More crazy homebrew FC experiments

[jipp]

jhitesma - thank you for the thread. this topic is what i find so fascinating about multi-rotors to be honest.. how the control boards can do what they can do. i will have to take a video of my first flight with a quad after i have built it ( right now im learning on a blade nano qx and flight simulators ). so i can compare after a year of flying like you did.
well i have learn quite a bit about quads guts from this post ( also am stealing the parachute chord idea, that is one thing that bugs me open wires etc.. OCD I guess about little stuff like that.. also i think it makes sense to protect wires too.. especially if you live where every plant and animal is out to bite, sting, or stab you. im in Apache junction, az. not sure why it is not showing up under my nick name.. o well. ). im glad i read it even tho its pretty much all advance topics.. i still understood most of the concepts etc. did take me back to my college years tho for a few bad seconds but then i just laughed and moved on.

after seeing your quad crash etc. and you live in desert like I do. you have sand/rocks. i have rocks/rocks/dirt-sand. lol. so i guess 250ish size quad will be the right size for my first quad. i was thinking bigger would be better as i want to be able to do fpv, pack a camera for aerial photography etc.. but im starting to see a trend.. and i will end up with more than one air frame.. and it seems building teh quad first, is what most do.. must be a reason. was considering a tri-copter first.

anyhow, thank you. i will have to look into this flight board.. i was considering a naze32 like the video FT just did.. but i like what iv seen in your videos and your impressions of this.. so i will have to start doing some comparisons between the naz32 and the openflight.

also one last thing.. half way people started to talk about boom material.. has anyone consider bamboo? its stronger than steel in tension, and lighter too. i used it in building custom longbows where light and stiff ( what you want in a frame ) is the name of the game for a high performance archery longbow. we use vertical grain bamboo flooring. you call it actionboo and you can charge 40% more.. its natures carbon fiber. LOL.. i have a bunch in my shop still will have to try it i guess.

may not be healthy enough to run wood tools for long period of time but i can spend a little while at the table saw, or band saw if need be
rock on.
chris.

p.s
it was planes that got me interested in trying to get into the hobbie.. but i think multi-copters are gonna be the thing that gets most of my time. especially where i live. its perfect for such flying. more so than airplanes but hey i have enough room for a park flyer if need be thankfully i do not live in the city.

 

[jhitesma]

jhitesma - thank you for the thread. this topic is what i find so fascinating about multi-rotors to be honest.. how the control boards can do what they can do. i will have to take a video of my first flight with a quad after i have built it ( right now im learning on a blade nano qx and flight simulators ). so i can compare after a year of flying like you did.

Glad to hear you and so many others are enjoying this along with me! I have a hard time believing it was just October of 2013 when I started building my first quad - it seems like so much longer ago I've learned and done so much, thanks in no small part to the support of this amazing community!

I never thought I'd be flying at the level I'm flying at after such a short period let alone building at this level or having to make hard decisions like which of my quads to fly on any given day

well i have learn quite a bit about quads guts from this post ( also am stealing the parachute chord idea, that is one thing that bugs me open wires etc.. OCD I guess about little stuff like that.. also i think it makes sense to protect wires too.. especially if you live where every plant and animal is out to bite, sting, or stab you. im in Apache junction, az. not sure why it is not showing up under my nick name.. o well. ). im glad i read it even tho its pretty much all advance topics.. i still understood most of the concepts etc. did take me back to my college years tho for a few bad seconds but then i just laughed and moved on.

We're also both sporting extra hardware in our legs (both left leg as well IIRC) from motorcycle accidents. Though my slow speed bad luck run in with a suburban coming out of a blind alley who didn't think a stop sign applied to him was nothing compared to your experience!

