FOXTECH Great Shark VTOL 330 Drone User Manual
- June 11, 2024
- FOXTECH
Table of Contents
FOXTECH Great Shark VTOL 330 Drone
Specifications
Optional
- SEEKER-20 20X Optical Zoom Camera with 3-Axis Gimbal
- FOXTECH 3DM V2 Oblique Camera for Mapping and Survey
Basic Theory
Great SHARK 330 VTOL has a 3.3 meter wingspan, and features a highly advanced
aerodynamic design.The fuselage of Great SHARK 330 is made of Kevlar material
which is very light and durable. Although the Great Shark is so big, it adopts
quick-detach design which makes the plane easy to assembly and disassemble,
and easy to transport. The fuselage also has big inner space for flight
controller, batteries or other equipments, like oblique camera etc. The Great
Shark 330 VTOL can fly longer and load more payload. It can load around 5kg
payload and fly up to 2.5 hours. The frame of Great SHARK is 6kg, and max
take-off weight is about 20kg, the cruising speed of the Great SHARK is 26m/s.
The Great Shark 330 VTOL can take off and land vertically in a very small area
In this Great SHARK VTOL plane we suggest to use two 6S 10000mAh Lipo battery
for VTOL mode, and four 6S 12500mAh Li-ion battery for Fixedwing mode. The
Great Shark 330 VTOL can be used to do a lot of things like long range
inspection, 3D modeling oblique mapping and ground survey etc 
Setup and Calibration
Assembly
- Fix the center part of the wing on the Great Shark body
- Connect the Main Cable. (including ESC signal cable, EsC power cable, servo singnal cable)
- insert the carbon tiber tube in the body. connect signal cable and then fix aileron.
- a lighten the screws tor the main bosv and aileron.
- Connect the cables in the arm and then to to ants
- Assemble the tail.
- Connect the servo cable.
- Fix the tail part on the arm.
- Connect the air speedometer tube.
- Mount the cover.
Check Radio Control
- Check transmitter mode(left hand throttle or right hand throttle).
- 2.Check channels on the transmitter.
Download Mission Planner
- Download the latest Mission planner online or copy it from the SD card.
- Download link: http://firmware.ardupilot.or/Tools/MissionPlanner/ Connect Great Shark to Computer
Connect Great Shark to Computer
Connect DA16S transmitter and computer with bluetooth.
Find the corresponding device and enter a password.
Enter the ‘Device Manager” interface and find its COM
Select correct Com port, and click CONNECT.
Connection completed.
Connect the Datalink and Check Flight Controller
Calibrate the Accelerometer
Although the accelerometer was calibrated already for the NP version before
shipping, please calibrate it again since it might be affected in
transportation. Under Initial Setup, select Accel Calibration from the left-
side menu. Mission Planner will prompt you to place the vehicle each
calibration position. Press any key to indicate that the autopilot is in
position and then proceed to the next orientation. The calibration positions
are: level. on right side. left side. nose down. nose up and on its back
.
It is important that the vehicle is kept still immediately after pressing the
key for each step. 2.The level position is the most important to get right as
this will be the attitude that your controller considers level while flying.
Compass Calibration
Baby Shark VTOL uses high sensitivity compass and it has to be re-calibrated
when fly in a new place. Enter the compass setting page and click” start”,
hold the plane and rotate it in order to hit all directions ona sphere to
calibrate the compass, when it’s done, a new offset would be given to the
flight controller, and a reboot is necessary.
Radio Control Calibration|
Calibrating each of the transmitter controls/channels is a straightforward
process – simply move each of the enabled sticks/switches through their full
range and record the maximum and minimum positions.
Callbrate the Airspeed Senso
It is critical that you calibrate airspeed meter to ensure that it is working
correctly. and ensure that it is After you start up APM on your aircraft you
should wait at least 1 minute for your electronics to warm up. preteraolv
longer. an then do a ore-lign caloration o vour arspeed sensor. Your ground
station so were preferably longer, and then do a pre-flight calibration of
your airspeed sensor. Your ground station software should have a menu for
doing this, usually called “Preflight Calibration”. You need to loosely cover
your airspeed sensor to stop wind from affecting the result, then press the
button. The calibration will take a couple of seconds.
Choosing that action will re-calibrate both your ground barometric pressure
and your airspeed sensor. Next you should check that your airspeed sensor is
working correctly before takeoff. To do that you should blow into the airspeed
sensor and make sure that the “AS” airspeed sensor value in your HUD rises as
you blow into it.
