My Quad-copter :o)

[Shadow74]

Okay, so I had the "My Tri-copter" thread and now here is the "My Quad-copter" thread.


The Miniature Aircraft Rotor X 404 was my very first multi-rotor. (although I had flown Josh's tri-copter a number of times previously at our weekly flying night at his dad's house.)

I built and flew the Rotor X 404 with zero problems. A great little quad. I quickly decided that I wanted more stability for filming with my GoPro.......so I set out to design my own frame. One that would handle more wind, and at the same time be way more stable so that I didnt get all the rocking around in my footage, to make the camera appear to just float in the air where ever I wanted it to go.

So this is what I came up with:




this design has so far, been literally everything I have wanted it to be. It flys well, it films well and it is super stable even in some light wind. I could not be more happy.

I posted a bridal video that I did with this quad in a post in the "Best Aerial Videos" section a while back, but here is the link since it pertains to this quad.

Today I am trying to finish an all wood frame indentical to this one......hoping to lighten it, and reduce/dampen any vibrations even more. Also hoping that the wood is more durable in a crash.....after my tri-copter went down, I seen quickly that the metal arms bend and then your thrust angles are no longer correct. So you gotta make new ones. The wooden arms if they dont break in a crash...."should" bounce back.

I will post some pics later today of my new quad frame. (I am mounting motors now)




Cheers!


Eric

 

[ananas1301]

WOW shadow74!

That was probably one of the best videos I have ever seen on a multicopter platform!

Awesome build as well!

My question for now though is, how you get all the vibration away from the camera?! How did you dampen it?

 

[Shadow74]

WOW shadow74!

That was probably one of the best videos I have ever seen on a multicopter platform!

Awesome build as well!

My question for now though is, how you get all the vibration away from the camera?! How did you dampen it?

Hey Anas!

Thanks man! I have worked EXTREMELY hard to finally get that result. Dampening vibrations has been the hard part! I spent the last 9 months designing camera mounts and testing them to see how they work. I have made 72 of them and this mount that I have now is the one that has performed the best with the GoPro. I took it off the quad that is pictured, cuz I painted it and I am fitting it to the new quad. (will post pics soon)


So I started with what most of us all know already and that is that the key to vibrations is first doing everything to reduce them, and second dampening whats left.

...the hardest part is obviously figuring out a way to solve those 2 problems.

Reducing vibs really lies in balancing of props and motors (another thing that most everyone in the multi-rotor dept. already knows.) So first, I bought a magnetic prop balancer and spent hours precision balancing my props. Which made a huge difference. The next thing I found is that the bolt-on aluminum prop hubs are a huge source of vibs because they are rarely straight and true. (which is why I just spent the money to get E-flite park 450's....they have a shaft rather than a bolt-on hub, and also E-flite motors have always been known to run very smooth) So with precision balanced props, and smooth balanced motors with shaft-mount prop collars I have really reduced as much as I could in the way of vibs.


next onto how the frame transfers the vibrations.....

the metal arms with the holes in them are strong, rigid and light.....but vibrations seem to be the greatest with those.

the metal arms without the holes were a bit heavier, but didn't transfer the vibrations down the arms quite as bad.

Wooden arms are obviously not as rigid and flex a little more, but will not transfer vibrations nearly as bad as the metal.


I believe that the reason my camera has no vibrations even on the quad that has the metal arms with holes in them, is because my camera is mounted on a wooden boom arm, so any vibrations that do exist have to travel down the motor arms, through the center section, through foam, to the wooden boom arm that is attached to the bottom of the center section, then out the boom arm to a set of risers (more on the risers in a sec), up the risers through more foam, to an upper boom and finally out the upper boom, through yet more foam, to the camera mount. Any vibrations that the machine has seem to dissipate long before they ever make it through that zig-zag boom assembly.


So, here is the path that led me to figuring it out. I have studied Chinese kung-fu for most of my life, so believe it or not I learned something from there that helped me with this. When punching something, energy and power travels out your arm most efficiently when it is in a straight line with proper bone alignment......when your arm is not in proper alignment (bent at the elbow and/or the shoulder) there is way less power in your punch. Since energy likes to travel in a straight line, and bending the path that energy travels weakens it, I decided to try that same theory with vibrations.

(you can all call me crazy....but I thought it might be worth a shot.....and after 8 months & 71 designs/failures I was honestly willing to try anything at that point)

so I mounted my camera on a boom with a set of wooden risers that have another boom at the top that the camera hangs off the end of. the zig-zag configuration of this design seems to have worked dissolving the existing vibrations. Whallah!!!!!!! smooth vibration-free footage on a semi-rigid mount.

