Second Flight on the FPV Tricopter.
Had a second flight with the FPV Tricopter. Got rid of the worst of the Jello, using a camera board supported on silicon tubes.
Now to improve my flying skills ....
Now to improve my flying skills ....
| FPV Copter - Second Flight.avi (4 min 59 sec) |
First FPV on the Copter
It's a pretty ordinary video - but it records my very first FPV flight on the Tricopter. I've lots to do to improve the quality. It was recorded on a keychain cam and shows lots of Jello. But it went up and down in one piece.
On New Years Day - hooray!! ..Now I can FPV all the year round ...
On New Years Day - hooray!! ..Now I can FPV all the year round ...
| FPV Copter (2 min 42 sec) |
Binary 900 DLG
My Binary 900 v2 is finally done - although I built it as a v1 without ailerons, just Rudder/Elevator.
The magnet on the nose can take more or fewer magnets on top, to adjust the CG (perhaps not new, but I independently came up with the idea).
As at 31 August 2011 - unflown!
The magnet on the nose can take more or fewer magnets on top, to adjust the CG (perhaps not new, but I independently came up with the idea).
As at 31 August 2011 - unflown!
DLG "String & Spring" Test
I used an old "B" string from a steel string guitar - the steel miked up to 0.43mm and I used a piece 50mm long - 30mm of torsion spring and two 10mm 90º bends to go into the balsa. It seems to nestle in the hinge line OK when the mock elevator was on full "down".
It stands to reason that the longer the spring, the less the tension (with a linear relationship, I would guess - twice as long giving half the tension for a given angle of deflection).
By feel, 0.43 mm seemed about right to support "up" elevator at a decent speed, without over-taxing my proposed servo and string. But I also have an "E" string that's 0.35mm dia and it would be about 30 seconds work to swap that in to see if it's any better.
When the two bent ends are in the elevator and stab like this (ie, 30mm apart) there is some pressure on the hinge (tending to twist the elevator). To solve this, some bright person figured out that you can fold the whole "C" shape spring in half so the 90º bent ends go into the elevator and the horiz stab right beside each other -so no there's tilt tendency.
It stands to reason that the longer the spring, the less the tension (with a linear relationship, I would guess - twice as long giving half the tension for a given angle of deflection).
By feel, 0.43 mm seemed about right to support "up" elevator at a decent speed, without over-taxing my proposed servo and string. But I also have an "E" string that's 0.35mm dia and it would be about 30 seconds work to swap that in to see if it's any better.
When the two bent ends are in the elevator and stab like this (ie, 30mm apart) there is some pressure on the hinge (tending to twist the elevator). To solve this, some bright person figured out that you can fold the whole "C" shape spring in half so the 90º bent ends go into the elevator and the horiz stab right beside each other -so no there's tilt tendency.
| String and Spring (0 min 15 sec) |
Does a tricopter have a level hover
Does a tricopter have a level hover, if it has all CCW props and motors tilted to counter the torque reaction from the props?
| Flat Hover (2 min 3 sec) |
And Here's the On-Board Video
This time with a Cup of Water
There's no trickery here, guys. It's legitimate.
I tried it with my small KK quad, and a cup of water.
No hokus pokus here!
I tried it with my small KK quad, and a cup of water.
| KK with Water.mp4 (1 min 9 sec) |
No hokus pokus here!
So Why Doesn't the Ball Fall off the Copter???
Well, I wanted to return a stray tennis ball to some kids playing in the tennis courts at the local park.
So I pick up the ball and place it on top of my Quad. The ball is on an upside down plastic sandwich box (to protect the works), with a very slight indent in it, a couple of millimetres deep, so the ball rolls around and can fall off at the slightest bump.
I take off with the ball on board and fly over the court, expecting the ball to roll off at any second, and fall down to the kids. It doesn't. I rock the copter back and forth a bit. No change on the ball. I increase the strength of the rocking. The ball sticks there, like it's glued. I fly the copter around, turning, stopping and starting. No effect. I zoom the Quad up and down. To and fro. Frantically stopping, dipping suddenly, whamming it into turns. The ball doesn't budge. "What gives?", I think.
