It has been a long time

The new quad.

Has been a long time since putting something on the blog. Someone in my Google plus circles asked about blogs and I realised it had been over two years since I last posted. So now I need to bring you all up to speed on what I am up to in the world of RC, electronics, and beer. In this specific case, RC.

So after the legendary fail of my last quad, I purchased one designed a bit better and hopefully a bit tougher. Below is the FPV250 From Hobbyking. Nice and cheap along with the long frame upgrade kit. I went with the AfroFlight Naze32 (I pronounce as the Japanese, Na Zey, not naize, Google translate it!) and a little 1300mah battery. With my Turnigy9x I linked it with the Hobbyking TR6A V2 6 channel receiver as it is smaller and lighter than the Turnigy 9x receiver. This flew very well with the Turnigy Multistar's and the Afro ESC's.
I have stacked it a few times, but only props were damaged (you can see the grass stains on the props, and a closer look will show the rear black prop is a bit oddly shaped). So it is still flying (with new props). Now I have been game enough to add the long frame with a camera mounted along with the fpv transmitter (footage to follow).

On the other end is a 110mm monitor which I have attached to the 9x. It cost around AU$16 for the screen from ebay. I decided on the permanence of the screen as I will use it for telemetry from some of my other craft, except for the real small ones. I'll write about the other craft later.

So now I am on my way to my first fpv and all up cost less than AU$200 excluding transmitter. But props and batteries will add to that in time.

Future plans include the new V2 Quanum fpv goggles from Hobbyking. I liked Bruce's review of them on RC Model Reviews and his specific comment on how immersive it was.

The last thing to get will be the osd. I have found them on eBay for around the AU$35 with the GPS. I will probably transfer the OSD to a plane or the choppa with fpv and just have a voltage osd for the quad in the end, but will be trying it out on the quad first as currently it is the only thing flying in my fleet.

Check out Bruce’s review of the Quamun V2 DIY FPV goggles.

XCopter Quad build - Week six

Maxx's Stuff

Hi and welcome to Maxx's Stuff, I'm Maxx and this is my stuff!

In today's world, I manage to have some time to learn, play, discover and tinker with new things and I get to share all that with you.

XCopter Micro Quad Build - Week six

This week I got the last outrunner and two more ESC's at $30.57 from Hobby King. Brings the average to $28.71. I thought I would use the week to prep up the solder joints and the three ESC's (fourth in the next week).
I measured out roughly the length of wire needed on the ESC three phase side. Because the outrunners need to go in a certain direction, I plan to do any direction change with the motor connections so the ESC connections can remain fairly neat. For those who may not know, to change the direction of brushless motors, you just nee to swap two of the three phases, I will most likely get into more detail when I start running up the Quad.

I have "tinned" the connections on the frame, the ESC and motor wires. I had to use cored solder as my flux has dried right out, and it is a trip to either Morwell or Warragul to get more, and I could not be bothered driving to Morwell, or waiting until Monday to get some from Warragul (I work in Warragul). But the cored stuff came out good as can be seen in the picture.

I use an old scope iron with 2mm tip. It managed to tin everything o.k. and I think it will be quite adequate when I put it all together.
Flite test have put a review up of the Micro Quad. This is the one from Hobby  King for $99.99, a bit cheaper than what I am spending, but I am enjoying the weekly products and doing little bits of research, but next week I will be showing some real building.

The latest "The list" update.

I Now need to get the USB programming lead for the Hobby King 6ch radio. This will get included in the price, but come under the "For other aircraft in the fleet", I think I can still remain on target, but I am really pushing the $30 for ten weeks. Hopefully I will get a video out about how to program the HobbyKing radio on Linux, or find a good one online.
Anyhow, hope you enjoyed the video, do a search on Youtube for the Micro Quad, there are some great videos, including this one with a crash.

Ĝis revido amikoj!

The XCopter Quad build - Week five - and other stuff!

Maxx's Stuff

Hi and welcome to Maxx's Stuff, I'm Maxx and this is my stuff!

In today's world, I manage to have some time to learn, play, discover and tinker with new things and I get to share all that with you.

XCopter Micro Quad Build Week five

Sorry about the lateness of posting again, but I had a very busy weekend. I had both my son's fifth birthday along with his mothers (Carmel of Solomon Sewing) on Sunday, but more about that later.

