=== Let's Drone Out — Episode 394 ===
Title: LDO EP394 - KISS ULTRA V2 With Alexander Fedorov Aka FedorCommander
Recorded: 2023-03-16
Hosts: Jack "Brightontillifly" Nash, Stephen "Belrik" Howell, Koel "Koala" Anderson, Andrew "Frank" Hyams
Guest(s): Alexander "fedorcomander" Fedorov
Total audience: 3,851
Platforms: YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWdToX3O1Ok); SoundCloud (http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/1471912195-letsdroneout-ldo-ep394-kiss-ultra-v2-with-alexander-fedorov-aka-fedorcommander.mp3)
=====================================

Check out KISS ULTRA online:
https://www.youtube.com/@alexanderfedorov7890
https://store.kiss-ultra.com/
https://discord.gg/kissultra
https://www.patreon.com/posts/i-have-discord-54999744
https://kiss-ultra.com/gui/

GoFundMe
https://gofund.me/68f1664d

#letsdroneout #fedorcommander #kissultra #kissultrav2

[0.0] Jack: Hello and you're listening to Let's Drone Out and special thank you to our lovely patrons that help donate so that we can pay the editor to remove the swear words and silly things we say. Massive thank you to.
[14.0] Jack: Carlos Campos.
[16.0] Jack: Art Faulkner.
[18.0] Stephen: Sam Dahmer.
[19.0] Stephen: On with the show.
[21.0] Koel: Let's drone out now.
[23.0] Jack: Hello and welcome to Let's Drone Out.
[54.32] Jack: We are live on YouTube at the usual time of 8pm. Come join us.
[60.32] Jack: Tonight we have a special guest.
[65.32] Jack: Federal commander himself.
[68.32] Jack: Mr Kiss Ultra.
[70.32] Alex: Hi guys.
[71.32] Jack: We also have the man with the lovely Mr. Stephen.
[76.32] Jack: Hello.
[77.32] Jack: We've medicated him.
[80.32] Jack: We've educated him.
[82.32] Stephen: He's had physio on his shoulder and he's in a much better mood.
[85.32] Stephen: Sorry viewers if I was a bit cranky last week.
[88.32] Stephen: I would like to say I'm not normally like that. It might be slightly a lie but I was in a bunch of pain and I was a bit cranky.
[95.32] Jack: And Mr I've got two Ultras on the way Cole.
[101.32] Jack: Howdy.
[103.32] Jack: No more flying V1 for you.
[107.32] Jack: Okay.
[108.32] Jack: He's also been educated.
[111.32] Koel: Yes.
[112.32] Koel: I will be.
[113.32] Koel: I will be very shortly.
[115.32] Jack: Yeah.
[116.32] Jack: And I think it's my turn to sit here and flash 48 onto the Kiss Ultra.
[126.32] Jack: Alexander thank you so much for making the time to chat to us.
[130.32] Jack: We were deeply sorry for any misunderstanding and miscommunication and we are idiots.
[138.32] Jack: I'm an idiot.
[139.32] Stephen: I'll just say that right now because I can't sort out the history of Kiss in my head.
[144.32] Stephen: But this show isn't about the history of Kiss.
[146.32] Stephen: This is about Kiss Ultra.
[148.32] Stephen: And we're talking about all the new and exciting things that are happening in the world of Kiss Ultra from V1 to V2 and new stuff that's coming.
[156.32] Stephen: So really excited to hear about that.
[160.32] Jack: Thanks for making time for us.
[164.6] Jack: Really appreciate it.
[168.6] Jack: Also guys a bit of a call to action.
[172.6] Jack: I have a good friend of mine.
[175.6] Jack: He was an original host of LDO.
[179.6] Jack: Remind me at the end of the show to give another shout out.
[183.6] Jack: But it's Clint.
[185.6] Jack: His father is stuck out in Philippines and is in unfortunately intensive care.
[191.6] Jack: And there's a GoFundMe link in the description.
[197.6] Jack: If you can donate and help out please do.
[201.6] Jack: His dad's not got insurance and they want to try and get him back to the UK.
[206.6] Jack: If you can spare anything please.
[209.6] Jack: He helps set up and start the show.
[212.6] Jack: He also helps with like you know taking steel and drib around the UK.
[218.6] Jack: And all in all he's been a great asset and a friend to the show.
[223.6] Jack: He's taught me how to build PCs.
[226.6] Jack: He helped with the DVEL.
[232.6] Jack: The firmware that cracks the DJI goggles to enable video out and stuff.
[241.6] Jack: So yeah he's worked alongside those guys.
[245.6] Jack: So yeah any help is greatly appreciated.
[250.6] Jack: Do you want to start with your or Steven your question?
[257.6] Koel: I guess I have a question I guess I can start it off with maybe for a little segue.
[263.6] Koel: But so Alex I was actually just wondering is there any wrong information about KISS Ultra
[269.6] Koel: that you've heard that you might want to correct or set the record straight right off the bat just to clear the air on anything?
[276.6] Alex: I heard a lot of wrong information on the previous show.
[280.6] Alex: Thank you Steven.
[282.6] Alex: Yeah well that's a really short thing.
[287.6] Alex: KISS Ultra it's not a product of Flyduino or any other companies.
[292.6] Alex: It's my product alone and the team.
[297.6] Alex: There is no company called KISS Ultra.
[300.6] Alex: Well that's me.
[304.6] Alex: You cannot call company for the commander.
[308.6] Alex: That's why I decided just to use KISS Ultra as a trade name everywhere in the shop and the URL of the GUI and the product itself.
[318.6] Alex: So basically I'm doing design of hardware, software, GUI, OSD, manufacturing, sales and shipping.
[329.6] Alex: So yeah that's one man show.
[332.6] Alex: One more thing. It's not my day job.
[335.6] Alex: It's my hobby.
[337.6] Alex: So I'm doing it in my spare time.
[339.6] Alex: So that's why I don't want to put my company name to the KISS.
[344.6] Alex: And KISS Ultra means beyond KISS.
[348.6] Alex: So that's what we did.
[349.6] Alex: We took everything that we had in KISS for what we had in Patreon.
[354.6] Alex: And we just pushed on the new level on the hardware and software side.
[358.6] Alex: So that's the whole idea about the name and the project behind it.
[364.6] Koel: Very good. Yeah, that's a great explanation. I appreciate that.
[368.6] Koel: I think a lot of people, now that that's out there, maybe people can stop speculating.
[375.6] Koel: Now they have the hard facts. So good.
[378.6] Koel: Simple.
[379.6] Koel: Yeah, keeping it simple.
[382.6] Koel: Anything on your guys end? Do you have any more questions?
[385.6] Stephen: I was going to say while we're talking about that, you mentioned kind of where you started with this KISS Ultra.
[391.6] Stephen: When you started out working on KISS Ultra, what problems did you want to solve?
[398.6] Alex: Well, basically the KISS was at the point when there was two code lines.
[403.6] Alex: One in Patreon I was doing, you know, DJI stuff, returning to home and general fun stuff.
[412.6] Alex: And another code line was FedTech that was supposed to do support for KISS firmware, official KISS firmware.
[420.6] Alex: Well, they did something that I don't want to talk about it.
[423.6] Alex: And the moment when I started seeing that things were going not in the right direction.
[429.6] Alex: So I thought, well, I think it's time to probably stop committing to...
[435.6] Stephen: Maybe a better way of asking would be, what were the goals when you set out and you're like, yeah, I'm going to do my own thing.
[442.6] Alex: I was about to say that.
[445.6] Alex: I'm sorry.
[446.6] Alex: So I decided to start my own hardware.
[449.6] Alex: And the main thing that was missing on KISS since the beginning, there was no support of OSD.
[456.6] Alex: So that was the idea to integrate OSD to KISS, push it to new hardware on top tier CPUs,
[467.6] Alex: and basically start from there.
[474.52] Koel: Yeah. Well, I think that's awesome because I'm still on the old KISS stuff.
[479.52] Koel: I got to use the Wolf PDBs to get the OSD.
[483.52] Koel: So I think that is, you know, the fact that you did put OSD on there, that's obviously a huge game changer for a lot of people that like the KISS platform.
[491.52] Koel: So very cool.
[493.52] Alex: Yeah. And the OSD, well, I never liked OSDs.
[497.52] Alex: I really respect what Wolf did.
[499.52] Alex: He probably did best OSD on the market for KISS for time being.
[504.52] Alex: And well, I wanted something new.
[507.52] Alex: So I wanted full graphics.
