Need Help - DEVO 12s flaps airplane

Hello guys,

im am totaly new at deviation firmware. First to this tx i used a DEVO 7, what is totaly different.
Now i bought a Devo 12s and flashed it up with Deviation 4.01 nighly build latest version.

What works already are ELE, AIL, THR, RUDD, I am also able to reverse the servos and so an. Till that all clear.

But I am not able to understand how i can add further channels Like flaps for example. I dont need the channel GEAR which acutaly is marked as channel 5.

So can anyone tell me how i can add flaps as a channel und put them on the MIX switch?

I am really sorry but i think i do not understand how deviation works exactly. I tried to ried about the forums but did not understand exacty what i need to do...?! Maybe it is a little difficult to be because i speak german.

I hope somebody can help me!!

Thanks in advance

Julian

First tip would be to forget about the channel naming, it's only really to try to match up with the typical wording on receivers, you can put whatever you want wherever you want.
Do you have dedicated flaps, or are you using your ailerons as flaps (flaperons)? If dedicated flaps, just connect them to the "gear" port on your RX (aka channel 5) or whatever channel you have spare, then you should be able to just do a simple "dual rates" mixer on channel 5 / gear and set a Fixed Value of "0" to your "off" switch position (Mix0), then let's say "20" for Mix1 and say maybe "60" for Mix2; test, then adjust the values to suit.
There are multiple ways you can program it, I'm just trying to simplify it down and you'll probably need to figure it out in whichever interface you are using; I've only ever used the Advanced interface so don't know how to go about such things via the Simple interface, sorry.

Hi,

you are right, i have a cessna 182 skylane in foam where i want to use the flaps directly not as flaperon. but i also have larger models, so i will start with this one trying out all this. Ok, if I understand you ight i can leave the plug in the AUX1 at the receiver and then simply modify the GEAR Mixer in the Advanced MIXER setup on the devo 12s to what you have written.
I will try this out tonight at home and let you know if I was successfull.

Thanks for the moment, lets keep in touch!

Greets

Julian

Hi me again, thanks for your help, flaps are working now so now i need to find out how i can mix some elevator to the flaps, this semms to be again complicated, as i need to mix it with delay because flaps come out slowly!? Any idea how to handle?

I'll see if I can dig out my delayed flaperon/spoileron setup tonight when I get home from work, or find a link to it somewhere... I asked essentially the same question and got it solved about a month ago but can't remember if the solution was written in an easily comprehended manner. Having delay applied to flaps, but not effecting aileron inputs (instant).

Thanks again for your help. What i exactly need to do is the following:

Switching to mix one flaps get down slowly and switching to mix 2 the get down compleetly.

So i will need to have a negative elevator mix to that, but as we spoke with delay... Really dont know how to do..

But as you offered me maybe we can look togheter at youre settings and just need a change in some points, because i dont need amy changes at aileron setup....

I find it really difficult to work with deviaton softare, feel like my had is burning :/

That burning you feel? - That's good for your grey matter!

julianholzner wrote: I find it really difficult to work with deviaton softare, feel like my had is burning :/

Ok, assuming we're not going to go back to the proprietary solution of giving you model types and letting you adjust a few parameters that are specific to the type, but want to continue giving you the full flexibility of the radio, how would you do it?

I know what I want, but it makes experiences programmers brains hurt.

Work with the burn! It's a steep hill, but the view from the top's worth it!

OK, if you want slow flaps but regular-speed aileron input into them, then I'm pretty sure what you want to do first is just setup the flap channel to be reacting properly to aileron inputs. Forget about the flaps for a minute, just go off and get the non-flappy part of the interaction happening; set it up as a Complex mixer, as you're going to be adding the flappy bit to it afterwards. The beauty of the complex mixer is that you can make it more and more... well, complex! It can be a simple one-page mix, or a near infinited conglomeration of all sorts of inputs!
So, just go ahead and get your flaps aileroning the way you want them to. Note that you'll need two channels, one per flap, each the reverse of the other for many of the inputs. If it was just flaps or just ailerons you could get away with using one channel, but I'm pretty sure if combining them you'll get one input doing the wrong thing on one side if you only use one channel

Once you've got that set up, you need to use a Virtual Channel for the delayed flaps. This is a "non" channel, it only exists on the TX and doesn't output anything to the receiver. They are very powerful for doing extra work that can't be readily done in a normal channel without affecting everything else on that channel. Delay is a good example; add a elay to your flaps channel and you'll also get slowed ailerons. Do the flappy bit in a virtual channel and add delay to it, then mix this into your "normal" channel, and you'll get both regular-speed aileron input AND delayed (slowed) flaps.

Pictures are probably easier to follow here. Make your virtual channel a Complex mixer, and set it to 4 mixers. Go through the Pages to input a new mix per page; first three are the flap settings to the corresponding switch position (actually flap then spoiler in this case, down then up), and the fourth page is the delay (slowdown) that applies to all of the virtual channel, slowing down the transition from one state to the other.









Once that's all setup, we mix the virtual channel back into the real flaps channels; here I've got one of my aileron channels

I've got several various things being applied, hence the 7 mixers, but in this case Page 6 has the bit where the Virtual Channel is mixed in;

It just adds to the channel (Src = Vitual) as a 1-to-1 ratio, meaning whatever you have happening in your Virtual Channel will get added exactly as it is setup, including the delay, without slowing down everything else in the "real" channel.

