Originally Posted by nanobot9000

So I searched for a receiver for the Walkera TX I have and while there are ones out there, the size of the units seemed really large if I am trying to make this as small as possible.

Try to find a receive for one of there helicopters like a CB100.

Hi Mike
Yeah, 4 channels TX is enough. However for remote tunning a 5-channel TX would be nice.

I'm about to try out the ITG3200 (design the PCB at this time). I bought 2 ITG-3200 for $10 a piece. It's too small so I'm not sure if I would success on making the PCB or not.

The Wii MP board is not too bad.

After several hard crashes (including one that the quad fails from a 30 - 40 foot foyer down to marble floor (I flew too agressive and hit the wall )) some motors shafts are bent slightly. That introduces bad vibration, and the ST gyros don't work well with vibration.

I've finished designing a PCB that has 2 piezo gyros (they are pretty solid in term of vibration immunity) and one ST gyro for yaw. It's still smaller than the WiiMP board.

Why do you think IR sensors on 4 arm of the quad are not efficient? Maybe one sonar sensor that spins on top of the quad and continuously measures the distant to the surrounding to detect collision?

Thanks D-OCHO for the tip. Not sure of the dimensions but the RX2406C looks pretty small.

Thanh, The ITG-3200 looks nice and I agree it is small, I like to make circuit boards as well...anxious to hear how it turns out and will certainly be less than the $49 for a complete board from Sparkfun. Sorry to hear about the crashes - that really hurts! Obstacle avoidance would be a great addition to help in that case as well. I look forward to seeing that your new sensor board is like.

I have built many IR sensors and they would probably work as long as they can work within a reasonable distance and they are small enough. I will do some research on what might be available.

Mike

Thanh, I am sure you have mentioned this before, possibly in the Kaptain's thread so forgive me for asking again. Which output are you using on your ST gyro board?

Rob...

I'm using the 1X outputs Rob! the 4X outputs are way too sensitive.

-Thanh

I would have thought so. You had mentioned the vibration sensitivity before, it just popped in my head when you mentioned this last time. The same problem occurs with the Wii setup so obviously care in mounting is needed.

Thanks,
Rob...

Thanh,

Thanks for sharing your excellent quadcopter with us. I wonder whether you can have an updated component list which I can clearly follow (I don't have an inventory yet) . This is my first attempt to make a quad helicopter.

For examples: motors, RF receiver/transmitter/, etc. For example, I could not find Spektrum BR6000 RX . I have two receivers when I bought two helicopters from Amazon. I wonder whether I can use them directly.

It is very nice you have a buy-link for some component.

Roy

Hi Roy

Thanks for your interest.

I think the confusing part is the gyros. I'm gonna try out Wii Motion Plus gyro board sometimes tonight to see if it's any better than the ST gyros in regards to vibration immunity. If that works, then the component list becomes pretty simple.

If space is not too tight, you can buy HK401 gyros from Hobby King and reuse its gut. Let me know if you're interest in this.

If not, I will upload a design that I use to make the gyro board. Will update the list of items accordingly.

Regarding RX & TX, if you have an RX that can drive a servo from your TX, then it will work with this design with, hopefully, no problem. You need at least 4 channels to use with this set up.

Thanks

-Thanh

Originally Posted by nanobot9000

T... Sorry to hear about the crashes - that really hurts!...

Hi Mike

The little copter is light, so it's pretty resilient to crashes. I could pick up the copter from a 10 feet fall, and it can still fly again with no issue. I think one of the reason my shaft is bent is because I was trying so hard to push the motor shaft into the 0320 orange GWS props without proper reaming. Have to learn how to do that for the upcoming small brushed motors and props. I ordered the counter rotating props from Indoorflyer.co.uk (one of the links you provided). Hopefully to see them soon. Still need to buy the brushed motors.

I picked one of these used from the classify section:


Will see if I can hack it for the TX and use the TI wireless stuff. It's kind of awkward that the TX (I have a Eclipse 7 / DX6) is as big as the copter.

Thanh

thanhTran will you build also a bigger version of this quad and post some video so we could see how stable it is compared to the arduwiicopter style designs..
Can't wait to see the tri!

Hi Msev

Thanks for checking. Here are some videos of the bigger quad (24" motor to motor) using the same controller and software and Wii gyro:

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showp...6&postcount=17

Yeah, Tricopter is somewhat next item in my task list . I have a frame with all motors, RX, ESCs hooked up and just wait for the controller.

-Thanh

My quad became wobbling after some crashes and some forceful experience with different GWS props (the hole of the prop was too small yet I still tried to force the motor shaft into it). So today I decided to try out the Wii Motion Plus gyro board in this set up. I took the WiiMP from my bigger quad and put it onto the micro one. It stands on 4 pieces of 4mm foam tape:



After hooking everything together, with hope I plugged the battery in. Surprisingly I didn't have to swap the direction of any gyro channel. And I start flying. WOW, what a difference it makes. The quad flies a lot more stable and no wobble whatsoever. With the ST gyros after many mishaps that I described earlier, the quad was flying like a horse trying to fly. Now with the Wii MP board, it flies very solidly. yay

The Invensense gyros got me sold I wonder if the ITG3200 will be much better.

-Thanh

ps. The Wii MP I bought was this one:
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.32506.

Tranh,

With EZ430-RF2500, what I need to for RC remote control is to have a 4/6 channel RC receiver, right?

I am begging to buy components...

Thanks.

Roy

Yes Roy, you need a 4 to 6 channel RC receiver. With 5 or 6 channel, you can do remote gain gyro tuning which is nice. With only 4 channels, you will have to type the command on the console to set the gain.

Here's another feature you might want to add when you put a cam on the quad maybe for fpv,...a servo stabilizing system for the camera....on the multiwiicopter Alexinparis wrote some cam stabilizing code for the arduino....

That would also be a nice feature ... I just talk, instead of building something...gotta build something in the next months,...probably first an arduwii, the next your FC with WiiMP...Saw the videos, very nice, seems very stable, it's nice that the community on rcgroups is so knowledgeable on so much areas...