Multirotor, multicopter and quadcopter discussion - The Drone thread

On a separate note, it seems the FAA is cracking down on quadcopter youtube videos, on the basis that youtube hits can be monetised.

Would be interestesting to see if the CAA will have a similar view, given that they aslo have clear guidelines on UAVs for commercial use.
 
Genoma said:
On a separate note, it seems the FAA is cracking down on quadcopter youtube videos, on the basis that youtube hits can be monetised.

Would be interestesting to see if the CAA will have a similar view, given that they aslo have clear guidelines on UAVs for commercial use.
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I thought the CAA clarified this? It's only commercial use if the video was produced in exchange for payment (of any sort). Producing a video yourself and then later earning from it isn't commercial use.

If it was then every video of anything on YouTube that has ads would be classed as a commercial production.
 
gandhi said:
Carbon Frame - Would suggest ZMR 250 as you can buy replacement arms fairly easily and it's also cheap enough to buy a new frame should the worst happen

Motors DYS 1806 2300kv. You could probably just about scrape 4s on these too when you need moar powa!

Props Some cheapish plastic 5030 props to start (breakable/disposable) then either 5040 or 6030 HQ carbon composite ones. The latter are stronger but more brittle. I've personally never gotten on with Gemfans but some people swear by them.

Flight Controller Naze32/Flip32/Dragonfly/Mullet - all capable of running cleanflight which i would highly recommend you flash straight away. get a presoldered version unless you want to solder pins to the board, can be tricky and you will need a either a temp controlled iron or a low wattage one. If you do get a soldered one, make sure it has vertical pins as otherwise they can overhang the sides of the quad and catch props/trees/animals etc in a crash. Other options are CC3D and Taulabs but I have no experience of those.

ESC's Emax 12 or 18a BLHELI versions. This now supports oneshot pwm from the FC as well as active braking. If money no object look at eh KISS 12 & 18a ESC's as they are also great. ESC's with SimonK firmware are ok but if it it's not the correct version, it can cause sync problems with some motors.

RX Dependant on your radio but you will need 5 channels minimum

Batteries As above the nanotech 3s 35c 1500mah are around the sweet spot. 4s for more power.

Other stuff If you want to fly FPV then that will add another 2-300 onto the price for goggles or monitor/vtx/mobius/Flycam etc. If you're planning on flying LOS, I'd consider getting some LED's to help with orientation. Tiny quads are quite hard to orientate any distance away as they look the same from most angles compared to helis.

Plenty of good info in this thread.
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Thanks ;)

I really like Zippy compacts on my helicopters, the higher C rating ones are excellent IMO.
 
Diagnosis was correct, new motor works :) now to solder it and strap the ESC in place


All that because I had the motors in the incorrect corners

Do people with these diatone frames bother with the LEDs? ideally I want to be able to switch LED on/off, with the ones built in to the board they just stay on, might not bother with them if its just going to be a battery drainer when I dont need it
 
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battery consumption will be minimal compared to what those motors are sucking in, I wouldn't bother. My first 250 I built with full set of green lets on front arms and blue on the back, really great for learning to fly at night /evening. If you are going to FPV just a small strip at the back to orient yourself (or a small strobe) is useful if you need to take the goggles off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4yWO1LkDFA
 
Need to test colours. There are already pads to solder the led strips on to, one is white that iv done, will see what the rest are, I guess as long as they don't drain too much but would have been nice to allocate a switch on the tx to turn off on


On my dji Im not sure if I want the strip LEDs which stay on, or a mixture of that and the strobe type navigation light

Usually like you see on helis or aircraft

Maybe red led strip for forward facing and strobe nav rear white and hook it up to control via radio
 
rebuilt the QAV today, I took the old bottom plate and cut the arms off to make a extended thicker top plate, turned out quite nice too. It will enable me to use a larger battery on top when I go 6" with the arm extensions and have ample mounting room underneath.

IMG_20150313_225257_zpsiyx6smhj.jpg

IMG_20150313_230208_zpspfpmwkyp.jpg

Mounted the VTX up front
IMG_20150313_225324_zpsnrijcmbf.jpg

IMG_20150313_225342_zpspo7zty17.jpg

Got some washer wire crimp terminals that worked out great for mounting the antenna.
IMG_20150313_225313_zpseddmoumv.jpg

And finally to finish it off i tilted the camera for better viewing angle when flying fpv.
IMG_20150313_225353_zpsuw2adufz.jpg



The hideous green props are some of the Gemfan 5040's i ordered, 40 arrived this morning and another 36 yet to arrive. Hopefully the weather is dry and not too windy tomorrow so i can take it out and test it, should be a beast!

