away -- A comment that you will see that I have made many times here. That's especially noticeable in Maui with the micro-climates and strong winds in the gulches.
Happy flying, No-FPV-Jack
Thanks... Feb winter snows here on the east coast.... No fly zone for a few months at least...:)
Yeah, I've heard about the East-Coast weather recently. Obama is in Los Angeles taping the Ellen show today so there's literally a no-fly zone all over L.A. He was in Oahu, Hawaii right after Christmas and there was a no-fly area over the entire island so folks couldn't fly their new Christmas drones.
Hope you can get in some snow-flights. Just keep your lipo battery warm!
My CX-20 did the same thing its GARBAGE ....Traded it in for a DJI PHANTOM 3 STANDARD AND WOW WHAT A DIFFERENCE
I know exactly what you mean. Now that I have a Phantom 3 Professional I never fly the CX-20. Check out my newest videos.
Congrats on new Phantom 3.
10-4
HAHAHA You're blaming the propellers when clearly you "HAVEN'T" done any of your pre-flight checks! You neglected all of that! You "HAVEN'T' put forth the effort to fly your $200-some quadcopter in a manner to be able to fly it day after day. Clearly YOU should not HAVE one....Blaming the propellers....pshhhhhhh. It was all pilot error since before take-off. Well at least you were able to retrieve it and it didn't suffer any damage, so good on you for that.
Propellers??? WTF are you talking about? The CX-20 won't fly with a camera and gimbal without 9450 props. Propellers had nothing to do with this. There was no problem until several minutes into the flight.
Ok props not the problem, the problem is the other stuff you didn't do prior to taking off.
Nothing prior to takeoff would have made a difference. You don't know what you're talking about.
Kind of funny how some people can be so rude given internet anonymity. Anyway, I wouldn't rule out the props. I put the DJI props on my CX-20 and they got the wobble of death in high winds. Could be they were not balance or were knock-offs but they sent the feedback loops into overcompensate. Maybe different PID values for center of gravity too! Also, I'd check the magnetometer is not loose. Mine was.
Get a DJI Phantom 3 instead
Should I? I've had two DJI Phantom 3 Professionals. Just flew one 2 hours ago. They fly well but have a lot of problems and DJI's customer service is shit.
ruclips.net/video/ckLJ8BBGezA/видео.html
Maybe interference
+sissymarylen15741a
I don't know. That quadcopter had problems and later flew away and Go Home didn't work. Oh well, I have lots more quadcopters.
cx-20 just dont.....
The V303 is way better than the CX-20, but the CX-20 is still great for $220 (I got the one in this video for $199). The V303 flies in a GPS smart mode, the CX-20 can but shouldn't. The CX-20 uses the same motors as the DJI Phantom. I hated the way it flew until I put DJI Phantom 9450 props on it and it was an amazing transformation. The CX-20 flies fast and accurate in the manual mode. So it falls from the sky now and then.
u can buy v303 about the same price on gearbest
My second V303 arrived today (I have two houses). $288.88 at Banggood with $23.33 shipping (which they upgraded to DHL free for me -- Got it in Hawaii in a week). Looks like they're $256.07 at Gearbest with a huge $67.00 shipping charge. Banggood wins by $10.86. I've used Gearbest in the past but not any more -- they have an impossible checkout process.
I wanna try a V303 without landing gear (not retractable) for a 3-axis gimbal but the compass and antenna are in two of the four legs. I'll see if I can move them.
if i got my fpv set up where could i place it on my v303 quadcoptor?
I guess your FPV setup consists of A/V and 12 V power supply cables, a 5.8 GHz transmitter on a small heat sink, an antenna, and probably a switch or connector on the 12V power. I'd put it all on the bottom, behind the camera, with the antenna pointing downward.