Protecting wires helps, but my biggest issue is sand and dust. There's just no good way to keep it out. Taking off and landing in the bed of my truck, or bringing along a piece of carpet as a landing pat is the best I've come up with so far...but one crash and I've got dust in places I can never get it out of

after seeing your quad crash etc. and you live in desert like I do. you have sand/rocks. i have rocks/rocks/dirt-sand. lol. so i guess 250ish size quad will be the right size for my first quad. i was thinking bigger would be better as i want to be able to do fpv, pack a camera for aerial photography etc.. but im starting to see a trend.. and i will end up with more than one air frame.. and it seems building teh quad first, is what most do.. must be a reason. was considering a tri-copter first.

Yep, we're just a few hours apart, I'm down here south of CA and east of Mexico in Yuma (Crazy how that geography works out!) but we have family in Mesa and have gone exploring up in your neck of the woods in the past. Next time we're up that way I may send you a message.

I think the size really depends most on how you want to fly. The mini's are great because of how durable they are which makes fast aggressive proximity flying possible without breaking too many parts too often. But larger quads are more stable and are better for cinematic quality video. If you're wanting to do some fast fun flying then small is the way to go - but if you want nice "tripod in the sky" style video then bigger has some major advantages. Everything in this hobby is about tradeoffs and compromises so figuring out what your goals are before digging in is key to achieving as many of them as you can!

anyhow, thank you. i will have to look into this flight board.. i was considering a naze32 like the video FT just did.. but i like what iv seen in your videos and your impressions of this.. so i will have to start doing some comparisons between the naz32 and the openflight.

To clarify Tau is a fork from OpenFlight but has changed quite a bit. I'm not a fan of OpenFlight and had initially ignored Tau because of that. I wish I hadn't. Tau is basically OpenFlight without all the political hijinks that scared me away from it and with some serious high end devs contributing to it's future.

naze32 is great for LOS acro flying and basic FPV - but if you want to get into anything with GPS assist or altitude hold and such - Naze32 is just too limited. The acro boards are great but if you're considering a full Naze I'd suggest considering something else instead.

also one last thing.. half way people started to talk about boom material.. has anyone consider bamboo? its stronger than steel in tension, and lighter too. i used it in building custom longbows where light and stiff ( what you want in a frame ) is the name of the game for a high performance archery longbow. we use vertical grain bamboo flooring. you call it actionboo and you can charge 40% more.. its natures carbon fiber. LOL.. i have a bunch in my shop still will have to try it i guess.

I've actually considered Bamboo but don't have any to try. I'd love to see how that goes. The big issue I can think of is just the consistency - but with the kind you've got that shouldn't be an issue. I look forward to seeing some experiments!

it was planes that got me interested in trying to get into the hobbie.. but i think multi-copters are gonna be the thing that gets most of my time. especially where i live. its perfect for such flying. more so than airplanes but hey i have enough room for a park flyer if need be thankfully i do not live in the city.

Yep, I find myself flying my quads a lot more than my fixed wings because there are just more places I can fly them!

 

[jipp]

Glad to hear you and so many others are enjoying this along with me! I have a hard time believing it was just October of 2013 when I started building my first quad - it seems like so much longer ago I've learned and done so much, thanks in no small part to the support of this amazing community!

I never thought I'd be flying at the level I'm flying at after such a short period let alone building at this level or having to make hard decisions like which of my quads to fly on any given day



We're also both sporting extra hardware in our legs (both left leg as well IIRC) from motorcycle accidents. Though my slow speed bad luck run in with a suburban coming out of a blind alley who didn't think a stop sign applied to him was nothing compared to your experience!



Protecting wires helps, but my biggest issue is sand and dust. There's just no good way to keep it out. Taking off and landing in the bed of my truck, or bringing along a piece of carpet as a landing pat is the best I've come up with so far...but one crash and I've got dust in places I can never get it out of



Yep, we're just a few hours apart, I'm down here south of CA and east of Mexico in Yuma (Crazy how that geography works out!) but we have family in Mesa and have gone exploring up in your neck of the woods in the past. Next time we're up that way I may send you a message.

