Flying Your µBee Drone
Safety First
Before assembling or flying your µBee Drone Kit, please review the safety guidelines.
First Flight Tip: Patience!
Small drones require practice to fly well. Drones of this class will drift slightly and early flights will include a few small bumps and crashes while learning, and that's okay!
This drone is not a toy. Flying is a skill, so give yourself a few batteries' worth of practice. Read and follow the guide below to ensure you get the best experience possible!
Flight Mode Controls
By now, you've assembled your µBee Drone Kit, and you're nearly ready to start flying! Before you start, you should familiarize yourself with the controls, and tune your drone's trim for a better experience.
The µBee remote control has two modes: Flight Mode and Trim Mode. By default, when you turn on the remote control, it goes into Flight Mode. To begin, turn on the remote.
The red LED will turn on immediately, and after a second or two you'll hear an upwards-trilling tone indicating you're in Flight Mode.
The controls for Flight Mode are shown below.
We strongly recommend first performing a very quick test flight lasting only a second or so, to determine if you need to adjust the trim (you probably do), and in which direction.
If indoors, you should be in a space at least 3x3 meters with a tall ceiling. If outdoors, ensure that the wind is calm. In all cases, be mindful that there are no nearby pets or people who could be injured. Make sure there is a soft landing surface (grass, carpet, etc.) underneath the drone at first. Review the safety guidelines if you haven't already.
To begin, plug in the drone.
The drone's LED will quickly flash 3 times to indicate it has power, and will start up the radio and inertial measurement unit (IMU: the sensor that detects orientation).
If start-up was successful, you'll see a steady flash at 1Hz, shown below.
If you see a different flashing pattern, this indicates a problem. See Troubleshooting at the end of this guide if this happens.
First Test Flight
If everything looks as it should, place the drone on a flat surface 2 meters away from you, facing forward in the same direction you are facing. The battery cable side is the front, and the LED side is the rear. See the diagram below for recommended placement and orientation.
Pressing and holding down on the left stick for half a second will initiate auto-takeoff. The drone will spin up its motors for 1 second, and then take off to an altitude of roughly 1 meter. Altitude or direction may drift slightly, and this is normal for an untuned, IMU-only drone. Now, immediately cut power to the motors by pressing and holding down on the right stick. The drone will drop immediately when its motors are shut down, so be sure there's a soft surface under it to land.
If the drone lifted and responded to controls, congratulations! Your build is working correctly. We'd recommend making trim adjustments next to get the best flying experience.
Note if your take-off was straight upwards or not, or if the drone noticeably drifted in any direction after take-off. Manufacturing and construction differences between drones, propellers, and motors can affect how level the drone flies. You'll likely need to make what are referred to as "trim adjustments" to tweak what the drone considers level. We can do this in Trim Mode.
Using Trim Mode
To enter Trim Mode, press and hold down on both the left and right sticks for 3 seconds, as shown below. You'll hear an initial double beep, and then after 3 seconds you'll hear a downwards-trilling tone indicating you are in Trim Mode.
The controls for Trim Mode are shown below.
The right stick of the remote control is used to adjust the drone's trim. Keep the drone powered during this tuning process, since the remote sends the trim adjustment commands to the drone.
If you noted that the drone's take-off drifted too far backward, you'll want to adjust the trim forward: do this by nudging the right stick forward one time, as shown below.
If the take-off instead drifted too far forward, nudge the right stick backward instead of forward.
The same applies to sideways drift: for example, if the take-off was too far to the left, then nudge the right stick to the right.
To summarize, when adjusting trim, nudge the right stick in the direction you want to correct the drone by.
After each adjustment, you'll hear a beep from the remote, and the drone's LED will flash briefly, indicating it obeyed the command to trim the drone slightly in the direction you specified.
Each trim adjustment is small, so depending on how much you want to adjust, you may need to send several adjustments. (You probably don't need to make more than 4-5 adjustments per axis. If you need to make more than this, you should visit the Troubleshooting section at the end of this guide to see what could be going wrong.)
If you want to reset the trim for a particular axis, you can reset by nudging the stick along the axis you want to reset, and hold it for 3 seconds until you hear a 3-beep confirmation. This is shown below.
After applying trim adjustments, you can re-enter Flight Mode and try another test flight. To enter Flight Mode again, do the same thing you did to enter Trim Mode in the first place: press and hold down on both the left and right sticks for 3 seconds. You'll hear an upwards-trilling tone indicating you're now in Flight Mode.
Flying Your µBee Drone
After you've made trim adjustments and your take-off is level, you're ready to start flying!
Here are the Flight Mode controls again.
Here are a few helpful tips:
- Start gently at first. Use small stick movements. The drone is responsive, and sudden movements or overcorrections can result in loss of control. Be sure to practice with a stable hover before attempting more advanced maneuvers.
- If you lose control of the drone, cut power to the drone immediately to avoid injury or damage to yourself and others. Do this by pressing and holding down on the right stick in Flight Mode.
- Even with battery voltage-compensated hover, a little bit of altitude drift is normal for this class of drone. You'll probably need to make a few altitude adjustments as you fly, and the drone will use these to tweak what it considers to be a stable hover.
