New Year, New Project Updates!

Of all the goals I have made for myself, one that seems to have fallen by the wayside is this blog. I simply just haven't had time to keep it up to date with all the projects I have been working on. So in an effort to make well on my own personal promises to myself, this post shall serve to update the progress of everything I am working on and also introduce some of the new projects I have yet to document.

Let's start with the old stuff from last year!

Status on Old Projects from 2014:

1) Gimbal Quad: Benched!

The sad news here is that I haven't made much progress on this project. While having gathered all the parts, a major setback with the ESC's desyncing from the motors caused this project to be un-flyable. One ESC would always desync and cause a crash/instaflip whenever quick throttle inputs were given. At first I thought it was due to a bug with the autotune because the first crash occurred during an attempt to use this feature. After another flight where I attempted to manually tune the PIDs, I discovered autotune was not the issue, and the ESC's were to blame. This issue led me to purchase a set of KISS 18A ESC's to replace the Multirotor Superstore 20A ESC's I originally installed. 

I have gone the process of replacing the ESC's and wiring everything but I have not flown it yet due to issue #2 with the whole setup; the gimbal IMU is having issues, and the roll axis drifts over time. I have tried the 6-point calibration, and I have also tried looping the IMU cable through a ferrite ring to reduce noise, but have not fixed the issue yet. Moving forward I am going to swap the controller and IMU for a unit from Ready to Fly Quads. I am also going to re-design the placement of the IMU so that it is top mounted and see if that helps.

These two issues combined with all the other projects I have been working on really halted progress on this project. For the time being I have decided to bench this project and work on other things.

2) GoPro Mini Quad V2: Project Complete!

I haven't written about this one in a while because it is pretty much a closed book. I have been flying it around trying to get more experience flying FPV. The 4S power setup is definitely better suited for this size quad. I am also trying to fine tune the PID's and adjust the rates to perfection. But as far as design improvement goes, I don't plan to change anything in the near future. If I do add anything, it will be an additional camera mount to hold a CMOS or CCD camera above the GoPro strictly for FPV flying and just using the GoPro for flight recording. But I am in no hurry to do this.

3) Twitchity Acro Quad: Still practicing my Acro maneuvers

I never really wrote up much on this project, but basically I bought this frame from Twitchity, who is a fellow Flite Test forum member who has been helping me CNC my frame parts. The idea here was to use the 3S power setup that came out of my GoPro Mini Quad V1 to build up a durable quad for acrobatic practice. This frame has been my go to for months now, and I posted a couple videos of my flights with it. Nothing has really changed here, although Twitchity has supplied me with his updated parts for this frame, I have yet to swap anything out.

4) Hybrid G10 and 3D Printed Tricopter: Moving on to version 2!

I hardly updated the blog for this but I have made a lot of progress on this front. The version 1 is built and flying. Here is a video of one of the early flights:

Here is another video of the yaw mechanism operation during the build process:

I have already made some slight changes to the printed parts, and received the revised versions from shapeways. I haven't built up Version 2 yet mainly because I want to buy an extra set of electronics for it so that I can keep both versions airworthy. Eventually I will get around to it, but the Version 1 is getting the job done for now.

New Projects for 2015:

1) PrintrBot Simple Metal 3D Printer
Shortly after Christmas I used all my Amazon gift cards to purchase a PrintrBot Simple Metal 3D printer kit. I've been wanting to get a 3D printer for a while, and this seemed like a good value, and way to get my feet wet. Since I bought a kit, I had to assemble and set everything up. This didn't take me long, and I have already printed quite a few things. Below is a quick video of one of the first few prints I did:


As time goes on I am slowly upgrading the printer to add more capability. As of this post I have already upgraded to the heated print bed which allows me to print more materials like ABS plastic.

2) Tamiya Lunchbox FPV!
A friend of mine decided it would be cool if a group of us built some old school Tamiya Lunchbox monster trucks and started racing them on his backyard track. We have yet to meet up and do this, but I have already decided I wanted to take mine one step further and install FPV equipment inside the bodywork so that I can drive it like I am inside the drivers seat.

Below are a couple pictures of Lunchbox and how the project turned out thus far:

Below you can see the video equipment installed in the shell using a 3D printed mounting plate I designed and made with my PrintrBot:

I have already driven this thing around, and it is a blast to drive FPV! It's not blazingly fast, but the sensation of speed is so much better from the FPV point of view, below is a video showing what it looks like:

3) Project Evolution X: major engine rebuild!
It's time to finally get my 2008 Mitsubishi Evolution X back on the road. It is currently down due to a cracked piston, which thankfully was caught before the whole thing disintegrated and caused more damage. The car has been sitting in my garage for almost two years now, and the time has finally come that I can commit some time and money to rebuilding it.

This will probably be my biggest project this year, and I have been prepping and organizing my garage over the past two months in order to make room to take apart the car. I plan to start dis-assembly in a couple weeks and hope to have the engine sent to the machine shop around mid March. Once I start taking things apart, I will probably put all my other (mostly RC) projects on hold unless I have some downtime while the engine is being worked by the machine shop. I'd like to get this project accomplished before the end of April, which honestly is a relatively short time period.

Printed Tricopter Parts Have Arrived!