I bring the copter back to earth and place a second ball on top, with the first one. The two balls cannot both sit in the indent, and so they're now really unstable. If I carry the copter in my hand, it's hard to keep the balls on top - they fall off really easily.
So I fly the Quad with the two tennis balls on top to a position back over the court. And I do the rockin' and rollin' and shakin' thing all over again - the works. The balls just laugh at this and refuse to drop down to the kids.
In the end, the only way I can get the balls off the top of the copter, inside the tennis court, is to land the Quad. The balls fall off the instant the copter touches down, The boys are amazed.
So what gives? It's something to do with the fact that every time the copter dips in a certain direction, it accelerates in that direction? And this acceleration perfectly balances the inclination, so the ball/s stay centered and don't fall? Even with all that starting, stopping, turning and zooming?
Here we go .... a later video ...
Physicists?
shake
So I pick up the ball and place it on top of my Quad. The ball is on an upside down plastic sandwich box (to protect the works), with a very slight indent in it, a couple of millimetres deep, so the ball rolls around and can fall off at the slightest bump.
I take off with the ball on board and fly over the court, expecting the ball to roll off at any second, and fall down to the kids. It doesn't. I rock the copter back and forth a bit. No change on the ball. I increase the strength of the rocking. The ball sticks there, like it's glued. I fly the copter around, turning, stopping and starting. No effect. I zoom the Quad up and down. To and fro. Frantically stopping, dipping suddenly, whamming it into turns. The ball doesn't budge. "What gives?", I think.
I bring the copter back to earth and place a second ball on top, with the first one. The two balls cannot both sit in the indent, and so they're now really unstable. If I carry the copter in my hand, it's hard to keep the balls on top - they fall off really easily.
So I fly the Quad with the two tennis balls on top to a position back over the court. And I do the rockin' and rollin' and shakin' thing all over again - the works. The balls just laugh at this and refuse to drop down to the kids.
In the end, the only way I can get the balls off the top of the copter, inside the tennis court, is to land the Quad. The balls fall off the instant the copter touches down, The boys are amazed.
So what gives? It's something to do with the fact that every time the copter dips in a certain direction, it accelerates in that direction? And this acceleration perfectly balances the inclination, so the ball/s stay centered and don't fall? Even with all that starting, stopping, turning and zooming?
Here we go .... a later video ...
| Whole lotta shakin.mp4 (1 min 40 sec) |
Physicists?
shake
Angle for Your All-CCW Props
Here's an idea for angling your all-CCW props on a Quad - this one in "+" configuration.
| Angles for all CCW props on a KK + copter.mp4 (0 min 20 sec) |
KK Quad
KK Quad (with HK401B gyro parts)
+ Configuration
8" arms
FC28-22 motors
RCTimer 10A ESCs
All ESC BECs connected together to power the receiver and board - no problems!
HK SF 8x3.8 props (all CCW - none counter-rotating)
1500mAH battery ~12 mins flying time
Standard KK Firmware: Quadrocopter v4.5
Pots at about 50% (never had to change these)
Niall's v.6 through-hole board with Atmega48
Arms are 10mm hardwood from the local hardware
Frame plates are 1.5 mm ply from salvage
Lots of zip ties
Motors mounted on small pieces of hardwood ground to the desired angle on a grinding wheel, glued to the arms, with holes for zip ties - works very well
Landing gear is 10mm sections from scrap 40mm PVC pipe.
+ Configuration
8" arms
FC28-22 motors
RCTimer 10A ESCs
All ESC BECs connected together to power the receiver and board - no problems!
HK SF 8x3.8 props (all CCW - none counter-rotating)
1500mAH battery ~12 mins flying time
Standard KK Firmware: Quadrocopter v4.5
Pots at about 50% (never had to change these)
Niall's v.6 through-hole board with Atmega48
Arms are 10mm hardwood from the local hardware
Frame plates are 1.5 mm ply from salvage
Lots of zip ties
Motors mounted on small pieces of hardwood ground to the desired angle on a grinding wheel, glued to the arms, with holes for zip ties - works very well
Landing gear is 10mm sections from scrap 40mm PVC pipe.
| KK Quad 8 + shape.mp4 (3 min 50 sec) |
First KK Copter - on the board I posted about below ....
