Quadcopter Build

I have just ordered 5 motors and 5 esc's

They are mini motors from RCTIMER, they 4 pack and i got an additional motor and esc, should of got two so i could make a quad but next time.
Ordered a NAZE32 flight controller..

will post pics in a week or 2 when it all arrives
 
http://rctimer.com/product-1131.html
this was the motor/esc/prop combo i got.

Going to eventually make a hex, but for now ill just do a quad because of my budget..

Frame is going to be all printed and starting to think ill just use this design..
Iv printed one before and its a good design.

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:304237
 
Nechaus,
Finally got my FPV gear setup. Works well. The camera puts out some low quality video, but get good range. My question for you is how you transitioned to the goggles from flying line-of-sight. I've chickened out and usually just put the DIY goggles on a table so I can look at both the monitor and quad. I need a spotter, but don't want my kids doing that for me. I'd probably end up crashed into myself with their directions. I feel like Luke from Star wars trying to use the force - I don't know how people do it without crashing into things. I spent a bunch of time driving my Rc car with it at first to get the feel of things. I thought it would help, but being able to stop with the car was a nice feature.
Also, how is your camera setup - angled down or straight out? I imagine a gimbal for the camera would be nice too - On direction changes when the quad swings it throws me off. Maybe I'm getting too much drift still on my quad. I've got it on my 330 with higher gains.
I just bought a usb cable to hook up the VX into my laptop and might just use that for a while if there isn't much lag.
Any pointers?
 
dirkdiggler said:
Nechaus,
Finally got my FPV gear setup. Works well. The camera puts out some low quality video, but get good range. My question for you is how you transitioned to the goggles from flying line-of-sight. I've chickened out and usually just put the DIY goggles on a table so I can look at both the monitor and quad. I need a spotter, but don't want my kids doing that for me. I'd probably end up crashed into myself with their directions. I feel like Luke from Star wars trying to use the force - I don't know how people do it without crashing into things. I spent a bunch of time driving my Rc car with it at first to get the feel of things. I thought it would help, but being able to stop with the car was a nice feature.
Also, how is your camera setup - angled down or straight out? I imagine a gimbal for the camera would be nice too - On direction changes when the quad swings it throws me off. Maybe I'm getting too much drift still on my quad. I've got it on my 330 with higher gains.
I just bought a usb cable to hook up the VX into my laptop and might just use that for a while if there isn't much lag.
Any pointers?


Hey man, You get a sense of where stuff behind you and the sides when flying fpv, I think this might start happening when your not freaking out while initially learning to fly fpv. " the force will get stronger" :lol:
You will need to get your sweet spot for the camera angle and the type of flight your doing, adding servo to look up and down with the fpv camera is pretty handy, but I personally crashed when flying with the brushless gimbal, I do know people who do it, they all seem to have naza tho and pretty much using gps hold all the time.

90% of my flights are fpv, i love it, such a good experience and wish they went longer
but yeah your skills will just improve over time and you will get more confident and get better..
 
izeman said:
it's hard so say w/o seeing it from all sides, but i'm not sure if it's really stiff. all those holes - would be better to have vertical fins from motor to center so the motors will not move up/down, maybe in a hex form to give torsion strength as well so the arm won't flex.



Ill give it a go again and keep this in mind, Should be able to come up with a rigid arm that is light, Not going to use that one in the pic, its not rigid enough
atm I am printing that t4 mini. I really like the arms just not so much the body as id prefer a more naked frame.

