Remote controlled flying things-Quads, Hex, Octo or anything

[CBRK]

Are you sure, it looks like it has just as many wires if not more than anything else!  That looks like a magic white smoke generator to me.

I hope that it's forgiving if you get a few wrong :-)  I'll say good luck on that one.....

Chris

I forgot to say the OSD screen looks good though.  I love having all the data at hand.  Will be good to see some footage with it all working :-)

[Mandrake]

Seeing it working is a long way away ... Got to build it - first I got to get all the bits n pieces here ... Happy Christmas to me ...

[CBRK]

Seeing it working is a long way away ... Got to build it - first I got to get all the bits n pieces here ... Happy Christmas to me ...

LOL, I know the feeling, took me a while to get everything wired up how I want it.  I'm hoping my sonar will arrive soon.

Hmmm, Christmas...... I'm thinking I'll be spending some time flying these holidays......  I have 4 sets of 3s 5000mah batts so I should get around 60-70 mins of flying time (combined flights not in one flight) plus a bit extra when I pair up some 2200mah batts.  Hoping I can find somewhere to fly the bixler 2!  Need somewhere bigger than my local park.....  I think there is another nearby park that might work.

I'm thinking of buying the parts for a small quad for Christmas, thinking it would be a great present from my wife......  Not sure what she will think of that :-)  Otherwise I'll need to give myself a present....

Chris

[Marschy]

Hello Mandrake,

Pity Naza Lite does not support iOSD. But the outlay may cause a divorce if my wife ever finds out how much I paid for the Naza M V2 plus iOSD and BTU.

Cheers, Marschy

[Mandrake]

Know what ya mean - Thats why I went with the Lite ... If I get confident I can always swap it over with the Phantom ( Naza M V2 ) .. But I gots to stops blowings things ups !!

[Marschy]

The iOSD is about $80

[Mandrake]

The Alien landed today - Started the assembly - Seems fairly simple so far .. BUT .. I got a couple of extra panels and tubes that are not mentioned in the assembly guide - The two poles are for the gimbal .. What about the 2 plates ?? Any Ideas Marschy ?

[Marschy]

The smaller plate goes on the top using the four long standoffs over the centre of the top sandwich plate., effectively over where your flight control board goes. Photo's on Hobbyking site would suggest it is where you mount your video transmitter and antenna.

The larger rectangular plate is slung under the bottom sandwich plate using the six short aluminium standoffs, which in this photo I have replaced with 20mm nylon standoffs. It favours the rear of the frame to allow a battery to be hung under the belly and balance the frame when a gimbal is put on the front rails. I've put the PSU inbetween the bottom sandwich plate and the battery plate. A power distribution board will also be put into the same space.

The second photo shows how I am going to mount the FPV camera on the front rails using a Tarot gimbal mount.

The third photo shows how I have mounted the rails inbetween the sandwich plates, because the gimbal couldn't be place far enough back on the rails without the mounting plate of the gimbal hitting the bottom sandwich plate. Moving the rails inside the sandwich plate now makes the mounting plate sit underneath the bottom sandwich plate.

[Marschy]

I'm thinking of buying the parts for a small quad for Christmas, thinking it would be a great present from my wife......  Not sure what she will think of that :-)  Otherwise I'll need to give myself a present....

Started my shopping list for my 50th birthday in the new year.

ZMR250, which gets touted as a Blackout Mini-H knockoff. Different geometry, but the way the frame is put together is certainly similar to the Blackout. Well actually similar is an understatement. I would say criminally similar, i.e. design is 100% pilfered. But $26.09 US for a ZMR250 frame from China compared to $149 US for a blackout frame, hmmmm. http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Blackout-QAV250-Carbon-Fiber-Mini-250-FPV-Quadcopter-Frame-Unassembled/2004383973.html, I'm 'M***k S' on the Transaction History and Feedback list on page 3 of the listing, still waiting for it to arrive. (gotta cut up my credit card, this is getting ridiculous).



