Ultra budget quad build.

[e_lm_70]

I've kept quiet up until now but since we're now giving our opinions I'll chime in. I fly acro because I enjoy it and because it is a challenge. It also has made me a far better pilot than anyone who stays in horizon mode will ever be. If all these things ever did was hover but only flipped when you pushed a button I would have never gotten into the hobby already because that is REALLY boring. I need goals and challenges to keep my interest. You should try acro my friend, you might improve your flying rather than spending most of the time on the soldering bench. My opinion is that far too many people on this forum (more than 90%) fly in an automated mode like Horizon and rely on Baro etc and can't fly acro. If you're flying a gimbal for proper vdeography then one of those modes is best. If you're flying slow hover proximity then one of those modes is best. For general flying or fast proximity, acro (rate) mode is far superior. I've stopped counting the number of times I see video that is jerky because the thumbs a constantly fighting the FC to hold position. All these features have their place but they have their limitations too.

The only quad that qualify as acro is this one: http://curtisyoungblood.com/V2/products/quadcopters/stingray-500
Still, it is the control board that is flying, not the pilot

People that fly helicopter and 3D airplane, have no assistance (for Helicopter the only assistance is the Gyro for the tail (unless somebody is "cheating" with some additional help) .. that means .. 3D airplane are the real human operated that are 100% controlled by Pilots ... in fact it is way more interesting and beautiful to watch a good pilot doing 3D acro on airplane.

I have all type of flying RC ... including Ornithopters in different size ... if I want to fly acro ... I take a 3D airplane.

Flip upside down for a fraction of second, with the electronic support is not a challenge for me.

I was flying multicopter since KK1.0 ... without autolevel ... still ... I never had much interest on flipping quads. Especially when every cheap toy does it by clicking 1 button

Anyhow ... anybody is free to have his way to use the multicopter ... I personally see more mainstream for a multicopter doing video then not to flip around, unless ... you have the real acro copter: Stinger

If you wish to put in the effort of making your own Naze boards then all the power to you but this is what I see when I look at them. A board that is bulkier, heavier, has wires sticking out and therefore more points of failure and has lower QC than a bought board. All for saving $20. You're not even saving that amount cause you got to buy your own parts so lets sat $10. Seriously!?! In the time you could have worked all this out and written about it on here you could have gone out and worked a little harder and longer and earned ten times that amount. If you go by my above statements about innovating the hobby none of that is happening here. All is happening is a copy and a lower quality one at that. If you wish to take on this as a challenge then you have my respect. I really do admire what Jhitesma does on this thread and watch what with interest what he is able to achieve next. Just remember that most people don't have the skills or interest to do what you are saying, especially when the dollar savings are next to bugger all. I'm sure cranial would much rather be out there practicing his acro flying skills and becoming a better pilot.

Seriously ! ? !

Doing DIY, and pioneering DIY is a way to learn more how things do work in the RC world.
Save few cent is a side effect ... 20$ per control board (actually is much more), if does not sound much ... but if you have 10 multicopter .. it is quite some money.

I don't think I need to add anything else.

 

[e_lm_70]

"There will never be a computer smarted than the good old mark1 human brain.."
Huh, I have the markII.

For me the turning point was when Deep Blue did beat the world master of chess

Still ... I got a mixed feeling ... my believe that playing good chess is for smart people did collapse and still I don't believe that some electric boards can be smarter then a human been

It's not that I see no value to gps, baro etc in flight. It's that I don't need them for the flying I am doing today and I can't add anything new to a board that hasn't already been done. I was thinking I would love a way to have a chip that played Flight of the Valkerie or an Ahhhoooogah horn on demand but I have other things I am interested in right now

Ok ... I see we agree that everybody has the right to use the multi copter as they please.

I would suggest if you are into acro ... to take a nice 3D plane ... and master your skills on it as well.

I like that Timecop sells the mini boards at Abusemark. It's shrewd and supports the home builder. I am interested in what you are able to do with the ones you ordered and will be following your progress if you post it.

