Heavy Ass Lifter

Now you have a stable flyable heavy ass lifter (HAL) which seems to always be about a quart low on electrons. What are the next goals, milestones and to-do’s?

PROF: Take some Prozac and a nap!

OK… I’m not that bad but…

My next and biggest goal is to learn how to fly HAL. I can get it off the ground and hover around a little bit but I’m not ready to go out and take videos over water and down cliffs like showcased earlier in this blog.

I’m still evaluating the short battery life. Initially I was getting two to three minutes on a charge. After many more hours on the forums I figured out the problem and it was an issue with the voltage sense on the NAZA. I’ve since disabled it, as I already have a voltage sensor between my battery and receiver which sends a signal to my transmitter when the batteries are getting too low. My transmitter signals a warning sound and verbally reads out the reading, very cool.

I now get five to six minutes but I want more. I’m evaluating different props and possible motor combinations for the future.

I also want to upgrade my GoPro camera from the Hero 2 that I have to a Hero 3 or 4. The two main reasons for that are weight and quality. My Tarot gimbal is designed for the weight of the Hero 3 or 4. The Hero 2 is much heavier and I had to add a bunch of counterbalance weight to the gimbal to save wear and tear on the gimbal motors. Once I drop all that weight my flight times will go up as well. The newer GoPro’s also have much better video quality and higher frame rates for smoother movies.

I plan to keep making small improvements to HAL and get in more flight time with both HAL and SKIP.

I’m sure at some point there may be another scratch build in my future after all I am “Professor Scratch” but for now I just want to fly and shoot great videos. Now if only the winter rains and wind would go away.

I am sure this adventure is far from over. Go get some popcorn and the movie will continue in short order.

 

What Would the Iron Chef Do?

What worked and what didn’t?

PROF: My 3D printed V-tail quad definitely did not work. I still have the frame and my someday give it another try but for now I just want to go fly and have fun.

My DX6i did not work with the NAZA and gimbal because it didn’t have enough channels for everything.

Plugging the wrong motor connector into the wrong port on the transmitter definitely does not work; it breaks props as the quad does a backflip during takeoff.

(Always those little details that cause big-time problems.)

Flying in a confined area with power lines, trees and houses doesn’t work either.

(Trees seek out and eat quads of all brands and flavors.)

Not doing enough homework up-front is a recipe for a long, expensive and winding road.

Learning to fly a micro quad around the house really helps develop “thumbs”. You really need good “thumbs” if you’re ever going to get good at this sport.

The combination of everything I have mounted on HAL and my transmitter seemed to work really well together. But recent events like really short flight times have changed my mind on the motors and props. Here’s a list of what’s on HAL.

Here is Professor Scratcher's  current confirmation.

Quad Frame:

Turnigy HAL Quad

HK Power Distribution Board

10” X 4.5” Gemfan Carbon Fill Propellers

 

Onboard Electronics:

NAZA-M Lite MC

Taranis X8R Receiver

FrSky FLV SS LiPo Voltage Sensor

HK Lipoly Low Voltage Alarm

Turnigy Multistar 3525-850Kv 14 Pole Multi-Rotor Outrunner Motors

Tyrnigy Plush 30A ESC

2 Zippy 4000 mAh 3S 25C LiPo Pack

 

            Total Weight:

4 Pounds 9 ½ Ounces [2027 grams]   

 

        Transmitter:

          Taranis X9D Plus Transmitter

 

              First Person View Setup:

Onboard SkyZone 5.8 Ghz 8 Channel Transmitter for FPV

Tarot 2D Gimbal

600 mAh 2S Lipo for FPV/Gimbal

On Transmitter SkyZone RC805 5.8 Ghz 8 Channel Receiver

Zippy 4000 mAh 3S 25C LiPo Pack for Monitor

600 mAh 2S Lipo for FPV on transmitter Receiver

ReadyMadeRC 8” LCD FPV Monitor

How would you go about the project differently today?

PROF: I would do a lot more reading and understanding of the dynamics and interaction between every single component before buying a single piece.

I think I would map out the project in either a flow chart or spreadsheet.

I would define my goals at the very beginning and not just casually go off thinking that “this will be simple, just stick some motors on some arms and go fly”. Believe me that just don’t happen.

The good news about all of this is that I probably know ten times more about my quad and transmitter than if I had someone standing over my shoulder telling me what to do or had bought an ARF.

Somebody Help Me Here, Please

What are some resources for support?

PROF: Some of the best forums I’ve found are:

MultiRotor Forums

FPVLab

RCGrouProf

 

 

I just recently found http://oscarliang.net , there is a bunch of great information on scratch built quadcopters. Another good one is Robot Kingdom, he built a HAL like mine.

There are many others but these really helped me through the tough times.

Starting from Day 1, what freakin happened?

