Hello Ashta Sir,

The lipo is at the bottom rite ? So while landing the lipo will bang on the ground

Am sure you must have taken some measures for that..

Another master piece  

dear atul,
thank you.
If u see the video, u will notice 4 legs that i hve made. sorry, it was not there while i took the photo
thanks
ashta

is the esc programmed for BRAKE? Why is it stopping suddenly.

if my understanding is correct,
"brake" is a function where, when the motor is switched off, the three terminal of the motor are shorted thru the FETs by the firmware.
this creates friction for the bell to rotate. A feature for the folding props to fold.
ashta

yah, from the video it looked like the motor suddenly stops with zero throttle without any inertia, as if programmed for a brake with esc.

 
Whenever Asta is invisible for some time, he is upto a big surprise!! Great looking Quad! All the best for maiden. With sudden shower burst in Bangalore, Asta has geared up to enjoy flying in drawing room, sipping his coffee.

BTW, HK is coming up with yet another Clone - KK Kopter this time:
http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/store/uploads/HEOPRVNFNM219201116810.jpg

Ashta, do you suggest investing in Arduino boad or this little board worth waiting ?

If this board comes with open source firmware, then it should be fun.

http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/store/twit.asp?id=178

Very little soldering would be needed (if any), yet there is some room for experimentation. 

HK is already into quad frames.

Quote from: ujjwaana on February 22, 2011, 05:02:20 PM
Ashta, do you suggest investing in Arduino boad or this little board worth waiting ?

Dear ujjwaana,
thank you.
I am not an expert. My experience is that this Arduino has many many variables and there fore it is as well interseting/ difficult.  Added to that there are MP and Nunchuck clones etc. which are risks associated.
KK copter with all comps mounted and tested, if available will eliminate many of those variables if they are unpleasant..
ashta

Quote from: ujjwaana on February 22, 2011, 05:02:20 PM
BTW, HK is coming up with yet another Clone - KK Kopter this time:

Ashta, do you suggest investing in Arduino boad or this little board worth waiting ?

Yeah this seems like a clone.
Ujjwaana it's always worth investing in Arduino toy, you can do thousand things with them, but if this project is only, what you want to do then KKB is enough.(I want to club for this proj.)
Ashta sir, you have infected this forum with quad choper fever.

All the best
Akshay

 

Quote from: Ashta on February 21, 2011, 01:05:08 PM
ESc is the suspect, but when i run directly from the receiver, it works fine for full throttle range. Also the motor dropping is at random.

Since the failure is on random motor/ESC combos, I see two major possibilities. 

1.  Since 4 motors are drawing power from the same lipo, it is possible that the ESCs are feeling a lack of current after the lipo has been in use for a little while.  Of course, this is not the case if you are seeing this very soon after you put on a freshly charged pack.  My quad went belly up twice in quick succession during agressive fly outs, and when I checked there was 3.8volts per cell left in the 2200 lipo.  Luckily the damage was only a broken prop. With a fresh pack, everything was fine.

2.  I did not see what you have done to reduce vibrations of the sensors. Vibrations can take out such systems very easily.  You can see in page 11 of the FY-90Q manual (http://shop.fyetech.com/dl/fy90qguide.pdf), they even supply a board dangling on rubberbands as an ultimate defense against vibrations.  This is on top of the fact that the supplied foam paddings (with glue on both sides) are already extremely spongy.  Note that vibrations can be localized to the frame, and does not necessarily mean that the entire quad frame has to oscillate.

Thanks Jagjit.

Anwar: This board has a built in Power Alarm.  I had ensured that i test with a Brand new charged battery, to avoid all such variables. The max current with all props is less tha 12 A, which also i have measured. My Each Esc is rated 10 A.

After several experiments, i have changed all the four EScs with Tower pro. Tested it for 15- 20 mins. It seems to be OK, but needs time to  prove.

Since my Mot to Mot is only 370mm, it is very twitchy, On top of it my bad flying skills.