In week five I received two more outrunners from Hobby King and the first lot of props, coming in at $32.49 to my door, bringing the average up to $28.33. As can be seen by the picture, the prop adapter is too big for these props. The prop hubs are about the same size as the shaft, so when I show the three bladed props I am getting in week seven, you will agree that they will look good.
Thought I'd share a video from Flite Test on setting up a multi rotor including balancing. In week three I mentioned a prop balancer that I needed to order as many have said vibrations are bad for the controller board. In this clip, they discuss that even balancing the motors is important, and since I am using prop adapters, this may become important. I will be showing more on balancing when the balancer turns up in week nine.

Maxx's Cooking Stuff

Now for something completely different. I mentioned that I was busy this week end, well Sunday was made up of a lot of cooking. I cooked lunch which was home made hamburgers, followed by a Banana chocolate cake (with over 300gm of dark chocolate). Dinner included one of my special dinners of Spinach Lasagne followed with bread and butter custard pudding.
While preparing the meal, Carmel asked me if there is any other copy of the Spinach recipe, i.e. If the house burnt down, would there be a copy somewhere? The answer is no. I have it sourced from a book called "Pasta Cooking". Since there is a lot of Pasta cook books, it would be difficult to narrow down, so here is the recipe for prosperity, and the future internet archaeologists to find hundreds of years from now.
I would rate this as "Dishes high". It does have a high level of dishes and the lasagne dish will most likely require some scrubbing, so rinse as early as you can.
Prep time is around 20minutes
Cooking time, 30 minutes with oven at 200 ̊C.
Serves four.

Ingredients;

Lasagne sheets

Spinach sauce

90gm Butter
90gm Plain flour
140ml Milk
450gm (or more) Spinach
Nutmeg
Salt and Pepper.

Mornay Sauce

30gm Butter
30gm Plain Flour
250ml Milk
90gm Parmesan Cheese, grated
1 tsp French Mustard

Method Spinach Sauce
Melt butter in sauce pan and stir in flour.
Remove from heat and slowly add milk.
Heat until thick then add Spinach.
Season with nutmeg, salt and pepper.
Method Mornay Sauce
Similar to the spinach sauce, but add only 60gm parmesan cheese at the end.
Line lasagne dish with lasagne sheets. Add half the Spinach Sauce. Add another layer of lasagne sheets followed with the rest of the spinach sauce. Top with lasagne sheets and the mornay sauce with the remaining parmesan cheese sprinkled on top. Bake in oven at 200 ̊C for 30 minutes or until browned on top.

Serve with a warm bean mix in winter, and a salad in summer. This dish goes well with almost any wine, but I would watch the sweeter ones. The cheesy taste means that even a good ale (Such as a Coopers DIY English Bitter) goes well with this.

So, what other hobbies do you have that does not include RC aero modelling?

I'm Maxx and you have been reading Maxx's Stuff.

Ĝis revido amikojn.

The XCopter Quad Build - Week four

Maxx's Stuff

Hi and welcome to Maxx's Stuff, I'm Maxx and this is my stuff!

In today's world, I manage to have some time to learn, play, discover and tinker with new things and I get to share all that with you.

XCopter Micro Quad Build - Week four

Sorry about this being late. I was hoping to get a video out for every one on programming the controller board in Linux, but have had trouble getting the script done and obtaining some graphics in time, so maybe in a few weeks when we get closer to actually putting the Micro Quad in the air.

The fourth week in I finally get the AVR programmer, one motor and one ESC. I have to watch it, because every time I see ESC, I want to call it an escape, as in the escape key on the keyboard. Of cause, delivered to my door for $27.91, bringing the average to $27.30. I am going to have to be careful because the next few orders are a bit over $30. Need to do this if I am going to keep this to ten weeks, and as stated last week and additional cost has emerged in the prop balancer and as I will explain later, more tools as well.

First before all the technobabble, I am gong to talk about the motor and ESC. The motor packaging and items really impressed me. I like that for around $10 you get the motor, prop adapters (two of) bullet connectors and heat shrink. The other bit that amazes me is that this tiny little thing is a three phase motor. I was an electrician some years ago, and the three phase motors I worked on where just a tad bigger. Looking at the ESC and sizing it on the frame will mean possibly some trimming to the leads, I also noticed that the three leads coming out of the motor are over the bolt as in the picture.
This means I will need to rotate the mount with the armature so the leads will go through the hole with less stress. My allen key set does not have small enough key, so I will need to order some additional tools from Hobby King. So the next order (this will be the order for week seven) will include the Turnigy hex driver set.
The other thing is the prop adapter, I actually really like the little alloy spinner, and the props I ordered will not fit them. So, I will need to order different props, luckily (and I actually think will look heaps better) Hobby King have some three bladed 5030's in black and green, so I will also be ordering those for week seven and week eight.

