HK 250 Racing Quad build is going to be the end of me.

Just add foam

Junior Member
Wondering if someone can shed some light on my problem?

Putting together the HK 250 quad and having a problem with the build. For the life of me I cannot get the receiver to bind correctly to the board. I have tripled checked all my connection and the kk2 1.5 continues give me errors. No Yaw or no throttle depending on which way the wind blows. I have tried multiple receivers. And get misc results, when the kk2 see's the receiver I get all connections except throttle on the kk2 but when I move the sticks I get zero feed back.

At one point I connected an esc to the receiver in error and the test screen where you check the servo inputs was refreshing, but I could actually move one of the sticks and got feed back.

I feel I must be missing something, or may be I need a BEC, but from what I understand the Afto ESC's included in the kit have 5 amp BEC's.

I've been flying electrics for a year now and have built many FT planes. I have been flying RC planes since the 90's so I'm not that new at the game. Never thought building a quad would be so difficult. I ended pulling my receivers from my Spit, mustang, and few of my other swappables trying to figure this out. Lucky the stryker did not have 6 channel or I would of pulled that as well....

Any suggestions would be great..

I have a spektrum 7 channel radio and been troubleshooting with orange and spektrum receivers. I have even isolated the receiver and one of the esc's and tested with a servo and everything seemed fine.

The radio setup was the default plane mode and I have not made any changes to the settings.

hahaha...the reviews said the KK2 board was a good starting point for a beginner quad build. One site quoted even a moron can set it up....now I wish I was a moron. :D
 

HawkMan

Senior Member
I'm not sure it should affect this, but have you removed the middle pin on the ESC's that connect to M2-3 (actually I think you can leave it on one of them since it's on a separate circuit from M1, but it's not necessary on a quad, I think that's mostly for helis' that need power to servos)
 

Jamblor

Member
You can leave all the power lines from the ESCs connected. Is your transmitter mapped to match the channels of the KK2?
Channel 1 - Ail
Channel 2- Ele
Channel 3 - Thr
Channel 4 - Rud
 

Just add foam

Junior Member
Thank you for your quick responses, but after hours of research and double checking all my setting I got if figured out.

Problem number 1- Motors would not spin up when troubleshooting individually.

Fix -- calibrating the esc one at a time. So simple, but the esc's beeps are so quiet you had to really listen carefully.

Result Happy dance number.... short lived... Enter problem number two.

Problem number 2 - Receiver continued to so no thro error, and when testing transmitter on kk you can see the other controls but would not respond.

Tried-binding an orange receiver and got no signal for all inputs. Strange that it works on all my planes. So then I moved on to the Spectrum 8000 satellite receiver....and after another 1.5 hours of surfing threads... enter happy dance number 2.

Fix- 8000 satellite receiver requires the satellite chip attached as well when binding. Receiver will not won't work stand alone.

So now everything works. Plagued my wife with the sound of a giant mosquito while she was watching tv.. haha. She made me tack it to the basement where the quad would start do a forwards flip on take off. So back in the internet and found you need to have the CW props on motor 1 and 3. So once I figured that out and got the colours matched up front and back it was go time.

Managed to hover the thing for one battery with-out any crashes and bouncing it off the basement ceiling.

So pleased and can't wait to have more flites. No I just need to put all my planes back together that I gutted to get this quad figure out.

All in all I guess this quad growing pains with more to come I assume. Only wish HK had some sort of build guide or more specific build hints and tips with there kit..

Oh well what does not crash only makes us more cocky...

thanks again and I'm sure you will hear from me soon...
 

Jamblor

Member
Glad to hear it worked out! Once you get past the learning curve of quads they are a lot of fun, especially the mini quads. I've crashed mine multiple times and have only ever broken props.

Speaking of flying, anywhere interesting to fly around where you are? Or even Guelph? I'm in Mississauga and am pretty much restricted to parks, not a lot of interesting terrain.
 

Just add foam

Junior Member
Hey Victor,

Been working on tuning the quad today... So excited as I feel it is really locked in now, but I bet an experienced quad guy might say different.