Right, TimeCop is a hacker in first place.
He did not create something from scratch

He did observe a lot what was around, and then he pick up the most easy approach both from HW and SW point of view.

It is smart to maximize the end result with the minimum efforts ... (porting MultiWii to STM32 was not really a big effort, nothing compared to the big effort spent by the community for create MultiWii, that is a multiple year ongoing project)

The Naze 32 port is designed by an acro lover for acro lovers. Y

I'm not so sure TimeCop is an acro lover ...

I have to wonder if one of these boards would make a good replacement on the UBQ.

What us UBQ ?

I have decided to follow jhitesma's advice and buy the modules and modify the Turnigy 9X instead of buying the Taranis. I need to better understand the radio tech and this is my window of opportunity and it's the budget approach.

I would have took Taranis, and sold the Turnigy 9X ...
Only 10 model memory for me it is too little ...
The speaking Taranis is also cool and useful on same time, plus a lot of other advantages

 

[Craftydan]

These flying Cuisinarts are nothing more than controlled whirlling blades of death and abominations the earth hurls from it's surface . . . but with them comes sooo much possibility.

It's a great platform for electronic hackery (FGA, that's a hobby in-and-of itself, it just happens to inclued flight), and for pushing the edges of kenematics (e_lm, 3-D heli's and planes HAVE feedback stability built in . . . mechanically -- ever see one fly with a broken part? all the way to the crash scene . . . ) I think you're both saying the same things with different goals in mind: This corner of the hobby is YOUNG and so many new directions are poping up.

Personally I've been toying with cracking into the multiwii and SimonK 3D ROMS and building one of the uberlight quads that can run inverted . . . but that's going to take a bit of hackery and kenematic finesse . . . and time . . .

Enjoy what you do, appreciate what others do . . . Speaking of which, jhitesma, how's the new board in the quad coming along? gotten a chance to defy gravity with it yet?

 

[FinalGlideAus]

Spot on Crafty, I'm really excited to see how these things will evolve in the next year or two considering the rate they already are!

e Im 70, don't knock the acro until you try it. You may even get hooked like me! I never had an interest until I tried it and now I can't stop.

 

[cranialrectosis]

"What is UBQ", Ultra Budget Quad.

I think we now have reversable ESCs that with the proper rotors can also allow us to fly inverted. Is that correct?

I would think it would be a much simpler build than the Stingray 500 and far less money.

 

[Craftydan]

CR:

http://flyduino.net/HQ-3D-8x45-reversible-CF-reinforced-Propellers-Set-2-CW-und-2-CCW

That is correct.

Seen one of these (with custom control board/ESCs) at Nall, and it flew just as happy and snappy upside down as right side up. the transition wasn't nearly as smooth as the stingray, but it was shocking how short the transition could be . . . and the sound of the motors spinning down and back up was kinda freaky . . .

 

[cranialrectosis]

Last night I replaced the FlySky module with the FrSky module on my Turnigy 9x and replaced the 9x receiver with the little 4 channel FrSky. I test flew my little hex this morning. VERY nice.

All other copters are now 'broken' until I replace the 9X receivers. The transformation on my WQ String Theory copter is astounding. The new receiver not only does not need the 1.5" standoffs to strap to, it fits below the FCB and only requires 3 wires.

This process did not cost me $180 for the new transmitter. It cost $40 for the transmitter. Plus receivers of course. But I no longer have to buy them from HK.

I do recognize that this is not a true apples to apples comparison as the Turnigy 9X radio doesn't have the same switches/hardware. It works for me today and I had to learn a bunch.

My next steps will be to mod the transmitter firmware and rebuild my copters.

Thanks for the idea, jhitesma.

 

[e_lm_70]

Last night I replaced the FlySky module with the FrSky module on my Turnigy 9x and replaced the 9x receiver with the little 4 channel FrSky. I test flew my little hex this morning. VERY nice.

