CranialRectosis' Polakium Engineering Super Simple Spider Hex build

[cranialrectosis]

So build fever finally got the best of me and I jumped in with both feet. I wanted something more challenging than the FT kits and I like small copters I can fly in my yard. CyberDactyl's new awesome CyberHex and the Blackout mini hexes got me salivating.

WarpQuad is next.

The Blackouts are sweet but expensive and designed for FPV (not into it). If Blackout had a PCB board for his hex frame (frame 2) that would have sold me but as it is, the frame is just too expensive for me today.

Polakium Engineering offers a $60 mini hex frame that is light (184 grams) and small (300mm) that is 3D printed. FPV is very possible with this frame but it does not have any special parts that are designed for it that raise the cost. It is just a super simple, bare bones frame.

Original specs:
The Parts
Frame and rollbar:
http://polakiumengineering.org/?product=super-simple-mini-spider-hex-ss-spider-hex
http://polakiumengineering.org/?product=ss-spider-hex-roll-bar

Motors and rotors:
http://www.altitudehobbies.com/brus.../brushless-motor-250-18-17-2200kv-suppo-a1510
http://www.altitudehobbies.com/mini...-blade-nylon-prop-set-1x-cw-and-1x-ccw-orange

Flight Control and ESCs:
http://www.multirotorsuperstore.com/electronic-speed-controller/ms-12amp-esc-simonk-rapidesc.html
http://www.multirotorsuperstore.com/flight-controllers/acro-naze32.html

Battery and Receiver (if they ever show up):
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=21777
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=36721

Additional sundries such as wire and connectors are from Altitude Hobbies. AH is my first stop when looking for electronics.

The delivery:
All parts were ordered on Monday 4/7 and all parts had arrived by Friday 4/11. Both AH and MRSS delivered parts as early as 4/10. The only exception is Hobby King who as of 4/14 has not yet shipped my order from the US warehouse.

Final build weight:
400 grams plus battery and Mobius Action cam.

Current specs:
Supersimple Spyder Hex frame by Polakium engineering:
http://polakiumengineering.org/shop...per-simple-mini-spider-hex-pro-spiderhex-pro/

DYS 1806 2300kv motors and 5030 Gemfan rotors by MultirotorMinis:
http://www.shop.multirotorminis.com/DYS-BE1806-2300KV-DBE18062300KV.htm
http://www.shop.multirotorminis.com/GemFan-5030-Nylon-Props-4-Pieces-GF5030Nylon.htm

Flight Control and ESCs:
http://www.multirotorsuperstore.com/electronic-speed-controller/ms-12amp-esc-simonk-rapidesc.html
http://www.multirotorsuperstore.com/flight-controllers/acro-naze32.html

FrSky D4R-II Receiver:
http://www.alofthobbies.com/frsky-d4r-ii.html

Current weight with LEDs and landing struts:
438 grams plus battery and Mobius Action cam.

 

[Mustang7302]

I've seen the progress so far... I. Am. Jealous.

 

[cranialrectosis]

Frame and Flight Controller installation

The frame is in two halves with a dovetail joint that you press together and glue with CA. The process is simple and takes minutes. I chose the more expensive two toned frame. Primary color (black) is to port and secondary (orange) is to starboard.



Since my HobbyKing order was still waiting to be printed, I found an old APC velcro cable strap for PC and now have a Lipo strap. This is key because the Lipo strap threads under the FCB and is therefore the FIRST part you need to attach to this frame.



I decided to use my zip tie mount to mount the Naze 32 Acro board Mustang sent me to this frame. The process uses the 'lid' for the foam 'box' for KK2. I push a punch through the mounting holes in the board and through a square piece of foam.



Then I run a zip tie through the board, through the foam and down through the frame. I then zip another zip tie up the first until the head of the second is against the frame. The Polakium frame has nice counter sunk M3 sized screw head holes that the zip tie head will fit into. I cut the tail of the second zip tie and push the head up into the counter sink with a pair of pliers being careful not to compress the foam. Cut the tail of the first tie and repeat.



The key here is to put even pressure on each tie so the board cannot move, the foam is only lightly compressed and the board sits level on the frame.