I'm putting Emax MT1806 2280kv motors and Emax 12A SimonK ESC's on it, with an APM Mini V3.1 and GPS and minimOSD. I'm going to drive this with a Mobius for FPV and recording and not bother with a dedicated FPV camera. There's no room for a gimbal anyway, so I don't see the point in having two cameras. I've ordered the motors and ESC's and have an OrangeRX R615X CPPM receiver on the way to cut down on the wiring. The mini APM and minimOSD and camera will have to wait until the new year.

[CBRK]

Started my shopping list for my 50th birthday in the new year.

ZMR250, which gets touted as a Blackout Mini-H knockoff. Different geometry, but the way the frame is put together is certainly similar to the Blackout. Well actually similar is an understatement. I would say criminally similar, i.e. design is 100% pilfered. But $26.09 US for a ZMR250 frame from China compared to $149 US for a blackout frame, hmmmm. http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Blackout-QAV250-Carbon-Fiber-Mini-250-FPV-Quadcopter-Frame-Unassembled/2004383973.html, I'm 'M***k S' on the Transaction History and Feedback list on page 3 of the listing, still waiting for it to arrive. (gotta cut up my credit card, this is getting ridiculous).



I'm putting Emax MT1806 2280kv motors and Emax 12A SimonK ESC's on it, with an APM Mini V3.1 and GPS and minimOSD. I'm going to drive this with a Mobius for FPV and recording and not bother with a dedicated FPV camera. There's no room for a gimbal anyway, so I don't see the point in having two cameras. I've ordered the motors and ESC's and have an OrangeRX R615X CPPM receiver on the way to cut down on the wiring. The mini APM and minimOSD and camera will have to wait until the new year.

Looks good to me, I know the feeling.  I cant wait to start on a quad......  But I made an agreement with myself, that I was only allowed to buy spares for my 2 craft until I have logged another 4 hours of flight.  I've done really well, I only bought 2 additional batteries in that time, so I'm doing well.  Well with the exception of the sonar which I thought I had bought but hadn't, it's one bit of kit that I'm really looking forward to playing with.

I plan to get another hour of flights in on the weekend. So I should hit my 4 hours soon, I've acrued 1.5 hours in Exmaps (since I started using it) and I had about 1 hour before I started using it, so I may hit it next week :-)

I cut my replacement front arm last night.  On closer inspection the last crash did a break more than I thought.  Luckily all the electronics are ok, so it turns out it broke the plywood electronics tray, the arm, bend the music wire that holds the camera tray and the camera tray mounts.  I've checked the motor that came off and it seems to function correctly, it just has one shorter wire now.....

So I'm redesigning it to not use anymore balsawood, it just gave in the crash which was good and bad.  I think that the music wire would have bend and absorbed most of the energy when it struck the ground.  Wire is easy to bend, I hate having to cut wood and glue it all up..... 

So now I need to disassemble most of the extra bits (camera tray and electronics tray), luckily the main frame didnt suffer any damage at all.  Not bad for a prototype I cut out of some scrap plywood I had lying around.  I did plan to make it out of carbon fibre but so far I'm liking the plywood.

I've got a plan to reinforce where the GPS mast goes as it is the item that breaks whenever it flips over.....   Currently it's just a small drill hole in the electronics tray (3mm ply) and some balsawood for depth.  I think I'll swap the balsawood for some 1.2mm x 1.2mm pine (same stuff I use on the arms), so reinforce it a bit.

I've got some fixing to do tonight so I can be ready for the weekend!!

Chris

[Marschy]

Chris, have you considered spruce for the boom arms? This was/is the go to timber for spars in fixed wing RC aircraft.

[D4D]

Another oops...

http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/drone-crashes-into-canning-vale-house-20141120-11qqa5.html

[Marschy]

That looks like an expensive rig. It's a hex by the look of the frame, but there appears to be two arms missing.