[508.52] Alex: I want transparency.
[510.52] Alex: And the best of all, I wanted to be on the same CPU with flight controller.
[515.52] Alex: I didn't want to have any serial ports and separate updates and this kind of things.
[519.52] Alex: So it is, well, a very interesting thing to do, very hard thing to do.
[526.52] Alex: But that's what we did.
[530.52] Stephen: It also saves a lot of space on the board, doesn't it?
[532.52] Stephen: Very few people realize quite how big that OSD chip is relative to all the other components.
[537.52] Alex: Well, it's first of all, it's one CPU less.
[540.52] Alex: And OSD on Ultra, it's nine square millimeters.
[545.52] Alex: So it's three by three millimeters.
[548.52] Alex: That's half of the size of Max chip.
[551.52] Alex: That's what makes clocking of graphical OSD from CPU.
[557.52] Alex: Of course, there are issues when the processor needs to fly.
[561.52] Alex: And at the same time, you need to clock out this OSD in very, very high rate.
[569.52] Alex: So I'm doing like 60, 60 FPS of OSD.
[574.52] Stephen: Fantastic.
[575.52] Alex: Yes.
[576.52] Stephen: That's very good.
[578.52] Stephen: Was that challenging to work with all the different cameras as well?
[580.52] Stephen: Because a lot of people attach really cheap cameras to their quads and that could be awkward.
[586.52] Alex: Yes.
[587.52] Alex: There is absolutely no standard on the sync level of the cameras.
[591.52] Alex: And that is essential for synchronizing the video output of OSD on video.
[598.52] Alex: And there are some chips that help to normalize it somehow.
[601.52] Alex: But what I did, I did also within OSD the graphical tools and that's automatic sync calibration.
[609.52] Alex: And you can see graphically your sync levels in OSD.
[613.52] Alex: So it's quite easy to do now.
[618.52] Alex: But yeah, that was some challenges.
[621.52] Stephen: So you can even diagnose if you've got a bad camera.
[623.52] Stephen: Yes.
[624.52] Stephen: You can actually see if your sync isn't working from the camera.
[627.52] Stephen: That's awesome.
[629.52] Jack: Yeah.
[630.52] Jack: You've got the hardware tools, isn't it?
[633.52] Jack: And then you in the OSD.
[637.52] Jack: Yeah.
[638.52] Jack: And then you select the camera sync and the OSD flashes and blinks.
[643.52] Jack: Yeah.
[644.52] Jack: And then it sets the timing, which is very clever.
[648.52] Alex: It's very simple actually.
[649.52] Alex: It just checks sync level between 0 and 0.3 volts.
[655.52] Alex: And you see how many things you get within that sync level.
[660.52] Alex: And if it checks out with a standard of video that your camera is providing,
[667.52] Alex: then you see nice graph and then it just centers it.
[671.52] Alex: And yeah, it works just simple and quite well.
[676.83] Stephen: Cool.
[677.83] Stephen: Yeah.
[678.83] Stephen: Yeah.
[679.83] Stephen: I heard that's been challenging.
[680.83] Stephen: There's some cameras you look at different scenes of different colors or brightness and
[684.83] Stephen: the sync level or like fly up and down and vary and very clever to get that right.
[689.83] Alex: Yeah.
[690.83] Alex: It happens sometimes.
[692.83] Jack: Yeah.
[693.83] Jack: One of my questions is with KISS, I believe Paul was trying to make a flight controller
[703.83] Jack: that was very simple, you know, keep it super simple.
[708.83] Jack: You know, I think that's why they called it KISS or I assumed that's what it was.
[715.83] Jack: What is your end goal?
[719.83] Jack: And is it different for KISS Ultra?
[724.83] Alex: It's not different.
[726.83] Alex: It's not different at all.
[727.83] Alex: I wanted to.
[728.83] Alex: Well, I think I liked the feel of KISS and I was flying it and enjoying it.
[735.83] Alex: I was coding for KISS.
[737.83] Alex: We are volunteering for free for like five years and I wanted to continue it.
[743.83] Alex: And I want to keep the feel and push it on just a new level.
[748.83] Alex: It still needs to be simple.
[750.83] Alex: The whole idea is it's made for pilots, not for nerds.
[754.83] Alex: I like to say that.
[756.83] Alex: And we're trying within the team to keep it as simple as possible.
[761.83] Alex: So if things can be automated, they are.
[764.83] Alex: If there is something doesn't belong to GUI, it's just not there.
[768.83] Alex: So we try not to pollute anything with stuff that only one person from 1000 will ever use.
[776.83] Alex: Like, I don't know, Imperial March.
[779.83] Alex: Very nice, but annoying after a second time you hear it.
[783.83] Alex: So it's trying to get clean with very same defaults that people can just start flying right away.
[791.83] Alex: Trying to make wizards that takes all heavy lifting on the things like setting up your motor or setting up your ESCs.
[800.83] Alex: I think you guys already tried.
[802.83] Alex: So you just do a few clicks and basically your easy configures, your directions configured, prop in, prop out, click, you're done.
[809.83] Alex: And this is all what you need to do and select your arm switch and this is it.
[814.83] Alex: And that's what most of people do.
[818.83] Alex: They just have one of the four or five presets we have.
[821.83] Alex: And this is it.
[824.83] Alex: So you don't need much.
[825.83] Alex: If you want to go more advanced level, you can tweak some performance features.
[832.83] Alex: But basically it is what it is.
[836.83] Alex: So simple.
[839.83] Jack: So you've just released a couple of months ago, you released the Kiss V2, Ultra V2.
[849.83] Alex: Yes, a bit early.
[850.83] Alex: I announced it, I think in September and in December we had first batch of them.
[859.83] Alex: The second batch was in March, beginning of March.
[867.83] Alex: All sold out, of course.
[869.83] Alex: And I just ordered a new batch.
[871.83] Alex: So that's basically how we roll.
[874.83] Stephen: What did V2 bring to the pilots?
[878.83] Alex: V2, well, as you know, Kiss was heavily based around MPU 6000 gyro chip.
[888.83] Alex: And those chips are end of life.
[893.83] Alex: And well, I have like half a thousand of them left.
[896.83] Alex: So I didn't want to use them anymore.
[898.83] Alex: And the reliability of them was horrible, actually.
[902.83] Alex: So I was looking for half a year for a new gyro that can be used.
[907.83] Alex: Well, I find one industrial gyro that's why I use IAM.
[911.83] Alex: And yeah, that's the one key change of the flight controller.
[918.83] Alex: The second was I had a lot of complaints about back because I just copied it from Kiss V2,
[925.83] Alex: which was really, really shy on the power output.
[928.83] Alex: So I replaced it with 2 amps, 5 volt, 1.7, 2 amps.
[933.83] Alex: It doesn't matter.
[934.83] Alex: I think it's 3 megs.
[935.83] Alex: But there was also issues with protection of the CPU because high density CPU.
[944.83] Alex: Well, apparently it needed more protection.
[946.83] Alex: So when people start using it, sometimes it burns because it doesn't like electricals
[952.83] Alex: and static electricity in this.
[955.83] Alex: You name it.
[956.83] Alex: So this, I had all protection for all the serial lines, all of the short lines.
[960.83] Alex: So to make it undiable.
[964.83] Stephen: Even easier for pilots.
[966.83] Alex: Well, it's easier and cheaper for pilots because this needs to be, you know,
[972.83] Alex: crash resistant and stuff.
[974.83] Alex: Gyro is like two times more crash resistant than MPU.
[979.83] Alex: They don't just die.
[980.83] Alex: And the rest also needs to be prone to, you know,
[985.83] Alex: survival, the power spikes and everything.
[988.83] Alex: So there is integrated spike, spike absorber.
[991.83] Alex: So you don't need to use it back as 8S rated.
[995.83] Alex: So people flying it on 8S without any protection.
[1000.83] Alex: Well, you need caps, of course, but you always need them.
[1004.83] Alex: So these things were changed.
[1007.83] Alex: What else?
[1008.83] Alex: Yeah, I think that's it.
[1009.83] Alex: The board was redesigned from scratch, basically.
[1012.83] Stephen: So if it's 8S tolerant, does that mean pilots flying on 6S are going to have more headroom
[1018.83] Stephen: and it'll be tougher?
[1019.83] Alex: Yes, that's the idea.
[1021.83] Alex: I think it's up to 36 volt.
[1023.83] Alex: So it's even more than 8S, but you need little gap to survive it.
[1028.83] Stephen: Excellent.