 

[cranialrectosis]

Power

This frame is small. Really small. There is not a lot of room for wires. You have to plan ahead. The power loom has to be light and small. I am not using bullet connectors instead choosing to solder directly to ESCs and then to motors. I am using 18 awg wire and in these photos the wrong lipo plug...



I used Soma's concept Warpquad for the pigtail connections using heat shrink to hold the 6 wires together while I add the wires from the battery plug.



The ESCs connect directly to the power harness. Be careful soldering to your ESCs. Don't heat them up too much and don't disconnect the ground to the capacitor.



The Naze 32 will accept power on any 5V pin and only one power source is needed. I cut the power and ground wires from all but one ESC and used single JST connectors for the signal wire to clean up the connections to the motor pins. This also frees up 5V power pins for other applications (should I ever want one).

Once the harness was built, I threaded it through the channels under the FCB.

 

[cranialrectosis]

Receiver

I am using a Turnigy 9X radio and so am still using Hobby King receivers. I have two on order but my order had not yet shipped as of Sunday so I broke down and stole the receiver off my AnyCopter. This hex is all about performance. I did not want the bulk of the Turnigy receivers in my copter so I pulled it out of the case and heat shrunk it to protect it from the sand in my yard.



This takes away most of the weight and gave me options on how and where to mount the receiver. I chose to mount it facing away from the FCB, as the two components are so close together as to make it tough to connect the leads with JSTs.



I mounted the receiver using a variant of the zip tie nuts and bolts I used for the FCB. I pushed one 4" zip tie up from the bottom of the frame through a counter sunk screw hole routed it over the receiver and down through a screw hole on the other side of the central groove. I then pushed the head of a second tie up the shaft of the first, clipped it off and cinched it up by pushing the head of the second zip tie up inside the counter sink of the second hole.



This makes the underside of the copter VERY smooth. All the wires run in the channel and all the bolts and nuts are in the counter sink holes. Nothing protrudes or will block batteries or other components.

At this point I broke the antenna off the receiver. This is my first receiver and on my first copter it suffered greatly.

I used my dykes to trim 1/32" from the tip and strip back the outer sheath and braid leaving the braid exposed and 1/8" of the inner stinger exposed. I soldered the stinger back where it belonged and the braid to the ground and hit the joint with hot glue at Mustang's insistence. The receiver receives when my wife moves the sticks on the other side of the house.

 

[cranialrectosis]

Connecting the FCB and Receiver

The Naze 32 is blazingly simple to connect and to control. It does require Chrome to use Baseflight. This board requires a secondary device to control, a PC or tablet or phone running Chrome will do, but it has no buttons or screen like a KK2. This board also allows me to rotate it 90 degrees. This is simple to do and you can use a simple command line command to change the orientation of the board.

My forward pointing arrow on the board now points 90 degrees starboard, but the board shows the front of the copter correctly.

I found the connections to the receiver even simpler. Since this receiver came off my Anycopter which is running a MultiWii Pro, the pins all lined up. Channel 1 is throttle and is the only channel you need to keep the three wire servo cable to. You power the receiver and connect ground and channel 1 with one three wire servo cable and I used Arduino wires to connect the other channels. Channel 2 connected to pin 2, channel 3 to pin 3 and so on.



Obviously, I have some servo wires to trim.

Unlike a MultiWii Pro, the Naze doesn't power the receiver from the ESCs. To get the receiver to work, you must connect the battery. This is when I realized I had connected the wrong XT-60 connector to the power loom.

D'OH!

I guess I get to use my new Weller WES51 station a bit more.

Now that I have power working, I was able to see the receiver and the stick positions in the Baseflight GUI.

I didn't have to reverse any channels or remap any channels. Even my throws and subtrims were VERY close to spot on. Considering the effort of dealing with the XT-60, and the antenna, I think the copter owed me.

 

[Cyberdactyl]

Looks very interesting. I always loved the look of the asymmetric or offset frame. Especially as a hex or octo. Adds that alien dimension to the appearance.

And thanks for the mention about the hex. I too was going to go for the offset plate design, but decided to go simple and centered, in case I was wasting my time and ran into resonance issues.

You've made good choices on the FC and ESCs with something as small as that hex. I think I'll continue to stick with the HK F20s since I know them so well now and trust then completely and they are so inexpensive, but they are indeed heavy suckers and I will pay the price if I decide to go with a smaller hex.