Check the Two Batteries Voltages
If you find the voltages are not correct, Enter the voltages according to the
hand-held volt meter in the “Measured Battery Voltage” field, Press tab or
click out of the field and the “Voltage Divider (Calced)” value will update
and the “Battery voltage (Calced)” should now equal the measured voltage
.
Check Before Flight
- Connect the internet and load the map.
- The plane direction should be same with its direction in mission planner, if not, please calibrate again
- Check plane status, altitude, voltage airspeed meter working fine.
Checklist before Every Flight
Make sure all items are checked before every flight.
- The aircraft connection is stable and normal.
- All screws and nuts are not loose.
- The propeller is in the normal direction and is fastened.
- All the Rudders’ direction-correction are correct.
- The airspeed meter reads correctly.
- Aircraft voltage is normal.
- The compass is toward the right direction.
- More than 15 GPS satellites, or displays GPS FIX.
- No warning words on the ground station.
- Device SD card is normal.
- Recording device is recording normally.
- Aerial survey camera photo test is normal.
- Exposure check is normal.
- The remote controller power is normal.
- Ground station power is normal.
- Data connection strength is normal.
- Aircraft H point positioning is normal.
- Upload and download to check the routes.
- The antenna is placed in the normal direction, the antenna of the aircraft is facing down or up, and the two antennas of the receiver are not in contact.
- Ground device recording is on.
- Aircraft onboard camera is turned on.
- Height setting of Return Home Point is normal.
- Out of control return-to-launch setting is normal.
- Try to vertically take off and land, make sure the direction-correction and direction control are normal Start flying.
Test Flight
Before the first flight, it’s suggest to check if every component is well
connected, Servos working properly, motors spinning to the correct direction
and all control surfaces are moving to the desired directions. DA16S+ supports
6 modes by default FBWA, QHOVER,QLoiter/Cruise, Loiter,Auto). By switching
between SD switch and S3 switch to achieve 6 modes control.It’s suggested to
do the first flight in a very open area with no buildings or big trees around,
and a flat taking-off area is necessary. Use the Qhover(or Qloiter) mode,
start the motors by pushing the rudder all to the right with the throttle at
the lowest position, the motors should start to spin, and gradually increase
the throttle until the plane is ready to lift from the ground, move aileron,
elevator and rudder stick gently to check if the plane is moving as desired.
Continue to push the throttle until the plane is lifted from ground, it may
swing a bit since there should be big airflow hitting the wing, lift the plane
to around 3 meters and try to fly it as a multicopter, it should not be a
problem for anyone who can play a multicopter. When you are familiar with all
controls, lift the plane to at least 50m from the ground and make sure there
is not obstacle in front of the plane.Switch it to Cruise mode, the Great
Shark VTOL rear motor should work, once the speed is reaching at least 19m/s,
the multicopter motors will stop spinning, then the Great Shark is now
transferred to fixed wing. It’s also suggested to active the short and long
failsafe, the default action is respectively CIRCLE and RTH. So in case the
plane lose RC control, it will go back all by itself.
You can fly a while and see if the plane could go straight, if you find the
plane is tilting left for example, don’t try to trim the aileron with your
radio, the trim to aileron(SERVO1) must be done in parameter setting. (If the
elevator trim is necessary, please trim the SERVO2 and SERVO4 at the same time
with the same trim amount.)
GCS FAILSAFE disabled as default setting for DA16(S) radio or the control
range will be greatly affected.
If everything goes well, you can try to land. First, reduce the altitude by pushing forward the elevator and when the altitude is around 50m above the ground, switch to hover(or Qloiter) Mode. Then become a multicopter again, then you can land it just as a normal multicopter.
Autopilot
After the first flight, you can try to do autopilot. You can choose to take
off and land either by manual control or automatically. To use automatic
taking off and landing, you can change the first waypoint to VTOL_TAKE OFF,
and set an altitude like 50m for this action, then set the next waypoint a bit
far (like 100m ) from the first waypoint, the Great Shark will take off as a
multicopter, when it reaches the wanted altitude, it will switch to fixed wing
and fly waypoints or missions like a fixed wing.
The VTOL landing is also the similar, you can set the last waypoint to
VTOL_LAND, but it’s suggested to set one waypoint which is around 100m from
this one, since the plane will try to turn to multicopter before the last
waypoint, if the waypoint before VTOL_LAND is too far, the Great Shark will
finish the final distance all in multicopter mode, the power consumption in
mutlicopter mode is 5 times more than in fixed wing mode. O_RTL is enabled as
default if the VTOL land command is not added, then the VTOL will go back to
HOME position and home altitude(default 50m)and performs automatical VTOL
land.