At low speeds some of my other less rigid camera mount designs actually worked okay, but then in a dive, or at higher speeds the camera wouldn't vibrate, but it would shake, which was caused by the wind turbulence from the higher speed. So I ended up back to the drawing board to create a mount that worked at high and low speeds.

Okay......hope that helps some. Will post pics here as soon as the new frame is finished and the camera is mounted.

Cheers!


Eric

 

[colorex]

You are an amazing rocket scientist!

 

[Shadow74]

You are an amazing rocket scientist!

HA! LOL......thanks bro, I do what I can.


Eric

 

[themajik1]

Eric, great work, excellent video.

This is why I want to build a quad as this is awesome for video, and I am sure quite fun to fly.

I will build one of these this spring! Thanks and I can't wait to see your camera mount.

 

[Shadow74]

Eric, great work, excellent video.

This is why I want to build a quad as this is awesome for video, and I am sure quite fun to fly.

I will build one of these this spring! Thanks and I can't wait to see your camera mount.

Thanks Majik! Will def posts some pics and videos of it flying etc. soon as my new one is in the air.

They really do fly well, make sure you post about your build to show us.

 

[themajik1]

Thanks Majik! Will def posts some pics and videos of it flying etc. soon as my new one is in the air.

They really do fly well, make sure you post about your build to show us.

I sure will! Again it will be in the spring, there are some other things I have on my plate right now, but I will show what I come up with even if its a clone of what you have (or close)!!!

 

[Burg]

Hi Eric,
Fantastic how you explained the fix for the vibs.
Hope to see the pics soon.
Keep up the good work !
Burg.

 

[Shadow74]

Hi Eric,
Fantastic how you explained the fix for the vibs.
Hope to see the pics soon.
Keep up the good work !
Burg.

thanks man!

here is a pic of the new frame with the motors mounted. I am working on mounting the esc's, the board, and the wiring today. shouldn't be long now.

Eric

 

[ananas1301]

Thanks for that long description of how you got your vibrations away

One little further que I would appreciate is a picture of your mount, because it was quite hard really getting what you mean the mount. I got the idea but nothin really in my head.

 

[Shadow74]

Thanks for that long description of how you got your vibrations away

One little further que I would appreciate is a picture of your mount, because it was quite hard really getting what you mean the mount. I got the idea but nothin really in my head.

Hey Anas!


I will def post pics of the new quad-copter with the mount attached. Just gotta finish the paint job The description will make more sense once you see the pics. talk to ya soon.

Eric

 

[Trinom]

You are speaking about paint job. What kind? Do you use colors for car painting, sprays or stickers?

 

[Shadow74]

You are speaking about paint job. What kind? Do you use colors for car painting, sprays or stickers?

Hey Trinom,


Nothing to special really, I just wanted to make it look a little better since the whole thing is made from wood. So I just went out and bought a can of charcoal gray spray paint to give it a little color.

almost dry....cant wait to finish assembly!

Eric

 

[Shadow74]

here's some pics of what I got done so far. got the props on and balanced, landing gear, and the board is flashed and installed. tomorrow the camera mount should be dry enough to mount. I will also start the wiring & installing the LED's.

 

[themajik1]

Looks great so far. I need to bring my quality up on my builds a lot as compared to this. Very nice and cannot wait to see the progression .

Thanks for keeping us all updated!

 

[Shadow74]

Looks great so far. I need to bring my quality up on my builds a lot as compared to this. Very nice and cannot wait to see the progression .

Thanks for keeping us all updated!

Thanks Majik!


As you can prolly tell, I am super excited about multi-rotors (especially quads since that is what I have been flying the most) and I am super thankful to have an awesome group of people to talk with about them, share ideas with etc.

Good times!

more updates tomorrow as I get some more done. then onto the maiden, which I will have my wife film so I can post video of it.

Eric

 

[themajik1]

I don't have the time or the cash to build a quad right now and I am all excited about it to.

It is great to have a place like this that we can share our hobby. You are a lucky guy to have a wife that will do that, and be able to hang with the guys at FT and be actively involved in such a great site.

 

[voipmonkey]

i am currently in the process of building a quad and a tri (hooked is not the word). i have also produced some cad drawings for quad based on your images which i can post if anyone is interested.
great resource this site and some very interesting conversations, glad i am now a part of it all
keep the good stuff coming.

 

[voipmonkey]

Shadow. what props you running on the eflite motors?