Blackout Mini Frames

[Cyberdactyl]

It's the Chinese exercising their idea of commerce. They see a popular product, they feel like the can sell a clone cheaper, and they do.

Blackout is simply taking the hit as countless other entrepreneurs have in the past by the Asian idea of fair practice.

It does appear the plates are thinner. But for less than half the price . . . If it wasn't for my adamant perspective that flat booms plates are a waste of useful energy, I might consider it.

 

[FinalGlideAus]

There is even a complete clone of the Warpquad on MRSS. I would have thought they would have had better morals than to do that. This time it doesn't look like the Chinese doing it.
Compare:

http://warpquad.com

http://www.multirotorsuperstore.com/frames/towelie-lil-bro.html

Tell me that's not a complete rip off! Same dimensions, motors and everything. What a crock!!!

 

[Cyberdactyl]

Yes, I believe that is as close to a copy as is possible.

 

[crlock]

well from a moral-less business perspective it's a pretty good strategy. You look for a target group, study what they are buying, how much they pay for it, copy the product, and sell it cheaper, you save R&D time, after all, some poor devil already did all the work for you. It works very ell for them, they pay like 50 cents/hour to their workers, so even at 70 dollars per frame they still win money, plus they already have the business support infrastructure in place to sell those products. on the other hand, if you see a product that is good, and if you can improve that goodness, to me that is legitimate, not what the chinese do.

 

[trigger]

Hey umm, interesting predicament.

I just looked up the operating voltage of video signal, which appears to be under 1V.

Have you looked at some sort of circuit diagram for doing this wiring? Because my guess is somehow your led power circuit has entered your video signal.Oh wait they are labelled :S. Or you have mixed up the terminals. I wouldn't be completely hopeless as I have wired up a fair few things wrong and never burnt anything yet... Well actually just one thing... Components can surprise people with resilience. But it's important you don't hook it up again like that....

I would say you have not shorted positive and negative because when you plug a lipo in that, your gunna get a fire.... And if you had done that you DEFINATELY would smell toasted components.

I doubt that you ruined board by sanding some sharp edges, it would be a silly design to run traces so close to the edge. But make sure there is nothing physical sitting between terminals on the board (I'm sure you have already done that lol)

Now what I would do is unsolder your components and Quickly assemble them to test them off the board.

Thanks for your input.

I ran a few more tests yesterday after posting.
I have, in fact, around 0.8MΩ between video and +/-, so there is definitely a short somewhere.

I removed my camera and vtx, and tried to plug it back in (on my protected power supply, not a lipo), and I had 5V on the video pads. So a short between video and the LED circuit seems plausible.

And the video trace seems, in fact, to run close to the edge (which is why I immediately thought about the sanding I did before)...

I didn't see any obvious mistake with my wiring/soldering job. I can take some picture tonight when I get back home.

The only things I have soldered right now are the ESCs. I'll try to remove them and test the PDB some more.


Finally, do you think it would be a good idea to carefully run a hobby knife between the video trace and the LED trace (and hopefully cut any short I may have) ?

 

[Cyberdactyl]

It's a sweet and sour situation. If it wasn't for cheap Chinese clones, thousands of people would never have entered the hobby. Same goes for countless other products.

Things like the 6ch Orange Rx under $6, hobby grade transmitters under $60, awesome flight control under $30, on and on. . .

 

[kah00na]

It's a sweet and sour situation. If it wasn't for cheap Chinese clones, thousands of people would never have entered the hobby. Same goes for countless other products.

Things like the 6ch Orange Rx under $6, hobby grade transmitters under $60, awesome flight control under $30, on and on. . .

True. When I got into multirotors, I didn't rush down the LHS and buy 4 x $60 motors. I went for the 4 x $10 motors from Hong Kong. Now that I'm into it a little more, I know what I need to spend to get what I really want.

 

[trigger]

Ok, I did some more test on my problem.

Desoldered the ESCs (which leaves only the LEDs and the battery lead) and plugged the PDB into a power supply.
First thing, the PDB with just the LEDs only draws 100mA, so that rules out any short on the main circuit.