All other copters are now 'broken' until I replace the 9X receivers. The transformation on my WQ String Theory copter is astounding. The new receiver not only does not need the 1.5" standoffs to strap to, it fits below the FCB and only requires 3 wires.

This process did not cost me $180 for the new transmitter. It cost $40 for the transmitter. Plus receivers of course. But I no longer have to buy them from HK.

I do recognize that this is not a true apples to apples comparison as the Turnigy 9X radio doesn't have the same switches/hardware. It works for me today and I had to learn a bunch.

My next steps will be to mod the transmitter firmware and rebuild my copters.

Thanks for the idea, jhitesma.

Welcome in the Frsky world

Are you going to get FrSky telemetry over hacked up 9x firmware ?

I'm still using most of the time my old Futaba FX-18 with the FrSky DIY Telemetry module + the FD-02 display.

For the basic thing I find the Futaba FX-18 tx still better then Taranis ... the Futaba user interface is way more clean then the mess of OpenTX

 

[cranialrectosis]

Welcome in the Frsky world

Are you going to get FrSky telemetry over hacked up 9x firmware ?

I am going to try.

 

[e_lm_70]

CR:

http://flyduino.net/HQ-3D-8x45-reversible-CF-reinforced-Propellers-Set-2-CW-und-2-CCW.

Interesting these new props ...

Years ago, I was experimenting with reverse ESC in the air (as soft vertical air brake / landing for on of my old EPP wing) ... it did not work so well :black_eyed: ... and was looking a dummy way and not even simple for have a vertical landing with a wing.
Anyhow ... back over 10 years ago, a company name QUARK was making new Brushless ESC, trying to follow the state of art of the time "schulze" ... in that days these ESC had some switchs to allow the configuration of the ESC, including the change from AIR to CAR or BOAT mode ... anyhow ... for CAR you may want to have reverse ... QUARK ESC did implement very bad the CAR mode ... with immediate brake and immediate motor reverse ... but after fixing this, they call this way ... 3D AIR mode (this ESC would have damage in no time and RC CAR gears) ... ... already over 10y ago, we had fast reverse ESC ... something that people looking at the new SimonK 3D may think of innovation ... LOL

 

[Craftydan]

Innovation is doing something new with technologies that already the exist -- transferring technologies into new realms and nitches to do something new.

Car technology refined then plugged into an airframe with a few improvements (higher thrust/weight, lower mass, non-directional props) to make the airframe do something entirely different is innovation . . . not a particularly clever invention, but innovation none the less. I agree, a ROM that cycles the motor backwards efficiently isn't by itself, but it is a part of the whole that is.

Don't get caught up with old enabling technologies being used and miss the wonder happening around you

 

[jhitesma]

Neat to see my thread stay active (if not a bit OT) while I was gone for a week

Just spent a wonderful 5 days unplugged tent camping in Yosemite with my wife and daughter (ok, 3 nights in a tent, bookended by nights in hotels to split up the 11+ hour drive.) I even unplugged enough to put actual film into one of my cameras instead of pulling out one of my digitals - it was glorious

So...no flying for me since my last update. The quad is ready to go and sitting waiting for me...and now our summer heat has set in with 105+ temps on tap for the rest of the summer (maybe a few days in the upper 90's every now and then.) So my flying windows are going to be considerably smaller and limited to early early mornings and just before sunset...even so I'll have to be careful about not overheating my new motors.

As for the debate in my absence. I think everyone is right IMHO there's no wrong way to enjoy your hobby whatever it may happen to be. That's what makes hobbies so much better than jobs For some people a "flying robot" to shoot video with is just what scratches their personal itches - for others a twitchy acro beast on the edge of control does the trick. As long as they're smiling and having a good time I say more power to them both and everyone in between!

I'm all for trying to get people to step out of their comfort zones and try new things to expand their horizons...but that's different than trying to convince someone that their way of enjoying their hobby is more right or wrong than some other way and I'm a little concerned that this discussion seems to be getting a little close to that.

