Ultra budget quad build.

[Foam Addict]

Very nice! I think you might need a bigger battery for LRS though.
BTW a 100 post thread is nothing to sneeze at. Great job on all you've done with the quad and printer!

 

[jhitesma]

I won't be doing any actual long range with it anytime soon Still need to get a video setup - but my Christmas bonus from work should take care of that - just going to be another month or so since I want to add some more funds to the pile to step it up to the Predator instead of the Transporter.

And thanks, but for me 100 posts is nothing. As you may have noticed I tend to be a bit verbose at times I have a reputation as a novelist on some other forums I've been known to frequent for other hobbies I just haven't had much to share about my RC adventures until starting the quad. Now that the floodgates are open...

Sadly despite the nice surprise under the tree today we did not have a very happy Christmas. Yesterday evening my wife got a call that her uncle was in the hospital in a coma with end stage lung cancer so we spent most of the holidays trying to find a way to get her there to be with him as the rest of his family is on the other side of the country. We knew he had been sick but he hadn't shared the fact that he had cancer with anyone There was zero chance of recovery and the hospital was just keeping him on life support until a family member could be there - unfortunately tonight while finalizing plans for my wife to head out there we got news that he passed. Thankfully our daughter is young enough that she's oblivious to what's going on and enjoyed her best Christmas yet. But for us it's been hard to stay cheerful for her. Prayers for my wife and her family are greatly appreciated, things will be a bit disrupted here for us the next week or two.

 

[jhitesma]

Did a little experimentation with the openLRS last night. Managed to get the RX and TX flashed to openLRSng got them to bind and was able to hook up a servo and confirm they're working. So far so good!

Not in a huge hurry get it on the quad yet. Still need to do some antenna improvements. I have a some nice 440 whips that will work well for the TX since this is far from my first time operating on this band - just I've normally used it for FM voice But I'll still have to rig up a pigtail to convert from SMA to BNC to use them. Haven't decided just what I want to do for the RX side yet...I've always enjoyed building 440 antennas and one of the reasons I wanted to go 440 is I have a nice antenna analyzer that covers that band so I'll probably build something - but haven't really fully researched just what kind of antenna I want to go with.

There's actually a good chance that I'll never install the LRS setup on this quad as I'm already starting to make plans for a larger FPV quad...but this is still a good proven test bed - just a bit cramped for adding more gear


My eventual plan is to step up to a setup along these lines:
http://www.multiwii.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=3101&hilit=openlrs

However I didn't notice until I started reading it in detail the other night that he uses two RX modules with one configured as a TX...so to get it working with a TX and RX like I have will take some work. Or just buying another RX. But it's also only using a single frequency right now so I may hold off a bit and see if there's more improvements - though it doesn't look like much progress has been made since May. Still I love the idea of getting rid of a buch of wires between the RX and FC and having full two way telemetry with the BT module mounted to my TX so I can use the GUI from my phone. With the MW nav code looking more and more solid that's something I'd really like to get setup so I can start experimenting with autonomous flight.

Of course I still need to do some tuning on my altitude hold and more testing on my GPS...but with the wind I've been having the past few weeks none of that is happening anytime soon. Heck I haven't even been able to fully trim this thing since getting the upgraded sensors on it because of the wind (wish I had room inside somewhere to do that!)

 

[jhitesma]

Made some more progress with the openLRS. Fixed up my "FTDI" cable and got the configurator running to check how things were setup. All looks pretty good to start with. I've got the TX and RX bound and tested with some servos and it looks like I could just swap it for the setup I'm running now and it should "just work".

But that wouldn't really give me any benefits just yet. With the stock antennas I wouldn't really get very good range. And I don't have telemetry setup yet. The only real benefit I'd get is the built in minimal telemetry that will make the TX beep if it detects dropped packets. Which I guess is better than nothing...but not really worth swapping things around.

The whole "UART" radio thing is still really attractive to me. Using a serial connection instead of PPM between the RX and the FC gets rid of so much wiring and gets me so close to using my phone as a ground station...but it will take a good bit more research before I can get that going.

