*Unofficial* FT Dart

[bigkan]

View attachment 106852

So I maidened my Dart and had a pretty good head on impact. Nothing major broken and was able to get it trimmed out and finish off the battery.

By the time I had it trimmed out though, pretty much all of the reflex had been taken out and it seemed to wobble left and right on the z axis and was a bit twitchy with the elevator. I had differential thrust turned on but expo'd almost completely out so I know I wasn't inadvertently bumping the stick. I did make a bevel cut on the underside of the elevons. Could that have given it relflex without having the elevons physically raised up a few degrees?

My question is, what does a wing with the CG too far forward feel like? I've got the battery pushed as far forward as possible and I'm thinking maybe it's too far forward?

where did you get your motor mounts from?

 

[bigkan]

Those skins are awesome!

Jason, SPONZ,

Those skins look amazing. Finished my Dart from plans last night. Worked on cutting the firewall/motor mounts but was not happy with my results so I just made a couple of inside out mini type power pods. I figure that these may give me some easily replaceable parts for the inevitable crashes. Also enlarged the battery pod to accommodate my 610 3S batteries. Can't wait to maiden but mother nature needs to be a little more cooperative.

Pics are below:

Build as per plans with the following changes:
- no skewer in the wing leading edge
- modified to power pod style motor mounts
- changed pod so that there is no gap for the 3/32 ply
- built small swappable style power pod to mount outside of the motor mounts
- enlarged battery pod
- AUW with 610maH 3S battery is 228g/8oz

And no, it's not your eyes, the tape on the bottom does not align between the right and left sides.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Regards, Jan

nice! I've been looking on the forum for this exact motor mount idea. I want to try this on the smaller pizza box platform also.

 

[bigkan]

Hey guys, I love this little design but I thought the engine pods were kind of an eye sore, so I modeled up some of my own to 3d print. They'll probably have to be made out of a higher temp material than PLA. This first set I made is PETG.

I wrapped the pod up over the top of the wing for some added durability. I could also easily change the thrust line of the engines, but I don't know what the optimal position would be, so they're in the same location as the stock pods.

Let me know what you think!

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2867311

View attachment 105665 View attachment 105668 View attachment 105666 View attachment 105667

how did they fly? I'm interested in a set, if you are still willing to produce them.

 

[Piva]

how did they fly? I'm interested in a set, if you are still willing to produce them.

They flew really well! Got some amazing flat spins and stuff. Seemed nice and durable. I wasn’t too excited about the battery life though and started experimenting with single engine setups.

 

[bigkan]

3D printable motor mounts are now available on my Thingiverse page.

I've printed them, but haven't tested them yet. Let me know if you have any issues or suggestions.
View attachment 103975

JG

Are you 3d printing these for the public?I attempted to make the ones in the plans with disastrous results.

 

[JGplanes]

Are you 3d printing these for the public?I attempted to make the ones in the plans with disastrous results.

PM me your address.

 

[Flying Oscar]

So... Today I crashed and destroyed my Dart. I had just finished painting it, but I had crashed it a lot before and I was probably just getting weaker, and it finally snapped today. I managed to salvage all the electronics, so I will just get a new speed build kit and make another! This time around, I will be using 2mm bullet connectors on the motor leads and I will use the FPV pod so I can add a camera and receiver when I get it. So, I downloaded the STL file... and it looked kind of messed up. It needed to be rotated so it could print flat, but the problem was that the main section was floating, so it can't print. Is there anything I can do about it? I use FreeCAD, and I have no Idea how to edit the STL file. Could anyone help me out?
Here is me with my plane after painting :

And here are some pictures of the carnage of the crash :

Here is what I salvaged and the plane after cutting it open for the parts:

 

[nevenelestate]

Oscar, when you get your new speed build kit get some more foam board and trace out the pieces so you can build another. Or download the pdf plans and trace the pieces out to cut them and build.

Crashing, pulling the electronics to build again is all part of the fun with the FT planes! Keep on flying!

 

[Flying Oscar]

Oscar, when you get your new speed build kit get some more foam board and trace out the pieces so you can build another. Or download the pdf plans and trace the pieces out to cut them and build.

Crashing, pulling the electronics to build again is all part of the fun with the FT planes! Keep on flying!

Thanks! I will be sure to post videos of me trying to fly it once I get in the air again.

 

[Flying Oscar]

Thanks! I will be sure to post videos of me trying to fly it once I get in the air again.

So... I was looking on the FT store and the only 25 pack of foam board was the scratch and dent one, the regular one was out of stock. What does it mean by "the bottom 5 inches of the product are damaged"? Is it still worth buying?

