Dragon-fly Video Platform (Summer project)

[Billbo911]

Hello fellow FT fans.

I have long been wanting to build a platform that I know inside and out, yet still feel comfortable enough to put my trust in. I hope you see the humor in that!
I am, among other things, an amateur photographer. I also am a Robotics Mentor and an all around electronics geek.
18 months ago I built my first multi-rotor loosely based on the classic David Windestål Tri design. After retrofitting with a 5.8 GHz 200mw VTx, Bluetooth, Battery Monitor, Flip 1.5, RTFQ Red Special motors and RTFQ 20A Fire Red Esc's, 10" Gem Fans, I really started loving what I had. It flew really well. Although, I have not flown it FPV yet, mostly LOS with the occasional glance at the monitor.


About two weeks ago, I was visiting a friend out in the country (Wilton, Ca.) and was flying around his property. It was quite windy and on one pass, I clipped the edge of a tree and it spun out and hit the grass about 8 feet down. A quick look over didn't reveal any damage, so I put it back in the air. WRONG!!!!
About 100 yards out and 150 ft. up, it threw a prop! Yep, no recovering from that! Every prop was busted. Every arm broken. GoPro kept broadcasting, but had ejected it's SD card in the field..... somewhere.

OK, all that to say, I'm using this "opportunity" to build my next project.

Dragon-Fly Tri
FT ElectroHub
RTFQ Flip32+ Deluxe v5.0
Clean Flight
FrSky D4R-II receiver in CPPM mode.
5X RTFQ Red Special 1000Kv 2212 motors (Can't beet the bang for the buck!)
RTFQ 20A Fire Red Esc's (I can't decide if I should use something with One Shot capabilities or not)
MinimOSD
Battery Warning Beeper
Programmable LED Navigation lights.
And finally a Gimbal.

I have already started the project, so I will try to bring you up to speed where I am now.

My first hurdle was getting Clean Flight loaded on the FC. It came with Base Flight, which for personal reasons, I will not use. A couple quick searches of the internet showed that I needed to use the ST Demonstrator GUI. (I later found out that I could have skipped this and just used the Chrome CleanFlight Plugin and it would have worked.)
SO I downloaded the ST Demonstrator, but it kept telling me it could not see the Boot Loader. I then realized, I needed to locate the "Boot" jumper. Well, on the Flip32+ Deluxe v5.0 you will need to use a magnifying glass to find it!



Once I soldered a jumper in place, ST Demonstrator did it's thing! Now the Chrome Plugin works perfect.

The next trick was to start getting CleanFlight configured.

The Flip32+ Deluxe has a 3 pin hole pattern so that Ch.1 can be used for CPPM. I soldered that in and configured my receiver for CPPM. It worked perfect! All 8 channels were registering. But what's this???
What are all these EZ-Connect heades for??
Simple! Use the connecting cables that came with the board to simplify your connections!!

OK, time to un-solder the 3 pin connector I just soldered in. Ch.1 is available on the EZ-Connect. Just follow the wire and push the female pin onto the receiver pin CPPM, and connect the ground pin to the receiver ground pin.

I also will be adding programmable LED lighting for orientation. CleanFlight can handle that, although programming the lights is a bit awkward. The LED Strip connects to Rx input Ch. 5 on this board. So, just take the pin for Ch.5 on the EZ-Connect and put it on the signal pin of the LED strip. BINGO! We have lights!

The last adjustment to CleanFlight was to add a switch to turn the LEDs on and off.

I will be cutting the strip into smaller segments to be placed on the ends of the booms.

This is a continuing project. I'll keep updating this as I go.

Comments, critiques, suggestions are all welcome!

 

[Billbo911]

Air Bears

I just found out what I really want to use this for!

http://www.flitetest.com/articles/air-bears

http://www.airbears.org/

 

[Billbo911]

More Parts!!

I had a delivery from FT today!!

As you might be able to tell from what is here, it is going to be very similar to a FT DragonFly kit, but with a few modifications of my own. More on that later.

Included with this shipment were:
ElectroHub (I have another Tri built with one and love it!)
ToughTilt
4 Circular motor mounts. (I used these on my second Tri and really like them too.)
FC Mount
eMax ES 3154 servo
Battery monitor
Servo tester (Obviously this will not be on the DragonFly.)

I've mentioned "My other Tri". It started out as an ElectroHub Quad Kit. Once I received the kit, I decided I wanted a second Tri Copter. So, I swapped out the booms for some 500mm home made booms. You might notice a couple custom mods to this one that "just might" show up on the DragonFly.

In addition to the new parts, I have the booms painted and ready to start mounting. I thought long and hard about going to CF booms, but easy availability won out, so I stuck with wood. I also have the original booms from the ElectroHub Quad kit. I think they may become part of the landing gear. I need to find a configuration that makes room for a Gimbal, is light, and sturdy. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Well, that's it for now. Time to go do some layout!!

 

[Billbo911]

Taking shape

Today I had some time to lay out, drill and do a preliminary fitting of the booms.

The first thing I did was measure how far I wanted the booms to extend into the Electrohub. Once I figured out how far in, I placed a mark across the booms at that distance. I then drew a line down the center of the boom splitting the width in half. Next I drew a line across the booms at the point where I wanted the inner screw to pass through. Finally I drew a line across each boom at the point I thought the outter screw would go. This last mark is not crucial, but is a nice reference.

I then very carefully drilled 1/8" dia. holes at the junction of the center line and the inner hole line. I don't have access to a drill ress at home so this is all done by hand. Next I used the same 1/8" drill to ream out all ten holes in the upper and lower plated where the mounting screws would go. I then put the 5 inner screws through the bottom plate. (I'm using 6-32 screws.) Once I got the booms mounted, I put the top plat on and temporarily used some plain nuts to put good tension on the booms so they wouldn't drift around on their own. At this point, I used the layout lines to help me position the booms so I could drill the outer holes.

