Following the recommendation, I set the log rate to 500 and ticked the boxes for Ele/Ail/Rud Regulation and Vibration Level for logging, and of course enabled logging. During a quick test on the workbench without rotor blades, the logging worked in principle. Before the actual test flight, I cleared the entire memory.
I carried out real test flights with four of my helicopters with Spirit GTR or GT systems, lasting between 5 and 8 minutes.
The frustrating result: not a single log file was recorded. Apparently, the log files were far too large due to the long flight duration and sampling rate of 500. I would have expected that, with the memory full, at least the existing data would be recorded. Instead, it shows that the memory is 99% full, but there is no log file.
Not only that. The logging parameters are also modified to: no logging, rate 1 Hz, with only ‘Attitude’ and ‘Vibration Level’ ticked.
It is very strange that both values of Power-up Cycles Total AND User are set to 0. It is normally not possible to reset the Total value.
This happened with all four helicopters. In further tests, I found that test flights lasting just over a minute can be recorded normally if the memory has been cleared beforehand.
These problems do not occur when several short log files are stored in memory. In that case, the last flight is not recorded either, but the logging parameters remain unchanged.
When log files are deleted repeatedly in the internal memory, strange effects sometimes occur. The servos twitch once, briefly and very violently. It seems that, now and then, connection instabilities occur when handling log files, even though the BEC power supply is absolutely stable (buffer caps).
Before every test flight, I check the logging parameters, as it has happened several times with different helicopters that the logging parameters have been altered, apparently due to internal errors. I have not yet been able to reproduce exactly when this happens.
What is reproducible is that the current value for memory usage is always displayed too late. The old value remains unchanged. The current value only appears after restarting the helicopter and the setup programme.
Suggestions:
- If there is not enough memory for logging, record the data accumulated so far.
- Keep the display of memory usage up to date.
- When configuring the logging parameters, display the maximum flight duration before the memory is full.