Get everything setup properly to work on one flap, then when it's working copy it to the other flap's channel and you might need to invert a couple of things.

MWM please don't understand me wrong, it is just difficult to learn for me, I am sure if i understand everything it will be a great software to work with, but for the moment i need a lot of help and explanations like from RoGuE_StreaK, which are really helping me at this moment.

But i think we are talking about to different things. Because what as it is for me at the moment i worket out the flaps with delay and so on (working perfektly) on the real channel 6, so now (i think) i will need to do a complex mixer on the elevator channel? or not? Or should i take your steps and just simply do them in the elevator mixer instead of the AIL what you did?

My model is a bit simplier than yours, it hast just one servo for AIL and another one for flaps.....

Whoops, I'd completely misread what you'd said; I read "aileron" instead of "elevator", and interpreted as meaning that you intended mixing some aileron into your flaps. My bad.

For the slow elevator-down-on-flaps, just mix a virtual channel as per what I've said for my aileron mix. You could even tr using the exact same virtual channel that you've set up for flaps, and if the movement is too much or too little just change the Scale of the mix.

And my model's not more complex, I've just got two aileron servos and no dedicated flaps! So the ailerons do double duty as "flaperons" / "spoilerons"

Hopefully i dont have two servos for each on this plane, this would be to much for my deviation knowledge

After setting up this plane right we can speak about the next one with 2 servos for ele and 2 servos for flaps, and other two for ail...... but that will be the next step after finishing to learn how to mix up the smale plane with his functions....

When I am back at home tonight i will give a look and try to work this out, keep you updated.

Thanks

julianholzner wrote: MWM please don't understand me wrong, it is just difficult to learn for me, I am sure if i understand everything it will be a great software to work with, but for the moment i need a lot of help and explanations like from RoGuE_StreaK, which are really helping me at this moment

I don't think it's you. Some very sharp people have given up on this model of doing things, complaining that they'd rather not have to get a computer science degree in order to program their Tx. They appreciated the extra power, but didn't think it was worth the pain that it took to get there.

So when someone complains about this model but still stays with it, I'm curious to know if they have a better idea for how to get the power. Like I said, I do, but I program computers for a living, so I'm probably not the right person to design such things.

mwm what you do is a great job, otherwise i did not immediatly put deviation on my devo12s. The thing is that i am new to RC business, i had a devo7 before, and at the beginning it took me long time to understand the devo 7, and now i have to rethink all new. So thats the only point why i find it difficult, because my brain is not soo tecnical..... sorry if i explaint me wrong before.

julianholzner wrote: After setting up this plane right we can speak about the next one with 2 servos for ele and 2 servos for flaps, and other two for ail...... but that will be the next step after finishing to learn how to mix up the smale plane with his functions....

There's no real difference, you just do the same settings twice (once per channel), and might have to reverse a couple of the figures, eg. change a "100" scale on a mix to "-100". That's about it!

Hi Guys,

so what i did for the moment is setting up my flaps with the complex mixer, like your have yourse, the only difference is that i set them up in the real channel K6 not as a virtual input because i dont need that (at least i think)

so how can i procceed now with adding the elevetor to the flaps?!

i put the k6 channel as on elvetaor but with which specs??

Got it, elevator is working with activation of the flaps now!!!

Still one remaining problem, i am not able to add the delay to the elevator in case of activation of the flaps.......

The thing with the delay mixer (as far as I understand it) is that it applies to everything on that channel; once you add a delay, every response on that channel will be delayed, which is not what you want.
To get around that, you use a virtual channel for the bits you want to delay, then just mix that into your "real" channel. This way you get the delay on the bits you want, and the normal reaction on the rest of the channel.

I think the virtual channel thing can seem like a big barrier to people, that it's some magical complex beast that is beyond comprehension. All it is is a channel that doesn't output to your receiver. The beauty of it is that you can do all sorts of complex (or simple!) things that would normally mess with your normal channel, and just spit the END RESULT out to mix in with your normal channel.

Ok I understoot what you mean so far, but trying to get a virtual channel i did already, my problem is that i dont really understand what to use as switch source and so on... and afterwords in the real channel (elevator) where and with which specs should i put in the virtual channel in the mixer.....

All a bit complicated to me I will try again some things tonight and hope to risolve!

Just try to replicate what I have in the screenshots for the virtual channel; See how the Switch is for Mix0, Mix1, and Mix2? Each position has a Fixed value (position for your servo) with a Mux of Replace; the values just get replaced with whatever the relates to the switch position. The fourth page adds the delay, which slows down any of the transitions on that (virtual) channel. Scale is how fast/slow you want it to go, personally 30 was a good speed for me, you can go slower or faster, adjust to suit.

Ignore the fifth screenshot, that's just my basic settings for the ailerons.

The sixth screenshot is where the virtual channel gets mixed in with your "real" channel; in your case your elevator. Just add another Mixer/Page to your complex mixer, Switch = None (switches taken care of in your virtual channel), Mux = Add (just add whatever the result of the virtual channel is to your elevator), Src = name of your virtual channel, Curve = 1-to-1 (a straight copy).

You really need to just break it down into it's simplest components, worry about getting each individual bit working first before getting overwhelmed by the total picture.