X-8 Starter Thread

[PatR]

Calling other X-8 operators to share their experiences with both the standard and mapping version of the 3DR X-8

 

[Todd Boward]

my experience to date have been very good. A few problems with the transmitter (antennae was broke out of the box), the camera (no ND filter) and a short in one of the batteries, and the FPV camera was not installed correctly, but the X8+M flies just as advertised.

 

[PatR]

I obtained an X-8 about a year ago prior to the addition of the mapping 8 to the product line. Had some issues with a weak video Tx and a defective monitor, which 3DR handled with alacrity once notified. Since then it has been completely reliable.and very accurate in positioning.

 

[justgregg]

Im having a problem burning up the usb port on my go pros. 3dr says that the go pro gets no power, but I shot a video of the bars on the go,pro cam moving like when its hooked to a wall charger whilecattached to the x8. After taking off the go cam, i can not get any data thruput or charging to my gocam. bought a new go cam and now its screwed too. Again no charging, no video thruput via the usb port. and of course 3dr thinks im nuts. Any suggestions? thank god i have the replacement warrenty on the camera.

 

[Seabee]

I am seriously considering the purchase of a X8+.
Any recommendations please.
Also, which ground station is the most stable? I am looking at Mission Planner and APM Planner. I prefer the Apple OS but can run Windows 7 using Bootcamp.
Thanks.

 

[justgregg]

If you are going to use the x8 for mapping/surveying running autonomous missions, I would say yes. Smooth video with out tons of post processing NO. I love the pixhawk for the autonomous flight, data logging/flight logs and telemetry infomation. Not impressed with the holding characteristics in GPS mode. Im probably not giving it a fair comparison putting it up against my DJI inspire and Phantom 3. I like the idea and the peace of mind of redundancy with the opposing motors. They say if you loose 3 motors on 3 different arms it will still fly and land safely. I have seen videos of it flying just fine with one dead motor. Even with with the 10,000 mah lipo I cant get over 12 min flight times hauling the DYS 3 axis gopro gimble. Im at 5280 ft so thats part of it. I run the 3dr light view fpv set up on mine and not too impressed with the range of the video being transmitted back to my black pearl display. But if you are mapping, and flying an autonomous mission you are monitoring your ground station telemetry and making sure that the x8 is on course than whats on your video screen.
I use mission planner when I want to drag my laptop in the field. If not im using the tower app with a google nexus 7 tablet. Im sure there are better android tablets out there to use but my nexus does everything I need. Rumors are that tower will be apple compatible ver soon. Mission planner works great when it comes time to configure and calibrate the x8 and pre load missions on google maps.
If you are looking at more flying shooting video and stills and you can afford it, I would highly recommend the Inspire or the for half the price the Phantom 3. Stay away from the solo!!! I fly many different configurations for many different jobs.
So there is my 2 cents worth. Good luck with what ever you choose and safe flying!
Gregg

 

[justgregg]

Im having a problem burning up the usb port on my go pros. 3dr says that the go pro gets no power, but I shot a video of the bars on the go,pro cam moving like when its hooked to a wall charger whilecattached to the x8. After taking off the go cam, i can not get any data thruput or charging to my gocam. bought a new go cam and now its screwed too. Again no charging, no video thruput via the usb port. and of course 3dr thinks im nuts. Any suggestions? thank god i have the replacement warrenty on the camera.

So I think I figured out my dilemma with frying the go cam usb ports. I have been using the usb wire that was pre wired on the x8. I think its attached to the pix hawk and set up if you are using the mapping set up and has continuous voltage going to the cam and the shutter is controlled by pixhawk. Its set up cot the canon 35 mm mirrorless cam which take more thatn 5 volts. If the voltage coming out of the pixhawk is more than 5 v, then yes the gopro is frying. I had a go pro hooked up to my iris and had no problems because I was running the dedicated usb cable that came with the gimble directly to the light view video transmitter. Sooo I need to do the same thing here with my x8. Glad I have the 2 yr total replacement from best buy on my gopro cam. Picked up a replacement today.
Cheers

 

[Seabee]

Thanks for the good info. Just looking for a quad to fly for fun and some video and stills. Waypoint flying and good wind tolerance are also on my desired list.
My Solo went back to Best Buy last month. Have been flying the 350QX both v1 and v3 for about 2 years and want to step up in features and capabilities.
Thanks again.

