Canners 130/180 quad build

Will use this topic to post pictures and updates from my attempt of building a quadcopter.

Here are the first few pics to get a general idea of parts used and size.

Nice stuff canner,that battery looks a monster

Great minds think alike...I ordered some of those motor lights when I ordered
a spare matek board from banggood and of coarse the X8r receiver is great.

Those motorLEDs looked pretty awesome on the pictures so I had to have them. I've got red LED's for the back and blue ones for the front. Still waiting on the blue ones though.



Not sure yet, but thinking about building the quad with the frame upside down, something like this:



This way when I hit a tree or crash otherwise, the battery won't get damaged too easily.
I can put all the electronics on the top and make a plexiglass canopy for protection.
I've got an old sheet of plexiglass lying around, which after cutting to size, I can bend into shape using a heatgun.

Like said still not sure, I may decide to use the plexiglass to build a double bottom and put all the electronics there.

CANNER wrote:

Like said still not sure, I may decide to use the plexiglass to build a double bottom and put all the electronics there.

learn some about aerodynamics, than decide ...

Quote :

learn some about aerodynamics, than decide ...

I don't see how aerodynamics is going to be a problem either way.
The open front will be close off when camera is installed.

What am I missing here?

CANNER wrote:

Looks cool mate, saw that third pic & thought you almost a got a new gauntlet fist there 

To keep the post clean I edited some double pics out of the quotes, hope you don't mind  

Bad^Moon^Baby wrote:

Looks cool mate, saw that third pic & thought you almost a got a new gauntlet fist there 

Thanks It would be a very dangerous thing with razorblades for props, quadcopter from hell

 

CANNER wrote:

Quote :

learn some about aerodynamics, than decide ...

I don't see how aerodynamics is going to be a problem either way.
The open front will be close off when camera is installed.

What am I missing here?

Made an example from paper for how I was planning the plexiglass canopy, how is this bad for aerodynamics?
Just not sure yet if this idea works, cause I don't know if I can get all the parts to fit inside.

 

Hey, I see i wasn't too clear. I didn't mean to challenge you in any way, i just said 'learn' as it is the simplest way to know, to obtain knowlege and determine why extacly drone is build this way, or another. 
Simply speaking: I have no idea why is it build this way, so i tell you to know why..

To encourage you a naked lady:

That lady went nice with my sandwich.  

2litre wrote:

Hey, I see i wasn't too clear. I didn't mean to challenge you in any way, i just said 'learn' as it is the simplest way to know, to obtain knowlege and determine why extacly drone is build this way, or another. 
Simply speaking: I have no idea why is it build this way, so i tell you to know why..

On google I looked up 'quadcopter upside down', and found several builds that were made upside down. So I'm not the first with this idea, can even buy them like this. Only thing that could be an issue is the weightdistribution, but I think that won't be much of a problem in my case, since the total weight of the parts on top would about equal that of the battery below.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Multicopter/comments/2r7q4p/why_arent_mini_quads_built_upside_down/
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2284894&page=6

Still trying to get an idea of how to assemble everything. So many ways to put it together. I like the idea of seeing all those parts and their shiny LED's together under a transparant canopy

Decided to go for a tradi-ti-onal build with the battery on top.

I finally figured out where to put all the parts and made a bottomplate for protection:

looking good...I`m amazed how small those mini cc3d`s are.

Started with the soldering, which isn't as easy as it's supposed to be, because my cheapo soldering iron barely gets hot enough.
Well not at the very tip at least. For my next build i'll have to get a better soldering iron, but for this build I'm sticking with this one.
It's not the nicest soldering job, but the wires are stuck to the circuitboard, and with my multimeter I could check to see that it all works fine.





Next pic shows the wires for the LED's soldered onto the board:





Then I wanted to flash the latest version of Cleanflight on my CC3D flightcontroller, but found out Cleanflight support for CC3D was cancelled about a year ago. Reason why Cleanflight was so interesting is because it could be used to configure the ESC,s, but only the newer versions support ESC configuration through Cleanflight. Now going to try flash Betaflight onto my flightcontroller instead.

Good thing I also ordered a special USBlink tool so I can still configure and update my ESC's through BLHeliSuite, only then I have to do everything manually.