[1029.83] Stephen: Yeah.
[1030.83] Stephen: So now V2 is out, V2 is on the market.
[1034.83] Stephen: Where does KISS Ultra go from there?
[1038.83] Alex: Well, we have, as you know, we have different form factors.
[1042.83] Alex: I really hate when you need to break something from flight controller
[1046.83] Alex: to mount it on different pattern.
[1048.83] Alex: So yesterday, the thing you arrived, this is KISS Ultra Mini.
[1054.83] Jack: Oh, hang on.
[1056.83] Jack: Let us...
[1058.83] Alex: You saw it on Discord.
[1061.83] Alex: I soldered this one.
[1062.83] Alex: I was testing it.
[1063.83] Alex: So this is basically the same thing like...
[1069.83] Alex: You can make it smaller again.
[1072.83] Alex: Same thing as V2, with one exception there,
[1076.83] Alex: are only four motor outputs on the connector.
[1079.83] Alex: So this is four quads, four quads only.
[1082.83] Alex: You can run eight with one wire, but we really, really don't recommend to use one wire
[1089.83] Alex: because it's just slower than it should.
[1093.83] Alex: Same back, same gyro, same CPU, same OSD.
[1097.83] Alex: It always has another OSD, so we don't compromise on it.
[1101.83] Alex: And yeah, basically the same thing, but smaller.
[1107.83] Jack: Wow.
[1108.83] Jack: And as Tommy, oh my God, says, who flies, you know,
[1115.83] Jack: who flies 35 by 35 anymore?
[1120.83] Jack: Me, of course.
[1122.83] Jack: But, you know, apparently, you know, the way forward is 20 by 20.
[1127.83] Alex: I don't know.
[1130.4] Alex: We do both of them.
[1133.4] Alex: I think I made like 250 of Minis.
[1138.4] Alex: There are more demands now, but the main disadvantage of Mini was the week back.
[1146.4] Alex: Racers like to have Minis, but they need juice for cameras and transmitters.
[1151.4] Alex: So that was addressed in V2.
[1153.4] Alex: So I think this season, quite a lot of racers will try Mini 2 on the tracks.
[1160.4] Stephen: Excellent.
[1161.4] Stephen: Yeah, we started to see some hugely powerful 20 mil ESCs.
[1165.4] Stephen: Really solid stuff.
[1166.4] Stephen: I think there's some 75 amp race ESCs, loads of 65 amp ones out there.
[1173.4] Stephen: We've got a post from...
[1175.4] Stephen: No, go on.
[1176.4] Stephen: Oh, yeah.
[1177.4] Stephen: We've got a post from Crunk saying, mention the tune.
[1179.4] Alex: Yeah.
[1180.4] Alex: Well, because it is a different gyro, you do need to have a bit different tune.
[1187.4] Alex: And with introducing a new gyro to V2, I also made a separate pit controller.
[1194.4] Alex: We call it experimental mode, but it's a different pit controller that has a little bit different
[1200.4] Alex: mode, a different filtering, and better suited for new gyro.
[1205.4] Alex: It works on V1 too.
[1207.4] Alex: And it does need to have different pits.
[1210.4] Alex: We have three presets that Crunk provided.
[1213.4] Alex: Thank you very much, Alex.
[1215.4] Alex: And he donated it to the profiles in the GUI so people can choose out of three starting points
[1223.4] Alex: and then continue tuning it.
[1226.4] Alex: Not much tuning needed, by the way.
[1231.7] Jack: Joe, do you want to ask one of your questions?
[1234.7] Koel: Yeah.
[1235.7] Koel: Well, let me just pull it up here.
[1237.7] Koel: So it's sort of off topic from what we are on right now.
[1241.7] Koel: You did mention something about how usually they get sold out or they're all sold out
[1245.7] Koel: at one point.
[1246.7] Koel: But how do you handle criticism from people who say, oh, we want quantity over quality?
[1253.7] Koel: How do you deal with the people saying, we want more, we want more, we want more?
[1258.7] Koel: How does that feel on your side?
[1261.7] Alex: Well, it's a mixed feeling.
[1265.7] Alex: So I really don't rush to flood market with flight controller.
[1271.7] Alex: So I'd rather have a smaller group and do small batches because it's very expensive
[1279.7] Alex: to make flight controller and the error can cost like five digit numbers.
[1285.7] Alex: So I'd rather have a small group of pilots who like it and I pretty much know most of
[1291.7] Alex: them on Discord and I chat with them all the time.
[1295.7] Alex: I'm helping them all the time.
[1296.7] Alex: Then I have a flooded market and I have Ultras laying on the shelves.
[1301.7] Alex: So it's not that small amount of Ultras produced if you know the numbers.
[1307.7] Alex: Now we're talking about three, three and a half thousand of flight controllers.
[1311.7] Alex: So it's a small steady stream, but this is how it works.
[1317.7] Alex: And this is what we chose as the way of producing them.
[1322.7] Koel: Well, and like you said, you're a one man band.
[1325.7] Koel: There's only so much you can do.
[1327.7] Koel: You don't want to flood the market and then have things laying around on the shelf not
[1331.7] Koel: being used.
[1332.7] Koel: So, you know, it's at the end of the day, you're going to do what's best and what you
[1337.7] Koel: think is best for the community and for what your product is.
[1340.7] Koel: So, so be it.
[1341.7] Koel: I think that's not a bad way of doing things.
[1344.7] Koel: Like you get to set your rules.
[1346.7] Koel: It's your thing.
[1347.7] Koel: So all the power to you.
[1350.7] Alex: That's absolutely agree with you.
[1352.7] Alex: And also keep in mind, if I check the statistics, I have about 95% of all Ultras are active
[1360.7] Alex: and flying.
[1361.7] Alex: So they're activated and then used.
[1363.7] Alex: They're not on the shelves and you know, even people using them so they don't hamster
[1368.7] Alex: them for, you know, rainy day or something.
[1371.7] Alex: So they all in use.
[1373.7] Alex: That's more interesting than have half of your stock somewhere in the resellers.
[1378.7] Koel: Well, and that actually kind of brings on to my next question.
[1382.7] Koel: How do you feel about the scalpers?
[1384.7] Koel: Because I have seen some here and there.
[1387.7] Alex: Well, I had not no longer than today.
[1392.7] Alex: Incidents with a scalping because people don't like scalpers.
[1395.7] Alex: I also don't like scalpers.
[1397.7] Alex: I'm trying to make margin on the flight controllers as minimum as they can get.
[1401.7] Alex: So it's not about money and people need it needs to be affordable.
[1405.7] Alex: So and scalpers, well, they basically taking chance from you and well, making you pay more
[1412.7] Alex: because they were there and you earned and you were.
[1415.7] Alex: So yeah, I just decided if people reporting scalpers regularly on this court
[1423.7] Alex: because yeah, they don't like it and nobody likes it.
[1426.7] Alex: So I just if I know who that is, I just ban people without questions from this court.
[1432.7] Alex: If you want to do business, you know, go go away.
[1434.7] Alex: And this is my house and this is my rules.
[1437.7] Koel: Yeah.
[1438.7] Koel: Well, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
[1441.7] Koel: I it just sucks to when you put so much hard work into something and someone's trying to profit 20, 30 bucks.
[1447.7] Koel: It's like like people want this product and you want $30.
[1452.7] Koel: Like get the get the heck out of here with that.
[1455.7] Koel: It's just kind of ridiculous.
[1457.7] Alex: But it's a bit hard to do from my shop because I do check all the orders before I'm picking them.
[1463.7] Alex: And if there is something suspicious, I trying to contact the buyer and, you know, investigate what's what.
[1472.7] Alex: So if somebody tries to get 20, it's not going to happen.
[1476.7] Alex: Refund, restock.
[1480.7] Jack: Stephen, do you want to read this out quickly?
[1483.7] Stephen: Tribal FPV.
[1485.7] Stephen: Question.
[1486.7] Stephen: Hi, guys.
[1487.7] Stephen: Kiss FCs are my favorite for freestyle.
[1489.7] Stephen: How do we go about getting Kiss Ultra in the UK?
[1492.7] Stephen: I tried on the website, but it doesn't seem to ship to the UK.
[1496.7] Stephen: No doubt our government being a useless or stupid people and breaking us off from Europe and causing these problems.
[1502.7] Stephen: But how would UK pilots get hold of the kit?
[1506.7] Alex: I hope to send from next batch.
[1508.7] Alex: It's bigger.
[1509.7] Alex: It's like twice bigger than normal.