I think its illegal to fly these at night regardless of whether you are licensed or not. I hope they catch the twit and throw the book at him.

[Peterr]

Hope someone's unplugged the lipo by now!!

[Marschy]

Good point

[Mandrake]

I have this story on Facebook and the "hole" in the ceiling it supposedly came through ( after going through the roof tiles or colorbond )
is about the size of a fist -- Certainly not big enough to get that quad through ... Its BS ...

[Mandrake]

My Alien frame is now complete and waiting on the electronics - Here's a pic next to the Phantom ... Its a wee bit bigger ....

[Marschy]

I have this story on Facebook and the "hole" in the ceiling it supposedly came through ( after going through the roof tiles or colorbond )
is about the size of a fist -- Certainly not big enough to get that quad through ... Its BS ...

It's no wonder then why quadcopters are such an emotive topic. The media try to get as much mileage out of each story that they can to the extent where crucial information is not supplied in a story which helps sensationalise it.

Unfortunately I think the hobby is going to get an undeserved hiding.

[Marschy]

My Alien frame is now complete and waiting on the electronics - Here's a pic next to the Phantom ... Its a wee bit bigger ....

Should have seen mine with the Tarot motor mounts on it before I trimmed 52mm off each arm. It made the wheel base over 650mm. It was huge.

Nice frame aren't they? Heaps of space to mount everything. I have a crab landing gear sitting in it's box in anticipation of the landing gear snapping off. It's quite common apparently.

What gimbal are you contemplating?

[CBRK]

Chris, have you considered spruce for the boom arms? This was/is the go to timber for spars in fixed wing RC aircraft.

Hi Marschy,

I'm using pine for the arms.  As I understand Spruce is just a type of pine (norway pine?)......  Yes it is very strong, flexible and nice to work with, I did look into it but it's limited in supply options from what I can see.  I think this is only the 3rd time I've taken an arm out and they are cheap.  I get 3 arms to a 1.2m length for around $3.  Plus with timber this cheap I can change the length around and get a completely different feel for it.  I've using 40cm long arms so that I get a nice stable flight.  I could shrink this down to 25-30cm and get a much more nimble machine.  As a plus any broken arms are used to construct my landing gear :-)

It was a hard crash, I was going about 35km/h and it fell from about 4m up......  I'm surprised I didnt damage the plywood frame that I've got.  I don't think spruce would hold up to that either.

Sadly I had to leave some of the balsawood in place, they hold the music wires in place on the pine parts.  Tried to cut small bits of ply, not an easy task......  I was looking at it last night as I started to fix it all and decided I was going to revamp it so it's modular like my electronics tray (I love nylon bolts, great for attaching stuff and not paying the weight penalty).  But that involves moving where the music wire is currently placed, so that will be a weekend project (after I get flying for an hour).  I have it mostly reassembled, I just need to bolt the camera tray back on (plus the cameras) and cable tie the ESC and motor back on.  So all toll this this accident cost me about an hour or two of my time.  The mount for the GPS is now reinforced, I'll be pissed if I break it now...... 

I think I've added about 20g of weight to it by replacing some of the balsawood with pine but it will be much stronger.

So i've been looking at the footage from last Friday and reviewing the logs.....

I'm still not sure what happened though....  When it was flying I thought I saw the right motor separate from the airframe, however on the video footage I can clearly see that the right side just randomly went up, and it flipped over, almost back into a level position and then straight into the ground.  I cannot see the motor come away in the footage but it was separated from the frame when it hit the ground.  RC in on that channel shows no command for that.  Also the rollin log entries show no change but the roll certainly changed, so it didnt intend it that is for sure.  I'm wondering if a cable tie broke on the motor mount and it was wobbly?

All the footage I used was from the ground, the SD card on board were corrupted due to a loss of power.  My bad, I forgot to hit stop recording before I pulled the power plug.

Would love to know why, sometimes having the data logs can be helpful other times they still leave you scratching your head.