I think the size really depends most on how you want to fly. The mini's are great because of how durable they are which makes fast aggressive proximity flying possible without breaking too many parts too often. But larger quads are more stable and are better for cinematic quality video. If you're wanting to do some fast fun flying then small is the way to go - but if you want nice "tripod in the sky" style video then bigger has some major advantages. Everything in this hobby is about tradeoffs and compromises so figuring out what your goals are before digging in is key to achieving as many of them as you can!



To clarify Tau is a fork from OpenFlight but has changed quite a bit. I'm not a fan of OpenFlight and had initially ignored Tau because of that. I wish I hadn't. Tau is basically OpenFlight without all the political hijinks that scared me away from it and with some serious high end devs contributing to it's future.

naze32 is great for LOS acro flying and basic FPV - but if you want to get into anything with GPS assist or altitude hold and such - Naze32 is just too limited. The acro boards are great but if you're considering a full Naze I'd suggest considering something else instead.



I've actually considered Bamboo but don't have any to try. I'd love to see how that goes. The big issue I can think of is just the consistency - but with the kind you've got that shouldn't be an issue. I look forward to seeing some experiments!



Yep, I find myself flying my quads a lot more than my fixed wings because there are just more places I can fly them!

hey, i hear ya on sporting extra hardware.. no matter how it gets there.. its not meant to be there as far as im concern. LOL.

i did not even think of dust being the main problems.. but im sure that is something i would of learn in a hurry. LOL.
yeah we are not to far apart. yet the terrain we stomp on is quite different yet the same. odd how it can be so different yet the same in a short space. yeah mesa is just down the road fro me. they build the apache longbow for the military i guess about 20 minutes from my place.. i live near the foot of the superstitions and the apaches like to do a shake down run I guess as they have a game of hide and seek often in my front view. its pretty cool to watch..

yeah, i do not like politics so i can see why it would put some off especially someone who wants to contribute to the project besides just using it.

and it sounds like its already what i want. i like the idea of hovering etc. i do not see my self going any further than a gopro i guess and FPV for now.. i do not ever seeing me strap a expensive camera on a multi copter just because i could not afford such. lol.. moboius or used go pro or a clone of the go pro about as good as ill go for now.
which will be plenty to learn the basics of aerial photography so i guess to a answer your question.. its a little of both..
so im thinking 350 would be about as big as ill need to go for my journey for now.. after i learn the basics of filming, learning to edit etc.. i want to get some cool shots of the desert and our land scape.. its so pretty especially in certain lighting.. some days i look out my front yard and the whole thing just looks red like you were on mars. i cant wait to get that on film.. iv not seen anyone capture that yet.. does not happen a lot but when the dust? is just right.. it truly is like being on mars..


i hope i learn to fly as quick as you.. i hope all this time im putting in with the flight simulator and the blade nano qx will speed up my learning curve. ( i do wish there were more multi-copters in the simulator.. heck i even practice on helis now. i can say im getting a little better.. when i first tried to fly a copter i could not.. but now i can.. so i guess the simulator is good for building muscle memory and get the basics down. no mater how accurate they are to flying the real thing.. a good tool anyhow.. even tho i do think there is a market for a better quad simulator. i downloaded the beta one in the sim section of the forum to see if they are going in the direction i think were it would be beneficial or more arcade. ) i will say i have good hand to eye coordination tho.. so maybe noodling around on the guitar will help with the rc pilot skills. lol.

ill be sure to post my projects when is start them.. i find its a great way to learn.. plus others who see mistakes generally speak up which makes things go a little smoother..

so yeah man. we will have to fly sometime.. i can not garentee how i feel from day to day is my only problem i guess. some days i can not get out of bed. LOL

just thought if i start recording my quad flights.. ill be able to put some of this recording gear to use. hah. i use mixcraft 6 pro for my guitar recording stuff. i think it can do video too. but i do not know jack about video etc other than i know what i like to see. but like you i see a year of going to quad school for me.
will be funny to look back and think how far i will have come.. heh.. im getting ahead of my self now.. so ill just keep learning and see what happens.

rock on my friend,.
chris.