I suppose my goals were always a little unusual with my quad. Yes, low budget was a primary concern...but I was never really interested in trying to do it the absolute cheapest way possible. Rather I was interested in doing it with parts I had on hand for as little expenditure as possible while still meeting my personal goals of being able to experiment with everything from different firmwares to different hardware to various flying modes to flying with and without various levels of automation. I am at heart a hacker and love to tinker above all else and my quad is an expression of that. I don't think I've ever tried to advocate for my way of doing things (at least I haven't intended to) but rather to simply share what I do so that others can learn and share along with me.

I've got a new friend in town (relative of an older friend) who is building his first quad so I'll be helping him with that the next few days - and will probably finally get to try flying something with "real" sunnysky's and a KK board on it to compare to my setup. Still need to find my spare soldering iron and repair my good iron too.

My big itch right now is to get my back bedroom setup in darkroom mode and soup the film I shot to see how I did on my 3 days off grid shooting film in a fully manual camera with no light meter - did I still have what it takes? I suspect I did but I'm dying to confirm it

Standing up here I was both sad that the NPS implemented a ban on aerial photography...and kind of glad because if I had lugged my quad and TX up there (along with my 30lb daughter who got "tired" just 1/4 mile into the hike and wanted to ride on my shoulders the rest of the way) I wouldn't have flown anyway as it was crazy windy.


Saw a shirt on the trip that said "The weight of the world can't keep you down when you're standing on top of it" and I have to say it sure is true

 

[cranialrectosis]

Welcome back, jhitesma. Nice picture!

 

[jhitesma]

Ok, it has OFFICIALLY been too long since I flew.

The new friend I've mentioned stopped by with his quad project tonight so I could help him out. He brought his dad's big honking Sears soldering iron which I used to replace the heating element on mine while talking him through some of the issues he was having with getting his setup and while he used some of my spare servo cables to hook his RX up.

When my wife made it home for her lunch break we ducked outside to give mine a quick demo flight...and I couldn't get it to arm! We had just worked out getting his to arm and heard his sunny sky's fire up for the first time which gave us both a rush. (Turned out a few of the channels on his TX had to be reversed.) So the sudden irony of mine not arming had me chuckling and shaking my head even though I was a little upset at it.

Well...I just sat down now that my daughter is asleep and took a look at time to figure out why it suddenly won't arm...and quickly realized it's because I forgot how to arm! <smacks head> I was giving full down elevator along with full right rudder and it's just full right rudder to arm. Doh!

Oh well, we didn't get as much progress on his as I had hoped either as soldering the new heating element onto my iron proved much more difficult than I had anticipated. I forgot how long it had been since I used a non-temp controlled iron...and the wires on the heating element just did not want to have solder stick to them. Got it done...but I'm thinking I'll order a new iron before I'll replace another heating element the job was so little fun.

We didn't quite get to flashing his kk 2.1.5 board either as we ran out of time for me to make up a 10pin to 6 pin cable for either of our FTDI adapters. I'll get one of those whipped up later tonight or tomorrow and he'll be back Sunday morning when we'll flash him (since I have zero KK experience any suggestions on what to flash would be welcome...he's flown a hubsan before but this is his first real quad. 2212 900kv SunnySky's on a 450 DJI flamewheel deadcat clone frame, 30amp Afro ESC's and a kk 2.1.5)

I also got my first taste of the KK board though I didn't get to fly with it yet. It was smaller than I expected which took me a bit by surprise. I must be older than I realize as I did not enjoy reading that tiny little screen at all

Looking forward to Sunday morning and the chance to see him maiden his. And looking forward to tomorrow morning and the chance to fly mine again for the first time in obviously way too long

 

[jhitesma]

Went out to fly with my friend this morning...my quad was not playing nice. His did quite well!

