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Posted by jamac | Feb 09, 2013 @ 11:43 AM | 4,042 Views
It took a little longer than expected but it's finally done. All of the components are now successfully moved to Dialfonzo's excellent Y6 frame.
The frame was redesigned a bit (more than once actually) that's why it took a while to get it done. As I wrote before, initially the idea was to create a light, stiffer alternative for F550 which suffered from all kinds of vibrations coming from the frame. We decided to expand this project a bit by adding a custom, Cinestar-type (meaning made from CF tubes and tube blocks), 2-axis gimbal to the frame. I'll write a bit more about the gimbal in a separate post.

The frame came with all the needed parts + extra standoffs, screws and some spare frame parts.

Putting the frame together was straight forward. The quality of Eric's (Dialfonzo's) products is outstanding.

...Continue Reading
Posted by jamac | Oct 27, 2012 @ 10:03 PM | 4,499 Views
A build, or should I say, move log will follow soon.

Waiting for the parts to complete my new Y6 frame , designed, brought to life and partially based on my requests by Dialfonzo.

The overall idea was to change the F550 frame to something generating less vibrations. F550 (as everyone who uses it knows), has plastic flexible arms, which are durable and lightweight but bend and shake due to torque and p-factor + propwash in general.

I was initially thinking about replacing the F550 arms with CF tubes but it turned out to be harder and more expensive than I thought. None of the standard available clamps will fit the frame because not only it uses a strange screw hole spacing but also the holes in the bottom plate and upper plate are not lined up. I designed custom clamps that would probably do the job but 3d printing of a single clamp would cost around 35$-40$.

Another idea was to use a sort of arm braces. Several F550 users went that way with pretty good results. It's described in this thread.

I finally decided to move to a completely new frame,specifically designed to fit all DJI's electronics and motors. Some people ask me why, instead of just building a new copter from the scratch, I'm still insisting on using all the DJI stuff. Back when I was flying helis this was the kind of mistake I made. In effect, I had 3-6 helis sitting in my garage, never to be used again since I was playing with my new toy.
I usually use 1 rig and don't need to upgrade to a...Continue Reading