Ultra budget quad build.

[jhitesma]

Nice BNV, I hope you still know how to fly fixed wing.

It's only been a month or two since I had a fixed wing in the air. Though that didn't go very well. My FT Racer only made one very short flight due to an issue with the NTM motor in my "beef" pod. And it took enough damage that I'm still debating whether to try and repair it or completely rebuild it. (Two broken servos and one aileron ripped off entirely.)

My regular versa has seen some action lately...but it's nose is getting a bit too soft from my "landings". I also just put the electronics and FPV gear on it...but decided I'd rather have a nice new BN for FPV.

Only problem with retrieving the quad....I just realized I was so excited when he called that I didn't pay enough attention to which RV Park he's in. The one I suspect the quad landed in is west of the park I was flying at and called Riverside, but there's also a park just north of where I was on the other side of the Colorado river and it's called Rivers Edge. Good thing I got his phone number so I can call and confirm before I had over. Oh man...just realized I was so excited I forgot to even ask his name!

 

[Mustang7302]

Glad you lucked into your quad getting found and them calling you!

 

[cranialrectosis]

Great news!

 

[jhitesma]

It's in better shape than I expected!





Not even a broken prop! (Though the prop on the motor that came loose apparently got bent as I can see a white spot near the root of one blade.)

Interesting that it appears to have knocked a motor off before loosing power based on the wires being all twisted up.

Also interesting is where I found it...almost directly north of where I took off. Where I would have expected to find it if I hadn't seen it come back across the river and then head west. After I lost track of it it must have veered north and then come back east and hit the tree over this guys RV where it sat until the wind knocked it down today.

My new A-spec nanotech is toast. Not very puffed but it's at 0v so I don't think it's even worth trying to revive even in a safe container.

I put a fresh pack on it and confirmed it's all still working. Radio connected no issues and I was able to arm it and all four motors spun just fine.

Going to have to build a whole new frame though. Both inner pieces are broken (the last original piece has finally broken!) and the rear boom is broken so with 3 out of 4 pieces broken I figure may as well just start fresh.

Still in shock that it came home! The guy who found it loved it. I offered him a reward but he wouldn't hear of it. He just wants me to call him before I go flying again so he can see it in action

 

[cranialrectosis]

Soooooo, whatcha gonna build with the parts?

 

[jhitesma]

Soooooo, whatcha gonna build with the parts?

With this little damage I plan on a "simple" rebuild. Just build a new frame and move all the bits over - maybe move that mag sensor finally....

 

[FinalGlideAus]

One word mate.... AWESOME!!!!!

 

[e_lm_70]

I'm cheap. Really really cheap.

...

So before my parts even arrived I had ordered off ebay:
1 - BMP085 baro sensor breakout board - $2.95 shipped (Still waiting on delivery, by mail from Hong Kong...I'm not holding my breath.)
1 - HMC5883L 3 axis magnetometer compass - $2.31 shipped (Still waiting as well...but like the baro I'm not in a hurry since it's not needed and is just for me to experiment with after I have this thing flying.)
1 - Arduino Pro Mini - $4.98 shipped (Figured for <$5 it would be nice to have on hand because I don't really want to devote my mega to this...though the more I read about MultiWii the more I start to think about picking up another Mega and sticking with the Mega since it can also run MegaPirateNG and ArduPilot giving me even more options down the road. But the Pro Mini will be nice to keep the weight as low as possible on the knuckle quad I figure and the price is right.)

...

Nice job ... I though I was the "only one" doing DIY control boards ... sort of joking ... but there are very few people doing DIY control board, even if it is extremely simply to be done.

Here my control board on a micro/mini copter
http://youtu.be/GlGoMTldq5I
Plus I have some DIY simple multiwii boards doing airplane stabilization and autolevel ... these cost just 6$ to be done ,, just a proMini + a 6050 module.

I still have to make my own DIY frame ... but on the other side ... with electronic and firmware I'm more comfortable.

I made some DIY TX and RX module (both 2.4G and 433Mhz) ... a DIY RX/TX cost from 5$ to 10$ based on the typed ... with part easily available on eBay

And now I'm also experimenting DIY Naze32 ... I build up my Naze32 Rev4 equivalent with 14$ parts from eBay.