I'm as excited as you for the rest of your parts to arrive!

 

[cranialrectosis]

At this point I am stopped. I am waiting for some clear heat shrink as Mustang has convinced me not to use black heat shrink on my orange booms. I need the heat shrink before I can mount motors or connect motors to ESCs or mount the landing struts.

I expect more parts as early as Thursday but as late as next Tuesday. I will build on when I have heat shrink.

Until then, thank you for reading.

Regards,

CranialRectosis

 

[cranialrectosis]

I loved your hex Cyber D. Polak doesn't get into protecting the thrust column as much as you do, but at least it gets a nod with the taper on the booms between the motor mounts and the center hub. My ESC placement is going to be abysmal for thrust column...

I don't remember but I think it was you that first introduced me to the Naze32. I thought it too complicated for me at the time but then Mustang put one in my mailbox and pushed me over the build fever edge. I am VERY pleased and have another one or two on order.

 

[FinalGlideAus]

Looking very cool Cranial. Unless I need something very specific I will be using only Naze and APM from now on.

 

[cranialrectosis]

I haven't tried APM yet. Naze has impressed me. The board is soooo freaking simple. I bought two more. One for my Warp and one to send to Mustang to replace the one that ran away with his KK2 and BatBone.

I still love my KK2s. I learned to fly acro and to flip in acro in my backyard. I love the buttons and LCD on the KK2. No running in and out to tune PID (something I am NOT looking forward to with the Naze).

Mustang, the young whippersnapper, sent me the Naze in the mail or I would never have tried it and would have bought the Taranis instead of WarpQuad and this hex.

Now instead of a Taranis, I am considering a tablet to tune PID in the field and flashing my 9X.

Decisions...decisions...

 

[Balu]

 

[kah00na]

I just bought a miniquad with the Naze32 and I like the Chrome app interface to it. I think you can get a bluetooth module to plug into it and then run a similar app on your phone. That would be nice because then you could make changes anywhere - as long as you have battery juice left and your smart phone with you.

I can't find very many videos of people flying this frame. There are several Blackout hexes but very few of this frame flying outside. I've seen a few people test flying them inside but those are usually just test flights. I'm looking forward to seeing more build pics and flight videos of yours.

 

[cranialrectosis]

I don't have a phone much less a smart phone. There is no cell service at my home, my wife kept the landline and any service that costs > $20 is out of my price range. Basically, if I can't own it, I rarely buy it.

You can connect a blue tooth module to this board. MRSS sells them on their site, jhitesma wired one up in his epic ultra low budget quad build. I'll bet that dude could build his own tablet... I also understand you can get an OSD that allows you to set PID and other items with your transmitter. This board is ULTRA configurable.

I scored some clear heatshrink today from a surplus store in town. I am going to try to get it airborne tonight and finish this log.

 

[jhitesma]

The bluetooth module rocks. I haven't tried it with a tablet since my only tablet is an old original nook color running a hacked version of Cyanogenmod android (that's as close as I can get to making my own tablet ) and it's just so slow and crashes so much I don't use it for much of anything (when I can get it away from my daughter who has claimed it as her own.) Oh and the nook color didn't officially have BT but people discovered it had the chip for it just no antenna so it's enabled in the build I have but has very limited range.

You could pick up a cheap older android handset off craigs list to use. I have my old Incredible 2 that I don't use anymore and doesn't have service - but it's still a nice 720 camera so I've strapped it to my quad for video, and I've used it for tuning over bluetooth.

I also have the MinimOSD with the TeamKV software on it on my quad and yes you can use it to adjust PID's as well...but it's slow and clunky compared to the app and something seems a bit off on mine as I noticed this weekend that when I changed the PID's using the OSD they didn't actually change even after saving. The docs on the TeamKV software are horrible and it was a real pain to get the OSD working - I had issues where my FTDI adapter was set to 3.3v and the configurator seemed to work...but none of the changes would actually save. Once I changed it to 5v it worked correctly. But the minim itself is also confusing as it's designed to have a 5v side and a 12v side but is frequently modified to bypass the 12v side...but I'm wondering if that setup is part of why it's not saving changes to my MW correctly.