This was first real flight (after a short test "hop") of my first KK copter. Built on Niall's v.6 Through Hole Board (thanks Niall!) and gyros out of HK401Bs. Running v4.5.
My previous Quads have all been x shaped and this is my first in a + configuration so I'm still a little tentative ...
This 8" (200mm) radius Quad uses four (4) HK SF 8x3.8 props on FC 28-22 motors and RCTimer 10A ESCs.
All four ESCs have their +ve leads connected to the RX, no problem.
Because I am not using counter-rotating props, I had to angle the motors. The front/rear motors are angled CCW about 10º - 12º (to the left looking out along the arm from the centre) and the right/left motors angled the other way about 2º.
All pots are still on their original "half-way" setting - and the copter was slightly "twitchy" in the turbulent wind. So I think I can do some fine tuning and fix this.
A big thanks to Kapteinkuk who has given us a great project!
:-)
My previous Quads have all been x shaped and this is my first in a + configuration so I'm still a little tentative ...
This 8" (200mm) radius Quad uses four (4) HK SF 8x3.8 props on FC 28-22 motors and RCTimer 10A ESCs.
All four ESCs have their +ve leads connected to the RX, no problem.
Because I am not using counter-rotating props, I had to angle the motors. The front/rear motors are angled CCW about 10º - 12º (to the left looking out along the arm from the centre) and the right/left motors angled the other way about 2º.
All pots are still on their original "half-way" setting - and the copter was slightly "twitchy" in the turbulent wind. So I think I can do some fine tuning and fix this.
A big thanks to Kapteinkuk who has given us a great project!
:-)
| KK flight.mp4 (3 min 9 sec) |
Now there's a Wii in my life ...
Haven't even flown a copter with the KK board yet and now I've gone and built myself a WMC board (WiiMultiCopter).
Kinderkram on RCGroups has done a great BuildLog that I am following.
I do believe that I'll disassemble the standalone gyros off the "Even Simpler Quad", shorten its arms, and use this board to fly it.
In the picture below, the small blue board is the Arduino Pro Mini (which basically is an ATMEGA 168 or 328 chip and ancillaries - we use the 328, 5v, 16MHz version), the small green board is the "guts" of a clone version of the WiiMotionPlus (which provides the three gyros in one unit), and the round Olive coloured board is the WMC adapter board from MultiWiiCopter.com, that keeps it all neat.
Quinton at MultiWiiCopter.com is great to deal with.
The Motion Plus is a great way of getting your three gyros for about $10. You can even add accelerometers to this board for a few dollars, by adding the guts of a clone Nunchuk. Barometer-based altitude hold is nearly ready for this board and maybe GPS will follow!
It's great fun programming the Pro Mini - and the GUI (Graphical User Interface) that Alex has provided allows you to see in real time how the gyros are working and to configure the firmware for your own style of flying.
.
Kinderkram on RCGroups has done a great BuildLog that I am following.
I do believe that I'll disassemble the standalone gyros off the "Even Simpler Quad", shorten its arms, and use this board to fly it.
In the picture below, the small blue board is the Arduino Pro Mini (which basically is an ATMEGA 168 or 328 chip and ancillaries - we use the 328, 5v, 16MHz version), the small green board is the "guts" of a clone version of the WiiMotionPlus (which provides the three gyros in one unit), and the round Olive coloured board is the WMC adapter board from MultiWiiCopter.com, that keeps it all neat.
Quinton at MultiWiiCopter.com is great to deal with.
The Motion Plus is a great way of getting your three gyros for about $10. You can even add accelerometers to this board for a few dollars, by adding the guts of a clone Nunchuk. Barometer-based altitude hold is nearly ready for this board and maybe GPS will follow!
It's great fun programming the Pro Mini - and the GUI (Graphical User Interface) that Alex has provided allows you to see in real time how the gyros are working and to configure the firmware for your own style of flying.
.
Little "T"
First Flight of the small "T" shaped Tricopter
Inspired by flipflop's T shape copter, I made a small T-copter myself.
