Multirotor, multicopter and quadcopter discussion - The Drone thread

Howler - looking forward to seeing it :)

Col - this was the bolt that literally holds the prop on, wouldn't have thought I'd want to use loctite on that one? Might be a pain if I want to change the props through bashing it again.

Skeeter - take it outside and give it some beans. My flight skills increased massively from just opening it up and flying in figure of 8s rather than spending the hole time avoiding doorframes.
 
PinkFloyd said:
Col - this was the bolt that literally holds the prop on, wouldn't have thought I'd want to use loctite on that one? Might be a pain if I want to change the props through bashing it again.
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Yeah, it's best to go with one of the lower strength loctite formulas, I have a bottle of 222 for all RC related stuff as it'll hold but not be hard to remove.
 
I'll check that out some time. In other news one of my motors does have knackered bearings, although it's not the one I was worried was going to have the issues when I got it. Crunchy sort of sound when I turn it, although it only seems to have the problem at low speed, it flies fine still. Just trying to get through on the Hobbyking online support to see what they say.
Managed to improve the handling and get the self levelling working better this evening however. It's not half as responsive as the Hubsan to correct, but it seems that's an issue with the older firmwares.
 
Turns out I jumped the gun with motor issue...
One of the screws that holds the shaft bit on was lose and vibrating, decided I needed to check that after Col mentioning loctite! Epic fail on my part but I'll take that over having to get a new motor :D
 
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So, here's my progress so far on my quad...

jLpMRKm.jpg

I also bought this case from Maplin a little while back when it was on special offer.

5miDkHu.jpg

For the quad I just need to flash and re-heatshrink the ESCs then shorten the wires and add bullet connectors between them and the motors. All that leaves is just various sticking stuff down with foam tape and zip ties really.

I've tested it with both 3S and 4S batteries with the props off and all seems well. I need to get another VTx and flight camera too to save swapping them.
 
Nice, I need to get one of those cases. Want to see if I can find one big enough to take the quad and transmitter at the same time.
Didn't make any progress with more wiring today, just left it at the test flight and chilled out for an evening. Back to work tomorrow though! :D
 
PinkFloyd said:
Skeeter - take it outside and give it some beans. My flight skills increased massively from just opening it up and flying in figure of 8s rather than spending the hole time avoiding doorframes.
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Rubboish weather and work have meant time outside in the dry and daylight have been slim for me. I will get it outside and start practicing as soon as I get a free moment.

Initial impressions are that the Hubsan X4 is amazing for the money.
 
Skeeter said:
Rubboish weather and work have meant time outside in the dry and daylight have been slim for me. I will get it outside and start practicing as soon as I get a free moment.

Initial impressions are that the Hubsan X4 is amazing for the money.
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It's pretty good in bad weather, mines been out in strong wind and drizzle a few times :D Night time is also good to fly, I find you can see it easier as it's very bright. VFM is fantastic, I'ts given me hours of fun and only cost me a few props so far!

@PinkFloyd. With your quad does it stay level or do you have to keep it level? Can you force it to invert so you can do loops? I've tried with the hubsan but it stops you going all the way over.
 
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Soldered my voltage alarm on. A lot easier to do than I'd been worrying about :)
Slightest touch on the wire that I had pre-tinned with a soldering iron once it was in the positive socket was enough to hold it in place. I've wired it via some computer 3pin fan connectors I had lying around so I can separate the KK2 from the power. I've only used the + input on the KK2 instead of doing ground also, as it grounds on the first motor connector. Easier to setup like that.
Seems to overread by about 0.1v compared to the battery charger, but that shouldn't be an issue.

I've got a basic hand held prop balancer on order, but I'll make some sort of frame myself. I'm sure Lego will be perfect for that!

Spooky - This has self level but it's not even close to as good as the Hubsan. I think when everything is calibrated well it should be though, but I'm still tuning the settings and need to update to a better firmware. With self level off it'll just keep it at whatever angle you leave it in when you let go of the controls.
 
Yeh would be nice to do on the hubsan, would rather do my first flip in that than a £160 1 kilogram piece of hardware!

In addition to fixing the voltage monitor. I've also soldered the replacement motor onto the Hubsan. Works perfect - much easier to do than I expected too! Cheers flukester :)
 
Courtesy of a workmate earlier. Conveniently he's not got any evidence of me ever crashing it properly :D


Nearly crapped my pants when it veered off at the start, not sure what caused it to do that at the moment. Don't remember doing it intentionally!
 
Have you made sure that your endpoints are correctly configured for all your ESCs, I'd also check your PID tuning. Turn off/down your I gain, tune up P and then bring up your I - there is a little bit of oscillation going on there which normally suggests that you have one of your gains up a little high, likely the P since it's pretty fast.

Looks like a great build though - just be prepared to crash a few times, buy some spare motors now and possibly some spare arms - once you get really adventurous you'll make mistakes at higher speeds and that's when you really break stuff. I'd also consider getting a couple of LED strips and get them on your front arms because on a bright day you can loose orientation even with the coloured props.

Last thing, when you go high altitude make sure you never go throttle off and allow the props to autorotate, they won't start back up fast enough to avoid a rapid ground deceleration (we avoid the C word :p)
 
No I agree - it's pretty decent for a first flight, it looked a great deal more confident than my first ones. The next trick is to learn to 'fly' it and retain orientation... of course you can go and watch some Warthox videos and dream a bit... then it's back to us mere mortals and attempting to emulate their skills, and he does it without orienting props!

http://vimeo.com/32408610
 
I've not been able to fly for weeks and it's stressing me out. I love flying so much so not having the time to do it is really annoying.

My F550 is in pieces on the bench, waiting for the APM to be installed. While it's apart I've decided to make some retractable landing legs so I can get them out of the field of view of the camera when I swing the gimbal all the way down. Should be pretty cool once they're made.
 
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