PROF: Net-net, I built a quad that flies! Go get some popcorn, this is going to take a while to explain.

But back to your question, on Day 1, I started 3D printing a V-tail quadcopter and ordered a shit load of parts that I knew nothing about, bad way to start. Did I mention, do your homework?

I ordered a very basic MultiWii FC board and a Spektrum DX6i transmitter, all the motors and other “stuff” and proceeded to build a quad, cool.

I tried and tried to make that thing fly but it was not to be.

Then a friend came to my rescue and sent me a HK (HobbyKing) KK2 FC board. They are much more programmable and more stable in flight. Excitedly I installed it and immediately crashed my V-tail yet again. This time I busted it up pretty good.

It was at that point I decided to remove all the parts, order a quad frame kit and start all over as the 3D design had structural problems.

With growing confidence in my building skills, I assembled my new Turnigy HAL and installed everything. After a few mishaps, some broken props, bent motor shafts and broken- landing gear I actually got it to fly, woot!

Of course I wasn’t happy with just flying around so my friend sent me a Tarot 2D gimbal since my original goal is aerial photography. My friend had started to build a scratch built Tri-copter but soon opted for the quicker path to aerial videography using a DJI Phantom. He no longer needed the gimbal and that was the beginning of a whole new experience and another flurry of parts procurement. Oh, and that ‘another friggin opportunity to grow’.

I decided that the KK2 FC was not going to cut it as a camera platform and decided to step up to a DJI, NAZA-M Lite MC with GPS, yeah baby!

Oh wait, to control the NAZA and gimbal I needed more channels than my DX6i had. I ordered the Taranis X9D Plus, fully programmable, transmitter. Well crap, with all this new whiz bang “stuff” I fell from my smug perch high on the learning curve to the very bottom yet again. I really had no idea what I had gotten myself into.

Up this point, it seems like nothing has really turned out that great but let’s continue because I love drama.

While waiting for new “stuff” to come from China and around the world I still had a pile of parts from HAL-1 lying around. Oh what to do. I know, I’ll build another quad! (Please no comments, I already know what you’re about to say and it ain’t nice.)

I had most of the parts I had removed from HAL-1 and a transmitter to control them so why not? I ordered a HK SK450 Glass Fiber Quadcopter Frame. I put it together with all the leftover parts and within a couple of days I had built “SKIP”, my new quad that actually flew. Not great but it did fly. The problem is that I am not a very good pilot yet because I spend all my time building, rebuilding, reprogramming and making new friends on the various forums. I simply have not flown enough and that has got to change one of these days.

In the meantime, back to HAL-2. All the parts came in and I put it all together. It looked really terrific. Then the next learning curve came into play; programming the NAZA to talk to the motors and receiver, HAL-2’s receiver to talk to my transmitter and the transmitter back to the NAZA and the gimbal. As simple as that sounds I spent weeks learning how to do it.

There are literally thousands of combinations available with the Taranis transmitter and the NAZA; it feels like I tried every single one.

In the end though, I have a quadcopter that does fly. I’ve crashed it several times including once through a cedar tree and onto my neighbor’s house. It’s not ready for prime time yet as I’m getting really short flight times but I’m working the issue.

You Really Can’t Control Anything without a Controller

With this nugget of wisdom and incredible awareness of the obvious, we continue….

PROF: You really can’t control anything unless you have a controller. (DAH!) That is like on page 2 of the scratcher’s manual, right after the disclaimer about these not being toys. So, if you don’t already have one, go buy a good transmitter controller. There are several noble manufactures to choose from. I like Spektrum and more recently the Turnigy X9D Plus. It is extremely programmable but once again get ready for a steep learning curve.

The reason I suggest getting a good generic transmitter is because the ones that generally come with an RTF are propitiatory and specific to one flying device. If you intend to build other quads or anything really, you need to invest up front in a flexible Tx.

However, there advantages to the radio controllers that come with the Ready to Fly quads.

PROF: That’s right. They are designed for just one quad and therefore have simple controls and in the case of DJI, these radios are continuously being upgraded through DJI’s website. Another advantage for the DJI gear is that both controller and the quad are calibrated through DJI’s online site.

OK, where was I, once you find that you enjoy this sport and really want to build your own quad it’s time to start laying out a plan, something I didn’t do.

You should decide what you are going to do with this quad. Is it going to be for 3D flying, racing, a camera platform or just to entertain your friends? That decision will affect every choice you make going forward.

How do you find the right components?

PROF: At first I just blindly threw money at what I thought would work not giving it any serious thought. After all, how difficult can it be?

After that mistake,I did lots of research to try and find the best components I could. I asked lots of stupid questions on the forums and read everything I could find on the web. This didn’t necessarily get me all the right components but it gave me a good start.

While forums are a great source of information it’s also another one of those slippery slopes. Not everything you read can be believed, not everything you read is correct and you have to sort through some attitudes that are not constructive to the question at hand.

