Multirotor, multicopter and quadcopter discussion - The Drone thread

Tackle_Berry · 18 Sep 2015 at 10:53

Looks good Ghandi what size is that frame? Also i'll be interested in what flying time you get.

I really need to get round to repairing my ZMR, not flown in over a month.

gandhi · 18 Sep 2015 at 11:06

122mm motor to motor, 3" props. The motors are tiny, the motor wires are 1(!) strand. Whole thing weighs around 140g with a 450mah battery.

Should be fun

gandhi · 18 Sep 2015 at 11:07

Around 4 minutes I suspect on those batteries. I've got some 850mah ones that I might try as well but I suspect they will be too heavy.

gandhi · 18 Sep 2015 at 14:23

Hahahahahaha.

And I've killed it already.

Plugged the bloomin JST in reverse polarity somehow. This thing is supposed to be keyed lol.

Oh well, hopefully just killed the VTX and nothing else, but we will see. It's melted the pin in the JST connector so hopefully that provided some protection!

spookywillow · 19 Sep 2015 at 19:51

Well this 250 is doing my head in, I can get it to fly ok but as soon as I yaw pretty fast it just becomes unstable and flips around and crashes.

messed about with pids for 3 weekends now and got nowhere, If only there was a service to tune them for people. Don't suppose anyone local could lend a hand? I don't mind traveling as I just want to get out flying

d_brennen · 19 Sep 2015 at 20:20

gandhi said:
Hahahahahaha.

And I've killed it already.

Plugged the bloomin JST in reverse polarity somehow. This thing is supposed to be keyed lol.

Oh well, hopefully just killed the VTX and nothing else, but we will see. It's melted the pin in the JST connector so hopefully that provided some protection!

Ouch! I saw your post on RCG

Any joy?

Waiting (endlessly) for my XM10A ESCs to rebuild my ET 150. Going to be really hard to go back to brushed micros after building these small brushless beasts

The Rhino 610 3s pack is a good middle ground weight and reliability wise, also I get then stupidly cheap from HK UK warehouse (Platinum customer lol). Really gone off nanotech's

gandhi · 19 Sep 2015 at 21:16

d_brennen said:
Ouch! I saw your post on RCG Any joy?

Waiting (endlessly) for my XM10A ESCs to rebuild my ET 150. Going to be really hard to go back to brushed micros after building these small brushless beasts The Rhino 610 3s pack is a good middle ground weight and reliability wise, also I get then stupidly cheap from HK UK warehouse (Platinum customer lol). Really gone off nanotech's

It was actually fine in the end. The spark from the short melted the pin in the JST and that must have provided a sort of protection against the polarity switch.

I put 8 packs (450mah nanotech 65c) through it today and it absolutely is the most fun thing I have flown in a good long while. It's not stupidly fast, but it's very nimble. And the CC1563 camera is sooooo wideangle it feels like you're doing about 60mph anyway!

It's also very crash resistant. I went full tilt into a tree and just ended up bending a prop back

All I need to do now is decase a mobius or somesuch to run as a HD cam on top. A full size mobus looks a little perverse mounted on the atom (and it adds 50% to the weight!)

Have you ordered the XM10a? I ended up hacking my KISS 18a's out of my 250 as I was desperate to get it built and skint.

Oh, and speaking of brushless, I bought a blade inductrix! It's pretty good as well and if anyone asks me for a quad to learn on, it's going to be the new hubsan I think.

elrasho · 19 Sep 2015 at 21:37

Got a Hubsan Mini Q4 on the weekend. Was all good yesterday but today one of the propellers doesn't spin until I crank the speed up high. But then of course it goes mental! What could be causing this? I've tried another propeller on it but its still the same.

gandhi · 19 Sep 2015 at 21:47

Have you bashed the motor at all? Brushed motors can be a bit finicky sometimes. Try not pushing the prop down so far.