 

[ExperimentalRC]

This might have been mentioned already, and I really dont feel like going through 21 pages to see if this was mentioned, but have you heard of brainfpv? Lookign at the specificationsI think it has everything on your wish list: stm32f4, 64Mbit flash, ms5611 baro, 3 serial ports, and runs taulabs firmware. It also has and OSD. FT just did a podcast with them.

 

[jhitesma]

This might have been mentioned already, and I really dont feel like going through 21 pages to see if this was mentioned, but have you heard of brainfpv? Lookign at the specificationsI think it has everything on your wish list: stm32f4, 64Mbit flash, ms5611 baro, 3 serial ports, and runs taulabs firmware. It also has and OSD. FT just did a podcast with them.

Yep, I was watching the development of the Brain before I decided to give Tau a try and even started a thread on here to let people know about it when it was released.

The one thing it doesn't have is a price I can afford Which isn't really a complaint as much as a statement of fact. IMHO it's a very fair price for it is - it's just a tiny bit out of my comfort zone financially. That said - I am saving my pennies for one to go on my Twitchity hex project!

Oh - there is one other thing it doesn't have that I'd like an integrated RF system like Sparky2. That's the one thing I'm really dying for and have been wanting to build myself almost since I started on this quad quest. The latest stuff Peabody has been teasing with Sparky2 with integrated videoTX and 440mhz TXCVR for telemetry and control on an board that includes mounts for mini brushed motors...that has me really excited about a micro scale FPV setup

 

[jhitesma]

And....this project is now unfortunately on hold for at least a few days

The past 24 hours have not been very good for my multis: http://forum.flitetest.com/showthread.php?16188-Some-Days

For those who didn't read that and aren't up for reading though the woes of my other two quads here's what happened - along with more details about what exactly caused the issue.

I've been having USB issues with this discoveryF4 board on linux. The Discovery F4 development board that I'm using comes with 2 USB ports. A mini port that's part of the integrated ST-Link debugger on the "top" end, and a micro USB port on the bottom that can even be used for USB-OTG with the right application code on the F4 chip. Out of the box the ST-Link port is wired to power the board, but the other USB port is only wired for data from the F4, it's power goes to pin PA9 but is otherwise unused. So when I connect the board for programming or setup and don't want the flight battery connected (so I don't have any accidents if I arm it for example) I have to use two USB cords - one for power and one for data.

Not a huge deal, a bit clumsy but workable. Still it's kind of bugged me.

The bigger problem is that when I do power it off the flight battery it refuses to connect on Linux. I can only connect by using the two USB ports. So last night I decided to try and figure out why as I can't test oneshot right now since I have to calibrate my ESC's in oneshot mode (so hooking them to a RX isn't an option and even if it was it's an option I don't care for) and I can't do that without connecting the quad to the GCS while powered off the flight battery so the ESC's have power. I can't use the windows GCS because the GCS version has to match the firmware version and I'm using a custom build to add oneshot. Oneshot was added to "next" which gets nightly "official" windows binaries, but it was just added yesterday and for some reason the nightly build system only made Linux packages, no windows version. I don't have the dev tools setup on windows to build the windows GCS and I'm really not in a hurry to try to as it's a bigger pain than building on Linux - plus this windows computer is low on space and slow. So getting USB to connect with the battery connected on Linux seems like my best bet.

I looked into the linux logs...and found that I'm getting an error -71 followed by an error -72 then a mix of error 71 and 72 and finally an error 75 when the linux USB subsystem tries to enumerate the device (enumeration is basically the computer and the USB device deciding how to talk to each other.) Searching for those errors didn't find much. The suggestions were mostly to try a different cable or port - except this works fine on the same cables and same ports on windows and on the same linux machine when using USB for power instead of my flight pack. Hmmm. A bit more digging suggested that it's because the USB hardware is going into fault protection mode due to too much current being drawn from the port. But that doesn't make much sense since I'm powered by the battery not by the USB port so there shouldn't be ANY current draw off the port.

