4 ms·
The obvious difference is that the throttle axis on RC transmitters is not self-centering. 0% is at the bottom, not in the center. But beyond that, the stick t
by Ao7bei3s 3y ago
The obvious difference is that the throttle axis on RC transmitters is not self-centering. 0% is at the bottom, not in the center.
But beyond that, the stick throws are much larger than e.g. on an Xbox controller, there's much finer feeling, the end stops are harder, the sticks can be held differently (search "thumbing vs pinching", both are used irl but the latter gives finer control). It's just so different. And you can't compare at all to using two full sized joysticks, which would mean full wrist movement.
Also, cheap gaming joysticks are terrible. Two high quality ones (VKB NXT or better) cost more than a high quality RC transmitter. It does not save money.
Physics aren't really realistic. They're all enough to get the absolute basics down (e.g. that camera uptilt means that pitch left/right needs a corresponding yaw input to keep the view straight). But then different simulators vary. The most common, fairly ubiquitous complaint, is that it's too floaty (real quads drop much faster without throttle). It's not just due to bad physics, it's also because to be commercially successful they have to appeal to gamers too, maybe even primarily. Then there's the finer points, like wind, descending into your own chaotic vortex, or how easy you crash when you touch anything (sims are sooo forgiving).
And of course every quad is different, 1" 1S, 3.5" 2S Li-Ion and a 10" 4S handle substantially differently, but if you haven't flown any for real then you won't know what is right.
(If you're looking for a radio, unless you know what you want, just buy a TX16S please.)
(There are exceptions to everything I said above. But this is the common case.)
- SirMaster 3y agoThanks for this. This all makes sense. I mean, I figured every different size drone would handle differently. I guess I am surprised there isn't or can't be a quadcopter simulator with really realistic physics though in this day and age. Maybe just not enough market for it for that level of accuracy and realism.
- Ao7bei3s 3y agoTo be clear, I don't want to imply they're useless though. Velocidrone, DRL and Liftoff (I haven't tried Uncrashed yet) all have good enough physics for real use cases, and are widely used. - As a beginner, they help you crash less. You can learn enough basics to save some real money in avoided crashes. The sims pay for themselves right away, you can just buy them all. The sim-isms don't matter so much. - As a skilled pilot, they help you crash more. You can safely iterate on your maneuvers really really well (no repairs, immediate retry from same conditions, always good weather, fly from home). You'll have an idea where the differences are and how you need to compensate with the actual craft. You can tune the virtual counterpart to be a bit closer. They complement real model flying, they just cant replace it. (And even that is questionable. I bet many just can't afford real model flying. Sims might help them scratch the itch.) A _really accurate_ flight sim is actually hard to do though, for a few reasons. Aerodynamic modelling is hard (there are lots of interesting effects), and that almost every model aircraft is unique (due to home building) and constantly changes (crashes, repairs, upgrades) probably doesn't help. And neither does that the core idea behind multirotors is unstable flight, which entirely depends on the firmware. There are different firmware projects (Betaflight is the most popular for racing, but not the only), and they are quite tunable. Can't simulate that accurately; it would have to be firmware in the loop.