 

[justgregg]

Thanks for the good info. Just looking for a quad to fly for fun and some video and stills. Waypoint flying and good wind tolerance are also on my desired list.
My Solo went back to Best Buy last month. Have been flying the 350QX both v1 and v3 for about 2 years and want to step up in features and capabilities.
Thanks again.

The3dr iris pilots are having good luck with theirs. I had one with the dys 3 axis gimble on it. pretty smooth video and for less than 650 bucks for everything, not a bad way to go. Does all the fun follow me stuff and autonomous flights with decent flight times.

 

[Drone-Survey-Photography]

Got my X8+ last week, I am setting up to do aerial surveys. It was not quite RTF but I went through the Mission Planner setup which I highly recommend. Had two really good flights. With no payload and pretty cautions flying I got 20 minutes from a 10,000 ma battery. Only remaining issue I cannot get stats from the X8+ (altitude, speed, battery) on the transmitter. Seems to be a common problem 3DR has a post just dealing with this issue, so far no help. Not sure I will pursue, all that info is on Mission Planner and on FPV so may just let it go.

Great machine, easy to fly, software support is very good I highly recommend this combo for waypoint flying.

 

[Drone-Survey-Photography]

3 really good flights notw, all at least 16 minutes but have not pushed hard. This is a real joy to fly. This weekend I am hoping to have my first mission. I have everything to set up just need to get the time on the computer.

 

[NightStorm]

I bought a non-mapping version of the X8+ back when they went on sale around Christmas time of 2015. I wanted something a little more fail safe than a quad. and I found the idea of still being able to stay in the air with any single failure (esc/motor/prop) appealing.

I'm not greatly advanced, I started on a Phantom 1 less than 2 years ago, then bought a Phantom 2 (new), then rebuilt a Phantom 2 bought in bad shape off of EBay, then built a Tarot 680Pro Hex using Naza2, DJI E800, etc. Of these machines I find the X8+ the most frightening to operate. To date I've perhaps 5-10 flights. The weather in New England has been limiting nonetheless I've made perhaps 15-20 attempts, the majority are a no-launch due to failures to arm for one reason or another ("High HDOP" being the most frequent). In most cases I flounder around for a while with the X8+, imagine the RC gods having a good laugh at me, and eventually go grab a Phantom or the Tarot and satisfy my air-want.

I wrote to 3DR about my first few flights "twitching". I could hear what sounded like one motor either cutting out ever-so-briefly or perhaps rev'ing up quickly and I could see the unit visibly shake (the Z1-Tiny2 gimbal does well but the twitching was not a plus). 3DR support was very responsive and I sent the logs as they requested. This morning I tried their suggestion of going through a full calibration and then proceeded outside to give it another try. 30 minutes and numerous trips between the "launch pad" and the house I finally got the unit to arm and I visually checked all of the propellers to make sure they were rotating in the correct direction (overly paranoid about putting them back on correctly). That verified I went through the whole sequence again and could not get the unit to re-arm.

After multiple power-cycles I finally had a successful arm! But the back-left, top motor was not running. More power cycles, more arm attempts and now three of the motors were not running (two bottom, one top).

So back into the house, connect up to Mission planner, reload the X8+ configuration, re-calibrate and back to the launchpad. Total success this time and up she goes. Unlike the other units (which just work) this one continues to hammer away at my confidence so I keep it pretty close and only out over trees. At 60-70% battery I bring it down in altitude-hold mode (funny to use "bring it down" and "altitude hold" in the same sentence), as it descends I observe something that is so quick it requires a mental replay to decode. At about 10 meters above hard-impact I observe what appears to be an entire arm lose power. The back right of the unit falls off and it attempts to go vertical like a rocket, except straight down. Almost as quickly it recovers, I stand there with a bit of "Did that just happen?" wonderment, and quickly bring it in to a real landing.

To end positive: I think that the twitching issue may be gone. Simultaneous with stating that I've got to recognize that I may have been so scared flying it this morning I did not notice one way or the other.