So next few projects on deck are:

1) Research telemetry options with openTx (will I finally switch over from er9x?)
2) Setup the battery monitor in MW. I'm sure I have the required resistors kicking around just have to dig them up and wire it up. That will give me the kind of telemetry I really want and let me stop using a beeper on the balance lead which is nice...but I always seem to forget to disconnect at the end of flying and would like to get away from....plus with telemetry being able to see live voltages would be nice.
3) I picked up a piezo buzzer today so I can finally wire that up as well and get feedback from the FC other than the built in LED on the arduino which is buried under RX wiring and really hard to see.

To be honest just playing around with openLRS and reading up on I'm getting tempted to download a copy of Eagle and try making myself my own fully custom FC board with integrated RF module...but it's been a long time since I experimented with PCB design so I'd have to start with some simpler projects first to get back up to speed. But I've got a long term goal in mind and lot of ideas I'd love to start implementing....might at least pick up some RFM22B module to experiment with, they're only about $7 shipped on ebay...hook one to my spare arduino promini and see if I can't make my own RX module to start with.

But for the next few weeks I'll probably focus on research. Started building a few more fixed wing models today (FT-Racer and FT-Speedster) so I could take a break from technology for a bit

Also starting plans for a second quad - something with lower kv but higher power motors and bigger props as well as a larger footprint for when I get some FPV gear...that's a bit longer term as well though, I plan on adding FPV to this one first even though I know it's a little small and sporty for really smooth video.

Next project for this quad really does need to be a proper camera mount though. I printed out the plans for Davids mount...but I think I'm going to take his idea with the wires - and just build my own platform....

Too many projects and too little time. Ain't that the story of life!

 

[cranialrectosis]

"Too many projects and too little time. Ain't that the story of life!"

I'm almost surprised you haven't built your own Skittles sorting machine.

 

[jhitesma]

"Too many projects and too little time. Ain't that the story of life!"

I'm almost surprised you haven't built your own Skittles sorting machine.

I did. Her name is Katie and she's the best thing I've ever made


One thing about me. The best way to get me to do something is usually to get me to say I'm not going to do it. Soon as I posted this I did a bit more research and realized that the passthrough telemetry mode on openLRS should do just what I need and let me pass the MSP serial off of my last unused serial port on the mega board to the openLRS and then hook my bluetooth module to the serial on the openLRS tx module...boom. I should be able to have full two way telemetry. I haven't yet tried this since I need to do a bit more research and a bit of re-wiring to make it happen...I also have to figure out if I can change the baud rate on just one serial port on the mega...pretty sure I can just have to figure out how. I also have to modify the TX module case so I can add a connection for the BT module.

So between when I posted that and when I went to bed I got sucked into reading about openLRSng telemetry and wasted a lot of time reading up on openTX/er9x telemetry before realizing I didn't want to feed telemetry to my transmitter I just wanted to get it to the BT module so I could use my phone to interact with it. I also decided to try getting PPM SUM working on the openLRS so it would be easier to wire up. I got close. I figured out how to get into the openLRSng configurator and switch "port 6" to PPM instead of ch5. But for some reason I totally forgot that it had been ch5 and got confused between the numbering of the "ports" and of the labeled channels on the board (Port 1 is actually RSSI and ch1 is on port 2, ch2 on port 3 and so on) being late and me being tired I first tried using the 'ch6' pin and then got more confused and tried using 'ch7'. Add in confusion over which pin on the mega should be used for PPM input....and I went to bed for the night with it close but not hooked to the right pins.

When I woke in the morning my first order of business was to correct a serious design flaw in the orangeRX openLRS TX module:



Seriously HK, you offer a module that says right on it's page it's not plug and play and will require programming - but then don't expose the programming port? Thankfully a few minute with the dremel corrected this oversight. A bit of tape will keep the dirt out when it's not in use. I also exposed the pins on the right which I thought I'd need for telemetry...but then I realized those are the sda/sdl pins for hooking up i2c devices and for telemetry I'll just use the same serial pins I was using for the programming...I think. I haven't fully finished figuring out how I'm going to do telemetry yet.

With that oversight corrected I confirmed that I had the RX module programmed for PPM and realized that it would be on the pin labeled ch5. Switched that over...and after doing a bit of wire swapping to figure out which pin on the mega board was expecting PPM in it was working...but getting crazy values. I had set the RX to 12 channels (I'd like to eventually add a head tracker and I'm already using 8 channels for all my aux/mode switches) and MW wasn't happy with that. I switched it to 8ch and it was working. Full 8 channel with basic telemetry (the TX will beep when packets drop) using just 3 wires! Sweet!