In The Begining There Was Plastic

So it began. The adventure of a lifetime. You knew your path and you knew tools and you knew skills. Please continue...

PROF- Of course not knowing anything about quadcopters, I started with a V-Tail because it “looked cool” which in hindsight was probably a big mistake. I read everything I could on online forums about scratch building a V-Tail and nowhere did anyone mention how difficult a V-Tail would be for a beginner to fly. (Of course one big hint was that a friend said he had enough V-Tail Quad parts to build the next Space Station if I wanted them free.) Kind of that ‘take over payments’ thing that fathers say about their 20 year old daughters.

That said, the peak elevation that I ever achieved was just high enough for a very hard landing. After rebuilding and crashing it several more times, it is now retired in the Boeing Air Museum. (Damn that gravity thing again.)

That was the start of my long and winding road. The Pursuit. The never ending confrontation with evil. And my new found appreciation of the Internet.

I should also mention that I live on an island and trying to find anything about building a quadcopter from scratch is only learned from the internet.

Why scratch build a quadcopter or any other remote control aircraft?

PROF-I guess I like a challenge and learning something new. There’s also the idea that it would be cheaper to build from parts and pieces than purchase a RTF. Man-o-man is that a slippery slope, more on that later.

What was the initial appeal?

PROF-Certainly I had hoped that there would be the feeling of accomplishment. To bring something to life from a pile of parts.

What were the major goals and milestones?

PROF-Obviously the goal was to build a great flying quadcopter. The “milestones” can only be measured in baby steps. They were so far and few between with so much disappointment laced in between that celebrating the tiniest achievements kept me going.

What are the basic components of such a device?

PROF: In the simplest terms it a body with four arms, four motors, four props, four electronic speed controls (ESC), a flight controller (FC) or main controller (MC), a receiver and a battery plus a transmitter to control its flight. How simple is that? Just get on the internet and start ordering parts, remember I live on an island without a hobby shop!

But wait! The frames come in many different sizes; the motors varied and have confusing terminology, 1100KV. 1100 Kilovolts? No, that would be 1100 RPM’s per volt, who knew?

When should someone consider a scratch build approach?

PROF: When they have access to a good flying club and hopefully a good hobby shop. Doing it isolated like I did is very difficult and frustrating to say the least. It has taken me years to get to a point the others could achieve in months with local support.

I believe that once a person has purchased an RTF and got some hours on it, which includes repairing it after crashing, would be a good candidate.

I’ve read many threads on the multirotor forums warning against the path I took and I can certainly attest to that.

What are the steps to starting a scratch build quadcopter?

PROF: Do as I say not as I did!

First, buy an inexpensive Ready to Fly helicopter such as the Syma 107s. They are a great training tool and fly only indoors because they operate on infrared. Once you have the basic skills of flying rotor craft, go buy a cheap little mini or micro quad like the Hubsan H107 and start flying it outside, though they are quite small and need still air. And then when you are completely addicted like the rest of us, move up to something bigger but still a RTF and around $100. These steps are really necessary as even the most stable of quads such as the DJI Phantoms still require basic if not advanced flying skill. You don’t want to lose or destroy a $600+ quad.

Last year a friend bought a Phantom2 and equipped it with a Zenmuse 3D gimbal and GoPro Hero3. Finding the manual a bit boring, he immediately took the P2 up and out of sight. Gone. He called it a ‘run away’. I called it something. Learn to fly.

  

The Professor

Prof Scratcher in his normal habitat

Let’s begin with a proper introduction of Professor Scratcher and how he morphed from a normal Whidbey Islander to this shell of a man consumed with the vision of flight much in line with that phoenix from the ashes yarn. (BTW, there is no such animal as a ‘normal Whidbey’)

Prof Scratcher:

First you need to understand me a little bit so you know what background I come from.

I’m from a family of tinkerers and crafters with creative genes. I personally have an engineering background having worked most of my adult life as a process/manufacturing engineer in aerospace electronics manufacturing. By nature that job requires fixing processes, inventing new processes and a whole bunch of problem solving.

Apparently that’s his story and he’s sticking to it. Back to the good Professor defining a scratch built quadcopter

PROF- “Scratch Built” is exactly that, a quad built from purchased or home manufactured parts and pieces. Scratching like a barnyard chicken.

How is it different from Ready to Fly?

PROF- A “Ready to Fly” (RTF) comes complete or nearly complete and ready to fly out of the box. In many cases there is more to buy, which seems to be the nature of this hobby, things such as more batteries, battery chargers, first person view (FPV) goggles [more on that late] and the list goes on.

Once unboxed the flight battery is charged, the transmitter is charged and you’re ready for your first crash! Did I mention that crashing, buying more parts and fixing these things are all part of the hobby?

