RC India

I have been working on this from last 2-3 months.
Amost 99% completed.
Could hover at home.
Will post videos soon.


My reference was http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1261382 and the sub links.

here are some pictures.

More pictures

more pictures

more pictures

more pictures

Awesome.All I can say.Lost for words.

:salute:

Now that is a proper quad !  Waiting for the videos !

great idea ashta sir ...truly a simple, great and creative quad  {:)} {:)} {:)} {:)} :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow:

Wonderful! Now thatz what I call scratch build.

BTW, did you write the code for the MCU? or is it just Adru pilot code?

-Ismail

The best part of this project is the low cost of the sensor boards.  Since the Wii Motion Plus and Nunchuck can together be had for about $15, that really reduces the cost :thumbsup:

thanks ismail. the code is written by a Gentle man called Allex
Open source, and is available here,
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16601763&postcount=2410

Quote from: izmile on February 21, 2011, 03:27:08 AM
Wonderful! Now thatz what I call scratch build.

BTW, did you write the code for the MCU? or is it just Adru pilot code?

-Ismail

Thanks Gandhar for the kind words

Thanks Anwar. I will post the videos.
In between i am fighting a problem where suddenly one motor is dropping. been fighting,,

Thanks Akky. thanks a lot

Quote from: akky on February 20, 2011, 09:04:37 PM
great idea ashta sir ...truly a simple, great and creative quad  {:)} {:)} {:)} {:)} :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow:

Best of both worlds!! Gaming+RC!

Quote from: Ashta on February 21, 2011, 12:23:44 PM
In between i am fighting a problem where suddenly one motor is dropping. been fighting,,

Guessing you tried replacing that ESC and motor, and did not help ?

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. These ss series has limited programming.
any way let me try.

Simply brilliant, Ashta!

Nice one Sir. {:)}

Really inspiring.

Thanks Sushil.
Nothing so great, i was just following the thread and trying to make.
regards
ashta

Thanks Akshay

Quote from: Akshayb on February 21, 2011, 01:11:56 PM
Nice one Sir. {:)}

Really inspiring.

Quote from: Ashta on February 21, 2011, 01:13:43 PM
Thanks Sushil.
Nothing so great, i was just following the thread and trying to make.
regards
ashta

Not true. My pun on "simply" was intended. Simple, yet elegant, solutions are NOT easy to come by.

Keep us informed of your progress.

Hello sir,where u bought ur Arduino board? Which version n how much it costs? Thank you.

balakrishnan, pl note that i did not use aruino board. I simply bought the ic (Atmel328P, dip package) and wired it. rs 1300 vs rs380.00+efforts

Best part of Aruino, is the open source code and the GUI.
you can on the fly change the PID and  thevarious settings. Its realy amazing.
pl find a video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju4JSwF2Sbs

Hello Ashta Sir,

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

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

Another master piece  :goodjob:

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.

 :bow: :bow: :bow:
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

 :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow:

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.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EH854KAOzd8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-jLML-j7D8


ashta

:thumbsup:

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.

:bow: :bow: :bow:

Thanks VC for the kind words

Lot of work done in terms of fine tuning.... and also reducing the vibrations.
Some LED decoration too....
flying in a small place.
Thanks for watching.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Jd7og6Q1_8

regards
ashta

That is so brilliant Astha Sir...the LED is a supercool idea..would be fun to fly at night. The quad is much stable now.

thanks Ankur

Very nice :thumbsup:  Please do post some details on what tuning steps were taken, current PID values etc.  Would be useful to others ;)

How are you powering the LED strips ?

thanks Anwar.

Fine tuning:

I will give a screen shot to give all 'pid' values. But this is important but the main thing is vibration.

Motor mount: mount it on a lyer of foam.
Balance the bell of the motor.
Balance the props. Take time and do this as perfect as possible.
Board: mount it on foam again, use nylon screws.
MP: use foam tape. Keep away from radio maganetic interference.



LEDs are powered on thru a TIP122 transistor additionaly provided on the board.

wow this is supercool, awesome ashta sir.

WOW WOW WOW...................

You have started a Quadcopter fever, I am sure Astha Sir.

Beware Guys watching video posted above can be dangerous. ;D ;D ;D ;)

Brilliant piece of working. I wish, some day, I would accomplish something like this....


Vishwas

Thanks Rohit and Akshay.
It is not very difficult. people have expalined very well. need lot of time thats all.
Thanks Viswas.

Here is a video, much more stable now....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOuGswZEZhY

thanks for watching
Ashta

great  :salute: :salute: :salute:

thanks sisbi

Here is the screen shot giving the latest fine tuned values of P,I,D; RC Rate, RC expo and other values.
Mind you this will highly depend on the Quad to Quad and the MP, NK you are using.

