Designing/making a VTOL (aka V-280 Valor, Bell XV-15, or the V-22 Osprey)

CampRobber

Active member
Yeah I needed to compile a custom inav fw image to get multicopter mode with 2+2 outputs on my small matek. But I thought you were using a big matek?
 

JasonK

Participation Award Recipient
Yeah I needed to compile a custom inav fw image to get multicopter mode with 2+2 outputs on my small matek. But I thought you were using a big matek?
I _will_ need all 6 of the servo headers in the end... I guess I could set it into multicopter mode and move over the connectors for now and see if I can get it to hover. This is definately more messy then I expected (iNav is way more limited in capabilities then I expected it to be - all sorts of seemingly arbitrary limitations).
 

CampRobber

Active member
I _will_ need all 6 of the servo headers in the end... I guess I could set it into multicopter mode and move over the connectors for now and see if I can get it to hover. This is definately more messy then I expected (iNav is way more limited in capabilities then I expected it to be - all sorts of seemingly arbitrary limitations).

I think it's possible to get the outputs configured the way you want (with the two motors on the esc adjacent pads) but you'll need to compile a firmware. I can explain what I think you need to do to MATEKF405/target.c but I don't have one here to test it.
 

JasonK

Participation Award Recipient
ok, so just remove it as it currently has the 2 items bitwize Ored together. I could probably test the hover with just setting the quad settings... as I currently only need 2 servo ports to test with.

either way, I didn't realize the standard FC software was locked in in the mixer setups, etc. if the mixer was more freform and the PID system didn't lock out stuff arbitrarily, it wouldn't be hard to set it up.
 

JasonK

Participation Award Recipient
After a few more flights of the current build, it looks like between the stress of the lift/mass layouts of the craft + crashes, the wing nearly ripped itself in 2 - the spar itself is still strong and in good shape, however, the foam of the wing ripped to bits near the connection to the fuselage causing the battery + flight controller to pendulum to an extend below the spar and it went crazy and crashed itself.

I am thinking that the foam just couldn't hold up to the forces (at least after being weakened by a few crashes) and I need to do some design considerations regarding this. I also don't have great access to the flight controller board (and can't stick an SD card into it to get black box data to help with tuning it later if needed), so some design work appears to be in my future.

Given the redesign needs, I am considering redesigning the craft over all and considering some different shapes that should allow stronger shapes with the same or less overall mass. (and if this doesn't work, I probably need to step up the motor size slightly and go up to 4s so that I can increase the lift significantly. Given WCL, it only need 20-25% increase in size to have the same WCL at double the mass, which would make it much easier to build a stronger structure and still be in the mass goal, this would likely make it fairly easy to get the needed results).
 

JasonK

Participation Award Recipient
I ended up picking up some F-Pack motors, a 4s 1800mAh lipo, and some carbon fiber spars. I am now in the middle of redesigning the vtol to be a bit bigger, to use some 3D printed parts to make it stronger and am only looking at ~+50% total mass with a larger wing which actually lowers my WCL down to the line between acrobatic and scale instead of the top of scale/racer land.
 

JasonK

Participation Award Recipient
Today I got ribs designed and printed out for the wing, only took 3 tries to get it right. First attempt the screw holes were to high, second I extended the rib farther down then the thickness of the foam (so it would end up sticking out). 3rd time it all lines up correctly (or at least close enough to correctly to be fine).

1621723513505.png
 

JasonK

Participation Award Recipient
Any progress?
I got really flustered with it [had a bad time trying to finish it at flite fest] and haven't touched the project since flite fest. it is sitting on a desk waiting for me to want to look at it again.

at the very least I need to replace a servo, 3D print a guard so the new servo goes get bound up and burned out like the one I lost, then see if my custom iNav firmware actually works correctly (or take another shot at ardupilot and see if I can get that working on it).