FT Gremlin as My First Quadcopter Build

[Huffheinz]

Hey everyone! I just thought I'd make a follow up post and rave about how much fun I'm having with my little gremlin! I've been flying this sucker around all weekend in and outside of the house. I've been using angle mode inside and acro outside. I don't know why I was so scared of acro mode, it handles just like flying a small heli, but even smoother. And Acro is awesome for fighting against the wind (10mph with 20mph gusts). I even did my first couple of flips and rolls in the yard tonight!

I took it to the local high school track last night and really opened her up. What a blast! Then I just flew around the house today between honey-dos. I'm happy to report that I only crashed a few times and even those were all gentle. I had some issue with motor #3, but then I realize that the battery cables were getting into the props and causing the #3 ESC to reset. Just being more careful with battery cables made that little problem go away. I'm glad these aren't bigger props that can eat cables.

Just a quick note about my setup. I'm running stock betaflight PIDs, oneshot125, and airmode always enabled. I have my arm/disable set on the top-left switch on my DX6i. Arm is toward me and disarm is away so it's really easy to flick off before a crash or while landing. I have three batteries. The Hypereon that came with the powerpack and 2 more 450mAh 60C's I got off of amazon. All the batteries run perfectly and I set a 5 minute timer on the Tx. The motors are barely warm after landing, but I don't think I'm taxing them very much. I usually cruise around and about half throttle and only goose it to 3/4 or so for sharp turns or pucker moments.

Here are a couple of pics. I know it's not the prettiest build in the world, but she flies and I'm pretty darn proud of that. I had to do some re-soldering, so I just attached the ESCs with electrical tape in case I had to get in there for more soldering. I've flown about 20 packs without issue, so I think it might be time for some more protective wrapping. I've heard a little about conformal coating; does anyone have any recommendations?



I tried sticking the camera on with a strip of foam tape on the front edge to provide a little angle and then some hot glue on the back to hold it down. That only lasted a couple of flights before the camera came a little loose and started wobbling. So I just took a piece of electrical tape and taped the antenna to the top plate where it was touching anyway, and that really did the trick. I think I'll try a zip tie to replace the tape, it might look a little better.



I'm still learning to fly quads but I'm finding that some RC heli flying experience translates well to quads (it's mostly about authoritative yaw and throttle). I've also been simming a lot on velocidrone, which is CRAZY hard, but I'm making progress. There is a 5" quad build in my very near future, but I think this little gremlin is going to be a pretty awesome flight training tool and is just a ton of fun.

 

[ElectriSean]

There is nothing quite like the feeling of building something and having it work - especially something with a learning curve like these things. Congrats

Conformal coating is for waterproofing, I doubt it would add any impact resistance. I just use shrink wrap around the ESC and electrical tape to hold it on the arm.

Building a 5" will be a cakewalk after soldering on this tiny thing

 

[cranialrectosis]

Nicely done Huffheinz. It's a beauty.

I like the splashes of yellow. It's gonna look like a big bumble bee as it whizzes by!

 

[Huffheinz]

Conformal coating is for waterproofing, I doubt it would add any impact resistance. I just use shrink wrap around the ESC and electrical tape to hold it on the arm.

Yeah, I was thinking conformal coating for water resistance. I'll tape up the ESCs in yellow (I do like the bumblebee look), but I'd hate for wet grass to fry the FC, Camera, or Rx.

Thanks for the kind words, guys. This has been a heck of a learning curve, but it's been a fun one. And my soldering skills are twice as good as they were a couple of weeks ago!

 

[PsyBorg]

Congratz again mate. I read your posts in the other gremlin thread and you are on the right path. Keep up what you are doing and it all falls together. What you can do with the esc's is shrink tube them and you can seal the ends with hot glue or rtv if you are worried over getting them wet. I leave my ends open as it allows for the esc's to stay dry and not have problems from condensation when they get warm in a closed in shrink tube.

 

[Kc5brz]

Help Betaflight setup and test

So got this build completed, have the XSR and XJT module in 9XR.
Cannot find anything to help get this setup and flying.
Any assistance would greatly be appreciated.
Just to confirm I used the white SBUS wire from receiver to the controller board.
It connects to BF, shows movement, it just doesn't show any transmitter inputs. Also cannot arm it with controller so obviously I have something not right.

 

[PsyBorg]

Try going thru these steps and see where that gets you as they are the most common issues. If that does not help make a short video showing what you have happening. Also screen shot the configuration page and the pid page so we can see what the settings you are working with are.