Also here is a picture of my TRI (Sign guy type) and lastest Quad for comparison.

regards
ashta

Hi Ashta,
This is my first post here and let me introduce myself to you and to all others on this tread.
I am Srikar and by my profession I am a Software Architect/PM . 
My experience in RC was, I used to fly Pattern Planes like "Black Magic" and "Focus II" with "YS160" motor and Futaba 12Z etc while I was three in USA. But I quit the hobby 3 years back when I returned to India and trying to get back to hobby again now.

I got interested in Quads and was watching this thread and related info from last few days.
Question is,
From the link that you provided on first post of this thread,  (http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1261382), It says,

•  Gyro:
•   some versions of Wii Motion Plus: 3 MEMS Gyro: 2x IDG-650, 1x ISZ-650
•   or 3 axis gyro ITG3200
•  Acc:
•   some versions of Nunchuk:3 MEMS Acc: LIS3L02AL

So  how to get exactly those   "Some Version of Wii"??
I  thought of buying the following items after taking advice from you.
http://cgi.ebay.in/NINTENDO-WII-NUNCHUK-REMOTE-CONTROLLER-WARRANTY-NEW-/180656471272?pt=IN_Video_Game_Systems&hash=item2a0ff6fce8
http://cgi.ebay.in/NINTENDO-WII-MOTION-PLUS-NINTENDO-WII-BRAND-NEW-/170630823542?pt=IN_Video_Game_Systems&hash=item27ba63be76

Is it OK to proceed with the above items?
I am planning to use the above hardware on top of  Arduino Uno or (Mega 2560). Advice Me.
Are there any better cost effective IMU's available in India other than Wiii Stuff??
I am planing to get all electronics from Hobby King unless there are chap here in India.
Please advice me towards any other info that I should know before I start acquiring hardware.

Thanks for help!
Srikar.

welcome srikar.
Wii MPs availble are not guaranteed to be original. Orig/ Clone makes lot of difference.
To start with you do not need the accelerometer. I still have not tried it though i have bought.
Hobbyking is still the cheapest source that i know off.
This uses Mega 328. pl check compatability.
if u want to be sure of genuine gyro, this may be better
http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9793

Thanks for quick reply Ashta. I will try to get Gyro from sparkfun.

Hello Astha sir , I am beginner in the quadopter but i really appreciate your effort best of luck.

hello crenaman,
thank you very much.

good sir,
i want to make my own quadrotor for that i want a step by step instruction manual,tool kit details and the codes which codes which i required for that and if possible the total cost of this project approx...its for my major final year project plzz help me!!! :)

Everything you asked for is in this thread (or this thread has pointers to other places where relevant information is available). 

Please read this thread carefully, including the links specified here.

hello anwar sir,
i m not getting all the links  will u plz give me the instructions manual and other things properly i will be grateful to u and i want your help also in this project..!!

The very first post has the link with all the information you need.  After all, Ashta bhai built this quad using the information available in that link  as a starting point :)

Secondly, you have to do the reading and research.  Sorry to say this, but no one will give you things in a platter, all packaged up and put in a PDF document.  The information (including source code, list of parts, connection/circuit diagrams etc) is spread out in this forum and on rcgroups.com (the link on the first page), and you will have to seek it out.

I don't meant to discourage you at all, but YOU have to read a what has been made available first, then ask specific questions if you are stuck on something. 

Hi ashta sir i got the circuit design, I have some doubts where did u connected the 'AREF' ,what is the value of the R6 and what is the value of trimport.

No trim port reqd. I used the  res to gnd as 33k and to bat as 51k. any way this is tunable in the code. i did not use AREF

Quote from: aravind on June 09, 2011, 08:20:53 AM
Hi ashta sir i got the circuit design, I have some doubts where did u connected the 'AREF' ,what is the value of the R6 and what is the value of trimport.

Hi sir where i could buy the FT232 give me the link...Thank you

here it is
http://www.rhydolabz.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=123&sort=20a&page=2&zenid=baa482711f6b65968c5cdcb587fce57f

there are many thers too. use Google

hi sir what is the cost of  FT232

The item with its price seems obvious from the link posted earlier, right ?

http://www.rhydolabz.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=123&products_id=541

Or are you looking for something else ? :)

Hi sir a small dout the battery u used contains 11.1v or 9.1v but the IC need only 5v so how u converted the volts did u used any ic to convert the voltage????

use one ESC  5V or use 7805 regulator

finally the PCb and the comps have come.
now i have to test few.
here is a picture of a loaded board.
pl see the various comps.

Hi for the front motor at the second point u connected the esc5v but what about the remaining  motors at the second point?????

Hi sir what is the connection for the secnd point of the remaining three motors??