Help! Howdy. Help with thrust vectored steering and other noob silly questions

[Unextraterrestrial]

Hello everyone. I'm not really new to the hobby just kind of new to actually piecing something together from scratch and not salvaged components. I've got a thing for micro flyers and tiny electronics in general and at the moment thrust vectoring is my favorite. Usually I cut up little drones and glue them back onto chuck gliders. I'm pretty much at an impasse on what components to use as far as a micro controller to up my game per se in this little venture. Here's a photo of my current favorite home built I call the 'Blue Moose' she rides like a soup kitchen but handles like a bistro. It's time for a rebuild and I wanted some thoughts. I appreciate any feedback and hope it's a pleasure to be here. Please forgive me if my terminology is incorrect I'm here to learn

 

[Hondo76251]

Welcome! Ive done a fair bit of that myself.. still do on occasion (still have a parts drawer of crashed drone stuff)

I'd say next step is to get a transmitter you can use on all your models if you haven't already... lots of options, i use spektrum myself.

Here's one I built. The first version was nearly identical to yours in function, kept the old drone board and transmitter. Now it has a micro 4 channel receiver with a built in ESC (motor speed contoller) to run the 8mm drone motors and micro servos for ailerons, elevator, and rudder...

 

[Unextraterrestrial]

Hello Hondo. Thank you for the reply. I enjoyed your build video! Could you recommend an esc and micro receiver for thrust vectored steering? I've not found much information as far as programming a controller and receiver for just the two channels forgoing ailerons and rudder. My reaction time isn't the greatest so these little low and slow front yard living room flyers bring me great joy. I'd like to recreate my current set up with off the shelf parts instead of little broken drone guts so basically I assume I just need the esc, micro receiver and battery along with a decent controller as you mentioned if I were to reuse the current motors which are fresher than the rest of this build. Not sure if anyone can tell from the picture but these little foam wings start to droop and lose integrity after a few crashes in the park. For me the build process is slightly more fun than finishing and flying

 

[Hondo76251]

With my Spektrum equipment there would be two ways to do it I can think of. You can put mixes (like differential thrust) into the controller and use something cheap like that micro receiver from banggood that I used on that comet. I've got one like that (no video yet) that uses only elevator and differential thrust for control. The other way would be to use one of the more expensive programmable receivers like a AR6335 and put the mixes into it rather than your transmitter.

https://www.horizonhobby.com/SPMAR6...MIsLuQ7saE4wIVk8JkCh3MAAgfEAQYASABEgIZN_D_BwE

The advantage to using that receiver is the AS3x stabilization. It can be set up to make even small twitchy planes fly quite well, I've had good luck using them.

Unless you're building a glider, it's pretty hard to go with only 2 channels. It can be done but 3 channel is probably going to fly much better (up/down - left/right - throttle)

 

[Unextraterrestrial]

Thank you again for another reply and informative response. I'll have to do some more research on the stabilization feature you mentioned and I have to admit much of this is Greek to me at the moment. Please forgive my ignorance and if my project is found to be silly. Here's a photo of a model that some here are familiar with from bang good that has a few decent reviews on youtube. I'm trying to build this using one of these little blue gliders I just like the looks of and they function well. Is this something you would consider more of a 2 channel "glider" build and would you say it'd be in my better interest to perhaps acquire this and rehome the components to the other airframe? Sorry I failed to mention I will be going down to twin motors instead of four on the moose. The small drone motors fit perfectly into a cut up ink pen tube after a sleeve of heat shrink is applied for a friction fit making it very easy to replace

 

[Hondo76251]

I had one like this

I recently found it in my local hobby store, sans electronics, for about $12...

I'm going to do something quite similar to what were talking about but I'm adding elevator. While they are fun to fly I often find myself wishing I could pull out of a dive without adding more power... (hard for my brain to add throttle when I see my plane driving to the ground! Lol)

You can do it (with or without adding the elevator) with a micro banggood receiver (i also like to use LEMON RX micro similar to BG one only no esc) and a pair of micro brushed escs

Don't get the banggood brushed micro esc. I had them in my last attempt and they did not work. After some research I found I wasn't the only one that had trouble. .. I've ordered some new ones from aliexpress that look promising.

I'll have a video on it whenever my parts arrive (shouldn't be long now...)

 

[Unextraterrestrial]

Very nice. I'm quite familiar with gliders like this as far as cobbling electronics together and getting them to fly somewhat. Guess I failed to also mention my goal is make this as small as possible which I believe I may have already accomplished by using this airframe that I got for 5 at the big hobby center, the smaller store here had the model you've shown for 4 bucks, 14 inch wingspan I believe? Thank you again for the responses. Sorry if I come off a bit over zealous and lord knows I like to talk

 

[Hondo76251]

Doesn't get much smaller than this! Lol

https://m.aliexpress.com/item/32821...VFMRkCh221AIHEAQYASABEgIVPvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds



https://m.banggood.com/2_4G-4CH-Mic...MIqYOAjd-E4wIVF6vsCh3P0AbfEAQYASABEgKGU_D_BwE

 

[Unextraterrestrial]

Fantastic! Looks like a great fit and so much cleaner looking. Here's a few shots of the current set up and the new unmodified frame. The orange plane has major stability issues with the wing cut outs. Going to try and reinforce with carbon strips but I've made a replacement wing before out of foam board that functioned passably

 

[Unextraterrestrial]

Ok not sure if I should start a new thread for this but picked few of these up at dollar tree moments ago. Feels like it might have potential

 

[Hondo76251]

I'm sure there's lots of threads, but here's a recent one a few of us have been posting these finds on...

https://forum.flitetest.com/index.p...nd-those-10-walmart-gliders-these-days.58249/

 

[Unextraterrestrial]

Appreciate it!