Could also be a hair or something wrapped around the shaft?

elrasho · 19 Sep 2015 at 21:57

gandhi said:
Have you bashed the motor at all? Brushed motors can be a bit finicky sometimes. Try not pushing the prop down so far.

Could also be a hair or something wrapped around the shaft?

Checked for hair and none. It did take a bash but nothing more than usual.

gandhi · 20 Sep 2015 at 10:18

spookywillow said:
Well this 250 is doing my head in, I can get it to fly ok but as soon as I yaw pretty fast it just becomes unstable and flips around and crashes.

messed about with pids for 3 weekends now and got nowhere, If only there was a service to tune them for people. Don't suppose anyone local could lend a hand? I don't mind traveling as I just want to get out flying

Hey dude, I missed your post, sorry.

I'm quite happy to meet you halfway if you want? Telford is a bit of a trek for me. Annoyingly, I'm in North Wales the week after next so will be passing but will have the g/f with me and I don't think she'll enjoy an afternoon of PID based conversations.

Alternatively - have a look at the multirotor uk forum. There are a great bunch of guys on there and they fly at a disused golf course in Tamworth quite regularly. Might get you some help a bit quicker.

Finally - Have a look here - Boris has done some amazing work with cleanflight and the latest hex flies really well on the stock PID settings. Use PID 1 if you want auto level, PID 2 if you don't.

I'm out today but if you do want to hook up at some point drop me an email?

spookywillow · 20 Sep 2015 at 11:35

Cheers gandhi, I'm already using the latest boris release and I'll take a look on that forum.

I've been using PID 2 but will give PID 1 a go today at some point, Thanks again.

Skeeter · 20 Sep 2015 at 16:53

The new mini tricopter from RC Explorer looks amazing! But as I've not flown my quad for months I've resisted it.

Sharpz · 20 Sep 2015 at 18:06

joined the club

not had much time to fly it yet but the first few flights were successful . desperately need another battery, 23 mins goes so fast.

Greebo · 20 Sep 2015 at 19:34

congrats Sharpx. I juist got my 2nd battery on Firday

Hutchy · 20 Sep 2015 at 21:25

Currently got a qav250 / naze32 / fatshark combo on the go and still going strong. Question is anything new or interesting out on the FPV scene worth checking out?

Been a while since I checked in on any new tech for racing.

d_brennen · 20 Sep 2015 at 21:44

Have some XM10A escs languishing in Heathrow customs. Apparently this really make 1104 motors sing, we'll see when RM get themselves together

elrasho · 21 Sep 2015 at 09:24

elrasho said:
Checked for hair and none. It did take a bash but nothing more than usual.

I replaced the propeller with the wrong one! Even though it was red and I assumed it would be OK as it was teh same colour. In actual fact each propeller has a letter on it associated with which motor it goes on. I really should read the manual lol

So now it's all up and running... I've got the upgrade itch. What can I do to upgrade the Hubsan Micro X4?

gandhi · 21 Sep 2015 at 09:47

Hutchy said:
Currently got a qav250 / naze32 / fatshark combo on the go and still going strong. Question is anything new or interesting out on the FPV scene worth checking out?

Been a while since I checked in on any new tech for racing.

4s?

New version of the Naze32 and several other FC boards now using faster processors (Seriously Pro, Seriously Dodo etc.)

New version of Cleanflight authored by BorisB which has some very clever software filtering in the PID algorithm and locks the Gyro & looptime together.

Oh, and Micro quads are the new minis. 180mm and below!

gandhi · 21 Sep 2015 at 09:49

d_brennen said:
Have some XM10A escs languishing in Heathrow customs. Apparently this really make 1104 motors sing, we'll see when RM get themselves together

I had this problem with a shipment from Whitespy in the US. Took about 6-8 weeks to get here. Seemed to get stuck at every possible stage. In the end, I emailed the chap and he hassled UPS and my parcel magically turned up! I was convinced it had gone astray.

Where did you order them from?