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.

 

Current and voltage meter in the mail today!

 

This is what I got in the mail today. I ordered it from GoodLuckBuy and it was shipped out 10 days ago. This still means that the average time to delivery from China is about 9-10 days depending on holidays I suppose.

The little device in the middle gets hooked up and man-in-the-middles the power coming from the battery and tells the flight controller how much juice it has left. There is an excellent integration instruction at ArduCopters wiki but this is roughly how its meant to work shown in the picture to the right. There are some settings in Mission Planner that allows the flight controller to conduct an emergency landing if the voltage falls too low. Remember that I previously written that I've set my ESC's to cut power at 3V in order to spare the batterys health. This means that I should make an emergency landing prior to that. Other than an emergency landing is also to order the flight controller to RTL. However, we all know how that ended last time..

Talking about failing RTL's, I yesterday think I've got a clue why the GPS has been acting strange lately. By accident, I looked at the quad's heading according to the flight controller and it was 90 degrees wrong. This means that I've mounted the GPS 90 degrees wrong which makes the flight controller do things the wrong way.

Another update is that I received an e-mail this morning from the author of MegaPirateNG with a link to MPNG-3.0.1-R2 :). I still haven't downloaded the code but I sure will within the next few days.

I've also got another package in the mail about a week ago, which I still haven't written about. I will do so in a separate blog post due to its large content. I also have a few surprise upgrades so stay tuned ;)

 

MegaPirateNG 3.0.1 is out!

Sounds like a shout from the grave but this is something that I didn't expect.
Today I read on some forum that MegaPirateNG 3.0.1 is out. It also has a brand new official site. The site claims that they have shipped the new code to those who have donated at least $10 to the project. The rest of the world has to wait until late September. Therefore, today, I've donated $10 and should hopefully receive an e-mail containing a golden link. I did that also because I want to support the continuation of MPNG.

As soon as I get the link, I'll make sure to try it out and report back on the look and feel.

Link to MPNG official site: http://www.megapirateng.com

Radio telemetry ordered

A few days ago, I decided that it was time to order a radio telemetry set. I went for the set from GoodLuckBuy.com (got to love that name) for roughly $36. However, today when I investigated into why I hadn't received any package tracking information, I discovered that the package hadn't event been shipped out. Slightly disappointing as the page does not clam that the items are out of stock. The support chat however informed me that the items were in fact out of stock. Big minus for that site.

Anyhow. Not loosing fate, I decided to order yet another item, which I found in the new arrivals at DealExtreme as well but for a higher price. This is a current and voltage sensor that is way cheaper than shiny once at Sparkfun.com. It looks the same and has the same specifications but for a lower price, $14. It's used to report how much juice is left in the battery back to the MultiWii flight controller, which may take action if the capacity is going low. Actions such as RTL or land. We'll see how this goes but the support attendee informed me that the item was in fact in stock. At least one item was..

MegapirateNG vs. MultiWii

I've been reading up on forums on the progress of future releases for the MegaPirateNG code base. To my astonishment I soon found out that the main maintainer behind MegaPirateNG left the project to join the ArduPilot team. This means that currently MegaPirateNG isn't developed. A small project fork all tho seem to have been done by some enthusiasts. This is called megapirateng-add-ons ( https://code.google.com/p/megapirateng-add-ons/ ) and is a beta into MegaPirateNG 2.9.1. Some folks claim its superb while some clam it has serious bugs. Others tell to look into the MultiWii code base instead.

Today I tried out the MultiWii 2.2 code, which is the latest in it's branch. From the first look and feel, it feels like the quad is handling a lot more stable. This is before touching any PID parameter configurations. I've done some level flights and it feels really stable. I haven't figured out if it's possible to configure the controller to decelerate the quad on releasing any of the pitch or roll controls, which MegaPirate did by default. That behavior is very helpful for beginners.

The guide I used to get going with MultiWii can be obtained from this forum thread:
http://www.multi-rotor.co.uk/index.php?topic=411.0

This is my current configuration and a look at the MultiWii configuration program.