Before:


After:


I still have way more wire length than I need. And despite being smaller and having fewer wires the openLRS rx board is actually heavier (even without the heavy antenna) than the turnigy board with antenna and wires! I blame the SMA connector and the way that the RF module is it's own board piggy backed adding extra weight, though all those pin headers are a big part of it as well I'm sure. But I like the clean 3 wire solution so much better and I can always remove some of the pinheaders if I want:



Finally I used a few zip ties and rubber bands to clean thing up and move the GPS out to the rear boom to get it away from the new radio a bit.



My original plan upon going to sleep last night was to just fly this morning. But I woke up to the windiest day in a while - 15-20mph sustained and 30mph gusts. Ugh. I did do a quick test flight in the front yard and it controlled just fine with the new RF setup. But the wind was just no fun to be out in flying or not so it looks like I may be doing a bit more experimentation with telemetry this afternoon.

Gotta go take down the Christmas tree and do some grocery shopping first though.

Also thinking I may start a thread over in the radios section to discuss openLRS in more detail as I've got a lot I'd like to share and discuss about that which is a bit OT for this thread even if I am using the quad as my testbed.

Really happy with how the wiring on this quad keeps getting simpler and cleaner. Even if I do somewhat miss the back of Dr. Browns Delorean but without a flux capacitor look it had going on

 

[jhitesma]

Well, that turned out easier than I expected! I'll try and get some video later tonight to show it off but I've got a two way telemetry link working over the openLRS!

In fact I was making it more difficult than it needed to be. I got confused between the data rate and the baud rate on the openLRS. Data rate is the speed data is sent over the RF link, but there's a different baud rate between the RX module and the FC and between the TX module and the BT module. Once I realized that the data rate was independent of the baud rate it was a piece of cake!

I just made a two wire jumper to go from my last unused serial port on the MW (though since I don't need BT connected straight to the MW now I actually have another open port available.) RX on MW to TX on openLRS RX module and TX on MW to RX on openLRS RX module. Then made a jumper to hook the bluetooth module up to the serial port on the openLRS TX module - again RX to TX and TX to RX, and +/1 for 3.3v from the openLRS module to power the BT module.

Default settings on the openLRS with 115200 baud and 19600 for data rate and it "just worked".

Only real problem I still have is the funky connection on my BT module. Going to have to remove the connector and hardwire my wires or get a new BT module...maybe both...

For now it's a good proof of concept but I'll have to fix the iffy wire on the BT module before I'd try flying with it.

Kind of feeling like a spectrum hog though with this many RF links! Add in a video link and I'll really be feeling guilty! Of course I could use a FTDI cable and a USB OTG cable to hook the TX to my phone and eliminate the BT link...but where's the fun in that?

Think I may have to whip up an article on this one. It was so simple but I couldn't find anything on the net explaining it which led to me making it needlessly complex!

 

[jhitesma]

Ok, that does it, with telemetry working I've got to get the buzzer installed on my MW and the battery monitor circuit wired up. Once again I left my beeper on a battery - one of my new Zippy 40c 2200's this time. Cells 1&2 got drained down to under 2v and the 3rd was still reading 3.9. Wasn't hooked to anything else - just the beeper. The battery did recover after a careful charge (outside in a cinder block away from anything flamable), a balance and then a balance charge but I know it's damaged and probably lost a lot of capacity

I did the same thing to one of my 500mah 3s packs a month or two ago and it still flies...but doesn't have nearly the capacity it used to.

Looks like I need to order some new batteries. Just not sure if I want to order more 2200's or try a 3000 or two. I've been really impressed by these zippy's for the price and get right around 10 minutes of flight out of them. But with FPV in my near future and the LRS system a bit more capacity may be nice.....

Really can't wait to stop using the beeper, for some reason I always seem to forget about it after my last flight. Thankfully I usually notice when I get home from the flying field and put stuff away. But this time with the GPS mounted out back I had to shift the battery further forward to compensate and it wound up with the battery strap right over the LED display on the beeper so I didn't see it was on and forgot it was still plugged in

 

[jhitesma]

Just got to do a proper test flight with the openLRS and the battery my beeper overdischarged...did great. I didn't fly very far because I didn't have much room but it flew just a well as on my stock 2.4 setup. I even had really good luck with the GPS stuff today and the position hold worked outstanding and the return to home really did return to home! Moving the GPS out onto the boom must have really helped.