[1511.7] Alex: So I hope to send some to UK.
[1514.7] Alex: I don't know who is going to sell it because it's, you know, the decision goes at last minute.
[1520.7] Alex: And well, first I need to have it myself before I'm shipping it to UK.
[1526.7] Alex: Well, we'll find a way.
[1528.7] Alex: This time I sent small, small batch to our team pilot to distribute it in the UK.
[1535.7] Alex: And I think about 20 people, 20 pilots in the UK will get it.
[1540.7] Alex: So it's small.
[1541.7] Alex: I know it's not much, but I'm trying to do my best to cover as many countries as I can.
[1547.7] Jack: Yeah.
[1548.7] Jack: I also going back to what we're talking about, you know, the difference between, you know, the Kiss Ultra V1 and V2.
[1563.7] Jack: You were talking about experimental modes.
[1565.7] Jack: Please.
[1566.7] Jack: Can you explain the new breaking factor and acceleration factor and what they do?
[1572.7] Alex: Well, they help and break and help and accelerate.
[1577.7] Alex: Breaking factor, it's not new.
[1579.7] Alex: I think it was introduced in the summer last year, especially for spangers.
[1585.7] Alex: So what it does, it helps quads to stop sharper without, you know, tuning a lot by changing the pits during that move.
[1602.7] Stephen: So if you have aggressive stick movement.
[1604.7] Alex: If you have aggressive stick movement, it's yeah, it will at the end of the move, when you decide to stop,
[1611.7] Alex: it will see that and make it easier for quads to stop.
[1616.7] Alex: Basically, it's also a percentage.
[1618.7] Alex: So the effect of that factor will you can control.
[1623.7] Alex: Zero is nothing like before.
[1625.7] Alex: A hundred.
[1626.7] Alex: It will try to do best to stop without a lot of D involved.
[1631.7] Stephen: Is that like feed forward then?
[1633.7] Alex: No.
[1635.7] Alex: Acceleration factor, you can think it's some sort of the feed forward, but it's well, it's not fully what feed forward.
[1646.7] Alex: It's it's just a common term for the pit control.
[1649.7] Alex: It's not something that some people invented.
[1652.7] Alex: But what I do when when you start move, it's it kicks and pits.
[1658.7] Alex: It kicks and pits that helps you to spin up quad faster to basically to rotation that you requested to set point.
[1669.7] Alex: You also can set percentage of it.
[1671.7] Alex: And some people like it very low for cinematic.
[1675.7] Alex: Some people like it crazy, like hundred for extreme crazy as bank moves.
[1683.7] Alex: It's it's personal choice.
[1685.7] Alex: It's also mixed with rates.
[1687.7] Alex: You use.
[1688.7] Alex: So there is no simple answer.
[1690.7] Alex: Well, how it works for you.
[1692.7] Alex: I usually say, you know, you just put it in and see how it's what numbers fits you.
[1699.7] Alex: So there are different different stories.
[1701.7] Alex: Some people like twenty five.
[1702.7] Alex: Some people say it's very personal.
[1705.7] Alex: I'm not going to in details.
[1707.7] Alex: It helps.
[1709.7] Alex: You also need to have your powertrain be capable to spin up and have quite good torque.
[1716.7] Alex: Dork to react on it.
[1719.7] Jack: So are we allowed to talk about the new stuff?
[1725.7] Jack: Sure.
[1726.7] Jack: Why not?
[1727.7] Jack: OK, so I.
[1730.7] Jack: Yeah, you sent me a little video.
[1735.7] Jack: Is it right to play that?
[1737.7] Alex: Yeah, sure.
[1738.7] Alex: Go ahead.
[1739.7] Alex: It's changed already.
[1740.7] Alex: Yeah.
[1741.7] Alex: Last year was today at eight o'clock.
[1742.7] Alex: But OK.
[1743.7] Jack: OK, hang on.
[1746.7] Koel: So whatever you show now is irrelevant.
[1749.7] Alex: No, it's a concept is the same.
[1752.7] Alex: So it's just usability wise.
[1755.7] Jack: Well, so, yeah, we've got this ultra here.
[1762.4] Jack: We go over to the OSD mirror that mirrors everything on the OSD.
[1767.4] Jack: And you can see now you can place and drag
[1772.4] Jack: and drop stuff that we had on a flight for a long time now.
[1779.42] Jack: But you.
[1782.42] Alex: Yes and no.
[1783.42] Alex: So yeah, I can tell you what's what's interesting in this solution.
[1789.42] Alex: Yeah, I have OSD mirror for analog for all digital OSD.
[1794.42] Alex: And basically it's all rendered on flight controller.
[1796.42] Alex: It's not not in the browser.
[1799.42] Alex: A browser just just shows the screen.
[1802.42] Alex: That's why it's called mirror.
[1804.42] Alex: So basically what it does, it sends command to flunk flight controller
[1808.42] Alex: and all interaction.
[1809.42] Alex: What you see here, it's working on FC itself.
[1813.42] Alex: So if you if you go to OSD, you can do it with sticks here.
[1817.42] Alex: You can do it with sticks on the radio, with keys, with mouse,
[1821.42] Alex: you know, with everything.
[1822.42] Alex: So it's all integrated.
[1823.42] Alex: It all works together.
[1825.42] Alex: But it is on the flight controller.
[1828.42] Alex: That's that's the big difference from the rest.
[1830.42] Alex: And it's snappy.
[1831.42] Alex: It's you can do a lot of things here.
[1835.42] Jack: But yeah, I'm you know, and what sets it apart from the beat of flight
[1842.42] Jack: is you're getting, you know, the real time information,
[1847.42] Jack: a lot more configuration.
[1850.42] Jack: Yes.
[1851.42] Jack: And and obviously those handy hardware tools.
[1856.42] Stephen: And you look really nice.
[1859.42] Jack: Yeah, very clean.
[1862.42] Jack: Well, and as a fellow dyslexic,
[1867.42] Jack: I find it very easy to read and understand.
[1871.42] Jack: And like with both things, I ask about something.
[1877.42] Jack: And it's just like it's in the OSD.
[1881.42] Jack: So if you're ever wondering or if you ever thought,
[1887.42] Jack: hmm, how do I do this?
[1889.42] Jack: It's in the OSD.
[1892.42] Stephen: So once you've got your camera connected,
[1894.42] Stephen: you've got your VCX plugged in, you just do everything else in the OSD.
[1897.42] Stephen: That's what you're saying.
[1898.42] Alex: It's the same thing.
[1900.42] Alex: If you have goals on, you see this picture one to one.
[1904.42] Alex: It's pixel copy.
[1906.42] Alex: If you have it in the GUI, it's the same pixel copy.
[1910.42] Alex: So it's same experience no matter where you're trying to connect from.
[1916.42] Alex: I think that's the way it should be.
[1918.42] Alex: So and this is this is the idea, basically.
[1923.42] Alex: That's what I get it.
[1925.42] Stephen: I was just trying to figure out because we have a configurator there.
[1927.42] Stephen: But it sounds like from what you're saying that anything you do in the configurator,
[1931.42] Stephen: there's an OSD equivalent.
[1932.42] Stephen: So the configurator with a PC is optional effectively.
[1936.42] Stephen: You could just wire it up and do everything at the field.
[1938.42] Alex: Yes, that's the idea.
[1940.42] Alex: Before you had to use a keychain configurator.
[1944.42] Alex: But what I did for OSD is I had the code of keychain.
[1950.42] Alex: And it has quite good UI and quite good code.
[1953.42] Alex: So I just ported it on ultra and make it graphical in HD version out of it.
[1958.42] Alex: So if you have keychain, it's pretty much the same thing.
[1963.42] Alex: If you have OSD, it's the same thing.
[1965.42] Alex: If you have GUI with mirror, it's also the same thing.
[1969.42] Alex: And for people who don't like to use a mirror,
[1973.42] Alex: they're still GUI, just normal GUI, what you can use.
[1977.42] Alex: Web GUI, standalone GUI.
[1979.42] Alex: Well, for God's sakes, we even have support for Apple processors now.
[1986.42] Alex: Well done.
[1988.42] Alex: Wow.
[1989.42] Alex: I think no one does it yet.
[1991.42] Alex: Are you trying to flash it?
[1993.42] Stephen: Yeah.
[1995.42] Stephen: Oh, dear.
[1996.42] Stephen: Live demos.
[1997.42] Stephen: Brace, brace, brace.
[1999.42] Jack: Yeah.