On top there are mainly interesting project for DIY full transmitter both in traditional double stick format .. and as well in the new accelerometer based transmitter ...

So .. the only thing left out from DIY are just motors and ESC ... and the LiPo battery

 

[jhitesma]

Thanks, and glad to see you posting here! I saw your project to put MW on the KK over on rcgroups and can't wait to see where it goes!

I'm working on using my pro mini for airplane stabilization right now - but I'm just using my old WMP/Nunchuck sensors since that's what I had on hand. If I like it then I may swap to a MPU6050 since I know how much better that did on my quad. The one thing I haven't been able to find is much info about how PID tuning works in airplane mode. But I'm still a few days away from having it ready to test fly so I've got time to research more.

I'm working on some DIY RF modules myself too. I picked up one of the modules used in the openLRS setups a few months back but haven't had time to do anything with it yet. I also just ordered a few of the A7105 modules to try and build a couple of FlySky RX's with PPM output - still waiting on the slow boat from China on those

I'd love to see what you've done on a DIY Naze - any links for more details? I've been thinking about attempting something similar but don't know enough about the STM32 to dig in yet.

I have tackled rewinding my motors but that's as far as I've gotten on DIY motors

ESC's I still think there's a lot of room for improvement. I know things like the ultra and kiss ESC's are happening...but they're still not available. I think an open source kick ass ESC design is way overdue...but beyond my abilities

 

[e_lm_70]

I see you are a real DIY "hardcode" ... like very few people that I did met online.

Here is a list of link with my DIY projects.
DIY Naza32 -> http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2154329
DIY OpenLRSng -> http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2114859
ELMvibra -> http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1913379
DIY MultiWii -> http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1814924

I'm close to maiden my 14$ DIY Naze32 ... on the bench all is looking perfectly fine.

PS: Rewind motor ... yes is more a hack then a DIY ... since you still need a fully functional motor upfront.
DIY ESC ... actually there was a KIT with open source sold by a german guy ages ago ... and if I got it right, SimonK is just an evolution of the firmware made by this german guy. ... DIY ESC require too much custom PCB and too much soldering .. so it does not look a cheap way to get ESC ... re-flash ESC is a different story

 

[jhitesma]

I see you are a real DIY "hardcode" ... like very few people that I did met online.

We seem to be a drying breed I meet more of us online than in person though

Here is a list of link with my DIY projects.
DIY Naza32 -> http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2154329
DIY OpenLRSng -> http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2114859
ELMvibra -> http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1913379
DIY MultiWii -> http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1814924

Nice, I'll be doing some reading! Hope I can get my network issues at home figured out tonight so I can catch up on my reading. My backroom computer suddenly stopped talking to the internet yesterday. No clue what happened, no change to the computer or the network but suddenly it only has access to the local network. My network is a mess...but it works. At first it appears the problem was I left a DHCP server running on the bridge I use to put my plotter on my network...disabling that and renewing the DHCP leases on the backroom computer brought it back for a bit...but then it just stopped routing to the internet again The backroom computer connects to a hacked WRTG45 router that acts as a repeater bridge for my main router in the living room. But I can still connect to that router with other devices and get to the net so it doesn't seem to be the router and seems to be localized to that computer. It's a 10 year old computer still running Vista....but it's the one I spend the most time on due to it's location...might be time to finally bite the bullet and upgrade it....

I'm close to maiden my 14$ DIY Naze32 ... on the bench all is looking perfectly fine.

I'm really interested to see more about this one. Going to go check out your links ASAP! I keep thinking about making my own board for the 2560 with openLRS integrated and sensors remote mounted....but I'd really rather move to Naze32 than keep hacking on the 8 bit stuff. So a hacked Naze is really appealing to me.

