Multirotor, multicopter and quadcopter discussion - The Drone thread

[rhysduck]

True, whereas I imagine hot glue guns in the field are pretty much a necessity for plane flyers

Nah... Tape it up, glue it when you're home
Usually flies better after its been taped

 

[Kemik]

Bit of a newb question but my Ares Ethos QX130 uses a 500mAh 1S 3.7v LiPo battery. If I want to pick up spares can I get any with more capacity or would they not fit/be compatible? My understanding it is that the mAh determines the capacity but I need to ensure it would fit.

Any recommendations?

 

[howler]

Yeah high capacity will be fine just make sure they are still 1S

Higher capacity batteries are often larger in size as well so you might find you need to do some modification if the battery live inside the body

 

[d_brennen]

Emax 12a ESCs are fairly big compared to RCX and Multistar 10a jobbies. Had to get a bit creative last night...

The Multistar motors will make way for DYS 1806s before I even attempt to take off with this. I trimmed the power wires to the PDB, the motors wires will also be trimmed to exact length. It looks a mess here, was just laying components out to see how it would fit and the elastic bands are to hold the arms/spacers/bolts in place until the middle plate goes on

To do:

Fit motors (wires trimmed)
Fit LC filter
Fit 600tvl cam and VTX
Replace the stoopidly long servo wires
Make a cradle/case for my Naze32 mini (wish I got an Acro now)
Fly
Crash
Repeat

 

[howler]

Ok Skeeter here goes, the wiring is a mess but I hope it will make some sense

This shows my power distribution board, I've soldered two wires onto here which attache to the blue and purple wires that feed the low pass filter which you can see on the top plate

This is the power coming out the other side of the filter, the red wire is positive

Then I run the power for the camera and the Tx from this, I ground everything to the ground on the filter

I hope that makes some sense I appreciate it isn't very easy to see with all my ghetto wiring all over the place but it really is straight forward

 

[Skeeter]

Cheers howler, makes sense and I can see how it all fits together.

Any recommendations for a good noob friendly soldering iron?

 

[howler]

I got a variable temperature one from Maplin, think it was about £40

Goes up to about 40W which is enough to solder battery connectors if you need to

 

[Skeeter]

Awesome, I'll go take a look.

I think I need to remove the backorder items from my China HK order, otherwise I'm going to be waiting for months. Anyone know w good place to get Gemfan 5030 props for less than the £lol price some Ebay sellers have them at (HK are 76p a pair).

 

[firstborn]

This is how my antenna was mounted

Sorry missed this - but no pic??

 

[howler]

Odd the pic still seems to be there? Anyway I have moved it so the antenna is in between the legs now

Getting better range but still only in the tens of meters I would say

 

[d_brennen]

I have this soldering iron at the moment

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/50-w-solder-station-n78ar

Absolute steal at £11. You can get Duratool tips for it on ebay for a quid or so each

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3-x-Spare...Home_Garden_PowerTools_SM&hash=item1c308b4df0

or

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/0-5mm-Poi...Home_Garden_PowerTools_SM&hash=item1c307dc83d

(Search for N78AR tips)

Pair with one of these to extend the life of the tips, don't bother with a wet sponge

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/D180-Sold...Home_Garden_PowerTools_SM&hash=item27debc0c49

I used to have one of these

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/60-w-lcd-display-solder-station-n89cz

Bigger, better control but overkill for hobby RC stuff IMO

 

[d_brennen]

Odd the pic still seems to be there? Anyway I have moved it so the antenna is in between the legs now

Getting better range but still only in the tens of meters I would say

Dropbox/Onedrive/Google Drive does this sometimes. You are still logged in via your browser session, but no one else is so can't see them

postimage.org is good for quickly sharing pics on forums, though the links don't last years and years by the looks of it

 

[howler]

That's odd as the pics I posted for Skeeter are viewable, maybe the link times out after a few days?

 

[Burned_Alive]

The link works if you take it out, I think you may have just used the wrong link for embedding.

 

[Skeeter]

They don't show up in the thread for me, but if you copy the URL to a new window they open within a dropbox page.

 

[d_brennen]

The pic URLs work, but there is no image there unless you navigate to the URL...

E: Snap

 

[d_brennen]

Awesome, I'll go take a look.

I think I need to remove the backorder items from my China HK order, otherwise I'm going to be waiting for months. Anyone know w good place to get Gemfan 5030 props for less than the £lol price some Ebay sellers have them at (HK are 76p a pair).

makeitbuildit.co.uk sell HQ 5030 props for £1.50 for a pack of 3 the same rotation, so a pound a set (£3 for 3 pairs). Check out the carbon reinforced HQ props too, they are much more ridged but a bit more expensive. Phil is also a great guy to deal with and postage is fast/reasonably priced

 

[Skeeter]

Went to check on my HK order and the Gemfans are in stock now and its being shipped

 

[spookywillow]

Gopro hero2 for £50, worth it? Or just get a new one?

 

[rhysduck]

What you gonna use it for? Just MC flying/filming?