Continue reading »]]> Some time ago I ordered Lithium Ion batteries @2400mAh
I soldered them into a 2S battery that replaces my current 900mAh 2S LIPO in the Turnigy 9X radio. I added connectors for charging as well as balancing but my old charger does not like these batteries. The crappy charger I got bundled with the Lama V4 works and I will have to use this one instead. With 2400mAh for the radio I can keep flying for months just like I do with the Spektrum DX7 that I use a 3S LIPO in.

Here are a few pictures from the project

Continue reading »]]> As you might know I will try Arduplane in the Skywalker and Bixler to begin with. I have a few ideas of how to perform tests and here are my thoughts

1 verify RTH (fly away and turn off radio/activate with a switch – plane returns to start at preconfigured height)
2 verify flying after a route/waypoints at preconfigured height
3 fly a greater distance and verify RTH when radio fails(fly away and turn off radio)

when I know this:
4 verify range of radio with stock rubber antenna (to find out range)
5 verify range of patch antenna (again to find out the range)
6 verify range of videolink (also to know when video drops, when to use directional antenna)

I am looking forward to a few tests, a few can be done with the same LIPO, others require a fully loaded LIPO.
I think I can do 1-3 the same flying session with the same programming/configurations.

Continue reading »]]> I want to sum up my initial thoughts about the 450 v2 clone from RcTimer. The frame is nice, well finished and the parts fits well together. The kit comes with a rather crappy hex and you should apply some blue Loctite to make sure the screws do not fall off. They are rather special.

I tried to twist and bend the plastic arms but they feels very strong – no broken parts yet (after 5 flights) My motors – hacker Style Brushless Outrunner 20-22L are well suited for this frame – they bolt straight onto the frame. Hobbyking was backorder on the TURNIGY Plush 18amp Speed Controllers so I bought the same one with a different label from Giantcod

They connect to the built in PDB in the lower piece of the frame and I soldered an extension to a XT60 connector for LIPO. On top of the frame I mounted an older MultiWii-shield from Viacopter. The sensors are genuine WM+ and NK and the Arduino is the old Pro Mini 5V edition (Arduino replaced it with a newer one with more pins out)

I mounted the shield on a sandwich construction made up from coroplast and hot glue. I got a few signs from a local broker, their signs are made of coroplast and should last a lifetime for my use.

from the side the sandwich looks like this

–Shield–
–hot glue–
–coroplast–
–hot glue–
–Quad frame–

This makes the board very rigid, I had more vibrations when the shield was mounted on top of foam. On top of each motor is used and abused propellers – 10*4.5 from my earlier Quads – they will be replaced with new ones from Flyduino.

Despite being uncalibrated and using badly balanced propellers this Quadcopter flies great. I was wondering what to put on the 2 lips of the lower plate but found out that my 3S 1.3 Nanotech LIPO’s fitted perfect so this is from now on saddlebags on my Quad. 1 LIPO on each side and if I want to I can put a 3rd LIPO between the center plates. Carrying 3.9A is no problem at all.

I only have to find out a way to mount the camera gimbal to the frame. I want to avoid obstructions in the field of view but on this rather smallish Quad that is hard to do. I might leave that for my T-copter instead

My conclusion is 4 of 5 stars for the frame. 2 of 5 for the hex, 3 of5 for special hex-head screws and 5 of 5 for performance in the air.

Continue reading »]]> Today I had the time to maiden the 450 v2 frame. I mounted old propellers, worn from a few crashes and I only calibrated the sensors before I took off.

Here is the video

Overall I am very happy with this frame and I finally found out what to use the lower plates for – they are saddlebags!
1 LIPO on each and if needed a 3rd LIPO between the lower and upper plates.
I will add a shopping list for this Quad as well.

Continue reading »]]> I finished the last work on the 450 v2 clone today. I mounted the MultiWii shield (v 1.3BT by Jussi) the same way I mounted the Paris v4 board to the Tricopter that turned out to be great. The shield is hot glued to a piece of Coroplast and this piece is hot glued to the frame. It is not much dampening at all between the shield and the frame.

Here is a picture with some props mounted – crappy its dark outside to perform a maiden flight.

450 v2 Finished

Left to do is to replace some tape with zip-ties to make it neat and tidy. I mounted 10″ props as I do know they work well with this motors but I am very interested in mounting 8″ props for comparisons.

Continue reading »]]> I finished soldering and reprogramming the Hobbywing ESC’s to the 450 v2 frame. They are all calibrated to the endpoints for the FR-sky with PPM signals. I was lucky soldering the motors, I only had to swap cables on 1 motor of 4 to get the correct rotation direction. The ESC’s will be attached to the frame with zip-ties around the cables. Wires are cut to fit and are soldered as I really dislike bullet connectors(they caused crashes for me earlier) Now I must decide what board to mount on this frame. I do have a Flyduino MVC and a Jussi BT shield (v1.3) There are no mounting holes on the 450 v2 frame that fits any of them so I must fabricate an adapter of some sort.

Continue reading »]]> I finished a ESC calibrator today – a 5 minute DIY job.

A servo cable is soldered to a Pertinax breadboard with rows. 1 row for each wire to the servo connector. I chose to solder strips of 6 pins so I can calibrate 6 ESC’s at the time. All covered up by shrink tube.

I am also a big fan of DYMO. They are very easy to use and it is sweeet to label up your wires, motors and motor directions. All adds up to the overall touch of your multirotor.

A picture says more than 1 post in the blog

Continue reading »]]> Today I got a parcel from GiantCod A 4ch FRSKY receiver that is 8ch in PPM mode that I will use so I only need 1 wire between RX and MultiWii. And I got 4pcs Hobbywing Flyfun 18A that are supposed to be the same as Turnigy Plush 18A. They are also using the same programming card and that is very convenient. Same factory I suppose.

Here are shots from soldering. All ESC’s soldered to the built in EDB. A connector for LIPO’s is also in place. I miss an extra solder pad for connecting an UBEC. I prefer a stand alone UBEC to avoid ESC failures. I will simply add the extra 2 wires next to the battery solder points.

Here we notice 1 thing about this frame. On my DIY Quad I have the battery connector on the rear, this way the connectors and all extra wires compensates a bit for the extra weight from a Gopro in the front. If I turn this board around so the wires are rear, the 2 shelves are ending up on the right and left sides. What are they good for there? I can mount some electronics on top, an UBEC or so and the other side has to be open if I will attach the battery between the top and bottom plates.

Continue reading »]]> I have an Action Cam for evaluation in my hand. The specifications are close to GoPro HD, with a few exceptions of course. It has a elongated shape instead of the blunt shape of GoPro cameras that should cause less drag. It also has a small LCD display that is useful. Under the LCD are common connectors, HDMI, SDcard, Battery and such. The operation is pretty simple and I will have to transfer some samples to my computer to see if the quality is OK. It’s 1080P and FullHD capable so there should be no issues. I also tested 720P at 60FPS. Field Of View is 142/172 in 1080/720.

Here are some unpacking images

EDIT:

This camera deliver videos in .MOV format. Personally I don’t like .MOV format as it does not work with Sony Vegas. I have to convert it somehow and I use FFmpeg for this to create an unvompressed raw video.