Mine had a variety of issues. I find I'm suddenly unable to update my PID/Rate setting from the app on my phone. I can read them ok, but I can't seem to write them anymore - it just hangs. I'm guessing this is due to some recent changes in the app aimed at making writing PID's more reliable which isn't happy running through the pass-through telemetry setup I'm using. I tried hooking the bluetooth module straight to my quad instead...and had even less luck, couldn't even get it to connect. So maybe the problem is that connector on my bluetooth that got damaged way back when. Really need to pick up a new bluetooth adapter.

So my hopes of tuning my quad and trying some flips with the new motors was out the window Figured I'd just do some light flying instead - first time having two quads in the air simultaneously! But mine wouldn't arm! What?! Grrr. Adjusted my TX endpoints to bring the signal back up a bit thinking maybe when I adjusted before I pushed it a bit too far....but nope. Then suddenly...it started playing nice - Woo Hoo! Except...every now and then I noticed a little bit of surging from my motors. Still, got it in the air and was having some fun - then suddenly I learned that my failsafe is working as the quad all but fell out of the air

Tried to get it going again and it just didn't want to. So I've still yet to fly a full pack on these new motors.

Though I did eventually figure out what the cause of todays and the past few trips worth of issues. My PPM wire. It broke inside the shrink wrap just past where it connects to the pin. So it's been making interment connection for some time which explains why I've been having some crazy intermittent issues for the past two months or so. Going to switch it to a 90 degree pin which will protect it and put less stress on it and I should be good to go.

We took turns flying my friends quad and tweaking his settings a bit instead. The KK was interesting to fly, definitely a different feel than the MW though part of that is probably also due to the physical differences between our quads. His is a 450mm while mine is a 360mm, he's got 10" props I've got 8". My motors are 2212-6 1400kv's while his are 2212-12 900kv. His is also substantially heavier.

The Yaw on his I found quite frustrating. Even with the stick scaling turned up it feels lethargic to me, I finally understand why people complain about yaw on quads so much Once we got the scaling turned up it was better but it's still very slow to switch from one direction to the other. I'm not sure how much of that is the bigger slower props and heavier quad vs. how much is the KK. Even once we turned it up and he was impressed with how much better the yaw was I still felt it was slow to respond, like there was a half second delay before the board decided that "yes, this guy really does what me to yaw...ok...guess we'll go ahead and try". It didn't feel like it was the inertia of the quad slowing it down...really felt like the control board just wasn't big on wanting to yaw, but I suspect the bigger props and frame played a roll as well.

Mine I can pirouette almost as fast as on my mini heli's, and I love it. In fact he even commented that he can't believe how fast I yaw and how can I possibly keep orientation doing that For me it's easy - I know how fast it turns at full stick and just stop when I want it to stop

Unfortunately it was pretty windy. Windy enough I normally wouldn't bother to fly because I know I'd just be fighting the wind. But we've been trying to get together and he's been wanting me to try his so we flew anyway. I was impressed with how well his holds it's position even in the wind. It wobbles a bit which seemed to be wind related more than vibration related, but when hovering it was a lot more stable than mine.

The KK board definitely feels different than the MW, I'm not sure I like it as much but I'm even more unsure if that's just me being used to the MW and even LESS unsure how much of that is the physical differences rather than the controllers. One of these days it would be fun to swap our controllers...except mine isn't very easily swapped

In self-level the KK seemed to snap back to level much quicker than my MW. I've never had an issue with the MW so I've never tried to tune the self-level but now I'm wondering if I can get it a bit more responsive like that. One of those things I don't really want to say one is better than the other...they're just different. Acro on the MW felt a lot different - again I suspect a lot of that was the physical differences between the quads but the way it reacts to the sticks just feels like it's being processed differently as well. Acro almost felt more like Angle on the MW only without the self level, it didn't feel like a rate mode like the MW acro and Horizon modes.

Look forward to trying his again when I'm not getting knocked around by the wind. And look forward to maybe finally flying mine some more once I get this PPM wire fixed.

 

[Foam Addict]

Nice! I'm waiting for some turnigy 2830s to come into stock so I can rejoin the Multirotor madness.

