Quadcopter Build

I like idea of building up my own Quad, but not sure about putting it all together and having issues getting it flying. The DJI drone with visions 1500, not cheap but out of the box you know its going to fly.
 
trust me man it's easy..

Simple build.

x4 motors, 3530 size, or around about this, get about 1100 kv motors, 10 inch props for this speed is good. $60 ( go for 5 mm shaft)
$20 frame
multiwii pro flight controller
esc with simonk
cheap hobbyking txand rx..
battery.
or if you want.....
I can send you my exact parts list from AU warehouse if you like?
Also the correct code, and you can copy my pid settings to start with, should be close with the same parts.
all you will need to do is upload the code to the board... Calibrate accelerometer, press a button on a level surface..
and ,magometer calibration, you just spin it on 360 on all axis, bam your done, I can send you a video of me doing this if you like..
then you arm the quad and fly it...

The most annoying part is getting the motor/esc wires the right combination for the direction you want.
multiwii x , front props spin towards each other, the rear props spin outwards.. so buy bullet connections to make it easy to switch them if you need to.

buy the parts and if you get stuck 1 phone call and you will be up and running.
I can help you if you need
 
Building your own is much cheaper.. if you every crash which is rare, You can buy cheap replacement parts..

I once was showing off went full throttle upwards to show the vertical climb, bam went stright into the power lines, bounced off and flipped upside down... split second decision was to apply full throttle :lol: , to try and correct it self which it would do easily at hi altitude.. instead i went full throttle into the ground, Broke one propeller and blew one esc,, it was weird it made magic smoke after i picked it up. The moment it hit the ground i did return the throttle to zero but it still managed to stall the motor and blow that esc.

the 3530 motors are all fine,, no bent shafts, just small damage.. changed the esc over and she was ready to fly again...

Luckly i had spare esc's, i had all 30 amp esc's on and i used a 20 amp esc which worked perfectly fine. so now x3 30 amp and x1 20 amp esc..
I have plenty more that just arrived today with simonk firmware so will change to them soon.. but so far its been flying really well.. no more hiccups
$11 fix...... , if you do this on a dji, cheap rtf, it will cost you alot more..

and you can just do so much more with the multiwii software.. have a few servos laying around? make a super simple gimbal for your camera..
 
I played with acrobatic mode today..

Basically the difference..

Stable mode= you push pitch or roll and it will do that movement, let go of the sticks and it will correct itself.. I normally fly in this mode.


Acro mode= You push the pitch forward, the copter will stay in that orientation.. you can also roll that much you can do flips.. Its good for putting the copter on a forward pitch, you can then use the yaw/rudder, to turn left or right, so depending on how you like flying or the application you can just switch from any mode.
 
I have ordered this camera the other day..

I could of used the go pro but i am looking for something lighter and slim line for a cheap home made gimbal.

So after researching i found the dimika action camera, Weighs about 37 grams, 1 hour video, 1080p30 or 720p60 , time lapse photo at higher res..

Looks to be about the same video quality as the gopro 1.. I think the colour is better than the mobious and about on par with quality..
I really liked how light it is.. and good video i thought.. Cheap at $69 shipping can be free!!!

http://dimikacamera.com/

[youtube]apiw8a53stI[/youtube]
 
here is my first attempt of a gimbal, I am going to get better servos, mount it properly, and used printed parts,..

This cost me nothing to build i used scrap and junk $1 servos

[youtube]TSQUBDbJ9cU[/youtube]
 
I need to set the correct positions of the servos in the phone app and recenter it, maybe cut the tubes...
They are fishtank air pump tubes..

I will take some video using it tomorrow in the daylight, I did a test inside and its actually killed most of the jello effect and made the video quite alot smoother.. Its really worth making i must say.. just use better servos...

Its all run from the multiwii pro flight controller board. as simple as commenting one line of code to activate the stabilised servos.
 
Finally got mine to fly! Nice, ran through a few batteries, trying to take it easy. It did land funny a few times and bent the motor shafts. They need to be re-aligned. I do need to look into either changing them out or buying new motors. Tough call when the motors are only like $10. Next up is changing props back to see what difference that makes. I've been using some heavy duty props that likely has led to bending the motor shafts.
I'll take a picture of it when I get a chance and see if you can't identify why mine didn't work correctly. Stupid chinglesh manual!
Stoked on this though! The thing is awesome compared to my tiny toy quads.
 
77756_38763_acbda.jpg

So what was wrong with this?
 
Yeah, finally flying. The only prob I have now is the thing will drop from the sky. I think from the LVC. I never programmed the escs. Didn't come with any documentation on how to do that. The ESCs are soldered to a power board, so don't know how to do it now anyway. The LVC seems to go off around 3.5v when it sags. Stinks because I should be able to get a few more minutes of flight time. I'm only going for five minutes on a 2200 mah 3s battery.
Did you see why it wasn't working based on the photo? The pic isn't of mine, mine is beat to hell. I'm surprised it works with every motor shaft bent and the props chipped up. Once I make sure the quad is dropping from the LVC, I'll switch out the props.
The reason why it wasn't flying at all still has me upset at myself and the stupid manual.
 
if you set your esc's to nimh your escs wont cut out, give your more time when the buzzer goes off to land..
but best to not ruin batteries

Check out this video,
you want it this stable with your PID tuning
These pids can be higher but the person i built it for is new and this will suit him better.
[youtube]WXygTHhPXM4[/youtube]
 
Can you reset your ESC's after they have been soldered to the board? I think I'd have to undo everything to get that changed. I've switched over to 3700mah batteries to solve the problem. Had another crash the other day when the aileron wasn't working. Need to replace another broken motor shaft. I order two new motors, next time I'll just switch out the shaft. Hopefully won't be a next time. In retrospect, I should have built a 450 size quad. The frames you are using seem a bit more robust. Saw a 450 setup on Aliexpress for $100, just needs props. I've got a bundle of those on hand. Uses that kk 5.5 board though.