Here's the maiden. Seems it's going to fly quite nicely.
Here's the maiden. Seems it's going to fly quite nicely.
| Small T-Tricopter Maiden.mp4 (5 min 54 sec) |
Cicadas have arrived in Melbourne. It must be Summer!
A very nice evening flight.
This thing is a joy to fly
This thing is a joy to fly
| Simple Quad in the Evening - with Cicadas.mp4 (2 min 25 sec) |
Simple Quad carries on regardless ...
And ... not to be outdone by the success of "Even Simpler Quad" ....
good old Simple Quad insisted on doing an evening demo flight
dddd
dddd
to show that it is still ...
dddd
dddda joy to fly!
good old Simple Quad insisted on doing an evening demo flight
dddd
dddd
to show that it is still ...
dddd
dddda joy to fly!
| Simple Quad -still going strong.mp4 (4 min 26 sec) |
Second Flight!
Q. How do you fly a tricopter with no yaw servo?
A. Add a motor, and build it as a Quad!
Here's the second flight of "Even Simpler Quad".
The only "electronics" are the 4 gyros and 4 ESCs. Nothing else.
It's a tricopter x 1.33. You can ditch the yaw servo and the yaw pivot.
No yaw servo, no yaw gyro, no tilting motors.
The "tilt" on the gyros means that the gyros stabilize both the up-and-down of the arms and the yaw!
I upped the yaw control authority after the maiden flight and now she flies like a dream ... and still rock steady.
NO electronics, NO board, only 4 gyros, 4 ESCs and 4 motors.
A. Add a motor, and build it as a Quad!
Here's the second flight of "Even Simpler Quad".
The only "electronics" are the 4 gyros and 4 ESCs. Nothing else.
It's a tricopter x 1.33. You can ditch the yaw servo and the yaw pivot.
No yaw servo, no yaw gyro, no tilting motors.
The "tilt" on the gyros means that the gyros stabilize both the up-and-down of the arms and the yaw!
I upped the yaw control authority after the maiden flight and now she flies like a dream ... and still rock steady.
NO electronics, NO board, only 4 gyros, 4 ESCs and 4 motors.
| Even Simpler Quad 2.mp4 (5 min 21 sec) |
Simplest Quad Ever!
Here's the maiden of the Simplest Quadcopter Ever.
No fancy flying because: (1) control response is extremely slow, especially yaw; (2) I had to fly holding in some left yaw; (3) it was the maiden; (4) I was flying in my garden beside my wife!
Very stable. Needs to be less stable and more responsive.
Remember, this Quad only has 4 motors, 4 ESCs and 4 gyros. Nothing else.
Also - I'm cheap. I use tilted motors instead of pairs of CW and CCW props.
No fancy flying because: (1) control response is extremely slow, especially yaw; (2) I had to fly holding in some left yaw; (3) it was the maiden; (4) I was flying in my garden beside my wife!
| Even Simpler Quad - maiden.mp4 (1 min 48 sec) |
Very stable. Needs to be less stable and more responsive.
Remember, this Quad only has 4 motors, 4 ESCs and 4 gyros. Nothing else.
Also - I'm cheap. I use tilted motors instead of pairs of CW and CCW props.
Then there were six!
There may be a Hexacopter in my future .....
....
....
Now I have the KK Board Programmed
Peter (aka "Scorpia" on RCG) kindly got me straightened out, so now I am able to program the KK board with Tri, Quad, or Hex software. Once you get it figured out, it's really easy and only takes a few seconds!
I ended up using "Extreme Burner" to program the chip because that seemed to work with my $12 USB ISP AVR programmer much more easily than AVR Studio (which I could not get to work at all).
No photos for this, but I also bought a v.5 SMD KK board from Peter, so I can try my hand at soldering on the SMD pots.
I ended up using "Extreme Burner" to program the chip because that seemed to work with my $12 USB ISP AVR programmer much more easily than AVR Studio (which I could not get to work at all).
No photos for this, but I also bought a v.5 SMD KK board from Peter, so I can try my hand at soldering on the SMD pots.
