Saturday, January 24, 2015

Somebody Help Me Here, Please


What are some resources for support?

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




 
 
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.

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