NOTICE
It is needed to switch to the remote control mode (Q-HOVER, Q-Loiter, FBWA,
Cruise, etc.) when the aircraft is flying in auto mode. After the mode is
switched, continuously toggle the Yaw joystick (left and right direction of
the left hand in model 1 and Mode 2) 3-4 times to realize the drone control.
(Because in auto mode, due to the RC signal interruption and reconnection, the
aircraft will automatically switch to the current mode of the remote
controller, which will lead to an accident.)
Applications
- Survey
- 3D Survey
- Patrol
- FPV
- Air pollution detection
More autopilot mode can be found in Mission planner manual, like circle survey, Grid, drop an object with hook at the desired waypoint.
Appendix
The following calibrations are for Customers who bought Great Shark VTOL Kit. For the customers who bought Great Shark RTF combo, the following calibrations are done before shipping. Please do not change any settings. If the settings are changed by accident, please recover from the param. document in the SD card.
ESC Calibration
Cut off Great Shark power supply and take off all propellers. Connect Pixhawk
flight controller with Mission planner with USB cable. Change “Q_ESC_CAL”
value to 1 and write the params
Long press GPS safety switch until the red light keeps on.
Click Auto and chose Q-stabilize,then click Set mode, finally click Arm/Disarm, There will be a sound “Du~
In the following demonstration, Take Left hand throttle as an example. Push
throttle to Max.(Pic 4-1), connect Great Shark with power, when there is “didi
– di sound quickly push throttle to Min.(Pic 4-2) When there is “di di didi
-di” sound, ESC calibration is successful. Then cut off power.
Connect Great Shark with power again. Long press GPS safety switch. Radio
throttle push to Min, direction stick push to right(Pic 5-1), disarm Great
Shark, you can adjust “Q_M_SPIN_MIN™in mission planner. The default value is
0.25. Write the value. it is complete
Servo Checking and Required Mode Modification
Check the stick function of remote controller. (The follow example is
demonstrated as transmitter Mode2 which means left hand is throttle.) Please
take off all propellers before the following calibrations in case any danger
occurs.
Under Manual Mode :
- Make sure the aircraft is in centre position.
- Push the throttle-stick the motor speed will increase, and pull back the throttle stick, the motor speed will decrease.
- Push the pitch-stick the two V-type tail will go down.
- Pull back the pitch-stick the two V-type tail will go up.
- Turn the aileron-stick to the left, the left aileron will go up, and the right one will go down.
- Turn the aileron-stick to the right, the right aileron will go up, and the left one will go down.
- Turn the direction-stick to the left,the left V-type tail will go up, and the right tail will go down.
- Turn the direction-stick to the right, the right V-type tail will go up, and the left tail will go down.
Under the Q STABLIZE Mode
- Unlock the plane under the Q_STABLIZE mode. (Click safety switch, set the throttle at minimum speedand turn the direction stick to the far right.)
- Check the throttle stick: when you push the throttle-stick, the motors speed will increase, and pull back the throttle-stick, the motors speed will decrease.
- Push the pitch-stick, the speed of the front motor will decrease and the back motor will increase, the two V-tvpe tails will go down.
- Pull the pitch-stick, the speed of the front motor will increase and the back motor will decrease, the two V-type tail will go up.
- Turn the aileron-stick to the left, the left motor speed will decrease, and the right motor speed will increase left aileron goes up, and the right aileron goes down at the same time
- Turn the aileron-stick to the right, the right motor speed will decrease, and the left motor speed will increase left aileron goes down, and the right aileron goes up at the same time.
Angle Deviation Compensation Checking
Unlock the plane under the Q STABLIZE mode:
- Plane leans forward, the speed of the front motors will increase, the back motor-decrease,the two V-type tails go up.
- Plane leans back, the speed of front motors will decrease, the back motor-increase, the two V-type tails go down.
- Plane leans to the left, left aileron will go down, and the right aileron will go up, the speed of left motor increases, and the right motor decreases.
- Plane leans to the right,left aileron will go down, and the right aileron will go up, the speed of left motor decreases, and the right motor increases;
Default Settings
Some default settings in Pixhawk for Great Shark.
- Great Shark Pixhawk Basic Settings for Reference.
- Suggested “Q_VFWD* is: 0.05, this setting will increase anti-wind performance in QLOITER mode and Vtol-take off and landing
Pixhawk Connections
- This content is subject to change.
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