Note: I'm using MW but since Naze is based off of MW (but implemented on a 32bit processor) it talks the same MW protocol so apps that talk to MW can also talk to Naze and since the OSD uses the same protocol it should work on both.

I'm pretty disenchanted with the TeamKV software on MinimOSD though. It seems to be the best choice for OSD that talks to MW but the guy who makes it hasn't been keeping up with updates, it has some issues, and he's announced that he's going to only release binaries in the future and close the source (apparently he's upset that someone created their own version based off of his even though his is just based off of the RushOSD which is based off the original MinimOSD so he's upset that someone did what he did.)

I haven't looked into Naze too much...but since it uses the same protocol as MW you should also be able to add an LCD screen and then config things using stick commands. I haven't looked into that option since IMHO LCD's are just too fragile to put on a multi in the first place, and since I got the BT adapter for <$10 which gives more functionality and is quicker and easier I didn't see the point in going LCD.

I know you're not a fan of HK so I won't link to their LCD...and I know you're wary of RTFQ but they do have an OLED display for <$10: http://witespyquad.gostorego.com/readytofly-1-oled-128x64-pid-tuning-display-i2c.html

You can probably also find them on ebay cheap.

You could also always add a 3DR telemetry radio set and use that to link the quad to your computer...but it's a bit pricey just for tuning PID's without a cable

 

[cranialrectosis]

jhitesma, get a Naze. The acro doesn't have the GPS and other flying robot stuff, but the ability to configure this board is amazing and the setup is far simpler than MW. It is smaller, faster, lighter, simpler...

I am torn between getting my wife the Kindle, stealing her old Nook color and doing similar hacking and just getting a Windows 8.1 tablet. I don't want to add any weight to this thing.

 

[cranialrectosis]

This will teach me not to test the power harness before I connect the motors. Motor 3 will not spin. I have swapped out the motor and it still will not spin. I have swapped out the ESC and it still will not spin.

I have now fully disassembled this build to re-solder the power harness. Really, this is OK as I have decided to add a JST for the voltage monitor.

 

[jhitesma]

I've been seriously considering a Naze...but not having actually bought a flight controller yet I'm not in a huge hurry to buy one

But I don't have 32bit dev boards laying around like I do arduinos either

The Acro Naze is a good value, but would feel like a step down from my homebrewed MW without baro/mag/GPS. The full Naze seems overpriced to me given that it's almost double the price but apparently just has about $15 worth of extra sensors (at retail single unit prices...I'm sure it's less than $10 in additional components.) That and Timecops attitude have me very wary of buying a Naze. I'm sure they're great boards...but just like you don't want to support HK I'm not that thrilled about supporting TC

Smaller and lighter I like. But as you may have noticed I'm not always a fan of "simpler"

I'm actually doing a bit of research though to see if it would be possible to add a baro/mag/gps to an acro naze or if there's something about the design that would make it unfeasible. But it's a totally different dev environment with sketchy documentation on the dev side and dev's who are very abrasive at the best of times...so yeah...I'm torn.

Higher priority for me right now is saving up for new motors and ESC's so I can build a second quad. Thinking about going bigger for longer more stable flights with a gimbal. But gotta save up for a camera too and with AC season starting already my already strained hobby budget is about to take a big hit. (Not to mention we just learned last week that our health insurance is either going up $200 a month or our deductible is more than trippling - neither of which is really affordable for us but is still cheaper than anything we saw on the exchanges. We expected things to go bad under the new law but not this bad.)

 

[FinalGlideAus]

It's very easy to add a mag and Baro to the acro Naze. The solder pads are already there. You just need to source the components. I read a thread somewhere about a guy doing just that to save some $$$

 

[FinalGlideAus]

Cranial IMHO the FC choices are like this.

Learning multirotors: kK2

Simple acro and FPV rigs: Naze 32 Acro

FPV rigs for videography with gimbal and some GPS functions needed: Full Naze 32

Complex FPV rigs with all the above and full autonomous capabilities required: APM/Pixhawk

All other FC systems are being left behind IMHO. The APM only wins out with the Naze 32 for very complex roles and autonomous flight. Worth noting that the APM is crap at acro but it was never designed for that.

Sorry for hijacking the thread. Back on topic.