My First Quadcopter - Build Update

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A few changes in build plans but still on track. Build parts starting to arrive slowly but surely. A few delivery mishaps that have delayed the build and resulted in going with an Xbee pro S1 rather than the 3DR telemtry. To be honest I flip flopped, decided on Xbee, then 3DR and due to a cancelled order being shipped ended up with the Xbee.

While waiting for parts I have been reading the wiki and forums daily. I can not stress how important this is as a process before and during the build. Reading troubleshooting post and watching videos on calibration of RC controller and setting up of mission planner.

Decided to make my own power distribution harness and forgo the distribution board I bought to save weight and  space on the frame and keep it low profile. Fairly tidy soldering job with heat shrink and testing the connection with a volt meter. Trying to keep weight down by shortening cable lengths to keep things tidy.  Lots of soldering this weekend on ESCs as well as resistor and cap for the sonar sensor.

Purchased two black closed cell (water and fireproof) foam blocks (1 prototype - 1 final) to make a custom canopy. Planning on mounting APM, telemetry, sonar, optical flow, airspeed sensor and receiver to the foam. Going to extend the central mount with the space carbon fibre tubing I have to allow the mounting of two large lipos. This should help vibration and endure spacing between sensors that are affected by magnetic and electrical noise from motors and ESCs. Settled on FrSky TX/Rx with Turnigy 9XR and 2x 5200mah 3s lipos.

Next step is mounting all the above to the frame in anticipation of the final parts Arduino Pilot Mega Flight Computer + GPS + Power module. But before I get ahead of myself I need to refine my setup/ calibration plan as well as flight checklist.

Big thanks to Multirotor.co for the T-Motors parts. Look forward to ordering some MN4014-11 330KV motors for my next build - X8 ;)

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  • a better plate is a non talon carbon plate I saw once, not sure who makes it but it is a non symmetrical shape like the tbs discovery 

  • I built one and my biggest disappointment was the small size of the plates was too small to get ESCs, Telemetry, FPV Xmtr, OSD, etc out of the way.  An inexpensive solution is to buy two of the hobby king Octo plates (found under Parts for the Talon II).  The plates are about twice the diameter as the TII Quad plates, and barely heavier at all.  Its compatible with the boom mounts from the quad, and there's plenty of room to mount all my stuff between the plates, and allows to upgrade the frame to an Octo if I want to.  And I'm using one of the original Quad plates on the top to mount the controller.

    My only gripe about the Octo plates is that they do not have very well thought out pass-throughs for wires.   The bottom plate just has an array of slots for mounting things, but if you want to hang a camera gimbal, then you'll need to cut a couple of holes to pass wires through.3692622516?profile=original

  • Hi Mufit, correct, V2. I agree, real estate is limited hence the foam. There are plate mods on line with larger mounting plates for the V2 poles and connectors, simple as just transferring the arms. I will also be adding foam beneath the centre to stop any potential sag on rough landings. On the upside the frame is 40g lighter than others out there and I was a little worried about the height of landing skids on some frames as this is a first build with APM and was concious of AOA landings on youtube. Had it been an DJI Naza or DJI Wookong FC I would have been a little more confident but these FC are probably for a future build with a much bigger budget.

    I am going for flight time with the battery as I plan to add a small HD camera with wifi to it at some point after the first couple of months. I am looking at the JVC adixxion gc-xa1.

  • Hi Erman, 

    This is an exciting project, congratulations. I think Michael's remarks on the battery is correct. I have a similar setup with GPS (this is a Talon V2, I presume) and tested several batteries. 2200mAh was a joy to fly, very agile and easy to control, etc. I also tested with a single 5000mAh which made the platform rather bulky as expected but quite acceptable given the extra endurance. I carried a Contour camera in addition to this heavy battery with no great effort. But loading another 5000 with the camera/fpv gear, would make it rather too cumbersome and add too much burden on those motors, and the controller. Dual 3000mAh might work here, but I haven't tested. The biggest drawback about this frame is the amount of real estate on the central plate (or rather lack of it). Anyway, hope this input helps, good luck with your project..

  • The frame is light compared to some on the market and looks to be a good beginner frame. One thing to look out for is the motor mounting plates should be rotated 180 as the sink holes are on the wrong side and this is not shown in the intruction. Also you may notice extra screws on the connection between the carbon tube and plates. This is to stop it turning as some people have experienced these moving mid flight. It pays to read up! Think if i did another build i would go with a x-aircraft/ bumbleebee folding frame. Only because of the clearance for a large gimbal.
  • Hi Michael. Number of factors. In all likely hood will not fly with both attached although will see how it performs. I decided on battery size based on weight, motors, props and that at some point i would add fpv and gimbal.
  • Two 5200mah batteries on your quad?  Wow.  Sounds heavy.  How did you determine your batter choice?

    Mike

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