LED's to light up your racer

It's always a good idea to put LED lights on your quad. I do it as I always get confused on which is front and back while flying some distance away. These LED lights are actually designed for a different frame, which also is a few bucks more than my shoestring budget QAV250 frame. The colors blue, white, green and red. The support 11V at 3S 14.8V at 4S. This package goes for $1.53 from good old Banggood.

I threaded the wires around the frame and through holes in order to get them away as good as possible as this frame does not contain soldering points and built-in power distribution.

Almost final assembly. I'm going to attach the lights under the frame or facing backwards so that they are visible from below. Not sure yet as attaching facing backwards will be an issue with the battery that also slides in from behind.







Have fun and let there be light!

QAV250 Xmas build a'la banggood.com

Long time no post as usual but this fall hasn't yielded a lot of building worth posting. This however is a complete QAV250 build with most parts from the cheap Chinese online shop banggood.com.
Parts needed are the usual suspects starting with the frame. This is a carbon fiber/plastic frame with a robust X shape for $16.99. Just be careful and use lock-tight to keep screws in place.

This combo package consists of an ESC, a brush-less motor with a 5x3 propeller. The ESC is programmed with a SimonK firmware, which is something to aim for as his firmware usually does a better job than the stock firmware. Motors are 1804-2400kv from ZMR. This package goes for $16.08.

One motor was broken on delivery. It felt like one of the magnets had come loose and I've heard from others that they have had similar problems too. Luckily, I bought one spare package.

As flight controller, I'm using a Naze32 copy called Flip32. It's based on a 32-bit ARM Cortex-M3 processor (STM32F103CB). It can be used with both Baseflight and Cleanflight, which are both open source projects. I'm using Cleanflight as it feels newer and seems to have a more active development. It also has a few more features, such as Autotune. PID configuration can be used right out of the box.
Note: One issue I experienced is how to arm the flight controller. After some research, I figured that you absolutely need to calibrate both magnetometer and accelerator in order to get it to arm. $24.59.

I'm using a generic 1300mAh battery, which is common with QAV250 models. I have had no issues with these batteries so far. $20.45 each, I bought two but I think that I'm going to order a couple more.

Radio receiver is actually bought from Hobby King rather than from banggood, simply because I fancy the OrangeRX brand. It's a seven channel RX with fail-safe functionality. When used properly, if the RX detects a loss or radio connectivity, it'll automatically pull down the throttle channel to a minimum. This will prevent your model from flying away. If you're interested in the "fly away" topic, do query YouTube with the keywords "quadcopter fly away". $17.99.


Merry Christmas and fly safe!

The ground station

Today is a good day. I got an idea a few weeks ago looking at ready made ground stations such as this!
  However, my shoe string budget does not cover the $180 needed to acquire the selected product.









I therefore thought of the idea to make one by my self using the FPV parts I recently purchased. It's not an 8 inch monitor, but a 7 inch and it's not as pretty as the ready made ground station. I first bought this aluminum "service case" from Clas Ohlsson, a common utility store in Sweden.

It's fairly cheap and cost only about $31.








I removed the lid tool hanger, I might do something else with it later but for now its gone. My father in law helped me with some intricate drilling to get it all to fit nicely. And this what it looked like. Notice the antenna in the upper left corner.

Here is the finished product with the 7 inch monitor and radio mounted. It can even fit the radio transmitter, batteries and other gadgets that are good to bring for a nice flight.

 

RC model building weekend

I just spent Saturday building RC models with the guys and was able to get a first look at what the FPV kit would be able to deliver.


I also had a miner accident assembling the quad in a hast without doing vital calibrations. Hope the accident wont render any further problems.

The micro USB connector that allows configuration of the MultiWii flight controller got loose at one point but was fixed by one of my friends. It's now soldered and hot glued to the board. Hopefully it stays there for a bit as I'm afraid that it wont be fixable if it happens again..

Stuff has arrived!

The things I recently ordered arrived today. Transport took 17 days, which is longer than normal.

 

This picture is supposed to illustrate how I'd connect the items. From top, transmitter and camera. Then LCD display connected to the receiver with the option to use the USB connector instead.

See anything missing? Yes, nothing to connect the camera and the transmitter.. I've apparently forgotten to order a cable, which I thought to be included. On other sites where I've observed the same camera, this specific cable has always been included. However not at banggood. 

This is the missing cable. It connects the USB output to a video cable, which then connect to the radio transmitter.Only $3 and now I have to wait another few weeks to get it.

Stay tuned!

Merry Xmas!

Merry Xmas and so on..

Long time and no posts. I've actually not been up to anything in this project lately due to winter times and less hobby time.

However, Christmas has yielded some donations for my quad project. I've therefore decided to take it one step further. I've previously written about FPV and how I'd like to set it up. Until today, I've only been looking but the time has come to put down the order. These is the items I bought..

First of all, we need a suitable camera to record images. This is the 808 #16 key chain camera is similar to the other original 808 key chain camera I bought this summer apart from a 120 degree wide angle lens and video output capabilities. Having 120 degree instead of 76 degree lens helps a lot when trying to navigate using a small screen or goggles.

Next you need a way to transmit the images you've captured. I've decided to use a 1.2GHz transmitter instead of the regular 5.8GHz that most people use. The reason for using a lower frequency is to gain a longer wave length. For you who are not familiar with the result of this wave length difference, it basically will allow the radio waves to bypass larger objects. With a 5.8GHz radio you need pretty much nothing in between transmitter and receiver. However with 1.2GHz, trees and stuff may come in the way. Even larger objects probably allow the waves to reach its destination.

To display the result of the capture, I've gone with this 7 inch monitor. It requires 12V DC, which as to be solved in one way or another to make the experience mobile. Here I have a secret plan that some day may be turned into reality but will so far stay my secret :).

Next item is something I came across just by browsing banggood.com and is a composite video receiver for a computer. This will allow received images to be projected on my laptop screen instead of an external monitor. This is also a part of my secret plan.





Now for the bad news, what do I need to pay for these items?
FPV 1.2G 8CH 800mw Wireless AV Transmitter And Receiver $55.99
Easycap USB 2.0 Video TV DVD VHS Audio Capture Adapter $7.00
FPV 7 Inch TFT LCD Monitor HD 800x480 Screen With Audio $52.99
808 NO.16 V2 HD 120 Degree Mini Camera Module 7g $43.99

Total US$160

A new era, a new beginning

It's been a while since my last post. The main cause is that I felt the energy drain as the fall gets more visible with worse weather, not too encouraging for quad flights. The darkness is also upon us, which makes flight difficult if it's not during day time.

As I've previously written, I ordered the radio telemetry, which I now got working. No hassle, it worked instantly. The only fault I did was to not turn down the COM-port speed from 115k to 57k, there after it worked as a charm :). The picture displays how the flight controller is connected to the laptop and Mission Planner using the radios. The radios are basically a wireless serial port.

 

Next, I focused on the darkness or rather how to fly when it's not full day light. Dusk has previously also been a hassle but these lights should mitigate that obstacle. Looking close at the picture below you can see how I wired the break out wire directly to the power distribution board. The board has tiny connectors all over, which allows soldering and therefore can provide extra connectivity as these lights require 11V.

 

Now to the final product, I started putting the quad back together, putting the lights in place. Hope this can light up any future winter flights.

I decided to go with green on the front and red on the back. Traditionally you should have green to the left and red to the right, but that doesn't help me when I usually see the quad from behind. Therefore I went with red to back and green up front.