Raiju 155 - FPV, and flying great Posted by SuperRoach | Oct 28, 2015 @ 07:14 AM | 6,372 Views

Raiju 155 Flight and crash (3 min 4 sec)

It crashed, and I found it it was because I hadn't tightened some screws. Whoops!



It's using a Naze 32 Rev 6 Board, with a forked cleanflight that had support for it.



Mimimosd is working great, although I'm still trying to figure out the best way to send RSSI to the Taranis .



The theory which seems solid is:

Flight controller, with VBatt connection, connected to RSSI on Mimim.

RSSI is also connected to Pin Two on the Naze 32.



I can see the Flight controller is talking and sending Battery voltage to Mimim fine. The voltage on the Taranis seems wrong and lower than it really is though. Not sure on that one yet.







How are the other builds?

Going fine. The first LKTR120 with Multistar ESC's is working. Nothing too special though, the desync of the motors even after calibration is annoying, can take a good minute or two to get them all to start up.



The second one is ready to fly LoS, however I want to get the FPV fine. I have the mimim flashed, polulu connected.... camera with alternate 120 degree lens ready... But I just don't know which way to attach them easily.



I have gone for an easier build on this one by adding 3mm standoffs. They are painted white and add a bit of charm to the quad, and makes it look more traditional (albeit tinier).



From all the work in making it be thin though, I almost have a lot of spare room! which is kind of funny.

A relatively boring FPV flight from a Raiju 155. Built up and flying extremely well.It crashed, and I found it it was because I hadn't tightened some screws. Whoops!It's using a Naze 32 Rev 6 Board, with a forked cleanflight that had support for it.Mimimosd is working great, although I'm still trying to figure out the best way to send RSSI to the Taranis .Flight controller, with VBatt connection, connected to RSSI on Mimim.RSSI is also connected to Pin Two on the Naze 32.I can see the Flight controller is talking and sending Battery voltage to Mimim fine. The voltage on the Taranis seems wrong and lower than it really is though. Not sure on that one yet.Going fine. The first LKTR120 with Multistar ESC's is working. Nothing too special though, the desync of the motors even after calibration is annoying, can take a good minute or two to get them all to start up.The second one is ready to fly LoS, however I want to get the FPV fine. I have the mimim flashed, polulu connected.... camera with alternate 120 degree lens ready... But I just don't know which way to attach them easily.I have gone for an easier build on this one by adding 3mm standoffs. They are painted white and add a bit of charm to the quad, and makes it look more traditional (albeit tinier).From all the work in making it be thin though, I almost have a lot of spare room! which is kind of funny. Images View all Images in thread All Thread Images Views: 130



Crash aftermath - missing screws

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I'm hiding in this one.

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Getting there...

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First revision completed (multistar version)

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Custom RGB LED's!

Dreamcatcher: Led Added and inflight photos Posted by SuperRoach | Aug 15, 2015 @ 04:28 AM | 6,946 Views



Took some photos of it in the air. For anyone else looking to do similar with their build, remember: Take photos during the day

Use a high shutter speed (1/500 and above), you'll need it even with a stable flight

take a close up photo and a distant photo to help show it's size

Also of those things help. It's a good idea to take one before you crash it or accidentally lose it in a big gust of wind as well!



I have been flying this aggressively using mostly the stock PID's . Next step when I'm more comfortable will be to go for a higher yaw rate and train again. Using FPV freerider helps for flight training on rainy days - There has been an string of those lately.



An LED was added to give me better sensing of direction. A wide angled bright one was added to the rear which is visible even during the day. I used a plastic standoff tube, which I threaded the LED Legs through. Heatshrink a small cable to wire directly on to the battery connector.



I did try the 3v3 receiver connection at first, and it would not turn on at all. So abandoned that and went with the battery connector - much simpler.



It is a little bit front biased with the battery placement, but I don't mind that yet.