This blue plastic would be perfect for leds as its slightly transparent and I think i could get the whole frame pretty much glowing..
 
dirkdiggler said:
Nechaus,
Finally got my FPV gear setup. Works well. The camera puts out some low quality video, but get good range. My question for you is how you transitioned to the goggles from flying line-of-sight. I've chickened out and usually just put the DIY goggles on a table so I can look at both the monitor and quad. I need a spotter, but don't want my kids doing that for me. I'd probably end up crashed into myself with their directions. I feel like Luke from Star wars trying to use the force - I don't know how people do it without crashing into things. I spent a bunch of time driving my Rc car with it at first to get the feel of things. I thought it would help, but being able to stop with the car was a nice feature.
Also, how is your camera setup - angled down or straight out? I imagine a gimbal for the camera would be nice too - On direction changes when the quad swings it throws me off. Maybe I'm getting too much drift still on my quad. I've got it on my 330 with higher gains.
I just bought a usb cable to hook up the VX into my laptop and might just use that for a while if there isn't much lag.
Any pointers?


re reading your post again.

I used a cheap dvr from a local electronics store.
I found that the latency was about half of which a gopro is via wifi...
I think a dvr is good for having it as a second screen for someone to watch you as well... I did try piloting it and i had to land because it did not feel good.. I ended up returning the usb DVR because it cost like $50 and they are way cheaper on ebay...
I think in non windy conditions it would be okay, but when it comes to hi wind and fast flights it might contribute to a crash. I could see the lag on the screen vs the stick movement.

I have still been using the cheap quanum diy goggles, I use the weakest magnification on it.
I also found moving the lcd screen back about an inch is pretty good, makes the screen appear bigger while being clear and it feels more comfortable because normally the lens is touching my nose...

I made a wire cutter the other day because i have some cheap foam, but it really sucks to use compared to that epo or what ever foam they use on the goggles, that stuff is pretty strong
 
Those videos make it look so nice and easy. If my goggles looked that clean, It would help a ton. It says they are using a mobius cam - but I wonder if that is the recorded footage or what he sees on the monitor? I think the camera that comes in the HK FPV kit is 420 lines. Most seems to use 700 or 800. Don't know what needs to be better to get higher res footage - the camera or the DIY monitor. From what little I know of this, I'm surprised they don't have HDMI and 1080p for this. As I always feel like the early adopter on things and I'm sure you will be able to buy a cheap Hubsan FPV quad with high res for $100 next year that smokes what I've got now.
If I crashed like they did, my copter would need a few new arms, motors, FC, and a dozen props. :D How do they manage that in the field?

Thanks for the tips Nechaus. I haven't been able to fly because of high winds the last few days. Stinks. I just got the KK2.1.5evo board the other day to get the broken x525 running again. I spent last night trying to figure out how the DSM satellite connectors work. I was thinking that the DSM2 connection on the board, was an actual Rx built into the board. Thought that was going to be sweet with no wires, weight or having to buy another Rx. Have a satellite rx on order from HK now. Are you using those on your Multiwii? Still will be good to have just the satellite rx.

I read about the lag using a composite to USB adaptor. That comes Monday so I'll see what it does on my laptop. The cable was only three dollars shipped so no biggie if not.
 
hey man that is definitely recorded footage...live feed is not HD...

Well I have tried a few board cameras 420 and 700 line
Also the gopro hero 3 + black as a fpv camera

They were all about the same quality on the live feed, I found with the gopro you dont get blinded by the sun...
But the board cameras do really well in low light..... but you get some minor differences with better board cameras
- how it deals with light
-colour quality
ect...


You do get use to the shitty resolution, as long as your video doesnt cut out much... the 500mw skyzone system i have is crystal clear line of sight....

DJI have something called lightbridge which is HD streaming for about 2km, but it cost like $1500 or something stupid..

Streaming HD live with low latency is quite difficult I have come to understand, eventually we should get tech that uses cell towers and has amazing compression and all that jazz.
 