As for terrain we have a great location specially if your FPV. In Elora we have the Gorge, which is the grand river that runs through Fergus and Elora which is surrounded by 75 ft cliff walls, and a waterfall just off downtown. Awesome and would be an amazing place to fly. Some amazing views from train trusses that go over the river. The river is easily accessible buy trails and car. You can easily park and walk in minutes to some really sweet spots.

As Fergus and Elora are rural towns you could find lots of places to fly uninterrupted.
 

Just add foam

Junior Member
So a quick update. I have read tons and set up the KK board to the best of my ability and tweaked a few setting and having no experience with quads and after about 16 batteries of flight time I can fly it quite nicely facing away from me and some what in control facing forwards.

I have been practicing from a hover flying away from me and then turning it and flying facing forwards, that is quite tricky for me. I think my basement is getting a little small for me now, but it is still fun.

Over all impressions of the hk 250 racing quad is it can be tricky to build with zero experience, but with research patients and some help it can be done, and I think makes a good starter quad.

As for the frame and props it holds up quite well. I have been bouncing off concrete and steel poles and it has help up quite well. Mind you the props need to be changes and on has a split blade, but it still flies. I will have to replace them when I make it to the hobby store next,

So my question is how do I know I have it tuned correctly...I think it is okay as you can tell I can fly it. Is there a way I can confirm it is tuned okay or do I have to find a quad guy to fly it to be 100% sure.

Also based on what I have been telling you should I venture out side to continue my learning how to fly or is there some more skills to master inside. I just have concerns about crashing in the snow.

Is quad flying more for the none snowy weather due to the exposed components and I should maybe go back to planes over the winter months.... Oh ya for the record Canada does not get snow 12 months of the year.. haha.

Any advise would be helpful.. as I love this little quad and want to strap some FPV gear on it as soon as I can flight it better.
 

HawkMan

Senior Member
If it feels right to you, you have it right. As you get more and more experienced you might start to think "I wish it did this faster" or something, then you tweak it some more :)
 

Craftydan

Hostage Taker of Quads
Staff member
Moderator
Mentor
Congrats JAF!

Depends on how big your indoors are, but you'll likely need to trade experience for airspace to tune. I've flown *EXACTLY* once in snow (In Georgia! I KNOW!) and after landing in the crust of snow you'd probably laugh at, it did get everywhere, but I could blow it out easy without problem. Probably not a big deal, but If you're worried, I'd pick up a container of Liquid Electrical Tape, and coat the PDB, kk2 board and use it to seal the ends of the ESC shrink covers. the motors are naturally tollerant of water, and the battery should be fine, so long as you don't dip it in a puddle.

Get it out into open space, and ** with the self-level off ** get her into a hover 3-6' off the ground. give her a push to the left and manage the throttle to keep her from sinking. let her go a short distance then pull her back right rapidly and let her move back . . . and repeat. that's the motion you'll be testing, here's what to look for:

- increase the roll P gain by 10 untill it starts to shimmy a bit after you center the stick, then back off P by 5.
- once the P gain is set, increase the I gain until she'll hold the roll angle when you release the sticks without drifting off angle, and stop when it's good enough. If she starts ossilating slowly, you've gone farther than she'll take, so back off by 5 until that stops.

- double check the same behavior in pitch and if you like it, call it good, otherwise you'll have to unlink roll/pitch and run the tuning for pitch seperatly.

- When you're happy with the PI gains on roll pitch, you can run the same check with yaw -- yaw hard left/right, increasing P, looking for any snapback . . . then check to make sure she's not drifting in yaw -- boost I if she does.

- finally . . . turn on self level and run the P gain up and down to see what you're happiest with. higher the P, the less responsive she'll be and the faster she'll snap back to level. lower the P the more responsive she is and the slower she'll lean back to level. This is a personal taste setting.

That should tune her up and make her fly happy :)
 

joshuabardwell

Senior Member
Mentor
- increase the roll P gain by 10 untill it starts to shimmy a bit after you center the stick, then back off P by 5.
- once the P gain is set, increase the I gain until she'll hold the roll angle when you release the sticks without drifting off angle, and stop when it's good enough. If she starts ossilating slowly, you've gone farther than she'll take, so back off by 5 until that stops.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't P and I gains inter-linked in that raising I decreases the effect of P somewhat? I always thought one was supposed to tune P and I back and forth. Do P first, then I, then go back and see if you can raise P a little bit more.