[2000.42] Jack: All I've got to do is not leave this tab
[2003.42] Jack: because the Tenerofka remander will scream at me.
[2008.42] Alex: Yeah.
[2009.42] Alex: Well, it's rather things and just it goes post to all the scripts
[2013.42] Alex: when it's not in focus.
[2014.42] Alex: That's how it works.
[2016.42] Alex: But yeah, we can talk.
[2018.42] Alex: It's a big firmware.
[2019.42] Alex: So inside it is about 80,000 lines of code.
[2025.73] Jack: How much is that?
[2027.73] Jack: How much is my time to do this?
[2029.73] Jack: Yeah.
[2030.73] Jack: How much of that is new stuff you've written?
[2034.73] Jack: Because there can't be much key stuff left.
[2037.73] Alex: There is key stuff left because it has to be there
[2042.73] Alex: because, you know, mathematics and stuff.
[2044.73] Alex: So I can tell there are 6% of code of original code of KISS in there
[2049.73] Alex: and 94% that is mine code since the beginning of my contribution to KISS.
[2057.3] Koel: Wow.
[2059.3] Alex: Yeah.
[2060.3] Koel: It is your baby.
[2062.3] Koel: It is literally your baby.
[2063.3] Alex: Yes, and I'm very protective of it.
[2065.3] Alex: It's a beasties.
[2067.3] Koel: Do you protect KISS more than your cats or is it equal?
[2073.3] Alex: Well, it's a very, very dangerous question.
[2079.3] Jack: Those cats could look after themselves.
[2083.3] Frank: This episode was recorded in front of a live online audience,
[2087.3] Frank: downloaded and edited to make sense when it played audio only,
[2090.3] Frank: censored to please the iTunes people, hosted on the internet,
[2093.3] Frank: forwarded through to your podcast provider,
[2095.3] Frank: downloaded, playing on your device and is now playing in your ears.
[2099.3] Frank: All thanks to our Patreons.
[2101.3] Frank: Consider joining them and you'll also get other online benefits.
[2104.3] Frank: Find out more at patreon.com forward slash let's drone out.
[2109.3] Jack: So, yeah, we've had...
[2111.3] Jack: Oh, that's my serial number.
[2114.3] Stephen: It doesn't matter.
[2115.3] Stephen: I know your serial number.
[2116.3] Stephen: There, it's gone now.
[2117.3] Koel: Packing now.
[2121.3] Koel: Enter the mainframe.
[2123.3] Alex: Oh, you can do it.
[2126.3] Alex: You've added a noise.
[2128.3] Alex: It's a little things, you know, trying to improve everything,
[2132.3] Alex: you know, one thing at a time.
[2134.3] Alex: Yeah, it's nice.
[2135.3] Alex: People like it.
[2138.3] Jack: Stephen, truthfully, does this scare you?
[2144.3] Stephen: I don't like the look, to be brutally honest.
[2146.3] Stephen: It reminds me of Windows 95.
[2149.3] Stephen: No.
[2151.3] Koel: Hey, it's not about how it looks.
[2153.3] Koel: It's how it works.
[2154.3] Stephen: I mean, if it works, it does the job.
[2156.3] Stephen: That's fine, right?
[2157.3] Stephen: You can't spend all your time polishing UIs.
[2159.3] Stephen: They don't help people to actually use features.
[2162.3] Stephen: It's just aesthetics, isn't it?
[2164.3] Stephen: So it doesn't really matter.
[2166.3] Stephen: I've made my own fair share of ugly programs down the years
[2169.3] Stephen: that look way worse than this.
[2171.3] Stephen: I can't really complain too much.
[2174.3] Stephen: I think it's impressive he's done it all on his own.
[2176.3] Stephen: It's a lot to write.
[2178.3] Koel: Well, I was going to say, I only know the Kiss GUI.
[2181.3] Koel: To me, that's great.
[2183.3] Alex: Yeah, that's the idea.
[2184.3] Alex: It should be familiar, because people are using it for seven years.
[2187.3] Alex: Yes, I don't want to change it a lot.
[2189.3] Alex: It was lifted.
[2190.3] Alex: It had a facelift for Ultra, because it's Ultra GUI now.
[2195.3] Alex: And all these little tiny, tiny things.
[2198.3] Alex: The model is propellers.
[2200.3] Alex: It's nice.
[2201.3] Alex: It's cute.
[2202.3] Alex: There is always Easter eggs in it.
[2204.3] Alex: If you change throttle on your radio, it spins faster.
[2208.3] Koel: Cool.
[2209.3] Alex: Yeah, that's...
[2212.3] Alex: As I said, it's the small things here and there,
[2214.3] Alex: but it all sums up.
[2216.3] Alex: I like it.
[2220.09] Koel: I had a question for you, too.
[2223.09] Koel: Any of the Kiss Ultra official team pilots,
[2227.09] Koel: or anybody you want to give a shout out to,
[2230.09] Koel: just while we're on the topic, I guess?
[2232.09] Alex: Yes, of course.
[2234.09] Alex: They do all the testing and flying and feedback.
[2238.09] Alex: That's one of the most important things of the process
[2241.09] Alex: of improving the flight code.
[2243.09] Alex: Well, we start very small.
[2245.09] Alex: We're a small group.
[2247.09] Alex: I think it was Livio Preta, the guy.
[2252.09] Alex: And Krunkt, of course.
[2255.09] Alex: We have Finley, a kid from the UK.
[2259.09] Alex: We have a couple of guys from the States
[2263.09] Alex: that are a bit less active this time.
[2268.09] Alex: Kerik Knop, one of them.
[2273.09] Alex: We have recently acquired a few more people.
[2277.09] Alex: I think that was Thanos.
[2281.09] Alex: You know, those crazy Greeks.
[2283.09] Alex: Mike X, that is...
[2286.09] Alex: I think all videos in the ago is his contributions.
[2290.09] Alex: Yeah.
[2291.09] Alex: Very good tester.
[2294.09] Alex: Lately, we have a Dutch guy, Erwin, E-B-R-F-P-V.
[2300.09] Alex: He's flying like every day.
[2303.09] Alex: We have a Romanian guy who is good to his electronics
[2308.09] Alex: and testing and user interface.
[2314.09] Alex: His name is Ellen Victor, and all names from Discord.
[2320.09] Alex: I'm afraid to forget someone.
[2323.09] Alex: Two last guys who joined the team was Mike P and Phantom FPV.
[2331.09] Alex: In my book, they're very good pilots,
[2335.09] Alex: and they're pushing quite hard.
[2339.09] Alex: Sorry, guys, if I forget someone, I'm a bit tired.
[2343.09] Alex: And yeah, that's what we do.
[2345.09] Alex: I code.
[2346.09] Alex: They fly.
[2347.09] Alex: They provide feedback, logs.
[2350.09] Alex: I code more, and we keep it writing
[2353.09] Alex: until everyone agrees it's a good thing and worse to be added.
[2358.09] Alex: If not, it just goes straight to trash, and we start over again.
[2363.09] Alex: Small team.
[2365.09] Alex: I'm very picky with who I'm adding at the team.
[2371.09] Alex: That's one I forgot.
[2374.09] Alex: He's also a UK guide, so he's a Morris bunk pilot,
[2379.09] Alex: and he's pushing quite hard.
[2384.09] Alex: I hope I didn't forget anyone else.
[2386.09] Stephen: Do you find time to fly yourself?
[2389.09] Alex: No, I don't really fly a lot, honestly.
[2392.09] Alex: First, it is taking pretty much all of my free time.
[2397.09] Alex: For the last two years, we've all tried,
[2400.09] Alex: and before was Patreon firmware and stuff.
[2405.09] Alex: I'm a crappy pilot, honestly.
[2408.09] Alex: I see what guys do, and they say,
[2411.09] Alex: Alex, you just keep coding.
[2414.09] Alex: Some people weren't born to fly,
[2417.09] Alex: and I got my kicks from coding
[2419.09] Alex: and looking at how people use it, to be honest.
[2423.09] Koel: Well, yeah, not everybody can do everything, I guess.
[2426.09] Koel: If you specialize and you have fun with that side of it,
[2429.09] Koel: then that's good.
[2432.09] Alex: Yeah, exactly.
[2434.09] Jack: What do you find most rewarding about doing K-Seltra?
[2442.09] Alex: Sorry, most what?
[2444.09] Jack: Rewarding.
[2446.09] Alex: Well, it's my daily routine.
[2448.09] Alex: I'm breaking up, having coffee and watching the videos
[2451.09] Alex: in the video channel on Discord,
[2453.09] Alex: because every day somebody posted it,
[2455.09] Alex: and some people just make me smile in the morning.