It`s not the easiest board to solder to when your just starting out,the LED pads are especially
small to solder to,so good job 

canner wrote:

Now going to try flash Betaflight onto my flightcontroller instead.

Or Librepilot ?

https://librepilot.atlassian.net/wiki/display/LPDOC/Downloads

muckyman wrote:

It`s not the easiest board to solder to when your just starting out,the LED pads are especially
small to solder to,so good job 

Thanks Was a bit difficult indeed. Fiddling with the soldering iron close to the other components was iffy.
Even had a blotch of solder that fell on the board making a mess, but I managed to clean it up.

muckyman wrote:

canner wrote:

Now going to try flash Betaflight onto my flightcontroller instead.

Or Librepilot ?

https://librepilot.atlassian.net/wiki/display/LPDOC/Downloads

Going to try Librepilot if Betaflight fails. I prefer trying Betaflight first, cause then I can use the Cleanflight GUI.
Joshua Bardwell has a lot of Cleanflight tutorials on his youtube channel. https://www.youtube.com/user/loraan

Just found this video which shows the difference in flight performance between Librepilot and Cleanflight(Betaflight) :

Have flashed the flightcontroller with Betaflight, and tested to see if Cleanflight would recognize it, and it works!

Mounted the motors and motorLEDs to the frame:



Next will be soldering the ESCs to the PDB and connecting the LEDs.

It`s coming along good

muckyman wrote:

It`s coming along good

It can go quite fast now, once the soldering is done, it's mostly a matter of plugging in the cables and setting up the Taranis.
Had gardening to do, so not much time today or tomorrow to sit down and concentrate on the build. I could rush it, but it's nicer to just sit down and take the time for it.
Actually already looking to buy new parts to build a 130 size micro quad that I can fly inside the house and garden.

Just bought a new soldering iron. This one is 30-60Watt, adjustable between 200 to 450 degrees.

https://www.conrad.nl/nl/toolcraft-jls-03-regelbare-soldeerbout-60-w-588269.html?sc.ref=Deals

Going to resolder the things I already did. I don't really trust the joints the way they are now, though it works and looks to be sticking well, I'm expecting it to come loose at the first crash. The tip of the soldering iron I used was so cold it often got stuck to the solder, literally soldering the PDB stuck to the soldering iron, very frustrating. If all goes well it will arrive tomorrow so I can continue in the weekend.

Also bought some velcro to stick the batteries to the quad.

The soldering iron arrived yesterday and works perfect. This one gets hot enough to melt the solder properly.   

Got the LEDs working and also the ESC's, camera and vtx. The last pic shows the transparent rubber 'landingfeet' I bought to stick on the LEDs for protection.

Sweet....that's all the hard work done

Nnow it`s over to the pc

I'm not quite done yet. I figured a better way to place the wires for the LEDs. There's tiny holes in the quad's arms for screwing on the landinglegs. But I'm not using those legs anyway, instead I'm going to use the holes to guide the wires through.

Also I'm still waiting for a 4S->12v voltageregulator to arrive, so I can hook up a 12v LED strip I bought, which originally was sold as to put on a car, but I figured it would be nice to put it on my quad.

muckyman wrote:

Nnow it`s over to the pc

I already learned the basics of what has to be done from setting up my Eachine250.
Choosing type of copter, radioprotocol, calibrating throttle and gyro, and setting up radiotransmitter.

Throttle calibration can be a bit tricky, but will see how it goes. Only need to do it right once to figure out how it's done.

Old LED wires:



New LED wires:



The LEDs are really bright, but they get quite warm also. :



The landingpads. For now I put them on the LEDs. But they are slightly too large and the LEDs get warmer then expected, so I may stick these on the bottom of the quad and use smaller ones to stick on the LEDs for protection. Would be better anyway cause the way it is now, is not good for the LEDs either.

While posting previous pics I realised the landingpads look pretty, but are not very good for the LEDs. Because it would hit the LEDs each time when landing, which can go pretty hard sometimes. So I moved the landingpads to a different place and stuck a smaller rubber pad onto the LEDs for protection. Now the little piece of wire is also protected.