I have been hovering it for few seconds. Still lot of fine tuning left. In the process i have exausted all my Reverse props
(3 nos broke)
i will post some small video shortly
Since i used 1400KV motor,12 pole it needs the ESC timing to be set to High. These SS EScs from Hobbycity has limited programming.

Yes, vibration is the main point.
1. Woodden frame has the advantage.
2. Motors are mountd with mica washers.
3. The M+ is mounted on sponge.
5. Main point: All the props are balanced using simple prop balancer.
6. I had seen FY-90Q method last time from ur post. i can try that after i weed out main concerns.

If it is twitchy on inputs (but stable on its own), then dial in a lot of expo in the radio.  I am running with 50% expo (-50 in Futaba lingo) on mine. 

How are you tuning the PID values, do you have to connect to a USB cable every time, and upload the code again ?  Or do you use some kind of pot ?  (I did not go through the entire thread which you referenced, hence the question)

attached pl find the schematics of this board.

1.I used the ATMega 328 P, the DIP packge instead of the Arduino Pro mini board. This way you reduce the cost and also gets more DIY stuff.
2. The board has built in Lipo monitor and alarm.
3. The whole lay out is such that it is very easy to wire and dismantle.
4. It has port for FT232 for the USB.

A rough costing, in rupees of this board will be:

- Arduino Pro- 380.00 ( we can buy raw chip and load the boot code in whch case it will be rs150.00)
- Other discrete  parts max- 100.00
- Motion plus: 800.00. ( I bought from local game shop paying much more (1400.00), but that is on emergency
- Nunchuck- 500.00 (( I bought from local game shop paying much more (800.00), but that is on emergency
- Nunchk is not requied if auto level is not there.
W/o NK= 1300.00
and
Total: say 1800.00

Quote from: anwar on February 23, 2011, 12:32:59 PM
How are you tuning the PID values, do you have to connect to a USB cable every time, and upload the code again ?  Or do you use some kind of pot ?  (I did not go through the entire thread which you referenced, hence the question)

Anwarji, i am yet to get in to terms with my Quad with so many variables to play with.
i am always using the USB (FT232) and doing it thru the GUI, each time up loading the code after changes. there is also an option to do it thru a small LCD for the field. I have not tried that.
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1375728

More than the Expo, what i am fighting ( I think) is the time response to the xmitter inputs to stability and the combination there off ++++ my lack of flying skills. its a great learning and fun..

 I have been working on this last few days.
When i was trying this, i realised that,  the Signguy Trcopter which i had made and was flying, was learned the wrong way as far asr the Yaw. Now i have to unlearn it and learn this.
Here are some attempts in my little space. My props are all broken and vibration is a killer here as Anwarji had pointed out.
Will post better video once it is stabilised. But for that i have to get props, cw and ccw.






ashta

Great to see this in flight ! 

In heli flying (which is carried over to tris, quads etc), the standard is "flying the head", which means when you apply left rudder/yaw, the HEAD of the heli should move left (versus "flying the tail", where left rudder stick moves the tail to the left).

So it looks like the ESC issue was just the model used, and the el-cheapo TowerPro ones work fine ? 

Also like in planes, the left rudder takes the plane left. but some how, i missed and learned it in the wrong way. Hence i am slowly unlearnig....

i am not 100% sure that the problem is ESc.
According to experts, a problem can be considered to have been solved, if and only if the problem can be created again by undoing the last change.
so i have not done it.. will wait and see.

ashta

hi astha...

didi you tried programming the esc for high time mode.....

yes wasi, that does'nt seems to be the problem.

ss series are not programable, nevertheless i tried other controllers.

here is the first video of my Quad at Jakkur.
Still a lot to learn how to fly. But a very stable platform. It was very windy( can here the sound in the video) but the quad was very stable.

thanks for watching

ashta

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=MpAK7aphiuY

Congratulations, Ashta For Successful out door maiden at Jakkur

All the Best
Akshay

thanks akshay

As usual, FANTASTIC!

No wonder, you have been so quiet these last few days.

I don't use this smiley much, but you Sir, deserve it.

Thanks VC for the kind words