And despite having had two cells drop below 2v the pack did well. It beeped on me about a minute earlier than normal...but it was also kind of windy so I was probably working it a bit harder than normal as well. All three cells stayed nicely balanced as well so maybe the damage to this pack will be more along the lines of a shorter overall lifespan than reduced capacity.

 

[cranialrectosis]

I hear good things about the Zippy Compacts.

 

[jhitesma]

I hear good things about the Zippy Compacts.

Yeah I have two of the zippy compact 1500's and have been very happy with them, I get just a few minute less time with them on the quad then I do with the 2200's. The zippy 2200's last longer and seem to have more "punch" than my Turnigy or geforce 2200's...but the Turnigy and GeForce's have all been through some rough landings in my various planes

Based on that I tried the Zippy 40c 2200's - I was wary since they were actually cheaper than the 35c zippy 2200's...but so far they've been my favorite batteries so I was really bummed to over discharge that one.


I did get some photos of the wireless telemetry tonight - working on some video, my wife came down with a stomach virus last night and wasn't able to help me get any and tonight I was trying to fix the bluetooth module (resoldering the connector solved my issues!)

So here's how quick and easy it is to setup wireless telemetry with a multiwii and openLRS:


The two wires sticking up are the serial out from the Arduino board. That header actually has 3 serial ports and the I2C pins on it, the first two unused spots at the top are where the bluetooth used to connect. By default MW treats all the ports the same so you can connect serial devices to any of them. I've setup port2 for my GPS though which is the upper most pair of wires. Below that are my new wires for the telemetry link (I ran out of angled pins and haven't even shrunk the heat shrink yet) and below that are the two wires for the I2C interface that connects my sensors.


On the openLRS RX by default ports 12/13 are RX/TX and are on the header you use to flash firmware to the module. So RX from the arduino goes to TX on the oLRS and RX from the oLRS goes to TX on the arduino.

And that's it for the quad side. No special configuration needed in multi wii, no special configuration needed for openLRS. Just those two wires and you're done!

On the TX side it's equally easy:

You just have to hook RX from the bluetooth module to TX on the oLRS TX module and TX from the bluetooth module to RX on the oLRS module. Add two more wires for ground and +3.3v all of which are right there on the same header you use to flash the firmware again and you're done!

No special configuration is needed here either! Default settings for openLRSng have passthrough telemetry enabled at 19200 baud for the data rate and 115200. There is a potential to loose packets there since the link between the two openLRS modules is slower than the links between them and the MW/BT - but it's buffered and there isn't that much data. I've noticed that things like angle and gps data update about the same over this link as they did with the BT connected straight to the arduino - but that things like mode indicators can lag by a second or two. So I suspect the MW serial protocol is smart enough to send some things with a higher priority...though I've yet to fully investigate it.

I really can't believe just how dirt simple this actually was!

Oh - and tangentially related...I got a package in the mail today with parts from a kickstarter project I backed about a year and a half ago which is just a few days shy of being a year past it's expected delivery date. I had all but written it off at this point and started to think it was never going to actually show up. But there it was in my mailbox today:



It's arduino compatible but designed around a modular bus so simple circuits can be assembled in a plug and play manner with no soldering. But it also includes a good bit of miniaturization. The "cores" which are the heart of an arduino are only about 1" square. I'm really tempted to try and layout a sensor board that uses this bus and would let me make a nice small FC out of it. But while the hardware finally arrived today a year late the specifications are still MIA so for now I can't do much with it unless I want to try and trace the circuits to figure out what pin is where on the bus. I'm still thinking it may be fun to hookup my original wii based sensors and toss this on my Versa as a flight stabilizer....

 

[jhitesma]

Went to add my beeper last night and realized that somehow I got mixed up. I thought MW required a bare piezo - but it actually needs a buzzer So no built in buzzer for me yet.

I did however wire up my voltage divider for the battery monitor finally:


Unfortunately the one wire got warm enough to shrink my shrink wrap (dang, I used to do that all the time but have been really good about avoiding it so far this project) not a huge deal since I covered the whole thing in another layer of shrink. Shoved it into A0 on the board, reflashed with the voltage options set...and I've got voltage in my GUI! Took a bit of adjustment since my resistors weren't quite 51k/33k as specified (within tolerance but they're cheap resistors so there's a good bit of variance) thankfully that doesn't have to be done through flashing but can be tweaked through the GUI.