[2459.09] Alex: That's the best thing.
[2461.09] Alex: I have a whole day in a good mood.
[2464.09] Koel: That's amazing.
[2466.09] Koel: I did that.
[2468.09] Koel: It gives you a sense of pride, right?
[2470.09] Koel: You get to say, my hard work, my hard work,
[2474.09] Koel: this is a direct outcome, and that's so cool.
[2477.09] Koel: That's very cool.
[2478.09] Stephen: It's like you're the pit crew at a racetrack.
[2482.09] Jack: Yeah, another one of my questions is,
[2487.09] Jack: do you think you'll branch out to other aspects of the hobby
[2491.09] Jack: for improvement?
[2494.09] Alex: I don't think so.
[2497.09] Alex: I think it's better to concentrate on something one
[2500.09] Alex: and simple and make it better.
[2503.09] Alex: Well, you understand how it works
[2505.09] Alex: and how much time I invest to the project.
[2508.09] Alex: I'm afraid if I will do something else,
[2510.09] Alex: I will just let other projects suffer.
[2514.09] Alex: So full throttle one way and try to make it better.
[2519.09] Alex: Well, best actually.
[2521.09] Koel: Just tunnel vision on one thing
[2523.09] Koel: and just keep your focus right there.
[2525.09] Alex: It works best and all distractions there.
[2529.09] Alex: You can't do everything.
[2532.09] Koel: Yeah, that's very true.
[2536.66] Koel: It's funny because I do photo, I do video, I do music,
[2539.66] Koel: I do so many things, but it's very hard to focus on one thing
[2544.66] Koel: and master that.
[2546.66] Koel: It's okay to do multiple things,
[2548.66] Koel: but you really do get the most out of it
[2550.66] Koel: if you can really hyper focus on that one.
[2553.66] Alex: Yes, I also did photography, I did video and other things,
[2559.66] Alex: but somehow it fade out and some more important things
[2563.66] Alex: just going forward.
[2566.66] Alex: But yeah, it is rewarding, it is rewarding.
[2570.66] Alex: And it's freaking fun to do, to be honest.
[2574.66] Alex: To say like, well, I have my own flight controller
[2577.66] Alex: with my own firmware and people like it.
[2581.66] Alex: So yeah, what could go wrong?
[2584.66] Stephen: I don't think you'd have got this far if it wasn't fun to do.
[2587.66] Stephen: The amount of hours you must have put it,
[2589.66] Stephen: just to learn how the pick and place works
[2591.66] Stephen: and to make your own PCBs,
[2593.66] Stephen: so much dedication just to get the prototypes done.
[2596.66] Alex: Well, Ultra was my second hardware project ever.
[2600.66] Alex: Well, by education, I'm an electronic engineer,
[2603.66] Alex: but it was like, what, 35, 32 years ago?
[2609.66] Alex: So I know the theory and well,
[2613.66] Alex: but practice was a little bit behind,
[2615.66] Alex: so I made kitchen configurator, which really lame.
[2619.66] Alex: And look at it now and say, Alex, Alex, what did you do?
[2623.66] Alex: So it's horrible, it works.
[2626.66] Alex: It's horrible.
[2628.66] Alex: So then I did the Ultra,
[2631.66] Alex: and it also had like two or three divisions
[2634.66] Alex: before it actually become looking like flight controller.
[2638.66] Alex: And I put, well, I gained a lot of knowledge, of course,
[2642.66] Alex: and then V2 was even better.
[2645.66] Alex: So every time you learn something, you put it in
[2648.66] Alex: and you have something back and you learn more.
[2652.66] Alex: So I think it's only a way to learn to do things.
[2656.66] Alex: Yep.
[2657.66] Alex: And a lot of Googling, of course.
[2660.66] Koel: Yep.
[2662.66] Jack: Stephen, I picked up an extra Ultra.
[2668.66] Jack: Will you fly it?
[2670.66] Stephen: I'll fly it, but don't give me anything to build, please.
[2673.66] Stephen: Hang on to your build bits.
[2675.66] Stephen: I'm like way behind.
[2677.66] Stephen: It's fine.
[2678.66] Alex: It's fine.
[2679.66] Alex: Just build him a quad and just send it.
[2681.66] Stephen: Yep.
[2682.66] Stephen: Got that guy.
[2683.66] Stephen: Got the SP Racing.
[2685.66] Stephen: We should get together and have a fly again.
[2687.66] Stephen: I think that's what I should do.
[2688.66] Stephen: And I'll just gently do a few power loops with your baby
[2692.66] Stephen: around some soft surfaces.
[2694.66] Jack: No, it's fine.
[2695.66] Jack: Because once you're done, we're sending it to Curry.
[2700.66] Jack: And then when Curry's done, then we'll send it to Lee
[2705.66] Jack: and try and get it.
[2707.66] Jack: Cool.
[2708.66] Jack: Have you got another question or should I go?
[2710.66] Koel: I guess, well, this was kind of a maybe I asked it already.
[2718.66] Koel: But like I said, I'm coming from the OG Kiss V1.
[2722.66] Koel: So do you have any advice for someone like me coming from OG
[2726.66] Koel: Kiss V1 to Ultra V2?
[2728.66] Koel: Any advice for someone like me?
[2730.66] Alex: Do that.
[2733.66] Alex: Yeah, you will be surprised what you're actually missing.
[2742.66] Alex: And you'll say, yeah, holy crap.
[2745.66] Alex: What just happened?
[2746.66] Jack: Yeah.
[2747.66] Jack: No, I'm not hamstring.
[2749.66] Jack: It's fine.
[2750.66] Jack: It's fine.
[2751.66] Koel: Oh, actually, I did have another question.
[2754.66] Koel: So how intensive or what is the testing or the QC process
[2761.66] Koel: look like for you when you're doing all the flight controller QC?
[2766.66] Alex: Well, there are three stages of QC.
[2770.66] Alex: So I'm asking for more extensive ones.
[2775.66] Alex: So first of all, the old boards being fleshed and tested
[2779.66] Alex: in China on the factory before they packed into the boxes.
[2782.66] Alex: That's the stage one.
[2784.66] Alex: They check gyro.
[2785.66] Alex: They check baro.
[2786.66] Alex: They have rig that make, basically, if you go to the quad
[2790.66] Alex: and they can check motor output, they can check the OSD and everything.
[2796.66] Alex: Then it goes to Germany, to my partner company.
[2802.66] Alex: And the person there also checks them.
[2807.66] Alex: Yeah, we had one.
[2808.66] Alex: Did you get any dials?
[2810.66] Alex: None.
[2812.66] Alex: We had one batch.
[2814.66] Alex: It didn't really reach customers, but it was found very easy.
[2819.66] Alex: That one component was not correct.
[2821.66] Alex: And it came to me and I found it and I sent it back to Germany
[2826.66] Alex: and they resoldered everything basically by hands.
[2829.66] Alex: So there was 200 units and it was a very labor intensive process.
[2834.66] Alex: And they don't like to do that, to be honest.
[2836.66] Alex: It's expensive.
[2838.66] Alex: So now they check it in Germany and if I have a big batch,
[2843.66] Alex: I check 25-30% of the units, myself, randomly.
[2847.66] Alex: So if I feel like doing nothing, so I check more.
[2852.66] Alex: But people want to have it as fast as they can.
[2856.66] Alex: So about 30% I can check myself.
[2861.66] Alex: That's basically three steps.
[2863.66] Alex: So I want to be sure that is all legit and everything is working.
[2868.66] Alex: And the first batch of every new flight controller, I check everything.
[2873.66] Alex: Just stupidly sitting, opening, checking, closing.
[2877.66] Alex: It takes days.
[2881.0] Koel: Do you put some good music on in the background while you do that?
[2884.0] Alex: Yeah, always.
[2886.0] Alex: Good, good.
[2889.0] Jack: So do you like better nails, pro-test?
[2897.0] Stephen: Do you have a jig made up for the testing?
[2900.0] Alex: No, I test electronics because there is not much can go wrong
[2905.0] Alex: with a motor output or receiver input.
[2909.0] Alex: It's just straight connections.
[2911.0] Alex: But if there is some soldering issue on gyro, that's bad.
[2914.0] Alex: If there is soldering issue on bar, it's bad.
[2917.0] Alex: And CPUs never fail.
[2920.0] Alex: So I was amazed at BGA CPUs.
[2924.0] Alex: And they stick to the board like there is no tomorrow.