As you can see, the center line is more important at this point than the cross line for the hole.

Now I just used the 1/8" drill to drill the holes for the outer holes. Again I temporarily put in the outer screws so I could see how it would look. I put the ruller next to it for scale.

That's it for today. I'm still looking for landing gear ideas. So if you have any suggestions, please feel free to pass them along.

 

[Machdog314]

In addition to the new parts, I have the booms painted and ready to start mounting. I thought long and hard about going to CF booms, but easy availability won out, so I stuck with wood. I also have the original booms from the ElectroHub Quad kit. I think they may become part of the landing gear. I need to find a configuration that makes room for a Gimbal, is light, and sturdy. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Hi Billbo911, your paintjob on the booms look great. Regarding looking for recommendations for the landing gear, if you ordered your Dragonfly kit after July 3rd it should have came with the new style landing gear, see the pictures on the product description:

https://store.flitetest.com/electrohub-dragonfly-kit/

When I received my Dragonfly kit they forgot to include the new style landing gear. The shipping department was not told the landing gear style had changed however they corrected it and sent the new style landing gear. I just installed it yesterday and it is perfect. If you did not get them you can email support@flitetest.com.

 

[Billbo911]

Landing Gear

Hi Billbo911, your paintjob on the booms look great. Regarding looking for recommendations for the landing gear, if you ordered your Dragonfly kit after July 3rd it should have came with the new style landing gear, see the pictures on the product description:

https://store.flitetest.com/electrohub-dragonfly-kit/

When I received my Dragonfly kit they forgot to include the new style landing gear. The shipping department was not told the landing gear style had changed however they corrected it and sent the new style landing gear. I just installed it yesterday and it is perfect. If you did not get them you can email support@flitetest.com.

Hi Machdog314,
This wasn't a kit.
I knew from the beginning that I wanted to go with a larger frame than the kit provided. This will be a video platform, so I wanted something that was inherently more stable. The kit is fine, but a larger frame will give it more stability.

That said, the landing gear from the kit is something I am seriously considering. It looks stable and robust without being too heavy. I will most likely copy, or at least get inspiration from, the kit landing gear and make my own.

Thanks for the comments, they help a lot in keeping my thinking clear.

BTW, I just put ESCs and motors on order. Hopefully they will arrive this week.

 

[Billbo911]

Boom Assembly

I received some more parts today and had a chance to start the boom assembly process. As you saw previously, I have done the basic layout, so now I know where each boom will mount and what it's orientation is. (I marked each one so I won't get confused).

The first boom I started was the tail boom. I mounted the ToughTilt with through bolts. I want to save the "sip ties" (thanks David!) for holding the LED strip on.

I then started with the left center boom. I started by soldering up a 3 LED strip with leads for power, ground, and signal. That was wrapped around the end of the boom and secured with heat shrink.

I then mounted the motor taking care to not damage the LEDs or short the pins.

Now for a little trickery!
I will be using the BECs in 3 of the ESCs to drive the LEDs. This will be very light duty for the BECs. During testing, when all 21 LEDs were lit, I was only drawing .28 amps. None of the BECs will be driving more than 13 LEDs. I will have 3 LEDs on each side boom and 5 LEDs on the front and rear boom.

Here is how I wired the ESCs to do this.
After removing the heat shrink, I unsoldered the +5 and GND wires that com in on the PWM cable. I then insulated them and folded them back. I then soldered the +5 and GND wires for the LED strip in place of the two I had removed. I passed the signal wire for the FEDs through and ran it next to the signal wire for the ESC. Covered everything with heat shrink and mounted it to the boom.

The Yellow-Red-Black wires are from the LED strip. The White wire is the signal wire to drive the ESC.

I will be repeating this process for the remaining booms over the next few days.

 

[Machdog314]

Great progress! The LEDs on the end of the booms will be awesome.

They do sell the landing gear legs and bracket now individually. So far the bracket has survived two leg breaks, so they are pretty solid:
https://store.flitetest.com/simple-ap-landing-gear-leg/

I don't have access to a 3D printer but thought if one bracket broke I could make it out of hardboard (HDF).

 

[Billbo911]

Booms wired and ready to mount

I got a few more steps completed this morning. It's just about ready to assemble!

As with the other booms that have ESC's that will not power the FC, on the tail boom I used the BEC to power the LEDs and the servo. This removes every power load from the FC other than reading sensors and generating motor command and LED signals. I had to "Y" together the +5vdc and GND leads for the Servo and LEDs, then solder them to the BEC output.

All the booms are now pre-wired and ready to mount to the ElectroHub.

I need to pick up some 3/4" 6-32 screws as the 1" screws are just too long. Maybe this evening!

 

[Billbo911]

Mostly assembled and ready to go

I still have some details to work out, but it's getting a lot closer!

The Flip32+ Deluxe v5 uses Easy Connects instead of the standard 3 pin headers. It makes a cleaner looking install, but not necessarily an easier install. I did have to do a bit of custom wiring, but I knew that going in.

The Red and black pair of wires still need to be soldered to the board for battery monitoring.

The FrSky D4R-II is mounted and the antennas are installed.

Here is an overhead of it.

And one with the LEDs lit.

I still need to build landing gear, a battery and camera mount.

I'm still trying to figure out how to reverse the Yaw servo. It's not as straight forward as using the Cleanflight GUI, and the CLI is not as intuitive as I would like.