Programming The AVR in Linux

I will still do a video on programming the controller in Linux, but for now I will just give a basic run down of how it is done.

The programs really needed are both AVRdude and a Java Runtime Engine, I used OpenJDK 6. Get those from your Distro Repo (Linux distribution software repository).

The JRE is used to run kkMulticopterflashtool. Grab the Windows/Linux stable version. I did not actually use this to flash the controller as there are some incompatibilities with the Linux AVRdude binary that comes with kkMulti, and the conf file is also incorrect. What I did use kkMulti for was getting the desired HEX files. It is well designed to be able to pick the desired configuration and firmware with maximum ease.
I then flashed the controller with the hex file I downloaded, being XCopter 4.7 by kapteinkuk using AVRdude that came from my Distro Repo, Kubuntu 12.04 in my case in the console .... yes the console, just makes life easier... really.
It will be some time before I get to properly test, but the flash showed no errors, and appeared to do as expected.
Anyway, please enjoy the video from Flite Test on how to flash the Hobby King Multi Rotor Controller Board in Windows using kkMulticopterflashtool, as some of you might actually be interested in how to do that, and it is easier.

The other cool thing about the AVR programmer is Hobby King have a great cheap Arduino clone and breakout shield (sensor shield) that this AVR can program if your interested in doing your own hacking.
I will be getting one with the shield when the project is over. I am planning on trying it with my old Real Robots robot from years ago, see if I can get it going and doing stuff.
Any how, thanks for reading, and keep an eye out for the video, and a question. With this Atmel programming, do you think it would be cool if Hobby King maybe started supplying some robot gear? Wheels, coasters, sensors, micro switches etc. I bet Hobby King could really bring it to market at a price that would get people in cheaply, or is it to far removed for the modern RC pilot .... your thoughts?

The XCopter Quad build

Maxx's Stuff

Hi and welcome to Maxx's Stuff, I'm Maxx and this is my stuff!

In today's world, I manage to have some time to learn, play, discover and tinker with new things and get to share that with you.

Allow me to introduce myself in my first Blog post. I do RC model's (planes mainly, but that is changing), computers (I am a 100% Linux user at home) and a user of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) along with CC (Creative Commons) music and videos. I am also learning Esperanto, have been for some years, but still to sit my first exam.

Top down look. 220mm across.

The XCopter Quad build

Lately I have not been getting much flying in due to the park flyer being permanently grounded, and just not getting good weather on the rare days I have time to fly, So I am going to build a Micro Quad in the hope I can get some RC flying done in the back yard when time and good weather briefly coincide.

The plan is to purchase the parts over a number of weeks. This will increase the cost due to postage, but will give me time to research how things go together and what to expect when I go for that first flight. A bit like those build magazines you see advertised on TV.

Close up of the PCB tracks for power distribution.

The average spend per week, including postage, must be under $30.00. I say average as some items will go above this, so some purchases will be a lot less to keep the average. I should be able to do this in around ten weeks ... Yep, $300.00 all up and that does not include the radio. The rough list includes the Micro Quad and gear to make it fly, two batteries, charger, and basic tools. Full list next week.

This quad will also include a camera for filming in flight. Once I get proficient in flying this Micro, I plan to get a 400mm+ quad and trying FPV with telemetry, etc.

So the pictures show week one. The Micro Quad frame . Purchased from Hobby King for $20.98 including freight. You will notice in the pics that the PCB (Printed Circuit Board) is up. This is used to distribute power to the eventual four out-runner brush-less motors. The instructions are in black and white and did not indicate which was up. I thought Turnigy would like to be up, so I put it together this way. Since these pics, I have watched some Micros on You tube and noticed that everyone put the PCB down (Duh!, not to mention the pics at Hobby King that I took completely no notice of!), so now my Micro Quad looks like the rest with the PCB down.

Next to the keyboard for better idea on size.

Next week I will show the controller board.  I am planning on making it into an X configuration and since the board comes as a + by default, I will be learning how to program the board through Linux, so I might have some helpful tips in coming posts.

Soooo, what have you built, only to discover that you did it upside down and how did you find out you did it wrong?

 Ĝis revido amikojn! (Until then friends!)