One detail I found very useful is the fully configurable mode selector. This can be used to combine several features to build your own flight modes instead of having to use any vendor supplied modes.

My configuration states that not using AUX1 should result in a level (angle) flight. Using AUX1, level, barometer to hold altitude, magnetometer to hold heading and GPS to hold position should be used. AUX3 is used in a similar fashion but invoking GPS return to home instead.

It's thereby possible to combine any of these features in any desired way. Further explanation can be obtained at the MultiWii wiki page.

Stay tuned for more information as I go along. I will try to test out the GPS return to home function rather soon.

Another one bites the dust

 

There has been a few days since I last wrote. To that, I can only say: laptop + morning coffee = less blogging and even less field testing of quad.

Today was however the first time since the resurrection that I've done some serious testing. I wanted to try out the RTL (return to launch) function that went AWOL last time I tried.

The first thing that happened today once I fired up the quad and was lifting off was that after 30 meters or so, one of the blades of the front left propeller broke off. I didn't realize this at first but what happened was that I heard a ill sounding noise as if something broke followed by a ill sounding motor engine. The quad then slowly started banking towards left and at that point, I couldn't stop it from flying further to the left. I made a controlled crash landing as I couldn't stabilize the quad. Once I located it again I quickly realized why it behaved as it did; it had close to no lifting power on the left side and therefore, I couldn't stop the motion towards left.

This is one of the 8x45 propellers I recently bought and from the breaking point it looks like it might had been delivered with a defect. I am no expert in this field but you can examine the picture for your self. Anyhow, these are cheap propellers and I guess I buy more as they may break. The positive outcome from this accident is that I now know that a failing propeller isn't an instant fatal crash but very recoverable.

I've considered buying these carbon fiber propellers instead of the plastic propellers I've been using until now but they are fairly pricy and I think I need more practice and less close calls to fund these. Carbon fiber propellers won't take any small nudges without splintering into pieces nor will the plastic once but the plastic once are six times cheaper..

X550 resurrected

Done a few test flights with the X550 after replacing broken parts and it seem to fly as it should. Haven't tried anything GPS related yet but it spins like a cat and flies like a bird.

This is a short video from one of the first trial flights. The camera vibrates like crazy but you can still make something out after using the stabilizing enhancements thanks to YouTube. Guess I'll need to do something about this in the future.

RIP zippy

 

The last casualty of the crash is the battery. I tried all last night to revive it using all sorts of Jedi mind tricks to the charger according to instructions. The force wasn't with me this time and as I feared it felt it might catch fire due to the heat and the fact that it started expanding, I stopped my attempts. This must be the single most expensive loss of this crash but still nothing compared to rebuilding the whole quad.

Whats broken

 

Today's casualties:

• Bottom right boom was bent
• Propellers spent as you can see
• One motor with strange sounds
• Ultrasonic range finder is MIA
• Few nuts and buts are spent

I found all electronics including flight controller, GPS, radio and ESC's to seem to work as usual.

Next thing I'll buy is the telemetry radio :).

The X550 has returned!

Today I found the phone with the number set up for people whom might have found my quad with a new message :). A local farmer had found it in the woods to the west of the high way where I was flying eastwards of. In other words, it flew over 300 meters away from where I have been looking for it.

 

I still haven't had the time to assess any damages but from what I can see, the frame is slightly bent in a couple of places and propellers are broken. Other than that will be in my next post.  

Shoestring FPV kit

Something I haven't written about yet is FPV on a shoestring budget. The main reason why I haven't is that I can't currently afford it. However, here is a suggestion that definitely goes on my wishlist for Christmas.

First item on the board is a camera. I've previously written about the key chain 808 DVR for less than $7 that does OK recording. But for FPV you need something else. Now there is a version 2 of the 808 key chain camera that can do just that. The kit also includes a USB to video out cable that can be attached to any video transmitter to enable FPV. The improved camera is fitted with a 120 degree wide angle lens instead of the crappy narrow angle lens on the cheaper 808. This camera goes for $39 at eletoponline365's eBay shop.