As to the picture you can see how the FC isn't square to the the front of the quad. Its setup for a plus not x quad. Brutal that it took me so long to figure that out. Finally with the Steveis firmware I was able to use the offset feature so I didn't have to take the quad apart to fix that problem.

Your quad looks sooo, stable. Nice. With all my issues I've had nothing is balanced quite like that.
 
yeah you can program the escs,

This is how i would do it.

Unplug all wires from your receiver,

Then unplug each esc, the small wire, plug it into the 3rd channel which is normally throttle, plug it into the throttle channel.
you then turn on transmitter, set throttle to full, then turn on esc through existing wiring harness, just plug in battery..
It will enter into programming mode
you will then need to follow the beeps and program hi timming and nimh on each esc.

its a pain in the ass to do but you only need to do it once man.
 
Thanks for the offer. With the 3700mah battery I'm getting around 10 minutes with the voltage going to 3.5. I'm going to keep it there. 10 minutes is enough for me. I've had about 6 or so flights without incident. Hope to get some tricks going soon. I'm still a bit nervous while flying. I've lost the smaller quads or had them fly out of range. Don't want that to happen to this death trap. Somebody's going to get hurt. I'm still figuring out the optical illusion effect when the quad is flying towards me and it looks like its flying away. The Hubsan and WLToys seem to flatten out quicker so you can tell which way the quad is going.
I'm thinking now of getting the F450 with the multiwii 2012. Its cheaper than just buying the parts. I figure its at least $40 for motors and another $30 or so just for escs. $100 for a complete doesn't seem so bad. What board are you using again?
 
I use the multiwii pro.. I tried the other multiwii boards but the pro is good as it includes gps. I'd go with motors that use a 5mm shaft. 3530 size is perfect and 300 watts a motors. I'd go to rctimer.. you will save a clue of bucks but will take longer to ship
 
I ended up getting a gopro 3+ black edition..
Far out, I had the gopro hero2, it is just sooo much better video quality

I was gonna get a full sized camera, But wow, Gopro 3+ black edition directly strapped to the quadcopter frame without balanced props has almost Zero Jello !!!!!
Gimbal is on the way..Super impressed with the 240 fps in wvga, still a very clear image!!! and doing 1080 is just awesome!!!!

weighs 75 grams with battery and without the clear waterproof housing... its super light to!
 
Here is some footage..

First one is recording @ 240fps and slowing the video down on parts,

Second video is me flying FPV, going slow as its a really windy day.. Sorry for the jello, No anti vibration mount was used. ( gimbal on the way)

It's actually really good compared to some of the small action cameras iv used in the past... Was just using 1080 @ 60fps not 2.7k video


[youtube]_t5J3qzVxgs[/youtube]

[youtube]T47AagMWREQ[/youtube]
 
man i got infected :) i have my HK shopping cart ready to order for days now, as i was not sure if i need another toy. but after seeing those videos i guess i must order one...
i want to build the model by myself. so no RTF modell. i like the SK450 and would like to order different parts and assemble it.

now i saw that you prefer the multiwii over the kk2.0/1. why? what are the advantages?
 
izeman said:
man i got infected :) i have my HK shopping cart ready to order for days now, as i was not sure if i need another toy. but after seeing those videos i guess i must order one...
i want to build the model by myself. so no RTF modell. i like the SK450 and would like to order different parts and assemble it.

now i saw that you prefer the multiwii over the kk2.0/1. why? what are the advantages?
Click to expand...


Yeah Multiwii is a bit better, has more functions..


There are 3 major flight controllers


Multiwii-
ArduPilot
Naza

Multiwii is the most open platform, if your a programmer this is ideal.
Ardupilot has very strong autonomous abilities... I love gps hold on it and return to launch, way better than multiwii
Naza, pretty expensive, plug and play.. they work really well... dji is expensive fr what it is.

Multiwii is a good all rounder, can fly acrobatics better than the others, and soon they will offer full 3d flight with reversing engine
If you get a multiwii with a GPS you can do a fair amount of autonomous flight as well.
It is also the cheapest. The hk multiwii pro from hobbyking is $70 + buy the bluetooth modules and you have yourself quite a decent board that is far better than the KK2
 
I also did not bother with fat sharks, I have used them but....
its all pretty low resolution so I think its better you spend you money on a better flight controller than getting a pair of fat sharks when you can buy these


http://hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__53706__Quanum_DIY_FPV_Goggle_Set_with_Monitor_KIT_.html


and they work perfectly well. I use the weakest lenses, Other day I used it for 45 minutes with one pit stop...
When you first start doing FPV... dont drive a car directly after, give yourself a 10 minute break so your eyes adjust again.

overall they do pretty much the same job as fat sharks just way more bulky..

Picture below is of my FPV camera, I only use 420pal but you can use 600line cctv camera or use the gopro.. But..
best to use a separate camera in my opinion, these new gopros can lock up and do weird stuff some times..
 

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