I'm tempted to put a FPV cam and Transmitter on it, but I would need to be sure it is 3.7v lipo friendly. I could use a stepup converter I guess.

The Dreamcatcher quad has been fantastic so far. Everything has been easy and logical to fix when I run into problems, and it's a joy to fly.Took some photos of it in the air. For anyone else looking to do similar with their build, remember:Also of those things help. It's a good idea to take one before you crash it or accidentally lose it in a big gust of wind as well!I have been flying this aggressively using mostly the stock PID's . Next step when I'm more comfortable will be to go for a higher yaw rate and train again. Using FPV freerider helps for flight training on rainy days - There has been an string of those lately.An LED was added to give me better sensing of direction. A wide angled bright one was added to the rear which is visible even during the day. I used a plastic standoff tube, which I threaded the LED Legs through. Heatshrink a small cable to wire directly on to the battery connector.I did try the 3v3 receiver connection at first, and it would not turn on at all. So abandoned that and went with the battery connector - much simpler.It is a little bit front biased with the battery placement, but I don't mind that yet.I'm tempted to put a FPV cam and Transmitter on it, but I would need to be sure it is 3.7v lipo friendly. I could use a stepup converter I guess. Images View all Images in thread All Thread Images Views: 157





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So what's new with the LKTR120? Posted by SuperRoach | Aug 02, 2015 @ 04:34 AM | 7,368 Views



I've established that the ESC's are all fine, although one motor starts up with a little bit of stutter, and this one just gives an awkward resistance. Took a short video to illustrate it powering up. Anyone with suggestions here?



Motor stutter check (0 min 47 sec)



This stuttering was seen on two ESCs, and I resoldered it twice on both incase my soldering was somehow bad.



I have emailed Oversky asking for a refund or preferably sending replacements, and their service so far has been to ignore me after a brief first contact.... So I'm not positive about ordering replacement motors at my cost from them.



Some quick tips:



Those using Cleanflight, you can now flash ESC settings and the like using your FC - that's a convenience!

If you have multiple ESC's on a Power distribution board, you can use the one ground, and a seperate signal cable fine for ESC programming.



Some people have used an XT60 -> aligator clips to power the ESC when needed. Clever idea, wish I thought of that earlier (although the power may be too great from a 3S Battery).

... Not much. I've been taking it apart and learning a lot about debugging individual parts.I've established that the ESC's are all fine, although one motor starts up with a little bit of stutter, and this one just gives an awkward resistance. Took a short video to illustrate it powering up. Anyone with suggestions here?This stuttering was seen on two ESCs, and I resoldered it twice on both incase my soldering was somehow bad.I have emailed Oversky asking for a refund or preferably sending replacements, and their service so far has been to ignore me after a brief first contact.... So I'm not positive about ordering replacement motors at my cost from them.Some quick tips:Those using Cleanflight, you can now flash ESC settings and the like using your FC - that's a convenience!If you have multiple ESC's on a Power distribution board, you can use the one ground, and a seperate signal cable fine for ESC programming.Some people have used an XT60 -> aligator clips to power the ESC when needed. Clever idea, wish I thought of that earlier (although the power may be too great from a 3S Battery).

LKTR120 - Still trying to power up motors Posted by SuperRoach | Jul 28, 2015 @ 01:06 AM | 7,516 Views So, that second Afromini? Probably dead. Likely cause would be leaving the solder on a pin too long at some point.



The stm chip gets too hot to the touch, just like the first one. I'm marking it as a write off.



I had a third for an eventual other project that I'm moving forward to this one.



Using all of the header pins makes testing so easy! In the images for this post, is it with the header pins attached, alongside the wiring harness to well, work.



It powers up, and connects via FTDI! That's great!



Unfortunately the motor does not spin up using the motor tester in Baseflight. I was hoping this would have been the breakthrough needed, but unfortunately not. This may have been settings given to the motor via BlHeliSuite, I will need to read the settings again and check it out. At least that should not be too hard to do, when I get back to it.