- You can land gently by decreasing altitude until you touch the ground. The drone has a landing auto-shutdown feature whereby detection of a small impact combined with a commanded decreasing altitude will result in the motors shutting down.
- Practice a box pattern. This is a great exercise to practice for a few batteries' worth of time. Start by achieving a stable hover, and then fly the drone away from you 1 meter, then right 1 meter, back 1 meter, and left 1 meter (bringing it back to its original starting position). Now land and start again.
- When the drone is facing you, left and right controls will appear to be reversed. This is normal. Practice flying with the drone facing away from you at first.
- You cannot fly multiple µBee drones in the same area (yet). The radio signals will interfere with each other and you will have control over none of the drones.
- Hard impacts can damage the propellers, motors, or PCB. This damage can be hard to detect by looking at it, but it will definitely impact how well your µBee flies! See Troubleshooting below for more information.
Your drone will fly for several minutes on a charge. When battery voltage is low, the LED will flash at 4Hz instead of the usual 1Hz. A 4Hz flash is normal when in flight (battery voltage will drop when the motors are running), but if the drone is landed, a 4Hz flash means the battery is too low and needs replacing/recharging. Do not attempt to fly the drone if this is the case, or you can damage the battery.
In all cases, please be mindful of safety and use common sense when operating your drone.
First Successful Hover
Once your drone takes off smoothly and you can maintain a hover for several seconds, congratulations! You're officially flying your own drone.
With a little more practice, you'll quickly develop smoother and longer flights.
Normal Drone Behavior
The following behaviors are normal for this class of small drone and do not indicate a problem.
- Small drift while hovering. Small drones will drift slightly due to air currents or ground effect. Minor corrections are normal during hovering.
- Movement when increasing throttle. This is expected and can be corrected with small control inputs.
- Minor vibration or noise. This is normal unless a propeller is damaged or loose. After a few flights you'll quickly learn which sounds are normal and which ones are not.
Want to Share?
If you've got a great photo or video of your µBee drone, we'd love to see it! Post to Threads or Instagram and tag @midnightmake.llc, and we'll be sure to respond.
Troubleshooting
Drones are inherently unstable machines and sometimes things go wrong. Here are some failure cases we encountered during development and testing, and how to identify and fix them.
My drone LEDs are flashing in an unexpected pattern after power-up.
If your µBee PCB has been damaged, it can prevent the radio or IMU from working properly.
A repeating double flash of the LED means the radio is not working (shown below). A repeating triple flash means the IMU is not working.
If this happens, first try unplugging and replugging the battery. If this doesn't fix it, your PCB will need to be replaced. Please use the contact form to describe the problem and we will help you to resolve the issue, including sending you a replacement PCB if necessary.
My drone immediately flips and crashes when trying to take off.
This is the most common issue with small DIY drones and is almost always fixable in a few minutes. It is usually caused by one of the following:
- Incorrect motor or propeller combination mounting. Be sure you've attached the correct motors to their correct positions, and that the propellers are mated properly with them. The red-and-blue-wired motors spin in a different direction than the white-and-black-wired motors, and they must be mated with the "A" and "B" propellers accordingly. Double-check the assembly guide to be sure you've done this correctly.
-
Stuck or damaged propellers. Debris or hair can get caught in the motors or propellers. The solution is to gently remove the propellers, clear anything that could be blocking them or causing extra friction, and then attaching them again.
-
Disconnected motors or damaged motor wires. The motors plug into the PCB very securely, but it's possible they have become disconnected and need to be reconnected to their receptacles. Confirm that the motor wires themselves are still attached to their motors and plugs. Those wires are delicate and may have broken, although in practice we haven't seen this happen unless the user is rough with them when unplugging.
My drone doesn't hover or fly straight.
The µBee is an IMU-only drone, and a little bit of drift is expected. However, it is capable of stable hovering and flight, and you should be able to achieve this with the appropriate trim adjustments. Read Using Trim Mode above to see how to do this.
If after adjusting trim, your drone still doesn't fly well, or is suddenly flying poorly, check for tangled hair or debris in the motors or propellers, crooked or bent propellers (we sent extra!), improperly mounted motors or propellers, or a loose battery or PCB. In most cases a replaced propeller (followed by a trim adjustment) can solve your problems.
To test your propellers, unplug the drone and flick each propeller gently. It should spin for roughly half a second before stopping. When viewed edge-on, the propeller shouldn't appear to be wobbling, and the propeller should not suddenly stop immediately after the flick. If the propeller is wobbling, it needs to be replaced. If it suddenly stops spinning earlier than it should, the motor may be damaged, or there is debris around the axis.
An improperly mounted battery can also imbalance the drone. Be sure the battery is fit snugly into the correct position.
I want to customize my drone's flight parameters or code.
We totally understand the desire to tune the drone to your exact liking, and this will be possible soon!
We're currently developing a programming cable allowing you to upload custom code to our products (yes, including the µBee), as well as a wireless tuning base station that allows you to customize any and all of the 30 flight control parameters of the µBee.
My issue isn't covered here.
If you've tried a few things and can't get your drone working the way you'd like, or have a question or feature request, please contact us! We're always eager to improve our products to provide the best learning experience that we can.