Arduino Quadcopter

[MarkoeZ 68]

Brilliant work! That's nice stable flight you have there.

 

I would forget using prop savers. You are hanging the weight of the quadcopter (/4) on those rubber bands. Use fixed hubs and buy shares in a prop manufacturer. Trust me, I have. :?

 

And be confident and get some height! You'd be surprised at how much ground effect there can be.

 

Thanks!

 

I actually ordered propadapters with the last shipment, but they were too large for the tiny props. And was not going to wait with flying until new ones came, so used the propsavers supplied with the motors.

 

Next order im going to place will have 16 props and adapters in it, believe me, im done witht those propsavers

 

And flight will still greatly improve, this is only with the motion plus gyro installed, still need to add a nunchuck, i fried my last one, oops :roll:

 

Oh, and i will be more confident once i have those propadapter. Last time i went over 3 meters a rubber snapped, causing the arm break

[xmob 26]

I know what it's like to lose a prop (motor, actually) from height. :oops:

 

[MarkoeZ 68]

I know what it's like to lose a prop (motor, actually) from height. :oops:

 

*** Youtube Vid ***

 

Ouch!!!

And you advise me to go higher? You evil evil man....

 

Kidding ofc. A lot damaged in that crash?

[xmob 26]

Nah. A motor was damaged (caused the crash anyway), one arm was bent/fractured and 3 props with missing blades. All the important stuff survived. It was flying again later that weekend.

[MarkoeZ 68]

Aaah ok. Thats why i like my frame as well. The frame breaks before anything else, and i can easily rebuild that

And due to the propsavers probably, so far only one prop written off with a noticable white spot (being bent too far).

 

Funny that the quad is better received here than in some dedicated multicopter forums. But most of those guys are using 300$ flight controllers, 30 amp motors, and big aluminium frames.

Guess my mcguivercopter is not "conventional" enough for most

Some pretty nice ppl there as well though.

[kenemon 29]

Very Cool Marko,

 

what kind of motors and battery are you using?

 

thanks!

[MarkoeZ 68]

Thanks!

 

Im using these motors: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=5358

Only about 10 gram, dirt cheap, and working pretty well so far. Just make sure to re-tighten all screws before flying the first time.... In my 3d flight one of the motors came out of its mount costing me a prop.

 

Right now im using a 850mAh 2s lipo, but i already have a 1500mAh 3s here to mount, only need proper connectors. The extra voltage from the 3s will give it an additional 75 gram lift per motor, for only 100 gram extra battery weight. And just within specs. The extra mAh is because it will empty faster with the increased power, bit of compensation.

But still need to test that setup, so dont take my word for it yet.

 

I also switched to a new board. Crius multiwii. Its still fully programmable with arduino/multiwii, but the board is configured for easier connection of the esc's, RX channels, and all other pins also nicely broken out.

PLUS it has on onboard gyro, accelerometer, compass and barometric pressure sensor.

I was originally only looking for the extra sensors. but when i saw that complete package for only 31 dollar, and a total of 17 gram, i was sold. The 0.2 version i found is sold out now, but the 1.0 is available for 38 dollar: http://www.rctimer.com/index.php?gOo=goods_details.dwt&goodsid=761&productname= Same precessor and sensors, just slightly different board layout.

 

Finally, i started work on the lights. I took the shiftregister module i created for the MSP430 porsche, converted that code to arduino, and slapped it into the Multiwii main routine (not the flight loop ofc)

 

Overview:

 

First tests:

 

To be continued...

[MarkoeZ 68]

Better flight video:

 

 

Tree crash video.....:

 

 

Result:

 

 

But only the arm damaged, and already got a better design. So should be a 30 minute fix

[bluehash 1,581]

haha..nice. I crashed mine into a tree last week.. had to shake it to get it loose. Good progress Marko.

[MarkoeZ 68]

thanks i was having problems with the increased thrust, still need to adjust the settings better to the new situation. This was really the first flight, that's why it was a bit bouncy up and down.

Should be more subtle in the low ranges of transmitter stick changes. Fortunately Multiwii has a GUI setting now so i should not have to change code for that.

 

Also yaw should be a bit tighter, it behaves a bit weird in some circumstances (going down and recovering for instance). I lost my orientation when it was turned, that caused the treecrash...

But to be honest, the fact that the crash got caught on camera made it much easier to handle

[MarkoeZ 68]

And fixed again. Nice yellow pc motherboard this time. Much sturdier than the protoboard.

Looking more and more like a Frankencopter

[MarkoeZ 68]

For your entertainment: Going up, and down just as fast

 

 

The phone was too far too the front, so it was heavily correcting for the imbalance, as wel as correcting for level. That does not work Next attempt soon with camera in the middle.

And got my eye on a 35 dollar 28 gram HD camera, from the mentioned Chinese supplier (im not an ad service )

[gwdeveloper 275]

Your quadcopter got me all excited about building a quad. I took a shortcut and ordered parts to build the Turnigy Mini Quad with a KK2.0 controller. The controller uses an AVR but I'll be adding a MSP430 or C2K for some autonomy.

 

Keep up the good work!

[bluehash 1,581]

I'm using openpilot. This was my first stable hover last week.

 

[MarkoeZ 68]

Your quadcopter got me all excited about building a quad. I took a shortcut and ordered parts to build the Turnigy Mini Quad with a KK2.0 controller. The controller uses an AVR but I'll be adding a MSP430 or C2K for some autonomy.

 

Keep up the good work!

 

Thanks! always nice to inspire people I still got all kinds of plans for additions and changes. But enjoying the flying so much atm, i have not done that much yet

Small warning though, the kk2.0 is atm still closed source. It can be flashed, but there is no code yet.

And if you want to generate the ppm signal, i dont think it accepts ppmsum, so you would need to generate at least 4 channels.

Also autolevel is not working for most people, but that should be fixed with next firmware.

On the other hand, seems to be flying really well in acro mode.

Good luck, and keep us updated!

 

@bluehash: Nice and stable!