Back from the dead!
I got tired of waiting on parts, in particular a 4in1 ESC from RTFQ. I am aware of the poor service reputation they have, but up until now this would be my first poor experience with them out of probably 6-7 previous orders.
So I went ahead and ordered some ZTW Spider 12A ESC's to complete this build because I was tired of it sitting on the bench. I also had to add a couple 5V regulators and PDB to complete the power setup.
But I digress, so to start off the wiring, I decided to un-case my Futaba R2106GF Receiver and remove all the header pins that the servo connectors normally attach to in an effort to save some room. Below you can see the power and ground wires soldered directly to the RX
Unfortunately this turned into a much harder task than I intended, and on the signal side of the board, two of the solder pads lifted and tore off. If you look closely at the gray and yellow signal wires (for channels 4/5) you'll notice they don't appear to be attached to a solder pad. I ended up soldering these directly to the "via" holes in the PC Board, and I checked them for continuity with my multi-meter. After everything checked out with the meter (I also double checked in cleanflight and all my channels seem to work), I covered all the connections in 5min epoxy to ensure they stay.
Decided to go with the Lumenier 4-Power PDB, simply because it was available and cheap:
I also chose it because I figured it would package well:
Installed a Pololu 500mA 5V regulator on the PDB to power the Naze32 and the Futaba RX
To prevent power issues like brownouts, I opted to use a separate Pololu 1A 5V regulator inline with the yaw servo:
I had to reprint the tail section, and the new design incorporates a large pocket for the ESC and 5V regulator for the servo:
At this point I sort of gave up trying to document the rest of the wiring. It became a really tedious project trying to place the other two ESC's but I did come up with a mounting solution that will suffice. Trying to place the ESC's for the arms was difficult because I needed enough room for the motor wires to loop a little bit so that the arms could still fold. In order to do this I ended up designing an extra A-frame style bracket which I heat shrunk the two ESC's to. I also had to remove the large capacitors for the front ESC's and I mounted them remotely so that they wouldn't stick out of the frame.
Below are just a couple pictures to kind of show how the ESC's are nested in the frame:
And here she is ready for some maiden flights:
I didn't get done wiring until late last night so no test flights yet. But I did get everything setup and tested in cleanflight, and I also checked (and corrected) the motor directions, so she is ready to fly. Lastly, I am still waiting on an LC filter to hookup the FPV gear. This was also something I ordered from RTFQ's and have not received, but I went ahead and ordered another one from a different source which will hopefully arrive by the weekend.
If I have to redo this build, I will probably switch to Lumenier 12A ESC's because they have better cap placement and they also have built in BEC's which would have simplified the wiring.
When I have a chance I will have to pull the bottom plate and take a picture of the wiring........it's not my finest work, but I would like to show how I mounted the ESC's and also where I placed the remote mounted caps.
I got tired of waiting on parts, in particular a 4in1 ESC from RTFQ. I am aware of the poor service reputation they have, but up until now this would be my first poor experience with them out of probably 6-7 previous orders.
So I went ahead and ordered some ZTW Spider 12A ESC's to complete this build because I was tired of it sitting on the bench. I also had to add a couple 5V regulators and PDB to complete the power setup.
But I digress, so to start off the wiring, I decided to un-case my Futaba R2106GF Receiver and remove all the header pins that the servo connectors normally attach to in an effort to save some room. Below you can see the power and ground wires soldered directly to the RX
Unfortunately this turned into a much harder task than I intended, and on the signal side of the board, two of the solder pads lifted and tore off. If you look closely at the gray and yellow signal wires (for channels 4/5) you'll notice they don't appear to be attached to a solder pad. I ended up soldering these directly to the "via" holes in the PC Board, and I checked them for continuity with my multi-meter. After everything checked out with the meter (I also double checked in cleanflight and all my channels seem to work), I covered all the connections in 5min epoxy to ensure they stay.
Decided to go with the Lumenier 4-Power PDB, simply because it was available and cheap:
I also chose it because I figured it would package well:
Installed a Pololu 500mA 5V regulator on the PDB to power the Naze32 and the Futaba RX
To prevent power issues like brownouts, I opted to use a separate Pololu 1A 5V regulator inline with the yaw servo:
I had to reprint the tail section, and the new design incorporates a large pocket for the ESC and 5V regulator for the servo:
At this point I sort of gave up trying to document the rest of the wiring. It became a really tedious project trying to place the other two ESC's but I did come up with a mounting solution that will suffice. Trying to place the ESC's for the arms was difficult because I needed enough room for the motor wires to loop a little bit so that the arms could still fold. In order to do this I ended up designing an extra A-frame style bracket which I heat shrunk the two ESC's to. I also had to remove the large capacitors for the front ESC's and I mounted them remotely so that they wouldn't stick out of the frame.
Below are just a couple pictures to kind of show how the ESC's are nested in the frame:
And here she is ready for some maiden flights:
I didn't get done wiring until late last night so no test flights yet. But I did get everything setup and tested in cleanflight, and I also checked (and corrected) the motor directions, so she is ready to fly. Lastly, I am still waiting on an LC filter to hookup the FPV gear. This was also something I ordered from RTFQ's and have not received, but I went ahead and ordered another one from a different source which will hopefully arrive by the weekend.
If I have to redo this build, I will probably switch to Lumenier 12A ESC's because they have better cap placement and they also have built in BEC's which would have simplified the wiring.
When I have a chance I will have to pull the bottom plate and take a picture of the wiring........it's not my finest work, but I would like to show how I mounted the ESC's and also where I placed the remote mounted caps.