But hearing about that got me wondering if maybe there was something about the power wiring on the Discovery F4 I wasn't aware of that could be causing this. So I started looking though the DiscoveryF4 manual. That's when I discovered that the lower micro port is wired to PA9. Hey I thought...if that's the case I should be able to jumper PA9 to VDD and power the board off the same USB cable I use for data! Sweet! Grabbed a jumper wire, hooked it up...and...no power to the board Bummer. What was odd though was there seemed to be a tiny bit of solder on pin PA9 which would indicate I had used it for something at some point...and it did look familiar....

Then I realized I had misread the board and that was actually pin PB9 I was using - the pin that's used for PPM input. Doh. Didn't think anything of it at first, found PA9 - moved my jumper...and...the board powered up! Alright, data and power off one wire!

Still didn't solve my connection issues though so back to the drawing board. Except now I'm not getting any signal from my RX....oh yeah...PB9...PPM input...oops. Hooking 5v right to that probably wasn't a bright idea.

Not sure if that may have fried the arduino I use for my homebrew RX, or maybe the input pin on the DiscoveryF4. Swapped RX's with my FPV250...and....still no luck on the Knuckle, but the FPV250 worked fine with the homebrew RX.

So it looks like my RX is ok...but I fired pin PB9 on the DiscoveryF4.

I could still use a serial input mode - but I don't have any RX's on hand capable of that. Or I could use PWM input...but with PWM input you can't currently use oneshot (and may not be able to ever) because oneshot requires a hardware timer and so does reading PWM and there are only so many to go around. Nuts. I could get it flying again with PWM...but I won't be able to test oneshot.

So...now I get to look into whether I can move PPM input to a different pin that I didn't fry...or I have to order a new board. A new board is only $15 plus $3.50 S&H and would be here before the end of the week. I might even be able to afford it this week. But I think I'll take a look at the code to see if I can move the pin first.

Which means this quad won't be flying for a few days and my oneshot testing is on hold for a bit

 

[jhitesma]

Well, turns out the old bank account is in better shape than I thought...wife gave me approval to get a spare Discovery board

But...I started looking into what it would take to move PPM to another pin...don't think it would be that hard at first glance...

And then I noticed...PB9 isn't actually the PPM input pin. PB8 is. So either I double mixed up last night and ran that 5v to PB8 instead of PA9 or PB9 - which is certainly a possiblity. Or...maybe something else is wrong. I did upgrade the firmware with a new build last night as well...all my settings look sane...but it is giving me a configuration error. Though that config error seems to be about no RX detected.

Well, we'll see. I'll take a look at moving PPM to a different pin and see if I can get this guy in the air again...if not...well....at least I'll have a spare Discovery board now for more experiments...which is a pretty cool thing because these are VERY cool development boards and having it stuck on my quad has left me kind of wishing I could play with it for other things

 

[jhitesma]

Did a bit more digging last night...and found that apparently all of my input configurations were gone. Well, that explains things.

Tried reloading my saved config...didn't help. Looked at the saved config and noticed that for some reason it didn't include most of my actual settings. Unfortunately I didn't notice that until after I wiped all the settings on the board because my changes to the input settings didn't seem to be actually saving.

So I'm back at square one on setup. Which is now mostly done...except for that input setup. Which requires me to have the radio working...which means I need the controller hooked to the computer while the quad is powered off it's flight pack...which I still can't do in Linux and I can't use the windows GCS since the UAVObjects that have changed and don't match are...the input ones! Argh.

Fingers crossed that the windows build hits Jenkins today since I'm making no headway figuring out this USB crash on Linux.

 

[HawkMan]

Can't you power the receiver from an ESC on another port while it's connected to the controller ? though I suppose the receiver would send power back to the controller as well...

 

[jhitesma]

Don't have BEC wires on any of the other ESC's and don't really want to tear them apart to add one. Plus I've run into issues in the past doing that (though the Blue Series ESC's I'm currently using are more reliable than the F-20's in this regard) because of slight voltage differences between the BEC's.