Next, there was still around 3V when I probed between one of the video pads and the ground. But, it wasn't constant, and dropped overtime, before settling down around 0.6V after 10 to 15 min. I cut the power, turn it on again : it was back to 1V, but quickly dropped to 0.8V (didn't bother waiting longer).

Now, I'm not an expert on electronics, but there is a +12V trace running close to the video trace, and my guess would be that I damaged the insulation between the two. I don't know how, or if it's even possible... I'm kinda stumped...

At the moment, I am torn between not using the video pads (but that's ignoring the problem instead of fixing it, and it may come back to bite me), and trying to carefully cut the PDB between the video and the +12V trace with a hobby knife, hopefully isolating one from the other (but I fear I'm gonna make things worse, and irreversibly)...

I took some picture of the PDB, I can upload them if someone wants to have a look (in case I missed something)

 

[kah00na]

trigger, while you're trying to figure things out, maybe you should send an e-mail to Blackout and see if he has any suggestions. I think trying to cut the trace with a hobby knife sounds like it would fix it but with the cost of a replacement board around $23, and a shipping wait time, I'd check to see what BO says.

 

[trigger]

Some more development on my voltage problem...

I come back home tonight, almost decided to give the hobby knife treatment a try.
I sit in front of my workbench, look at the PDB.
I notice some leftover flux residue from all the soldering. Not much, but still enough to make me want to clean it, so I grab some paper towel and give it a rub.
I plug it into the power supply, and do my usual multimeter test between ground and video pads : 0.2V

Well, that's new... Yesterday it was more like 3V...

I clean it some more, and since the paper towel was leaving some fibers, I get a hair dryer and blow them away.
I plug it back : 0.01V

After that, I rubbed and scrubbed and blew it again, but so far, the voltage doesn't seem to drop below 0.009V.

I don't know if it's enough to cause interference on the video signal, or if it's within specs for close-by PCB traces.

For now, I think it's low enough to be safely ignored. I will reassemble the Mini H Quad, but unless Blackout or anyone with a good electronics knowledge can shed some light on the matter, I will run a wire from my camera to my vTx (provided I didn't fry them earlier ). Not that big of a deal.

 

[BorisB]

Mini X fun flights of yesterday. I think it's good to show you guys you can use your spare arms or old V1 arms if you have them for some LOS fun. The thing is undestroyable.

 

[FinalGlideAus]

Nice little frame but why was it not designed to use 6" props? Lots of potential thrust lost.
This is why I fly this frame:
Same setup used on a Blackout but with 6' props...
https://vimeo.com/86291282
As you can see, also undestroyable and an adrenalin rush to fly every time lol

 

[BorisB]

Nice little frame but why was it not designed to use 6" props? Lots of potential thrust lost.
This is why I fly this frame:
Same setup used on a Blackout but with 6' props...
https://vimeo.com/86291282
As you can see, also undestroyable and an adrenalin rush to fly every time lol

You can actually put the longer Mini spider hex arms and even go for 7inch props . I actually think that 6inch would fit as well . I don't see a problem with 5inch as I am flying on 2S above and small MT1306 motors. For more powerfull setup I could go for 3 or 4S and I bet the 4S on 5x4 can be even more adrenaline .
I am actually planning to make this frame 3D as soon as I get time for it.

BTW soma warp quad is awesome

 

[FinalGlideAus]

Yes those 3D setups do look kinda fun don't they!

 

[cranialrectosis]

Yes those 3D setups do look kinda fun don't they!

3D?

 

[FinalGlideAus]

Special props with a flat airfoil that will allow you to run them backwards. Then just flash a special FW on an esc that can run backwards also and you have reverse thrust and can fly upside down.

 

[FinalGlideAus]

http://vimeo.com/m/75697349

 

[BorisB]

Yes those 3D setups do look kinda fun don't they!

Yeah definitely want to try!

 

[cranialrectosis]

Does the flight controller handle the reversal of the motors through some type of mix?

 

[FinalGlideAus]

Not quite sure Cranial. Never looked into it that deep.