[2929.0] Alex: So no failures on that end.
[2934.0] Jack: So from China, what's their success rate?
[2942.0] Jack: What happens to the boards that don't make their testing?
[2946.0] Jack: Do they still get sent to?
[2948.0] Alex: No, I don't accept them anyhow.
[2950.0] Alex: So if they have 10 from, of course there are five failures
[2955.0] Alex: because machines are not perfect.
[2957.0] Alex: They're very good, but they still do failures.
[2959.0] Alex: Let's say 10 from 300.
[2961.0] Alex: Yeah, well, it's a loss.
[2963.0] Alex: But I'm not charged for that.
[2965.0] Alex: I'm charged only for good units.
[2967.0] Jack: Okay.
[2969.0] Jack: Yeah, but it's still your component supplier though, surely?
[2974.0] Alex: I don't supply them components.
[2976.0] Alex: Well, I do supply them CPUs and gyros and this kind of things,
[2979.0] Alex: but from my stock.
[2981.0] Jack: Oh, so you don't.
[2983.0] Jack: Yeah.
[2984.0] Jack: I was just wondering, did you harvest them back?
[2987.0] Alex: No, you need to be bold and you can't because you need to be bold CPUs
[2992.0] Alex: and it's really...
[2994.0] Jack: That was intensive.
[2996.0] Jack: Yeah.
[2997.0] Jack: Painful.
[2998.0] Jack: Yeah.
[2999.0] Alex: It happens.
[3001.0] Jack: Um, what is the next feature you're going to work on for K-Soldier VJ?
[3008.0] Alex: Good question.
[3010.0] Alex: Well, there are the small things that are on my list.
[3014.0] Alex: I don't think a lot of big stuff, I need to improve RTH.
[3019.0] Alex: There are some things that need to be done in the receiver's land.
[3023.0] Alex: You know, quality of life basically.
[3025.0] Alex: Flying code is constant improvement because every time pilots report
[3029.0] Alex: something can be better or doesn't work well that he thinks in certain conditions
[3034.0] Alex: that it's taken care of.
[3037.0] Alex: Well, one thing at a time, you know, last week, Mike P asked me to,
[3042.0] Alex: yeah, why don't we have a mouse in the GUI?
[3044.0] Alex: So I said, well, I will put mouse in the GUI.
[3047.0] Alex: But I will not make a Windows out of it because, oh, there is a button
[3051.0] Alex: and you cannot click it.
[3053.0] Alex: It's too much work.
[3054.0] Alex: Three days later, 30 hours coding later,
[3057.0] Alex: so I put everything in there.
[3059.0] Alex: So I will do it better and I will forget about it and move on from it.
[3064.0] Alex: That's how it works, basically.
[3066.0] Alex: It's supposed to be fun.
[3068.0] Alex: And if I see something that can be improved and make it easier for people.
[3074.0] Alex: So I'm doing it.
[3076.0] Alex: So that's basically how we go.
[3082.0] Jack: Yeah, the X-Class guys are chime in and wondering whether Ultra can be used in the next class.
[3090.0] Alex: People use it in the next class already.
[3094.0] Alex: We have some people on Discord who run it on big quads.
[3100.0] Alex: I think Dutch guy.
[3102.0] Alex: I forgot the name, but it's just too many of them.
[3106.0] Alex: You can ask who is using it.
[3108.0] Alex: Somebody is using it as cine lifters.
[3112.0] Alex: Yeah.
[3114.0] Alex: Six inches, seven inches.
[3116.0] Alex: Small quads, like three inches.
[3119.0] Alex: People use Ultras.
[3121.0] Alex: Well, it seems fine.
[3124.0] Jack: Yeah.
[3125.0] Jack: Would you ever do an AIO?
[3128.0] Jack: Sorry, Stephen.
[3130.0] Stephen: Well, would you ever do an AIO for the really small stuff?
[3133.0] Alex: Hell no.
[3136.0] Alex: First, it requires EC, which I don't feel comfortable doing it on my own.
[3141.0] Alex: Secondly, I don't like all includes because, well, honestly, you pay twice as much for FC.
[3151.0] Alex: And if you knock out one capacitor somewhere, you just throw it away because not many people are able to rework it.
[3160.0] Alex: So on long run, it costs you more.
[3163.0] Alex: I have MiniWoop with Mini in it and with 12 amps built here, the ACs.
[3170.0] Alex: It fits well.
[3171.0] Alex: So, yeah, you can do that.
[3174.0] Jack: Cool.
[3176.0] Jack: Stephen, have you got any questions you want to ask?
[3179.0] Stephen: Well, I mean, we've been talking a lot about kind of the future, what problems he wanted to solve when he started out.
[3188.0] Stephen: I was wondering, Alex, if you feel you've kind of adequately solved those problems or if there's anything that's just a little niggling thing where you've been working on it and there's still some place that you want to take it.
[3201.57] Alex: Cool.
[3202.57] Alex: Good question.
[3204.57] Alex: Most of the things that was on the initial to-do lists are done because first, first what you need is to have a successful product, you need to have good hardware.
[3218.57] Alex: We improved it and I think it's very solid and good platform for years to come.
[3225.57] Alex: Secondly, software.
[3227.57] Alex: Yeah, it's never ending story.
[3229.57] Alex: So you can improve it.
[3232.57] Alex: If there are no more features to push, you can concentrate on the flight code and other way around.
[3241.57] Alex: So there is always something to do and yeah, it keeps me busy.
[3248.57] Alex: I'm trying to make weekly releases.
[3252.57] Alex: So weekly or biweekly releases just to keep people updated and have small, small pushes.
[3260.57] Alex: I think that's nicer than work one year for 20 point something.
[3268.57] Alex: That's how it works.
[3271.57] Stephen: You can get so much more feedback that way as well rather than getting a huge batch of feedback all at once.
[3276.57] Stephen: You get a little bit of feedback and it's easier.
[3278.57] Stephen: Yes.
[3279.57] Alex: And if you change something small and it doesn't work well, it's easier to trace back and to repair it or do it better.
[3287.57] Alex: Well, the good thing is on Ultra you never have to back up your configuration.
[3294.57] Alex: You never need to do anything.
[3296.57] Alex: It just upgrades.
[3298.57] Alex: You put the new firmware and it figure out what to do with it.
[3304.04] Alex: It's easy for pilots.
[3307.04] Stephen: Yeah, it sounds really great for the community as well to have those constant updates.
[3311.04] Stephen: It creates an excellent sense of community, being able to speak with everyone.
[3316.04] Alex: I have a feature request and people sometimes asking about certain features.
[3321.04] Alex: But on some things I just say hard no, because if there is a feature that will be used by one pilot in 100, it will be not implemented.
[3333.04] Alex: So this unique snowflake feature is like blink me red lead when I flip switch three times.
[3342.04] Alex: No way.
[3345.04] Alex: So what this will be beneficial for many will be worth investing time in.
[3351.04] Stephen: How do you know when you've crossed that line from a good feature to a feature that is no longer simple?
[3358.04] Alex: I have a team for that.
[3361.04] Alex: They're pilots.
[3362.04] Alex: They know what they want.
[3364.04] Stephen: So we've got a whole litany of questions here.
[3367.04] Stephen: I don't know if there's anything Cole wants to.
[3370.04] Koel: So I actually got through all my questions, to be honest.
[3373.04] Jack: Welcome, Gavin.
[3375.04] Jack: I hope that was spectacular enough for you.
[3378.04] Stephen: Jack has a question on D shot 2400 versus D shot 1200.
[3382.04] Stephen: And what's up with that?
[3384.04] Stephen: What should pilots choose?
[3386.04] Alex: As fast as you can, especially on ultra for better flight.
[3391.04] Alex: They say that doesn't really matter.
[3394.04] Alex: And in general, a lot of issues are marked 1200 compatible.
[3399.04] Alex: And this is it.
[3401.04] Alex: And because better flight don't really need more.
[3405.04] Alex: What we realized that D shot called an AC.
[3409.04] Alex: It doesn't really care how fast you clock it.
[3412.04] Alex: It just measure the duration of once and zeros is like 50 and 75 percent.
[3420.04] Alex: And it figures out what's the speed.
[3423.04] Alex: We use 2400 and even not best pilots can feel the difference between 24 and just 600.
[3433.04] Alex: Basically, you put as fast powertrain as you can afford and it make difference.
[3444.9] Jack: Okay.
[3445.9] Jack: Does the oscilloscope agree?
