Multi-coptering it up!

Afternoon all.

I faniced a dabble with some rotary winged action again (must be the time of the year!), so this time I've decided that Multicopter goodness shall this way come! I've just ordered a few components, bits and pieces to put together a smallish quadcopter. I was half tempted to try one of the Blade mqx beasties, but I really wanted something capable of lofting the little GoPro camera to get some aerial footage. I'm hoping the larger size means easier to fly, analogous to normal Murder Death Kill Machines.

Anyway, from watching Roy with his little Mqx beastie, and Steve Price with his multi coloured LED monster at the indoor sessions, I'm quite confident that I shall have issues with orientation (i.e. orientation of the quadcopter, not me). So, does anyone have any cunning tips, or experience to share, that will help me keep track of a quadcopter?

I'm thinking that colouring the front and back arms differently should help, as should some LEDs?

I'll post some photos of the build if anyone is interested?

Cheers
Andy

PS> Fastlad has a 10% discount code available until midnight tomorrow, I've made use of it

Here you go Andy.

http://www.fast-lad.co.uk/store/index.php?cPath=21_645_646&sort=1a&page=1

I've been sniffing round one too.
Was thinking of the 330x which also has the orange ping pong ball for orientation.
They do the bigger version too.

Good idea is also to use different coloured propellers - very popular among my friends in Poland

Hi andy

Yes having led lights does help and after several flights you just get used to them THE LIGHTS in different orientations etc and I can also fly my quad in total darkness WITH CAUTION.

good luck c u saturday

steve

Cheers Steve. I think it would be rude not to put some christmas lights on it, It's just I get confused easily, and lots of colours isn't going to help. I'm thinking something like white and red would work well. Easy to differentiate, and pretty festive too....

That's a good tip that Rob too, I'm not sure what colour the props that come with the kit of parts I ordered, but I'll bear it in mind when I inevitably need spares!

Andy

Right, some pictures of bits:

we need one of these to send pictures back down to the ground:


and one of these to take the pictures in the first place:


A couple of these hold the previous on in place, along with all the other gubbins:


a pile of screws and bits like this:


to hold on some of these things:


which in turn, hold four lots of these in place:


and provide the turny action for all of these:


Still to come are the little flight computer doofer thing, and some building!

Oh, and for those interested, the plates are a TBS Discovery, and the arms/motor/esc and hardware are from DJI Innovations (the 450 flame wheel hardware basically)

Andy

Like the frame Andy will make the wirring neat.

Roy.

That's mainly why I went for the TBS plates, nice and neat with a built in mount for an fpv camera and gopro. Just the ticket! I've got some bits coming for an Fpv groundstation too, which is nice!

GREAT and good luck ANDY

STEVE

Just a few notes on the parts I've bought. The Video tx and camera were bought off of Ebay, only cheapy ones, but we'll see how they perform before splashing out on some expensive kit!

The motors and esc's look to be reasonable quality. I get the impression they are the normal "out of China" type items, not premium quality items like you might find from the likes of Axi etc. They are the ones supplied by DJI Innovations, and enough people seem to rate them from what I have read, so they shall stay!

The arms are from a DJI 450 Flamewheel quad, and look to be bomb proof. They are injection moulded from a glass reinforced plastic resin, and have funky little metal inserts whereever a screw needs to be put in. I bought a couple of spares, just in case one breaks. The TBS guys say they are designed to break before the top and bottom plates, acting like a mechanical fuse.,

The rest of the hardware, is from TBS. The plates are a work of art. Not only do they form the backbone of this quadcopter, they also have a bunch of wiring built in to them. They are made from some nice strong fibreglass PCB material, and have neat little sockets for a receiver, Flight controller, video camera, power supply, and also connections for the 4 Escs out on the arms. There is also a neat little integrated battery current sensor provided. On the bottom plate, there is a connection area for a little bit of kit called the TBS Core. This is supposed to provide a power supply module for the Video camera, and other electronics, as well as an On Screen Display for the battery voltage/current etc. I'm not using that for now, but I may try it out in the future.

The flight controller has turned up this morning too. I was initially going to try one of the DIY beasties based around a Wii motion plus controller. However, in the interests of saving a bucket load of time, I've bought a DJI Naza m flight controller. It is nice and compact, and programmable for a whole host of Multicopter types. I've not got the GPS add on (yet!). The software for programming it is dead easy to use, I've managed to suss it all out in about 10 minutes.

Next up, I'll have a few build photos, when I start the assembly process at the weekend. I've still got to buy some other bits and pieces, like some funky LED's, and groundstation guff. I may splash out on some new battery packs too

Andy

Er, I seem to have forgotten to post the build pics as I progress, but here are a couple showing where I am up to. The lower plate has had the DJI Naza Flight controller mounted, and the four ESCs have been soldered in place too. The standoffs have all been mounted, and the arms and motors have too. Just got to tidy the wiring up a bit, and figure out where to mount the FPV stuff on there now, and then get the top plate on!





Fingers crossed I'll have it ready for some indoor test flights on saturday

Andy

is the camera in pic one or two

FPV go on you want it

None yet, it is on the workbench in the garage! It will be fpv'd up, with two cameras. A gopro for recording decent footage, and a little dinky one for a downlink...

Both cameras mount at the front (between the black arms) in the photos above.

I do need to sort out some kind of screen to view the fpv downlink on the ground though, any ideas?

Andy

Andy Sayle wrote:None yet, it is on the workbench in the garage! It will be fpv'd up, with two cameras. A gopro for recording decent footage, and a little dinky one for a downlink...Both cameras mount at the front (between the black arms) in the photos above.

I do need to sort out some kind of screen to view the fpv downlink on the ground though, any ideas?

Andy

Thought you could just use the Gopro for both.

Roy

I briefly used an old tell that ran off a 240 to 12 power pack from a inverter

I think you can get the composite video out of the Gopro at the same time as recording HD footage, although the leads from Gopro are a bit bulky! I'm looking at DIY options now, but there is also some questions of a lag/low frame rate on the composite out when recording HD. I#ll build it for both options though I think

Andy