So now I've got remote voltage monitoring and an alarm set in the GUI on my phone until I can get a proper buzzer to install.

This was a lot quicker and easier than I anticipated...I put it off way too long. Hardest part was digging through one of my bags of resistors to find the right values.

 

[jhitesma]

I got hit with a NASTY 24 hour flu that's been going through my family. My wife got it Sunday night, then Tuesday night we were called from our new years eve party at 11:30 by the sitter saying our daughter was throwing up, and sure enough Wednesday around noon it got a piece of me Feels like I've been out for a week though it went through me so hard.

Before that hit though I had something odd go on with the quad. Tuesday I only had to work a half day, so after work but before I had to go get my daughter I figured I'd try a quick test flight with camera at a local park I've been wanting to try because it has a lot of neat stuff to see around it. Grabbed the camera and realized it had almost no charge left - so let it charge in the truck on the way there...still not very fully charged but hopefully enough to get one flights worth of video.

Got to the park, set everything up, turned on the BT link and in my GUI I was seeing 12.6v....which seemed a bit odd as I thought the pack I had in there was just a hair under 12.6...figured it was a rounding issue but tossed my beeper on for backup just in case since this was also a first test flight with voltage monitoring.

Everything seemed good, quad was balanced with the cam (having the GPS on the back makes balancing the cam up front a bit easier now!) so I took off. And all heck broke loose. Quad was flying horribly and the slightest input was sending it whipping around! It was all I could do to keep from crashing it into anything more damaging than a small sapling. Knocked off a motor but otherwise no apparent damage.

Replaced the zip ties on the motor, decided it must have been a balance issue from the camera and took it off and rebalanced. Got it back up in the air and it was flying...but just didn't feel "right". Was soupy and autolevel mode didn't seem to be autoleveling very well. And noticed that my battery was still reading 12.6 in the GUI even though the beeper was showing it at 11.2 Hmm....

Decided to call it a day.

Got home and did a few test flights in the backyard...and something still felt off. Just wasn't flying well and autolevel wasn't making a darn bit of difference.

But we had a party to get to so I didn't get another chance to touch it until about an hour ago. Hooked it to the PC to try and adjust the batteryscale factor since it was still showing 12.6v....and noticed the PID's were back to default. Then noticed the AUX matrix was clear! My eeprom had been erased! I'm guessing it happened when I first tried to set the batteryscale through the stock GUI. Just reset my AUX matrix and put the PID's back close to where I had them (I forget exactly what they were at and hadn't saved it) and now it's flying great again.

But seriously wondering what caused the eeprom to get cleared. Was it me trying to program something over the telemetry link? Was it setting the vbatscale in the official GUI? Going to have to keep a close eye on this for now....

 

[jhitesma]

Well, that wasn't good.

Something is going a little crazy with my quad.

Came home from work and went to do a little test flight in the yard, thought I'd turn on logging in the android GUI to see how that works. But the quad wouldn't arm. Double checked all the wiring and everything looked ok...but it just didn't seem to be getting signals from my TX. Rebound the TX/RX modules and they seemed to be communicating and I could get serial messages across a the GUI was responding...but no control seemed to getting across.

Brought it back inside and thought I'd check the config on the openLRS - but when I tried to run the config it complained that my openLRSng version was out of date - apparently two new versions were released two and the config program will only talk to the latest release. ok. So I flashed the latest version of openLRSng to both the TX and RX, then reconfigured them for my beacon, failsafe and channel settings....hooked it all back up...and it seemed to work. Passed my bench tests at least!

Took it back outside and everything seemed good. Fired up logging in the GUI again and took off. Nice and stable, hovered over the neighbors front yard and started to turn around...all of a sudden it went bezerk and started shaking like crazy and fell out of the sky. It was only about 15 to 20 feet up but landed right on the knuckle - broke the front boom, shattered an LED, and for the first time cracked an inner boom piece. Wow, hard hit!

Thankfully other than the two booms and the LED no major damage so I can repair it fairly quickly...but this is twice this week that it's done something goofy...I'm starting to think it's due to the serial telemetry link. Once I get it repaired I'll try flying a few flights with telemetry diabled - if it goes back to normal I'll dig back in on debugging the telemetry link - it could be that there's just too much data for the 19.2k data rate and it's causing some issues...but the serial link is supposed to have error detection so it shouldn't be doing anything quite this random.

