All remains relatively well with the reborn HPQ1 with its shiny new HobbyKing electronics.

I say "relatively" only because the number one motor kept popping its endbell during yesterday's flight adjustments. I'd removed the endbells in order for the quad to fit in its rather nice hard-shelled case which is SOP for that model.

Swapping out the number 1 and number 3 endbells fixed the problem, so I've temporarily marked that number one endbell with a Sharpie until I can engrave it or otherwise label it. The 8x3.8 APC slow-flyer props generate more thrust than stock, something to keep in mind when replacing them.

Good old Chad, aka "TheOne420" did a superb job of setup over at the hobby shop, properly activating the auxillary channel so that I can now switch the self-leveling mode on the fly. He even got the battery voltage indicator on the KK2 to work by soldering the leads of a JST connector to a couple of pads underneath the board. The positive lead went to a pad marked "AREF" and the negative was soldered to ground, or "GND." Once plugged into the male JST pins on the power distribution board, success!

I still want a better frame and motors, but we'll see how this one works in the long run.

Yeah!

It took some time and effort, but the redone HPQ1 is a functional R/C model aircraft once more. This time around, the electronics are all state of the art except for the motors.

The new 8" APC quadcopter props aren't in the pipeline just yet, so I went with some APC 8x4.5 slow-fliers both normal and reverse. Good thing I'd kept the original brass bushings from the original props; no other prop I've tried will fit without them since the shafts are so tiny.

One of the Gemfan props which were on it met an untimely demise soon after I powered up for the first time. Seems that I had reversed the numbers 3 and 4 motors at the KK2 board. KER-BLAM! The quad violently flipped over onto its head, shattering the prop.

All is now well and the final fine tuning comes tomorrow thanks to user "TheOne420." Even with the initial settings, this thing flies better than it ever had with the old electronics.

On to the next project!

I've said before that few feelings are as truly remarkable as the ones felt when a project comes together.

It would seem that my attempt to resurrect, rebuild and otherwise resuscitate a dead Rotor Concept HPQ1 quadcopter was a success!

Recall that I have said less than kind things about a cheap little quad with a horrible radio still being sold for an insane and unreal $899 on the company's website...but hey, they'll unload one on you for $299 at shows.

Like they did with me.

Well, I'm glad to announce that the terrific HobbyKing electronics are installed and work great!

I'm waiting for a new set of APC 8x4.5 quadcopter props since one of the Gemfan props I was using was shattered thanks to my having switched the numbers 3 and 4 motors on the KK2 control board. This caused the quad to violently flip over, shattering that prop and chipping another. Only spare CCW prop I had was the right size, but a different brand. However, it worked well enough to get the thing airborne once I discovered the mistake. It's wandering a bit at hover, but I'm attributing that to the mismatched propellers.

When the props come in, I'm going to pick up a male-to-male jumper so that I can connect the auxillary channel and get battery voltage readings. I had enough of the original jumpers to connect the receiver to the board and get it flying, but without the aux.

I've promised photos which I'll post on the next entry. Promise.

I can also promise that if anything happens to this frame or motors, I'm getting some real motors and a frame, maybe from Armattan Quadcopters. I still love my CNC 258!

Between my day job and my tasks here on RCGroups.com, I'm a busy guy.

Pleasantly busy and having a lot of fun, but still busy.

I figured that I'd been staring at a hundred bucks worth of still-bagged electronics from HobbyKing and a custom-built component mounting plate from Armattanquads.com long enough.

Today was the day I whipped out the soldering iron and some other small tools and got going on the resurrection of the Rotor Concept HPQ1 quadcopter.

I had a serious chunk of change invested in this beast before I'd learned more about quads; I wasn't about to let all that money go down the tubes.

It was admittedly interesting to solder twelve new male bullet connectors to the very tiny leads coming off each of the motors once each motor was unbolted from the frame and the wires cut to length; they're somewhere in the neighborhood of 22 AWG. Ridiculously tiny. What clearly made things worse where these motors were concerned were the rather long leads coming off of each motor. Since the original ESC was a sort of "4-in-1" unit mounted on the chassis beneath the control board, the leads had to be long enough to reach back. Why they couldn't have been made of heavier gauge wire escapes me, but that won't be an issue anymore save for the first two inches or so.

Perserverence pays off and did so earlier today with each motor sporting three new bullet connectors and each radial sporting a brand new Afro 30-amp ESC, each held in place with a single tie wrap for the time being.

I've taken some photos of my progress so far and I'll post them on the next blog entry.