Some good fpv videos

[youtube]70pusNNunMA[/youtube]

FPV rc planes

[youtube]m5cXxD37ajw[/youtube]


I like these type of aerial videos..
[youtube]JT8wK2diyIw[/youtube]


A pretty quick quad, 1100kv motors with 8 inch props
[youtube]vzVOrx87ekA[/youtube]
 
it seems like most people are using CF frames, They range from about $20/$30 to $100 ++
From what I can tell the differences comes mostly down to how it was machined and quality of the cf... there are some videos on the subject on youtube talking about the cheaper frames having crappy holes and some motors rip through the frame on a hard landings...
You can get something similar to the f450 frame but just all nylon and 250mm and is about $12 i think... Its pretty good but no much space to mount stuff on...
It's the same frame on the fpv250 quad from hobbyking

I am personally just going to use 3d printed frames to try and keep the weight to the minimum, probably break on a hard crash, but resilient enough to take hard landings and thrashing it around


They have a large selection on hobbyking, I bet you could find one that will suit all your equipment.
A mini hexacopter would be pretty sweet..


I went with these motors and esc ( i paid for DHL shipping, should be here in a couple of days :):) cant wait)
http://rctimer.com/product-1131.html
( comes with 8 carbon props )
Looked at heaps of reviews and they seem pretty decent..
They are about double the power of my current mini quads motors (fpv250 from hk)

and this FC
https://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=68813
Acro mode, level and horizon mode... thats it for this one.. but 32 bit, should be pretty damm stable!

Some plastic props,
https://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=68813

3s 2200mah battery x2

I really need to get some more batteries...
 
Some people are taking apart these motors and oiling them.... Im not so sure if this should be done, or should not be done ...
from what i get, they let them soak in some oil, turn them a bit, let them soak for about 10 minutes and then clean it all, put it back together..
I am not going to worry about doing...


From my research, these motors are good for 3s, 5 or 6 inch props...
on 4s, you need to limit your punch outs on the 12 amp esc's to a couple of seconds...
But getting the feeling that these motors will live much longer on 3s.. Some guy reported he got over 7 hours of flights on these and still going strong...
 
So after some reading/youtubing about the naze32...

It is pretty much the same as multiwii... I believe it is using multiwii code.. and you can even use MW2.3 on it.... but they use a special version called baseflght which has it's own gui, have downloaded it, but unable to really look through the gui much because i have not got the fc yet, needs to be connected.
But it looks nice and getting more up to date.
Seems like its really easy to get a cheap $3 sonar working, I actually have one, srf04 or something like that... it's in my arduino box..forget exact model number
This one is good for about 3 meters...
have a look at this video below...


[youtube]SsVzF0qIMxw[/youtube]


this was pretty fast for a carpark!
[youtube]u7i8a_WFdcQ[/youtube]
 
A pic of the mini quad frames that are printed. Tried 40% infill, ended up on 90% with all..

I prefer the tube arms, the other ones arms flex and can be broken by holding in hand, and using thumb to apply pressure... :x


Seems like the t4 mini is the way to go with a 3d printed frames for a mini quadcopter if your trying to keep the weight down as much as possible...
I have held a black out , the big one, I think it was like 5mm thick carbon lol, seemed ridiculous unless you crash heaps... the frame was quite heavy but super strong.. looked like you could play cricket with it and it would not make a mark on it.
Also the black out mini, It looked about half the thickness of the other one, probably 3mm... was still pretty heavy.. When I think of carbon i think yeah its going to be light weight, but damm this kinda shocked me...



So using printed frames will be interesting, I hope i get shocked with how long it lasts, not how fast i break it. :lol:
Either way, its going to be fast enough for my brain to handle.


blue color, 99% fpv
 

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Its worth learning to use acro mode line of site, not just level mode if you want to learn faster
It will fly more similar to a plane if you tilt it forward slightly and just use yaw control to turn..
 
nechaus said:
Its worth learning to use acro mode line of site, not just level mode if you want to learn faster
It will fly more similar to a plane if you tilt it forward slightly and just use yaw control to turn..
I was always wondering how you do it right: use yaw to change it's orientation and fly out like an airplane or tilt it in all for directions with the other stick. I guess switching from one scheme to the other is very hard to do.
 
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