When I ran a homebrewed MW on this frame I used one BEC for the arduino/sensors, one for the GPS, one for the RX, and one for the BT module. That worked fine with the mega2560 and the BS ESC's. When I switched to F20 ESC's I had to change to only using one BEC or nothing could communicate. And the STM32 seems pickier about voltages than the ARM 2560 on the arduino mega it seems as when I had everything running off separate BEC's none of it would communicate reliably (even with the Blue's instead of the F20's) - powering it all off the one ESC it all talks fine and happy.

 

[Balu]

Jason, please get some sleep.

 

[jhitesma]

Sleep is overrated

Still no luck with oneshot...but I did find an older uavobjects backup that was more complete - so working from that I've got it back up and running again in normal mode at least.

I tried using the windows GCS to do the calibration ... but didn't have any luck, the ESC's never responded. So either blheli isn't liking Tau's version of oneshot...or there's something else wrong with oneshot it seems. There may be an issue with oneshot and PPM input as I mentioned earlier so that's what I'm looking into next - they may both be trying to use the same timer which could explain the issues I'm seeing...

 

[Tritium]

I visit an old folks home every Sunday afternoon. From my observations there is PLENTY of time to sleep when old and feeble. Don't waste youth on sleep!

Thurmond

 

[Balu]

"youth"... =)

@Jhitesma how stable is your GCS running? I'm having so many crashes on OSX it's not even funny...

 

[jhitesma]

I'm still "Young" for a few more weeks, that left digit in my age doesn't tick over for the 4th time until the first week of March

GCS is perfectly stable for me on Windows and Linux. The only exception is when I plug in my flight battery while connected in Linux - that crashes GCS every time. But that's due to the issues I'm having with Ubuntu's USB stack not playing nice with the Discovery board.

Last night I setup a second notebook with Ubuntu and tried on there - same problems with the board not enumerating with the USB stack giving an error "71" when I plug it in while powered by battery. Works fine if powered off USB...but refuses to work when powered by the battery. I thought it may have been a hardware issue with the USB on the notebook I was using but it looks like it's a software issue with Ubuntu's USB stack now.

 

[jipp]

hi, sorry to hear about your miss hap. i had to spend the night in the hospital, doctors have sent me home now so im ready to continuing my reading. and of course the wifi in the hospital sucked i could not connect 75 percent of the time. lol. and of course i got rid of TV a few years back. i just use the internet for that now.. and from what i saw on the boob tube iv not missed much.....

i did have some more time to think about what i wanted in a quad/tri ( with the help of drugs compliment of the doctors via IV, of course i had to get some of them evil antibiotic stuff was couht early tho.. so im taking horse pills now to continue my treatment. id perrfer the iv, horse pills suck. lol. ( bone infection has come back for the 3rd time.. problem with a bone infection, once you get one, you can get it back anytime.. so yeah, keep your femurs in side of your flesh.. that will help keep dirt and stuff out of your internal body system. lol ).. and really its a stable, slowish gopro.mobious camera plat form that can carry FPS. with that said. i am thinking i want landing gear, camera gimbal for the small camera. so i think a 550 is the right size and im pretty sure the board FT sells in there store will be a good base to build off of. ill have to figure out legs and stuff my self but this way i can support the forum.. and start my build win.win for us all next month. .. now the million dollar question is how big can you go before you need to add extra motors. good luck on getting your files working again.
chris.

 

[jhitesma]

hi, sorry to hear about your miss hap. i had to spend the night in the hospital, doctors have sent me home now so im ready to continuing my reading. and of course the wifi in the hospital sucked i could not connect 75 percent of the time. lol. and of course i got rid of TV a few years back. i just use the internet for that now.. and from what i saw on the boob tube iv not missed much.....