[3447.9] Jack: Even with like BLE SEs that say they're only D shot 1200.
[3454.9] Jack: Can you run them at 24?
[3456.9] Jack: Yes, of course.
[3457.9] Alex: You don't need oscilloscope for that or they run or not.
[3462.9] Jack: Okay.
[3463.9] Stephen: And is that the practical upper limit then 2400 or you go up to like 9600?
[3468.9] Alex: If you go more that is you entering well, it's 2.4 mHz on this noisy lines.
[3474.9] Alex: So you're entering the area where you have a lot of errors.
[3479.9] Alex: 24 seems fastest what is usable.
[3483.9] Alex: And that's what we aiming for.
[3487.9] Alex: So ultra works with any AC.
[3489.9] Alex: So there's well, except BLE is all other like 100 years old stuff.
[3497.9] Alex: All recent DSCs.
[3500.9] Alex: Yeah.
[3501.9] Alex: Well, KISS, Bill Haley, Vitek.
[3504.9] Alex: It doesn't care.
[3508.24] Stephen: Okay.
[3509.24] Stephen: I think that the 2400 mode was added onto AM32 as well.
[3514.24] Stephen: Yeah.
[3515.24] Alex: I saw this question on their Discord and they were really in the beginning resistant to do that.
[3522.24] Alex: They say, well, we don't need it.
[3524.24] Alex: Well, I said, well, we do.
[3527.24] Alex: Your call.
[3529.24] Stephen: Give it a go.
[3530.24] Stephen: Yeah.
[3531.24] Stephen: Give it a go.
[3532.24] Stephen: Can't hurt so long as there's no noise.
[3533.24] Stephen: Give it a go.
[3534.24] Jack: Why does BLE telemetry not work?
[3541.24] Alex: Very simple reasons.
[3543.24] Alex: Again, first of all, to do a proper telemetry, you need four current sensors because BLE
[3550.24] Alex: Haley, 99% of them has just one and it's not connected anywhere but to the current part.
[3558.81] Alex: So they report current analog from zero to 3.3 volts to flight controller and Betaflight
[3564.81] Alex: has two ADC that want to measure voltage, want to measure current.
[3569.81] Alex: And this is pretty much enough.
[3571.81] Alex: So they don't really bother how to implement it.
[3574.81] Alex: They do send telemetry but voltage most of the time hard-coded or to 18 and a half volts or something.
[3582.81] Alex: I don't know why.
[3583.81] Alex: I don't know why they do that.
[3585.81] Alex: Another reason, DSHOT telemetry, it carries current, temperature, voltage, and RPMs on the motor.
[3595.81] Alex: It seems Betaflight use bi-directional DSHOT and that's where they concentrate on.
[3603.81] Alex: ULTRA doesn't use any bi-directional DSHOT.
[3607.81] Alex: So all filtering is based on CPU and gyro.
[3610.81] Alex: So it doesn't really care but it really likes to have telemetry.
[3614.81] Alex: On V1, I had a hack where you can connect a current sensor to the camera control part.
[3621.81] Alex: It's DAC ADC, it has two functions.
[3624.81] Alex: So on V2, I made a dedicated part and pin on connector for BL Heli32.
[3631.81] Alex: So it works exactly like a Betaflight analog.
[3636.81] Alex: Cool.
[3640.21] Jack: Right.
[3641.21] Jack: And that is all, unfortunately, we have time for.
[3645.21] Alex: Yeah.
[3646.21] Jack: Well, thank you very much for enlightening us.
[3649.21] Stephen: Thank you.
[3650.21] Stephen: I hope to see many more updates from you in the future.
[3654.21] Koel: What was that?
[3656.21] Koel: What was that?
[3657.21] Stephen: Sneak peek.
[3662.21] Koel: Well, you know what?
[3663.21] Koel: I did have one last question, something I did see in your store was the low flow frame.
[3670.21] Koel: Yeah.
[3671.21] Koel: Is that what we were looking at there?
[3674.21] Alex: Yes, that's actually low flow.
[3676.21] Alex: I built it this morning.
[3677.21] Alex: I wanted to show you guys.
[3681.21] Alex: It's our favorite frame for now.
[3685.21] Alex: Impulse 4C and low flow.
[3687.21] Alex: So we did a lot of testing of FUTRA on that frame.
[3691.21] Alex: So it's actually a frame with a history behind it because it was original.
[3697.21] Alex: Low flow was made, I always forget the name, by Kristin Avadon.
[3703.21] Alex: Very talented kid and really, really nice design of the frame.
[3708.21] Alex: We bought it from him like two years ago because we liked it.
[3712.21] Alex: And in parallel, we've been working on improving it.
[3717.21] Alex: Mike Hicks was doing a lot of improvements and contributions.
[3722.21] Alex: And he really feels like he made a lot of good changes in it.
[3728.21] Alex: But in fact, the whole team was contributing.
[3731.21] Alex: Even Sean Skidmore was adding stuff to the initial version.
[3737.21] Alex: And I did some changes.
[3739.21] Alex: Liv, you did some changes.
[3740.21] Alex: Everyone actually committed something.
[3743.21] Alex: So this is version three already.
[3745.21] Alex: That will be probably next week somewhere in my store.
[3748.21] Alex: We had like 20 frames over.
[3751.21] Alex: So I thought, well, let's put it to community.
[3753.21] Alex: So maybe somebody will like it.
[3756.21] Alex: It's nice frame, very well designed, very tight and flies like a tank.
[3760.21] Alex: So we can't break it.
[3764.21] Koel: I've seen Mike posting all over YouTube and Facebook with those.
[3769.21] Koel: Yeah.
[3770.21] Alex: So all pilots were putting low flow.
[3772.21] Alex: We called low flow Mike Hicks edition.
[3774.21] Alex: So he likes it.
[3775.21] Jack: Yeah.
[3776.21] Jack: Awesome.
[3778.21] Jack: Nice.
[3779.21] Jack: Guys, that's all we got time for.
[3786.21] Jack: Alex, thank you so much for coming on.
[3788.21] Jack: Really appreciate it.
[3790.21] Jack: Like, thank you for all the time.
[3792.21] Jack: Thank you for all your patience with us.
[3795.21] Stephen: Thank you so much for putting us straight.
[3797.21] Stephen: And I apologize for my kiss ultra ignorance.
[3799.21] Stephen: It was really great to hear from you.
[3801.21] Stephen: You should try it, mate.
[3804.21] Jack: He will.
[3805.21] Jack: I will make him.
[3806.21] Jack: Yeah, I know.
[3811.21] Stephen: Really, really great to have you on the show.
[3813.21] Stephen: It's really enlightening and I can see exactly why pilots choosing it,
[3817.21] Stephen: why they're flying it.
[3818.21] Alex: Excellent.
[3819.21] Alex: Thank you very much.
[3820.21] Alex: It's a pleasure to be here.
[3822.21] Jack: Yeah.
[3823.21] Jack: You know, at the end of the day, no matter who anyone is, we all enjoy the
[3830.21] Jack: hobby and we all meet somewhere because we love flying and the people in the
[3837.21] Jack: hobby and that's what makes everything about.
[3841.21] Jack: This is great.
[3842.21] Jack: Yeah.
[3843.21] Jack: Yeah.
[3844.21] Jack: The show is sponsored by our lovely Patreons who are scrolling by on the
[3852.21] Jack: screen.
[3853.21] Jack: We would be nowhere without you guys.
[3855.21] Jack: You guys rule.
[3858.21] Jack: You've been joined by the man kiss ultra himself.
[3865.21] Jack: And we've been joined by everyone's favorite mustache, Stephen.
[3873.21] Stephen: Thank you.
[3874.21] Stephen: Hope to hear more about kiss ultra in the future.
[3876.21] Jack: Yep.
[3877.21] Jack: We've been joined by my buddy, Carl.
[3880.21] Jack: See you.
[3881.21] Jack: And I've been brightened till I fly.
[3884.21] Jack: Guys, if you can, original host of LDO back in the day when we first started.
[3893.21] Jack: He's got a GoFundMe page if you can donate a couple of bucks.
[3900.21] Jack: Right.
[3901.21] Jack: Let your own out in there.
[3902.21] Jack: Let people know that we're all family.
[3905.21] Jack: We're all in this hobby together.
[3907.21] Jack: If you can, it will be really helpful.
[3910.21] Jack: And that's all we got time for.
[3913.21] Jack: Thank you.
[3914.21] Jack: Good night.
[3915.21] Koel: Bye.
[3916.21] Koel: Telemetry lost.