The KK 2 does have a different feel from multiwii, I guess it isn't me...

 

[Craftydan]

No it isn't just either of you.

MW is full PID, while kk2 is only a PI controller -- eaasier to tune but it shows in performance. When it's well tuned the MW's rate mode is rock solid -- spin at the rate you command at the stick, let go and it stops. The kk2 when well tuned is . . . mushy. You really can feel the advantage the D-gain can give.

Now for angle, the KK2's have either been great or not far from great out of the box (after replacing HK's crap firmware). I've yet to get angle mode tuned to work like an angle mode on MW and it's driving me NUTS!

I can get it to fly dead flat and not respond to the sticks . . . or sloooooowly swish back to level when I let go . . . . or wobble violently . . . but not "hold roll at 1/3 left, the craft tilts left and holds at 20 degrees"

<sigh> Acro is rock solid though and I've gotten used to it . . . but a good angle mode would be nice in case I wanted to hand it to a flying buddy for them to try.

Yaw hasn't given me issue with the kk2, but I fly V-tail, so Yaw has never been a headache. I'm inclined to say it's momentum -- distributed mass makes a big diffrence -- but it's hard to say for sure.

 

[jhitesma]

Yeah angle on the KK felt more "locked in" even on the stock settings than my MW does. But I'm so used to the "lazy" response of the MW's angle it feels a lot more natural to me than the KK's quick response. The MW feels more like a heli to me with a bit of a balancing on top of a ball effect in both acro and angle. The KK feels more like there's obviously a controller between me and the craft.

If I flew KK I could easily see much preferring acro over self-level. On MW the angle mode almost feels more like an assisted KK acro than a true angle. I keep hearing about people saying the hate auto-level because they have to keep fighting it and I never felt that with my MW - I just chalked it up to my inexperience. But today on the KK I felt like self level kept getting in my way and understood what people have meant more clearly. The slow swish back on the MW is easier to just "fly through" and ignore than the KK's "strong hand pushing you back" effect.

I did have my MW feeling a lot more crisp before swapping motors. Since I haven't been able to easily adjust my settings reliably since the motor swap I they don't feel quite as good as I think they can. The extra power is a lot nicer right now but it's not being fully utilized optimally.

Just put a new 90 degree pin on the PPM wire and finally replaced the servo connector with pins jammed into it that was providing my main power for a proper clean set of 90 angle pins - so both iffy connections that have probably caused my recent chain of unhappiness are now properly fixed. Hope the air is a bit calmer this afternoon. Probably going to bring my usbOTG cable to connect my phone since the bluetooth is so unreliable right now.

 

[cranialrectosis]

The anemic yaw is probably a tuning issue or a firmware issue. I am flying two quads with KK2s. One with 1000kv motors and 10" rotors and one with 1450s and 8045 rotors. Both spin well, not like my Bat Bone but still very quickly. Look at your yaw P gains and limits on the KK2 for your issue.

I fly MW, Naze 32 and KK2. Naze 32 is my favorite.

 

[jhitesma]

I did pump the P gains on his yaw up a bit, but didn't notice a significant change from it. The limits were already pretty high. It's the 1.7 lite stevies firmware. Increasing the stick scaling did help - but there's still a noticeable delay on getting it yawing and a really noticeable delay changing yaw from one direction to the other. Roll and pitch are snappier on the KK, but the Yaw is really anemic no matter what we seem to try. On the MW on the other hand the Yaw is really snappy and the yaw and pitch are a bit mushier, still responsive but not that "locked in" feel the KK has. I'd almost say the yaw on the kk and the roll/pitch on the MW feel "analog" while the roll/pitch on the kk and the yaw on the MW feel "digital". We'll see how things go as we both get more time to tweak our settings. Just hard to judge changes when it's as windy as it was today.

Not really saying KK or MW is better - just that there do seem to be noticeable differences and it's easy to see how someone would like one better than the other. Personally there are things about each that I like and a blend of the two would be my favorite if it exists. Still want to try APM....