Well I did get the board flying again last night. But when I went to do an autotune I realized I had my roll channel reversed still. Before I could land I bumped into the back of my truck...and snapped a boom Oh well, just cheap pine so no big deal to replace...but I like to paint them nice first so that takes a bit of extra time

Sorry to hear your hospital has horrible Wifi, ours has probably the best connection in town. When our daughter was born I was so impressed by it I actually thought about bringing DVD's of photos from home to upload because I was able to upload about 100 full rez images in the time it took me to upload one on my home connection

I also ditched dish/cable about 7 years ago and the few times I've watched TV since I haven't been able to get through 20 minutes of it without being glad I gave it up

camera. so i think a 550 is the right size and im pretty sure the board FT sells in there store will be a good base to build off of. ill have to figure out legs and stuff my self but this way i can support the forum.. and start my build win.win for us all next month. .. now the million dollar question is how big can you go before you need to add extra motors. good luck on getting your files working again.
chris.

That sounds like a good plan...except...the one big issue with building a bigger setup like that is more things break when you crash. I started with a Syma X1 which didn't give me much experience at all since it was all auto-level. But gave me a taste and got me interested. When I initially built my knuckle it was my first time flying a "real" quad and I tried to resist trying out auto level at first to force myself to learn rate mode. But the first few weeks with it I almost never made it though a full battery pack before breaking a boom. Got real good at replacing them! But that was with a "smaller" 370 sized setup. With a big 550 you'll probably be breaking things even more often. Your starter quad has given you a better taste of fullsize flight than mine did...but you may still want to scale up as you go.

If you start with an electrohub you could start with shorter arms and leave off the big landing gear and gimbal for your first flights to save weight - and shorter arms have less leverage so less breakage. Then when you get better you can add longer arms for more stability bigger heavier landing gear and a gimbal.

Just something to think about.

 

[jipp]

Well I did get the board flying again last night. But when I went to do an autotune I realized I had my roll channel reversed still. Before I could land I bumped into the back of my truck...and snapped a boom Oh well, just cheap pine so no big deal to replace...but I like to paint them nice first so that takes a bit of extra time

Sorry to hear your hospital has horrible Wifi, ours has probably the best connection in town. When our daughter was born I was so impressed by it I actually thought about bringing DVD's of photos from home to upload because I was able to upload about 100 full rez images in the time it took me to upload one on my home connection

I also ditched dish/cable about 7 years ago and the few times I've watched TV since I haven't been able to get through 20 minutes of it without being glad I gave it up



That sounds like a good plan...except...the one big issue with building a bigger setup like that is more things break when you crash. I started with a Syma X1 which didn't give me much experience at all since it was all auto-level. But gave me a taste and got me interested. When I initially built my knuckle it was my first time flying a "real" quad and I tried to resist trying out auto level at first to force myself to learn rate mode. But the first few weeks with it I almost never made it though a full battery pack before breaking a boom. Got real good at replacing them! But that was with a "smaller" 370 sized setup. With a big 550 you'll probably be breaking things even more often. Your starter quad has given you a better taste of fullsize flight than mine did...but you may still want to scale up as you go.

If you start with an electrohub you could start with shorter arms and leave off the big landing gear and gimbal for your first flights to save weight - and shorter arms have less leverage so less breakage. Then when you get better you can add longer arms for more stability bigger heavier landing gear and a gimbal.

Just something to think about.

good afternoon. these drugs they have me on take away any kind of energy i have.. just getting out of bed. laughs.
anyhow, life goes on. and i agree normal the hospitals have great internet, i mean the doctors use that like no tomorrow. it has changed how they practice medicine with a instant reference and doctor friends at hand.. in general this is good.. i do not like some of the uses for the internet the hospital;/doctors use it now a days for too.. but that is life.. ( i do not have a facebook page for the same reasons.. as the old saying.. whatever you say or do on the internet stays or someone will try to make a buck off you.. if you know a few key search parameters to use you can find ones life history good and bad. not like the old days when people specified in such activity's normally retired cops.. private eyes are so 1950s i guess. )


i was thinking about what you said. and i do think you are right. i was thinking larger would be more stable there for less crashes.. however, when you crash you break stuff which i forgot. hah.
while id rather break a boom, than a gimbal, or camera etc. i do have to say the camera, gimbal, fps etc.. will come slow.. not like ill have all that stuff to add at one time. as i wont have the budget; and i have a lot to learn like you mention.. not just flying but setting up the quad, and programming the control board.