 

[Evan Morgan]

I have just built my ft dart and tried to maiden it and one moter seems to be more powerful than the other causing it turn and crash in flight.

 

[Paracodespoder]

I have just built my ft dart and tried to maiden it and one moter seems to be more powerful than the other causing it turn and crash in flight.

Calibrate the ESCs, turn on your tx, put the throttle to full, then plug in the flight battery, as soon as the ESCs quit beeping lower the throttle. Try it and then come back, may be something else.

 

[mrjdstewart]

I have just built my ft dart and tried to maiden it and one moter seems to be more powerful than the other causing it turn and crash in flight.

i have had the same issue with all the darts i have built. don't know if its the PDB, the diff thrust settings, or what but i always had issues with one motor spinning up more than the other. i would try and set the throttle range w/o any diff thrust programing and do one esc at a time. hopefully you can get them to balance.

good luck,

me

 

[Evan Morgan]

Calibrate the ESCs, turn on your tx, put the throttle to full, then plug in the flight battery, as soon as the ESCs quit beeping lower the throttle. Try it and then come back, may be something else.

Thanks that worked

 

[Evan Morgan]

I am looking to to make my ft dart a vtol does anyone know a good vtol flight controller

 

[Paracodespoder]

I am looking to to make my ft dart a vtol does anyone know a good vtol flight controller

The 1106 motors in the h-pack don’t have enough power to be a v-tol, so you’re going to need some larger motors (1306 maybe?). Ask around some more though because I’m not an expert . Good luck, let us know how it goes, and post a build thread for it to, others may want to build one as well.

 

[nevenelestate]

So... I was looking on the FT store and the only 25 pack of foam board was the scratch and dent one, the regular one was out of stock. What does it mean by "the bottom 5 inches of the product are damaged"? Is it still worth buying?

Do you have a Dollar Tree store near you? If so go there and buy the white foam board, that is the Original Flite Test build stuff, and $1 a sheet, so $2 will easily get you a Dart (maybe even one sheet would work). If you really want the brown foam board then the FT sale stuff should be fine. Bottom 5" would mean you still should have 20x25" sheets, full size is 20X30". So you would have plenty of foam to work with for several planes.

 

[metaldirtnskin]

I built one of these, flew it (and crashed it) a couple of times, then decided I want to go the route of adding an FC and FPV. The F411-WING looks promising and would be a good excuse to learn to tinker with VTXs, cameras and so forth for when I eventually build other FPV monstrosities. If anyone is willing to share their iNav config I would happily take you up on that as I don't have much experience with it.

 

[nevenelestate]

I built one of these, flew it (and crashed it) a couple of times, then decided I want to go the route of adding an FC and FPV. The F411-WING looks promising and would be a good excuse to learn to tinker with VTXs, cameras and so forth for when I eventually build other FPV monstrosities. If anyone is willing to share their iNav config I would happily take you up on that as I don't have much experience with it.

This was my Diff All from my F411-wing in my Dart (RIP) I installed the RMRC Micro GPS module on UART2, SmartAudio to ST1 pin and used SBUS receiver. If you want to use crossfire, or S.port/F.Port you will need to flash the MatekF411 SFTSRL2 2.1.0 FW to get the LED pin on the FC turned into second Soft Serial pin. You will loose ability to use programmable LEDs that way.

# INAV/MATEKF411 2.0.0 Aug 20 2018 / 19:23:35 (dbdd1656a)

# reset configuration to default settings
defaults noreboot

# resources

# mixer
mmix 0 1.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
mmix 1 1.000 0.000 0.000 0.000

# servo mix
smix 0 3 0 -60 0
smix 1 3 1 -50 0
smix 2 4 0 -60 0
smix 3 4 1 50 0

# servo
servo 3 1000 2000 1448 100
servo 4 1000 2000 1502 100

# feature
feature MOTOR_STOP
feature GPS
feature LED_STRIP
feature AIRMODE
feature PWM_OUTPUT_ENABLE
feature FW_LAUNCH

# beeper

# map
map RETA

# serial
serial 1 2 115200 115200 0 115200
serial 30 2048 115200 38400 0 115200

# led
led 0 0,0::A:0
led 1 1,0::A:0
led 2 2,0::CB:1
led 3 3,0::A:1
led 4 4,0::A:0

# color

# mode_color
mode_color 6 1 2

# aux
aux 0 0 0 1700 2100
aux 1 2 1 1275 1675
aux 2 3 5 1300 2100
aux 3 8 7 1700 2100
aux 4 35 5 1700 2100
aux 5 10 1 1700 2100
aux 6 27 2 1300 2100
aux 7 28 3 1300 2100
aux 8 11 4 1700 2100
aux 9 12 4 1300 1700
aux 10 32 6 1300 1700
aux 11 33 6 1700 2100