How and when did you get into this briar patch that we will call a “hobby”?

PROF- UMH! My first quad and how I got into it? Try to keep up Grasshopper.

I had purchased a 3D printer kit and built that device basically from scratch. (I will be using the word ‘scratch’ a lot, so get used to it.) While looking for something to print, I ran across a design for a “V-Tail” quadcopter! Oh boy I can use this hobby to start another hobby, cool. I love serial hobbies.

A few months later I had printed and built my first quadcopter frame.

Year of the Drone

 As we enter the Year of the Drone, as reporters covering the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas call it, let’s begin with a little DIY…Do It Yourself. It is one thing to buy that ‘store bought’ gear and quite another to build a gravity defying, air worthy platform from disparate parts. Lots of parts and unimaginable disparity. (Though to be quite honest, it says right here in the manual from hell, on page 8, right after page 10, that the ‘multi-numb-capacitor automatically syncs to the electronic senso-mometer in the 5.25v position’.) Bullshit. It does not.

Like any really good hobby that has sustained for decades, the pursuit of remote control airthings appeals to many different folks for many different reasons. There are social aspects, constant challenges to flying skills, and the thrill of pissing away much of your disposable income. (Maybe even a little of that non-disposable stuff) Then there is the hacker segment of this hobby mob. Sourcing parts, combing online forums, sharing information at the flying club and the constant frustration with reading manuals and schematics from all corners of the great People’s Repub where most of these parts come from.

I heard a guy from Boeing once say that though you and I see a beautiful Boeing 777 in flight, Boeing sees millions of parts flying in tight formation.  With that in mind, the blog will turn to building a quadcopter from scratch. A worth endeavor that should be attempted by only hard core enthusiast with the capacity for repeated failure, frustration beyond that experienced by a US President and the undying faith that failure produces tremendous rewards. In this case, the reward will be a quadcopter that flies as good or better than that lowly store bought stuff that you dismissed as ‘wimp bait’ a few months ago when you ordered your first multi-rotor flight controller from Lin Chan’s Drone World HK.

An interview with Professor Scratcher

For the foreseeable future, this Blog will explore the fascinating world of dingy backroom skunkworks where few mortals have nor should venture. It is not pretty, it can smell at times and for sure the language can make a Louis CK show seem like a Sesame Street episode.

We will explore all aspects of the hacker DIY vision for four motor flight through the eyes of Professor Scratcher. A Whidbey Island recluse with a shop, some cool equipment and a wife with limitless compassion for the under skilled.

Topics will range from ‘what is scratch build?’ to who scratches what, where and why? What are the steps in building a sophisticated flying machine? And of course, we will spend a lot of time answering the ongoing question, “What the hell happened this time?” Or, what Prof Scratcher would say at the end of every build day, WTF? 

Lights, Camera, Action All Over Again

As long as we are on the fascinating topic of light, I thought I would share a possibly very helpful device. A tiny scratch built strobe light to place on your quad.

This little gem was built from plans by a RC flying colleague and given to me for testing.

Originally, the dual LED strobe was designed to hook up with the Phantom’s internal power. That would work fine but I have battery drain challenges given the fact that I need power for my gimbal, the GoPro and the FPV transmitter. I decided to attach a very small 3 cell battery making the strobe completely independent. I attach it to Tommy with Velcro. (Velcro, tie wraps and gaffers tape are my go to fasteners these days.) BTW, the strobe weighs only 27g with battery.

 

 

This strobe is very bright and  its usefulness varies. One challenge is placement of the strobe on the quad. If placed on top, it cannot be seen from the ground. If placed on the bottom, it cannot be seen if Tommy is flying below me as is the case flying from a cliff. Also, the DJI Phantom has pretty good lighting anyway but other brands do not. In the case of scratch built quads, there are no lights at all. The strobe is indispensable for some quads. (I suggest not placing anything directly on top of a Phantom. That is where the GPS antenna is placed inside the shell.)

 

For me, when needed, I place the strobe in the rear and above the protruding battery compartment. This is terrific when Tommy is hundreds of yards out to sea and below me.

Here is a great write up on how you can build this strobe.

http://www.eastbayrc.org/index.php/tims-tips/116-visual-beacon-on-pcb

Lights, Camera, Action

So far in this blog we have discussed a lot about hardware and thrill of procurement. We also touched on making movies that don’t suck and the various directions our video movies can take such as documentary, chronological reenactment or just a good old story.

One aspect of any photo or video is always ‘where is the sun?’ This unbreakable fact of videography raised its ugly head the other day while I was shooting some deer in the hills behind my house. The grass was green. There were more deer than normal. And, it was a hazy winter day when the sun is in its lowest phase on the southern horizon.

Even a GoPro Hero4 Black could not overcome the problem. As you can see from the two frames from the video, pointing the camera directly into the sun does not work. Always remember the SUN!