so i think i do know where i want to go and i think 550-6 is wil probably be ideal. however, i think you make a avery valid point.. and i should just build a small quad to start. and i can learn as i go. Im also like you in i would want the booms painted too. i like clean instalations.. i hate rats nest.. it really bugs me.. i like neat and tighty. for many reasons this will benifit one especily in a crash.. but to be frank, i just like the looks.. hah, shallow i know but whatever. ill spend the extra few minutes to try and make a clean install.

i have made a effort to fly the little nano quad with high throws and acro mode.. so i hope this will help. in the flight simulators i keep everything has hard as possible.. and i do think the flight physics are better in Phoenix Rc 5. there are only 5 quads available.. compared to real flight 7.5 has a bunch of them.. and when you fly a larger quad i notice you get quite a bit of tipping one direction over another so less stable... which got me to thinking when is 4 motors not good enough.. to me it would seem when you get larger its better to have more motors because it will make the quad more stable..

you have helped me a lot in my quest tho so thank you very much.
also i like the board you are using.. it has the features i think i will want in a larger quad and perfect for slow flying aerial movie machine.. so i will be going with it even for the smaller. so i will keep a eye on the tau project. im assuming you have to flash it to a open pilot board. i think they cost like 40.00 dunno about sensors like gps etc to plug into it yet. ( i need to start a shopping list.. and start a build thread to make sure im going down the right path.. so i will start a build thread soon. i want to read a few build threads to get a better understanding. i found a couple of 250 builds here.. so that is todays reading. )
i noticed the control boards are not real expensive too. i will want GPS too. lots to learn no doubt. heh.
it can seem over whelming. i will say i have noticed a lot of old time RC guys getting back into the hobby just because of quads.. i find that quite interesting.. i wonder what it is.. is its like a helicopter? but cheaper to get started in? or maybe its easier to grasp over a heli im not sure. but hey whatever brings back someone to something they once loved is always a good thing i say.

chris.

speaking of which i found this deal for the open pilot board for 15.00

http://www.banggood.com/OpenPilot-C...lexiport-p-937044.html?p=OY2106728901201408U4

that would be the correct board yeah?

 

[jhitesma]

Tau will run on the open pilot CC3D board....but it's very limited what it can do on that board due to the older hardware.

If you're going to want to do GPS and all that then your best bet for Tau is either the Quanton, Brain, or whenever it comes out Sparky2. Quanton is kind of big though 45mmx45mm and only available from Germany (RTFQ has a version but it's made against the license Quanton was released under and RTFQ's Sparkys use questionable components resulting in sub-par performance so I'd strongly advise against using boards from RTFQ.) Brain looks great and I can't wait to try on - but they're $130 which is why I haven't tried one...yet. Sparky2 will be a bit cheaper than the brain and is a board I'm really excited about...but won't be ready "until it's ready" and given how busy Peabody is who knows how long that will take.

The FlyingF4 like I built in this thread is also a good contender...but it's difficult to build unless you have electronics experience and pretty much unsupported so unless you're willing to do it all yourself isn't a good option.

Which is the one big issue with Tau right now - lack of great hardware choices.

The openPilot CC3D will work - but you won't be able to do GPS modes due to it's lack of memory. You might be able to pull off position hold but that's about it. It can't even do autotune as of the latest official firmware release due to it's lack of memory (though you could load the older release and use it to do autotune, then reload the latest release and bring over the tuning settings as the PID controllers haven't changed internally.)

 

[HawkMan]

Personally I like the big size of the quanton, I don't see why the FC's need to be smaller. also means it can have lots of ports using normal connections pins instead of annoying special mini connectors.