# adjrange

# rxrange

# osd_layout
osd_layout 0 0 23 1 H
osd_layout 0 1 23 2 H
osd_layout 0 3 8 6 H
osd_layout 0 4 8 6 H
osd_layout 0 6 22 10 V
osd_layout 0 7 1 0 V
osd_layout 0 8 1 11 V
osd_layout 0 9 1 2 H
osd_layout 0 11 1 9 V
osd_layout 0 12 1 10 V
osd_layout 0 13 1 2 V
osd_layout 0 14 24 9 V
osd_layout 0 15 1 1 V
osd_layout 0 22 18 1 V
osd_layout 0 23 10 1 V
osd_layout 0 28 22 11 H
osd_layout 0 29 22 11 V
osd_layout 0 30 1 8 V
osd_layout 0 32 23 0 V
osd_layout 0 33 23 2 V
osd_layout 0 34 10 0 V
osd_layout 0 37 1 2 H
osd_layout 0 38 24 1 V
osd_layout 0 40 1 4 H

# master
set gyro_hardware_lpf = 256HZ
set gyro_lpf_hz = 35
set acc_hardware = MPU6000
set acczero_x = 61
set acczero_y = -38
set acczero_z = -366
set accgain_x = 4083
set accgain_y = 4104
set accgain_z = 4053
set mag_hardware = NONE
set baro_hardware = BMP280
set pitot_hardware = NONE
set motor_pwm_rate = 2000
set motor_pwm_protocol = MULTISHOT
set failsafe_procedure = RTH
set align_board_pitch = -45
set align_board_yaw = 1800
set vbat_scale = 1120
set current_meter_scale = 423
set platform_type = AIRPLANE
set model_preview_type = 8
set servo_pwm_rate = 330
set small_angle = 180
set gps_sbas_mode = AUTO
set inav_w_z_baro_p = 0.200
set inav_w_z_gps_p = 0.350
set nav_extra_arming_safety = OFF
set nav_rth_allow_landing = NEVER
set nav_rth_altitude = 7620
set nav_fw_cruise_thr = 1500
set nav_fw_max_thr = 1850
set nav_fw_bank_angle = 40
set nav_fw_loiter_radius = 4000
set nav_fw_launch_velocity = 150
set nav_fw_launch_accel = 1500
set nav_fw_launch_max_angle = 180
set nav_fw_launch_thr = 1600
set nav_fw_launch_motor_delay = 50
set nav_fw_launch_timeout = 10000
set nav_fw_launch_climb_angle = 30
set telemetry_inverted = ON
set smartport_fuel_unit = PERCENT
set osd_video_system = NTSC
set osd_units = IMPERIAL
set osd_rssi_alarm = 40
set osd_time_alarm = 99
set osd_alt_alarm = 116
set osd_dist_alarm = 29708
set osd_crosshairs_style = AIRCRAFT
set osd_main_voltage_decimals = 2
set tz_offset = -300

# profile
profile 1

set fw_p_pitch = 7
set fw_i_pitch = 14
set fw_ff_pitch = 65
set fw_p_roll = 2
set fw_i_roll = 5
set fw_ff_roll = 21
set fw_p_level = 15
set max_angle_inclination_rll = 600
set max_angle_inclination_pit = 600
set rc_expo = 30
set roll_rate = 36
set pitch_rate = 26
set manual_rc_expo = 30

# restore original profile selection
profile 1
battery_profile 1

# save configuration
save

 

[metaldirtnskin]

This was my Diff All from my F411-wing in my Dart (RIP) I installed the RMRC Micro GPS module on UART2, SmartAudio to ST1 pin and used SBUS receiver. If you want to use crossfire, or S.port/F.Port you will need to flash the MatekF411 SFTSRL2 2.1.0 FW to get the LED pin on the FC turned into second Soft Serial pin. You will loose ability to use programmable LEDs that way.

Excellent, thank you very much... I still have a few more parts on the way, but hopefully soon I can give it a try. I'm still on Spektrum right now so as far as I can tell (?) the Matek instructions for connecting the receiver should be enough.

I suppose mounting it all is going to be a challenge, because I just realized I have a FC with 24mm holes, a VTX with 30mm holes, and the board for the Split has 20mm holes...

Did yours meet an ugly fate? I bought a Runcam Split Mini for mine, so even if (when) I do crash it, I hope at least it doesn't end up underwater or get carried off by a bird or something.