Also going to try wiping the eeprom on the arduino and reloading. And since I have to pretty much completely tear it down to replace the inner boom may as well do some more cleanup on the wiring.

Not how I expected to spend my evening

 

[xuzme720]

Well, at least you have something to do now?

I know, you already have plenty... just let us know what you find.

 

[jhitesma]

All fixed. Shortened up some wires too. Cleared the eeprom and reflashed, dropped my I's down a touch just in case. Almost better than ever:



I say almost because on the test flights it was a little unsteady looking...took a close look on the ground and it appears my front left motor has a bent shaft or bent collet Looks like I get to scavenge parts off one of the motor with broken windings tonight.

 

[jhitesma]

And after a week that felt like a month due to a stomach bug that rampaged through our household. (2 sick adults and one sick toddler with 1 bathroom = no fun. Mix in a fever and the whole thing becomes frighteningly surreal)

When last I posted I thought the illness was in the past...ha! It had only taken a break for a day and a half before kicking in another round of misery. Thankfully our daughter was spared round 2.

And the quad was still unhappy with that wobbly left front motor. Despite the fever and chills and a stomach that complained at the thought of putting anything into it I swapped a bell and shaft from one of my "parts" motors onto the stator and gave it a try. It was better...but still wobbly. Which left me wondering if in my fever state I had goofed and swapped the parts back to the same motors instead of switching them or if something deeper was wrong with that particular motor.

After a trip to the doctor and some strong meds I took another look. Ah, that explains it. The motor I used for spares had a bent shaft as well! Not as bent but still bent Tried swapping parts from a different motor...but the bell housing didn't fit right and rubbed. So I finally had to try actually replacing just a shaft.

Dug up a nice deep socket, a big C clamp, and made a little tool out of a 1"x1"x1/2" chunk of scrap wood and a nail that was slightly smaller than the shaft who's pointy end I ground off and set to the task. Went easier than I expected. I practiced on a known bent shaft first and it went smooth as could be. So I first popped out my bent shaft, then my straight shaft, then pressed the straight one back into the other bell and reassembled the motor.

Quick test flight and....it's smooth again! Hooray!

Now. Finally. To focus on that camera mount....I've got a week to go until our big tree burn. The friend organizing it wants to set a new record this year...here was the pile from a few years ago to put that goal in perspective:



When the pile gets lit it's like daylight for about 2 minutes. So while none of my cameras do well in low light my past experiences shooting this event from the ground tell me there's a VERY good chance I'll be able to get some decent video with them during the peek of the burn

In anticipation I finally replaced the resistor I accidentally cut off of my one LED strip and have been flying at dusk to get orientation practice in low light. Starting to get used to it but I think a few more LED's may still be in order.

Of course...this being our big camping weekend of the year I'm also trying to get my fixed wing fleet ready and trying to get a new plane or two built. So going to be a busy couple of evenings!

 

[jhitesma]

So apparently 2014 is not turning out to be "year of the quad" for me as I expected

Since the start of the year I've basically just had frustration after frustration with my little budget quad. The tree burn as I've mentioned elsewhere didn't go well for RC due to high winds almost the entire weekend. I did get one night flight with the quad - but the combination of it being night and windy and lots of people from camp coming over to see what I was doing made that more white knuckle than fun. I did manage to get my first good full log with the android app though so that was a plus (even if it looks like the baro readings are all but useless as a number of them showed me flying below the ground instead of around tree top level.)

My attempts to film the tree pile from the air resulted in instant flips and crashes as soon as I got high enough for the full force of the wind to hit me. Oh and the battery in my camera died so I only got 10 seconds of footage anyway. Blah.

To make things even better we had a nasty string of illness sweep through our house this month and between doctor and medicine bills and time off work...my Christmas bonus that was going to get me a set of fat sharks ended up going to the medical system instead

I've done a little flying in my front yard, but haven't had a chance to get out and actually fly where I have room. This past weekend we had GREAT flying weather - high 70's and no wind! But my wife had to be out of town dealing with some extended family issues so I had to watch our 3 year old. And while she likes my planes and multis she doesn't have the attention span to go out flying with me unless someone else is along to entertain her. So the one good weekend for flying so far this year I was grounded

Frustrating.