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Third Afromini to the rescue...

LKTR120 - ESC's the Re-doing-ing Pt 2 Posted by SuperRoach | Jul 22, 2015 @ 12:09 PM | 6,911 Views A quick post about the LKTR120. With the new Afro Mini.



I'm having trouble with two of the ESC's in testing are stuttery and don't start up, and two others don't start up or beep and arm at all. Following the ESC Post on here, I tried using power and ground to a ESC, with signal going to it's signal cable (of the servo tester). Doesn't appear to start up.



Attached some images of the setup so far.



Note that with the new mini, the FTDI pinout is at the rear and not the side, so you would need to change the layout of your Quad. It may have been possible to mount it sideways on this quad, although the middle would be blocked by the nylon hex standoffs.



At the moment I just want to get a successful motor test working.



So far the testing has been with the Flight control board (ESC's 1 + 2 are stuttery but can be heard when powering up, 3+4 do nothing). I've moved away from that and am trying to diagnose using a Servo tester setup on each ESC.

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Dreamcatcher quad: Working! Beefs Brushed Board Software Setup inside Posted by SuperRoach | Jul 20, 2015 @ 02:00 AM | 6,926 Views



Decided to do the easier project - the Dreamcatcher first.



The Beef's Brushed Board has a setup process in software, I thought I'd record that:

Brett James (15 min 52 sec)

A thing to note is that the propellers are on the wrong direction in that video - if you look closely for each colour there is a letter and a number. Red for instance had a B1 and B2.



For a final check that you have the propellers on right, tilt the quad in the direction of the motor you want to check. Use the motor tester (in baseflight), or your transmitter controls to give a little bit of throttle.



You should feel air being pushed down, obvious if you have a hand underneath. If you don't, and it's going the other way - the propeller needs to be changed around.



So first flight due to the propeller, tore apart one of them like it was cheese, swapped that and wow - it flies! It's clearly overpowered, as it does not need much throttle to take off. Both of the batteries for it ran down quickly because they have been used for testing for a long while, but flight was stable.



A minor annoyance with Base flight is that I cannot review the settings last saved for my flight control board, without having it plugged in. This made me guess for what flight control mode.



I'll charge up some batteries and have another flight tonight

The flight control boards have arrived in, woohoo!Decided to do the easier project - the Dreamcatcher first.The Beef's Brushed Board has a setup process in software, I thought I'd record that:A thing to note is that the propellers are on the wrong direction in that video - if you look closely for each colour there is a letter and a number. Red for instance had a B1 and B2.For a final check that you have the propellers on right, tilt the quad in the direction of the motor you want to check. Use the motor tester (in baseflight), or your transmitter controls to give a little bit of throttle.You should feel air being pushed down, obvious if you have a hand underneath. If you don't, and it's going the other way - the propeller needs to be changed around.So first flight due to the propeller, tore apart one of them like it was cheese, swapped that and wow - it flies! It's clearly overpowered, as it does not need much throttle to take off. Both of the batteries for it ran down quickly because they have been used for testing for a long while, but flight was stable.A minor annoyance with Base flight is that I cannot review the settings last saved for my flight control board, without having it plugged in. This made me guess for what flight control mode.I'll charge up some batteries and have another flight tonight Images View all Images in thread All Thread Images Views: 156



A good sense of scale! Correct Prop directions, next to the bottom of a Turnigy 9x.

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A Set back. Posted by SuperRoach | Jul 07, 2015 @ 06:45 AM | 7,818 Views So, in the blog you probably have seen a lot of progress on two quad copters.



Here's why they likely are not going to go ahead.



LKTR120:

While testing with the multi meter, I touched the ground and power pins to the wrong place on a voltage regulator. This is used in multiple places including powering the receiver. I had just resoldered all of the pins to be on the S1-S4 pins of the Afromini board. To be able to do those, you need to enable "Servo Gimbal" in the Gui or type feature servo_tilt in the cli.