PS: Rewind motor ... yes is more a hack then a DIY ... since you still need a fully functional motor upfront.
DIY ESC ... actually there was a KIT with open source sold by a german guy ages ago ... and if I got it right, SimonK is just an evolution of the firmware made by this german guy. ... DIY ESC require too much custom PCB and too much soldering .. so it does not look a cheap way to get ESC ... re-flash ESC is a different story

[/quote]

Yeah, rewinding is more hacking than DIY...but I still haven't finished the forge I started building a few years ago and I have few metal working tools so full DIY motors aren't really in my immediate future Never say never though!

ESC's so far really are still very much evolutionary and there's no economic benefit to doing them DIY....but the stuff the KISS/Ultra guys are doing seems a lot more revolutionary and is a complete re-think about ESC's that's long overdue. I just can't shake this feeling that within the next 4-5 years we'll see a revolution in brushless ESC's almost as major as the change from brushed to brushless motors was. Just one of those premonitions I get from time to time....

 

[e_lm_70]

...
ESC's so far really are still very much evolutionary and there's no economic benefit to doing them DIY....but the stuff the KISS/Ultra guys are doing seems a lot more revolutionary and is a complete re-think about ESC's that's long overdue. I just can't shake this feeling that within the next 4-5 years we'll see a revolution in brushless ESC's almost as major as the change from brushed to brushless motors was. Just one of those premonitions I get from time to time....

Time will tell.

I believe the Brushless technology it is mature ... I don't expect any revolution happening.

The only possibly advantage would be in partial throttle modulation, now the sinusoid waves are messed up with "high frequencies spikes" ...in theory a proper analogue wave should be used for feed the motor, in this way it could be achieved the highest efficiency ... still produce precise analogue wave is something complicated in the size of the RC ESC, and it will cost way more. This is far what I did read around, what the good industrial controller do for the big brushless motors.

Brushless motor and controller are out since ages ... it is for me a mature technology. Like most of the technology present in the RC world ... RC use technology once they get cheap ... so after the did mature somewhere else.

 

[jhitesma]

Even mature technologies can sometimes face revolutions when one crackpot comes up with a crazy idea Not saying it's going to happen for sure...but I've just got a strong feeling that something is going to happen in the next few years to prove the tech isn't as mature as we thought it was.

As for my quad (I may be sidetracking my other thread about your KK2/MW project but I'm going to try and get this one back on track now )....dug in on the repairs tonight. Frame is rebuilt...not quite as nice as it was originally. Something came out crooked on one of the center beams. The motors are still in a darn near perfect square though so I'm not going to loose sleep over it. Just looks kind of funny sitting there.

But ran into a minor issue with one of my new motors. It wasn't turning very smoothly Decided I better take a closer look at it. Popped the circlip and pulled the bell off...and thankfully it was just a small chip of tree branch in there. Once it was removed the motor spun nice and happy again. But getting it back together was a lot harder than the 24g motors I'm used to - much tighter tolerances on the assembly. And getting a look inside one of these "Angel" motors I liked what I saw. The wires were actually epoxied where the come off the stator which I didn't expect. It wasn't a great epoxy job, only 2 of the 3 wires were actually attached, but it wasn't a big mess either and since the third is shrink wrapped to the other two and they were epoxied the 3rd wire didn't seem to be able to move at all either. I was actually thinking about adding a bit of epoxy to reinforce those wires but now I know I can save my effort. The windings on these motors are also much cleaner than the windings on the various HK motors I've seen.

Still waiting on the paint to dry on one frame piece, and my daughter suddenly started throwing up after going to bed...so I wasn't able to fully restore it tonight. But should have it ready by tomorrow.

Hardest part is going to be trusting it to test fly again after that flyaway. I'm not sure if I trust my openLRS anymore now since I suspect it was the cause. Half tempted to tie a tether to one of my landing gear just in case for the first return to flight test flight

 

[FinalGlideAus]

I watched a YouTube video where ibcrazy was testing LRS systems and found a flaw with one which may have happened to you. This happened on another brand but was also testing open LRS as well but I can't remember if it happened to that brand as well. He tested for reconnection from a blackout which was fine but then accidentally found this issue. Instead of cutting the power he slowly dropped it and slowly at about 2.1v got a brownout. The kicker was when he slowly increased voltage it powered up again but locked out all control.