For transmitter, I'd choose something with a low frequency again as with the controller radio. That is to gain as long range as possible. I found this kit at Banggood featuring a 1.2GHz transmitter. Other FPV kits regularly feature 5.8GHz. The problem with 5.8GHz is that you need clear sight between the transmitter and receiver. With a 1.2GHz it can work with some obstacles. This transmitter and receiver kit goes for $56 at Banggood.





A OSD device is something some people prefer as it applies a virtual head up display on the FPV image. The OSD device is hooked between the camera and radio transmitter hijacking the image and applying OSD using data from the flight controller. An OSD usually applies information such as: virtual horizon, altitude, air speed, heading, direction and range to "home". Home as applied for RTL. This OSD goes for $27 at Banggood.

You probably need additional wiring to connect the kit together but these are the basic devices needed for FPV.

Summarizing purcuses:

• $39 - 808 #16 v2 key chain camera
• $56 - FPV radio
• $27 - OSD device

In total, $122.

More electronics

Doing some further research found that HobbyKing also features the 433MHz telemetry kit I found at GLB (GoodLuckBuy.com). Link to mentioned kit.

However, this kit comes with antennas that are optimized for 900MHz rather than 433MHz according to comments. Seem to be the same transmitter and receiver anyhow so if I choose to buy these, it will be from GLB.

Further browsing, I found a flight controller resembling the MultiWii/MegaPirate controller I previously used. This controller claims to be version 3 and seem to have improvements in the way the serial ports are made. Version 2 had three serial ports in the same physical port when this controller has separate physical ports for each serial port. I can't see any other differences looking at chip specifications.

MultiWii & MegaPirate v2.0

MWC Mega 3.0

If I can find that these are compatible, I'd rather choose the version 3 as soldering small wires are a pain when breaking out the serial ports.

Still missing.. and continuation

 

Yesterday I was out with a few relatives again to try and find the X550. No luck but must my posters are still hanging on the trees. My strongest guess is still that it's stuck in one of the trees at 15+ meters. However, due to the thick leafs it's quite hard to see anything. I'll have to wait for the leafs to fall off this fall and have a return trip to see if it's possible to spot it.

In the meanwhile if I get no word from any by-passers in a few weeks and as I still have a lot of parts and utilities, I think I'm going to start building a new quad. Almost half of what I've so far invested into this hobby are things such as battery chargers, spare parts, spare propellers and so on. This means I can probably put one together with not too much money.

What I'm missing are electronics and motors, which at most add up to a little more than $150. What I will further invest into and which would have saved my X550 that's done MIA is a radio linked telemetry system. It would have broadcasted it's position and I'd been able to find it easy. Now there are a few ways of solving the telemetry.

3DR $86

One way is the all expensive 3DR Radio Telemetry Kit seen to the right. It costs $86 and would probably do it's job in excellence. But as I'm still aiming for a shoestring budget, I'm sure there are alternatives.

Below are two low cost alternatives. They cost less than half of the original 3DR but should do the job. I've read a blog post regarding the APC220 about how to connect it properly. The third option I found yesterday browsing the web. I have no idea if it works but its branded as the 3DR with a different price so I guess it's a copy. But might still work as well as as the original.

3DR copy(?) $36

APC220 $33

In short, the X550 is still MIA

 

As the topic says, my X550 is still MIA. The day before today, I went to a library and produced these posters and have put a bunch of them up on trees in the area where it disappeared. Today I also filed a report to the local police department regarding my loss hoping that if someone turns it in, the report will be recognized. My hopes now stay with possible by-passers that happens to spot my quad and hopefully makes a phone call. 

And no, it's not my real phone number. It's juts prepaid number I acquired for the poster that I'll terminate once it's no longer required.

Stay tuned! All hopes aren't gone yet.