Just opened my new D1. Made sure it had plenty of charge, and updated the sw to latest rev (May 22, 2013).
Sitting on a level counter top, near a window, showing 5 bars on the GPS, the unit displayed a left yaw rate of 3/4 to 1x std rate turn. Roll attitude rocks back a fourth some (-8, +3). Pitch was fairly stable although wondered a little (+/- 2 deg). Ball in the center. Altitude from GPS was good.
Thought, well, maybe the state estimator needs some motion to sort out the yaw rate bias, so I pulled the car into the garage, set up the D1, got physically close to plumb and square, then tweaked the pitch and roll, which both needed only 1 degree. Ball was centered, roll indicated -4 (left bank) and wondered a bit, pitch was on the dot.
Drove around a bit. No improvement. While driving down a long, straight, smooth road with slight incline (negligible angular rates), pitch was about right but yaw rate was still ~left std rate. Roll showed left bank, but the crown in the road resulted in an actual slight right bank. Ball showed about 1/2 ball width to the right, which was correct. Overall, pitch was roughly correct, ball looked correct, but roll was off and wandered, although did respond to roll angle changes, and yaw rate consistently had a left std rate bias. Solid 4-5 bars on the GPS at all times. It's definitely not providing a reliable attitude indication at this point. It'll probably be Friday (6/7/13) before I can fly it (Cherokee 180), but I don't think I need to fly it to tell that something's not working properly.
I think I may have bad hardware, but looking for the thoughts of others...
Thanks!
Jim
Update:
I've attached some photos. Went out again. After about 0.4 miles, I stopped about to turn onto a road. While sitting still, the display indicated a 35 deg nose up, left bank, and 2x std rate turn. It settled back to the original odd behavior while driving down the road, about 5 min later.
I'm not worried about it when in skidding turns (in a car) vs. coordinated turns (in the plane), but I would think that sitting still and driving straight down a road, it ought to have predictable and normal behavior.
Sitting on a level counter top, near a window, showing 5 bars on the GPS, the unit displayed a left yaw rate of 3/4 to 1x std rate turn. Roll attitude rocks back a fourth some (-8, +3). Pitch was fairly stable although wondered a little (+/- 2 deg). Ball in the center. Altitude from GPS was good.
Thought, well, maybe the state estimator needs some motion to sort out the yaw rate bias, so I pulled the car into the garage, set up the D1, got physically close to plumb and square, then tweaked the pitch and roll, which both needed only 1 degree. Ball was centered, roll indicated -4 (left bank) and wondered a bit, pitch was on the dot.
Drove around a bit. No improvement. While driving down a long, straight, smooth road with slight incline (negligible angular rates), pitch was about right but yaw rate was still ~left std rate. Roll showed left bank, but the crown in the road resulted in an actual slight right bank. Ball showed about 1/2 ball width to the right, which was correct. Overall, pitch was roughly correct, ball looked correct, but roll was off and wandered, although did respond to roll angle changes, and yaw rate consistently had a left std rate bias. Solid 4-5 bars on the GPS at all times. It's definitely not providing a reliable attitude indication at this point. It'll probably be Friday (6/7/13) before I can fly it (Cherokee 180), but I don't think I need to fly it to tell that something's not working properly.
I think I may have bad hardware, but looking for the thoughts of others...
Thanks!
Jim
Update:
I've attached some photos. Went out again. After about 0.4 miles, I stopped about to turn onto a road. While sitting still, the display indicated a 35 deg nose up, left bank, and 2x std rate turn. It settled back to the original odd behavior while driving down the road, about 5 min later.
I'm not worried about it when in skidding turns (in a car) vs. coordinated turns (in the plane), but I would think that sitting still and driving straight down a road, it ought to have predictable and normal behavior.