So yeah, It will power up, but not arm the escs (probably regulator). It will work when plugged into the PC via an FTDI cable, but I can't test the motors then anyway.



The current state is that I would have likely needed 2mm cable ties, as I couldn't source them locally.



Dreamcatcher:

Using a brushed board and motors, this looked like it was going to be great. I took a photo of it's current state - ready to fly.



When I plugged the battery in, the motors spin up a bit fast, which probably is to do with the minimum throttle setting in the CLI of baseflight. So I made a FTDI cable for something a bit more permanent.... and put in the Ground and Power wires wrong into the board.



It doesn't light up anymore.... and no signal goes to the computer. Yep. I shortcircuited it too.



Just tried drilling wider holes for propellers. It's been mentioned in the LKTR120 thread that a 1.45 Drillbit is needed... will thats not correct. Attaching a photo with that done, but it's clearly far too wide.



In short, It's fried.



So for the short term, I think it's time to pack up the work bench and take some time out, reassess if it's in an easy state to pick up. I don't feel the best about making some very basic mistakes this late into the process.

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LKTR120 - Lots of progress including first battery power on! Posted by SuperRoach | Jul 03, 2015 @ 01:53 AM | 7,403 Views A suprise arrival of a 6X charging harness for the eFlite Micro arrived. This lets me safely test the battery now, because I can charge it back up!



A lot of progress for today so I'll need to talk more in detail about setting the receiver and transmitter up in another post (This is so you can use "AUX1 - AUX4").



Using the eflite connector, I can power the ESCs. By itself this means nothing, so I quickly soldered on a ground and power to go to the flight controller (not yet attached to the top of the frame.



So at the moment it powers up! I can use baseflight to test ... Motor 1. And it will spin up fine. The other motors wont yet... So I'm not sure what is wrong there.



I have the option of changing my pinouts using "servo_tilt" mode, which for a quad copter is fine, but we'll see. I don't know if it would even be the reason for that.



Currently I have a shared ground going into the PPM Channel, the ground being for both the receiver and the battery.



For now though, I'm very proud to show this photo of it being alive without a super awkward third arm connection! The Power distribution board (in the middle) is not giving a firm connection for the power cable, which might be a worry. Means I have to be mindful to not tug on that end of the cable.

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LKTR120 - ESC's done Posted by SuperRoach | Jun 29, 2015 @ 09:53 AM | 7,561 Views



Although I don't have a charging harness for



I used a copper PCB, and cut the middle trace. To be sure it stayed intact, I put a 1.8mm Cable tie over it. I used a texta to color it black. This does make the quad have a tiny bump at the bottom, so I'll need landing gear to be able to properly level this thing I think in the future.



The copper board itself has PVA Glue, which isn't attached very well to the carbon fiber frame. The ESC's are firmly in place and I don't expect to see them moving - besides they should be shielded from most impacts anyway.



The underside of the quad has all of the Orange/Yellow connectors -

... Well hopefully the are! They are soldered, but I have not tested them yet.Although I don't have a charging harness for these batteries with an awful connector, I don't plan on draining it too fast and it should last until the overseas shipment arrivesI used a copper PCB, and cut the middle trace. To be sure it stayed intact, I put a 1.8mm Cable tie over it. I used a texta to color it black. This does make the quad have a tiny bump at the bottom, so I'll need landing gear to be able to properly level this thing I think in the future.The copper board itself has PVA Glue, which isn't attached very well to the carbon fiber frame. The ESC's are firmly in place and I don't expect to see them moving - besides they should be shielded from most impacts anyway.The underside of the quad has all of the Orange/Yellow connectors - here's the ESC's I used . I have forgotten the point of them (flashing a new firmware maybe?) , and don't know the use of them yet. Images View all Images in thread All Thread Images Views: 185





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