Oh, and yesterday flying on my lunch break after deciding it was time to land a gust of wind caught me and caused me to tangle with the carport. Wouldn't you know it - no broken prop but I broke the same boom I JUST replaced. Grrr.

I suspect a big part of the issues I've been having is that I'm asking too much of the 24g motors. With the emerson action cam I've been experimenting with I keep having crazy flips in even mild winds. My first suspicion was it was balance related...but I double and triple check the balance each flight so I'm not convinced that's it. I'm starting to think it's just that my AUP is too high with that camera attached and the 24g motors just can't keep up in wind.

I still wanted to add an isolated mount for the camera...but the way I keep crashing when trying to lift this camera I'm thinking any extra weight like that is only going to make things considerably worse.

So I've been seriously thinking more and more about a bigger quad.

This week I started the process and ordered myself some goodies. First off I grabbed 4 20a HK blue ESC's that I'm going to flash to simonk. The initial plan is to have them as backups for this quad in case I fry my current ESC's flashing them. But I'm hoping that doesn't happen in which case they'll be the first bits for my next quad. Second with my fatshark funds depleted but my itch to try FPV stronger than ever I bit the bullet and got myself a boscam 5.8ghz RX/TX. I already have a nice 7" LCD and a small board cam on hand so hopefully that will be enough to get me started. I got lazy and ordered a set of cp antennas as well since I'm still slacking on making my own antennas for my openLRS setup.

I snuck my order in on Monday hoping to beat the Chinese New Year deadline and it looks like I did, order was packed and confirmed shipped already. HK has really gotten better about shipping the past few months and swiss post really does get it here in 2 weeks for less than standard mail so far.

Bottom line - other than upgrading to some simonk ESC's I think I'm ready to declare this quad finished. Not finished as in being scrapped but finished as in I'm done tweaking and modifying it. I may try FPV with it since the boscam TX and my little cam should be considerably lighter than the emerson...but I'm thinking a bigger more stable quad will be my FPV workhorse and this is going to become more of an acro trainer.

Now - to make some decisions on the next quad. X or H? Maybe (probably) V tail. And most importantly what motors...I've got to keep the cost down and since I keep bending shafts on my 24g's I want to move to something more like the NTK's with short shafts and adapters. The RCtimer offerings look really tempting...but I also really like the little 2826 HK motor I have on my Versa so the lower kv version of that is kind of tempting as well. Just got to figure out what the best bang for the buck is that will be happy with my 20a ESC's....

Guess this also means it's time to sit down and spend an hour or two writing up an article.....

 

[Tritium]

A little late but these seem to be the best prices I have found on SimonK esc's in the USA:

http://www.uavobjects.com/product-category/esc/

Thurmond

 

[jhitesma]

Yeah I saw those...but I was already planning an order from HK's HK warehouse and I really don't mind (and kind of prefer) flashing them myself.

I've been flashing AVR's since before I got into RC so really the actual flashing doesn't bother me at all. And being as cheap as I am $10.01 each beats $11.50 each (I want BEC's on them because I'm too cheap to by a separate BEC) that's over $5 difference for four ESC's and $5 to me makes a big difference. Plus I wanted to make sure to get ESC's with external oscillators and the ones from RC timer/uavo don't say if they are internal or external - the $11.50 ones look like plushes which don't have an external.

I was hoping UAVO would have those purple motors that um...cyberdactyl(?) has raved about (Or was it cranial...I get names that start with the same letter mixed up all the time! Or was it you - I don't have an excuse for that confusion!) from rctimer. But they only have 750kv and 1000kv and I'd like something more like 1300-1500kv. Though I am thinking about going 750kv and big props...but since everything else I own currently flys with an 8" prop part of me wants to stick with 8" props. And the purple motors from UAVO still have shafts and I'd really like to go shaftless...(which is the same problem with the HK D2826-10 I'm considering.)


Not in a hurry to make a choice though...probably won't be able to order motors until late next month. Though I'm probably going to splurge and order a minimOSD (Only $11 from RTFQ and includes the KV mods for MW) early next week.

I'm also really really wanting to build a brushless gimbal since prices are getting more reasonable on them...but have to admit there's not much point in it until I 1) build a bigger quad 2) get a better cam