I had tried the cleanflight pid controllers the other day before the fatal crash and wasnt impressed with the pids out of the box, seems very unstable and after a quick test hover today the oscillations with the 5040's on appeared very bad even just in a hover
 
Its back :D nice reuse of plate

Getting slighly anxious about doing a maiden flight with mine, seems all good ATM but even though if tuned dow n the main throttle I still think it kicks in a little too sudden,maybe tweak a bit more

Think next think I need is some stand offs for legs, but for now I will just land it with none or just find something I can use for legs

I'm hoping the weather improves so i can do a quick test flight
 
don't forget to set your fail safes on the naze and the reciever, i set mine to cut throttle completely on loss of reception.

As for throttle, mine kicks in quite sudden, remember the later the throttle kicks in on the stick the less range you have for the rest of the throttle. So, if it kicks in at say 15% throttle, you have %85 of the throw, if it kicks in at 5% you have much more resolution tot he range meaning finer control over the whole range of the throttle.

My tri is pretty much instant.
 
Kanifee said:
don't forget to set your fail safes on the naze and the reciever, i set mine to cut throttle completely on loss of reception.

As for throttle, mine kicks in quite sudden, remember the later the throttle kicks in on the stick the less range you have for the rest of the throttle. So, if it kicks in at say 15% throttle, you have %85 of the throw, if it kicks in at 5% you have much more resolution tot he range meaning finer control over the whole range of the throttle.

My tri is pretty much instant.
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Yeh will do, need to watch YouTube videos on naze failsafe. Will have a look tomorrow

The range is pretty much what I have been reccomnded, 1000-2000 on naze, not too far off with when you test that on the stick also
 
DJMK4 said:
Need to test colours. There are already pads to solder the led strips on to, one is white that iv done, will see what the rest are, I guess as long as they don't drain too much but would have been nice to allocate a switch on the tx to turn off on


On my dji Im not sure if I want the strip LEDs which stay on, or a mixture of that and the strobe type navigation light

Usually like you see on helis or aircraft

Maybe red led strip for forward facing and strobe nav rear white and hook it up to control via radio
Click to expand...

It's really not worth worrying about, the weight of the switch and the wires + LED will probably be more significant than the LED draw, especially compared to what your motors are sucking in.

A 50cm strip with around 15 SMD LEDs will use around 1.4W at 12V. If your motors are each pulling on average say 6Amps x 12V = 72W each, 288W total for 4 motors. So 15 SMD LEDs represent approx. 0.5% of your total power consumption; or around 2 seconds off a 7 minute flight :) (If my midnight math is correct...)

I've tried blue, white, red, and green strips. The white, green then blue, then red are the brightest in order, but white is boring :)
 
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Kanifee, is your Rx in the front bay with the Tx? Did you find any issues running like it like this? The recommendation is usually to try and keep the Rx and VTx as far as possible from each other.
 
My rx is mounted in the center of the top plate, i dont think separation is as big of an issue with 5.8 and 2.4ghz equipment, now using 1.3ghz and 2.4 it becomes a real issue, the suggested minimum distance for that set up is like 30cm of separation.

So tuning pids, i hear increase d decrease p etc for osculations and the such but if the oscillation is just in the hover what value do you adjust the pids on, yaw pitch or roll? this is what i struggle to understand realy, what is it you are looking for to indicate what value to adjust the pid associated with it?
 
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Kanifee said:
rebuilt the QAV today, I took the old bottom plate and cut the arms off to make a extended thicker top plate, turned out quite nice too. It will enable me to use a larger battery on top when I go 6" with the arm extensions and have ample mounting room underneath.

IMG_20150313_225257_zpsiyx6smhj.jpg

IMG_20150313_230208_zpspfpmwkyp.jpg

Mounted the VTX up front
IMG_20150313_225324_zpsnrijcmbf.jpg

IMG_20150313_225342_zpspo7zty17.jpg

Got some washer wire crimp terminals that worked out great for mounting the antenna.
IMG_20150313_225313_zpseddmoumv.jpg

And finally to finish it off i tilted the camera for better viewing angle when flying fpv.
IMG_20150313_225353_zpsuw2adufz.jpg



The hideous green props are some of the Gemfan 5040's i ordered, 40 arrived this morning and another 36 yet to arrive. Hopefully the weather is dry and not too windy tomorrow so i can take it out and test it, should be a beast!

I had tried the cleanflight pid controllers the other day before the fatal crash and wasnt impressed with the pids out of the box, seems very unstable and after a quick test hover today the oscillations with the 5040's on appeared very bad even just in a hover
Click to expand...

Which PID controller were you using? On #5, mine are;

P= 2.2, i= 0.03, d= 17 (roll and pitch)

P= 5.0, i= 0.025, d= 10 (yaw)

Yaw rate =0.3
Roll & pitch rate .45
Tpa = .5
Looptime = 2000

I'm running dys motors, hq 5045 props, kiss ESC's with oneshot auw is about 530g.

I found I had to lower my pid's quite a bit for controller 2,3 and 5.
 
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