 

[FinalGlideAus]

Watch from about the 14 minute mark
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBjld2VCo7E

May not be the problem but you mentioning the Open LRS got me thinking

 

[FinalGlideAus]

Open LRS at about 24minutes

 

[e_lm_70]

Update the firmware to OpenLRSng ... it may solve the problem

 

[jhitesma]

I am on ng - but I haven't updated it in about two months. I see in the changelog a few updates that could help including one for a "lockup bug".

And I do remember in the big LRS shootout that stoneblue did (partly with FT) that issue with regaining control after a loss of connection.

I do know the bat on my TX was a bit lower than I normally fly with...not low enough to set off my alarm but lower than usual. Still high enough it shouldn't have been an issue (I've flown successfully with the low bat alarm going off)...but...makes me wonder.

I also keep thinking about the way the RX doesn't always power up after switching to the F20 ESC's. I wonder if maybe there's a bad BEC on the ESC I'm using to power the RX. When I finish re-assembly I'm going to try using a different ESC to power the RX. I may even break down and finally wire up a proper harness so I can run it all off one BEC....

Though I also see that the 20a blue's are back in stock so I'm tempted to pick one up to replace the one with the broken oscillator since they were lighter and I didn't have this odd issue with my RX sometimes not getting power.

But - if the RX had lost power then the MW failsafe should have kicked in and the quad should have all but fallen from the sky. So I'm not convinced it was a brownout or power loss...

Once it's back together I'm going to do some serious testing on my failsafes.....

 

[e_lm_70]

Are you running servos on you "bird" ... a brown out without servo is almost impossible.

And if you are using servos, you should have two different 5v power line with a control board.
One for control board + RX, and one for the servos.

The OpenLRS RX should have a brownout when the 5v BEC goes below 3.3v ... quite a comfortable level.

I'm only bench testing my OpenLRSng stuff .. mainly checking my DIY prototypes ... but soon I plan to place one in a bird and give it a real go .... your doubt about one of the basic feature of these OpenLRSng RX ... may me put in lower priority the OpenLRSng DIY stuffs from my side ... so far I'm very happy with FrSky gears ... and I really don't have much reason for change these gears ...

 

[jhitesma]

Nope, no servos.

I'm using all 4 BEC's on my ESC's though because I've been too lazy to wire up a proper harness:

1) powers the arduino mega
2) powers the GPS
3) powers the openLRS
4) Powers my OSD when doing FPV

I was really wary of the openLRS when I first got it...but then I got it setup in PPM mode and fell in love with only having one wire for all my RX->FC signals and having it for telemetry so I haven't gone back to 2.4 since. I don't need it for the range...but I love it for the hackability, the beacon function, the telemetry passthrough....

I've been flying it since early January and haven't had any control issues. I have had a few issues with telemetry but those could be due to the 5/3.3v mismatch, the datarate mismatch and most likely the damaged connector on my bluetooth module that's the last part of my telemetry setup. My telemetry runs passthrough on the openLRSng with one of the serial ports on my mega board going to the openLRSng RX - then on my TX I cut a window in the case to expose the header and connect my BT module to it - then just use my phone to run the EZIO MW app. But my bluetooth took some damage when it was on the copter and I've been meaning to repair/replace it. Since I don't depend on telemetry for anything it's been low priority. The only serious issue I've had with telmetry is for some reason I don't get accurate battery voltage - it looks good in my OSD and it looks good when I connect over USB...but the app on my phone always shows 12.2v so I suspect it's an issue with the app. But I haven't looked deep enough into the MW serial protocol to know if it could just be the voltage packet isn't getting through for some reason. As complex as my telemetry setup is there are plenty of points for possible failure which is why I don't rely on it.

I am kind of wondering if my crash a few weeks ago doing FPV where I almost lost the quad was due to whatever caused the problem this past weekend. But I'm 99% sure the problem there was I just forgot to keep an eye on my battery and by the time I realized it was getting low I didn't have the power to maintain altitude and get home.

Overall I've been really happy with the openLRS but it's the only thing I can think of that may have caused the flyaway. Which doesn't rule out all the things I haven't thought of - but no one else has offered any of those yet