Testing sensors

When we built the latest prototypes we built two different versions. One with the ST accelerometer LIS344ALH and with the ISZ-IDG650 gyros. The other one with BOSH accelerometer BMA145 and with the ISZ-IDG500 gyros. It turned out that the LIS344ALH accelerometer is very vibration sensitive and doesn’t work that well for an application as this. If we would just have spent some time on the Internet we could have found this information in before hand… luckily we made the hardware design work with both and the BMA145 is working pretty well, however now we no longer have an alternative :-(.

The ISZ650 and IDG650 works pretty well even though they are less sensitive with their ±2000deg/s output. We can’t see any direct stability issues compared to the IXX500 versions with ±500deg/s output. Maybe we will stick with the IXX650, that way  we don’t limit the flip and loop speed to much. Not that the Crazyflie can do flips/rolls right now but we are very confident it will be able to in the future, judging from its agility.

We have also been working on getting the Crazyflie easier to control for beginners. With some slew rate limiting and thrust control we seem to be getting there. Now even Marcus can fly it without any problem. He used to hit the wall or ceiling all the time before :-).

6 comments on “Testing sensors

  • Are you using Aero ace motors? If so, how much would it cost for just the board and motor mounts?

    • We are not using Aero ace motors, we are using a custom manufactured motor but the aero ace motors should work fine as well. We have no plans for selling any partial kits. It is just not economical. There will be spare part kits though, but probably not any bare PCB boards.

  • Hi, will there be a way to connect some external I2C devices. I would like to control mutiple quadrotors from a single computer. Would then each robot need its own usb radio dongle ?

  • Hey, have you considered the LSM330DL? it’s an integrated 3axis accelerometer with 3d gyro on 1 chip. It should save you guys some space. Also, where do you get your motors?

    • Yes the LSM330DL is an alternative to the MPU6000 but we have not found any preformance measuremnts of it. Have you evaluated it or do you know someone that has? I know ST gyros hade vibration problems before but they may have been solved now.

      We buy our motors directly from factory. We can’t say which yet without their permission but we will release more spec of the motors as we get along.

      • hey, I personally havent tried using the lsm330, but I intend to. about the motors, can you just give me the diameter, weight,voltage and rpm they’ve got?

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