Chris

[CBRK]

That looks like an expensive rig. It's a hex by the look of the frame, but there appears to be two arms missing.

I think its illegal to fly these at night regardless of whether you are licensed or not. I hope they catch the twit and throw the book at him.

Definitely illegal to fly at night at this stage, no RPA is allowed to fly at night (hobby or commercial).

Unless CASA issued an exemption for this flight but given no owner has come forward I'd say they didn't.

Chris

[Mandrake]

What gimbal are you contemplating?

Have bought a pair of Tarot brackets to hang a GBC 2D gimbal ( same as on the Phantom ) ..
http://www.aliexpress.com/snapshot/6363561248.html]http://www.aliexpress.com/snapshot/6363561248.html
Just ordered some extra hardware - M2.5x6 screws , M3x6 screws and some 35mm and 50mm standoffs ...
WILL IT EVER END ?? Steve

[Marschy]

Have bought a pair of Tarot brackets to hang a GBC 2D gimbal ( same as on the Phantom ) ..
http://www.aliexpress.com/snapshot/6363561248.html]http://www.aliexpress.com/snapshot/6363561248.html
Just ordered some extra hardware - M2.5x6 screws , M3x6 screws and some 35mm and 50mm standoffs ...
WILL IT EVER END ?? Steve

They are the same hooks that I bought separately that I use for the FPV camera. I've seen pictures of them in use with cable ties on them on the gimbal rails to make sure they don't come off easily, makes sense I suppose.

I going to hack my 2 axis GBC gimbal to make an inline gimbal for my Reptile Aphid which currently has a single axis tilt gimbal driven by a servo. I'll remove the anti-vibration plates from the GBC gimbal and mount the motor directly onto the front of the Reptile. I have 4 spare motor mounts from the Alien 560 so I'm going to use one of them for mounting the roll motor and I'll use some aluminium angle to make some vibration ball mounts. Then I'll use the damper balls from the GBC gimbal between the aluminium angle and the sandwich plates on the reptile. I'll post up some pictures once I get it underway.

I fried the first GBC control board and replaced it with another, only to stuff the second board up by reflashing it with Alexmos firmware. I've since replaced the second GBC control board with a Tarot ZZXY board only to find that when trying to get the reflashed Alexmos control board to work, I fried the roll motor on the GBC gimbal, crikey it never ends.

So, as soon as I receive the replacement motors I ordered, along with the new Tarot control board I already have, I will see if I can get the hacked GBC gimbal working again. What was a cheap gimbal has now cost me a fair bit of money, arrrrg. Because the Reptile Aphid doesn't have crab landing gear I'm trying to make an inline gimbal with the bits and pieces I already have. BMSWEB on youtube has done something similar and has made a couple of videos showing off it's performance, and has indicated that he will make a video of how he made it (still waiting for it), but I have a pretty good idea how to do it. The only problem I envisage with doing this is tuning it. It can be a real PITA tuning gimbals from scratch, as I have found out.

[Signature035]

Could I ask an opinion on the Quanum Nova FPV GPS Waypoint QuadCopter (Mode 1 or 2) (Ready to Fly) ......as an entry level Quad.

http://hobbyking.com.au/hobbyking/store/__55105__Quanum_Nova_FPV_GPS_Waypoint_QuadCopter_Mode_1_Ready_to_Fly_.html

Thoughts really appreciated.

[Marschy]

Just an opinion as I don't own one, but for what it's worth, I think they are fantastic value for what you pay. They use Arducopter firmware which I am familiar with. Very clever software. Flying weight is pretty low at 875g so the battery power should be OK. 7 channel radio included in the price which will do everything you probably need to do for a starter quad, but that is something that can be upgraded down the track.

Read some of the forums to gauge what others think of the quad, but I'd buy one if I was in the market for a ready to fly.

I think the strong point with these products from Hobbyking is the spare parts that back up the product. If it goes into the deck, at least you know you can repair it, and from the prices of parts, pretty cheaply.

Cheers, Marschy