I've actually been working on this project since Thanksgiving, and I've been gathering parts as I go, but the most exciting pieces just arrived today! Shapeways printed the main section pieces for me as well as the yaw mech. I was so excited to finally have the parts, I couldn't help but do a quick mockup assembly with the pieces:

So onto the specs:

• Construction: 3D SLS printed nylon main section, G10/FR4 arms
• Frame size: 250mm MTM
• Props: HQProp 6045
• Motors: Cobra 2204 2300kv
• ESCs: KISS 12A 2-4s
• Yaw Servo: Hitec HS-45B
• Flight Controller: Acro Naze32
• Battery: Multirotor Superstore 1300mAh 3S 45/90c
• Flight/Recording Cam: Fat Shark Pilot HD V2 (low latency)
• VTX: Range Video 5.8GHz 200mW
• RC RX: Futaba R2106GF 6ch FHSS
• RC TX: Futaba 14SG(H)

Tricopter with the upper shell removed:

The main plate has pockets designed in to situate most of the electronics. I intend to secure components with a dab of 5min epoxy or double sided tape, not sure which yet though. Topside mounted is the Naze32 and two of the ESC's for the front motors. Also visible is the Pilot HD V2. Once all this is wired up, the RC receiver and VTX will also be sandwiched up here between the top shell.

The tilt mechanism is made from printed parts, and uses a Hitec HS-45HB Servo:

Tricopter with props on for mockup, this is more or less how it will look sans the LiPo battery:


I am actually posting this a bit late, and my progress on this project is a lot further along than this post indicates. Look for upcoming posts to explain this and update the progress on the printed tricopter.

More Flippin Practice with the Twitchity Acro Quad

Not much to say here, just having some more fun until parts arrive for my projects!

Practicing my flips with the Twitchity Acro Quad

I had some time to fly this weekend, so I decided to practice my flips with the Carbon Fiber Twitchity Acro Quad. It is super durable, and it was designed by the guy (Twitchity) who also happens to cut all of my frame plates.

Idle hands do the Devil's work.......so I designed a new tricopter!

Waiting on parts and hitting setbacks with the Gimbal Quad, I decided to design something new instead of just twiddling my thumbs.

I present the Manta Ray Mini Tricopter:

My first serious multirotor was a Fortis Airframes Titan tricopter, and I still fly it especially when I want to film something because I installed a 2-axis gimbal on it. It's hard to describe, but tricopters just have a different flight feel and envelope than quads, the yaw/tail movement is just so fluid like. It makes these frames very fun to fly even though they add a layer of mechanical complexity compared to a quadcopter.

This design/build is inspired by others on the web. Starting with inspiration from Twitchity's take on the mini-tri, I began looking at other designs, and even found a frame that was fully printed. For my interpretation, I also took inspiration from the web-series Rotor DR-1, which is based around a post apocalyptic future where drones were used to deliver medicine to help treat a viral outbreak.

I decided to give this tricopter a sleek body shell which is comprised of three main 3D printed parts: the main frame plate, upper shell, and lower shell. The arms are direct carryover from my quad designs, and since I have spares of these parts, that will make things easier. The frame is designed around the KISS ESC's and a Naze32 size flight controller. For FPV gear, the frame is also designed to carry a Fat Shark Pilot HD V2 camera. This is the newer low latency version. I have a micro 200mW VTX which was purchased from Range Video. On the bottom side of the frame plate there is a provision for mounting a Multirotor Superstore power distribution/regulator board. With the exception of the motors and servo, all electronics will mount inside the shell. 

As of this post, all the printed parts have been submitted and ordered through Shapeways. They will probably be here around Christmas time. In the meantime I need to order some motors, an extra Naze32, and a FHSS Futaba receiver to complete this build over the holidays.

If it flies well and works out, I am considering redesigning the arms to be 3D printed as well. I anticipate in the next 6-8 months that I will probably purchase my own 3D printer, so being able to print out a full mini tricopter frame on demand will be great.

Gimbal Quad Videos!

Here are a couple videos I had made of progress on the Gimbal Quad. Things are currently on hold as I mentioned in a previous post. Once the new ESC's get here, hopefully I will have more videos to share.






PS- I am aware I spelled "compete" instead on "complete" in the opening title. I am too lazy to upload the corrected version but I did fix it in iMovie.

Gimbal Quad Woes?

I've been pretty quiet in regards to development of the Gimbal Quad lately, and that is because there are some issues to iron out. Due to the shorter daylight hours since last month, I haven't had a whole lot of time to fly during the week. Consequently it took me a while to realize a major issue with the setup of the Gimbal Quad. Thankfully it appears to be a hardware issue and not a fundamental design issue with the frame.

It all started with the maiden flights of the quad. Since I am running the Tau Labs Sparky, I was hoping to use the autotune feature to dial in the PID settings. I set everything up in the GUI so that I could enable autotune from my transmitter, took the quad outside, got it into a hover, and flipped the mode toggle switch to autotune. It began to oscillate like it was supposed to in autotune mode, but shortly after one motor/arm took a dip, almost in an insta-flip fashion, and the quad landed on the pavement.

That was very disappointing, but after picking up the frame and inspecting the damage, it was just a couple cosmetic scratches to one of the arms and a broken prop. Unfortunately I was out of props so I had to place an order and wait until I could fly it again. I also figured that since autotune was technically in beta, that maybe it was a bug which caused the crash, since everything seemed to still work ok, and it hovered fine in self level mode.

Once I got the props replaced, I went to maiden flight the quad again assuming this time I was going to end up manually tuning the PIDs myself. It was during this flight that I believe I found the real issue. It seems that one of the ESC's, and I am not sure if it is the same or just a random one, is de-syncing from the motor under higher throttle! This time I was hovering around in auto level, and I decided to give it a little punch of throttle to see how it responded. Just like the first flight in autotune mode, one of the motors/arms dipped and the quad nearly flipped and crashed to the ground. This definitely leads me to believe there is a sync issues with the ESC/motor combo.

I had read about people having issues with this on the forums, and it seems to just depend on the motor/ESC combo. It seems the mini motors of higher kv values are more prone to having issues with different ESCs and firmwares. I currently have a set of Multirotor Superstore branded SimonK 20A ESCs installed. I have ordered another set of KISS 18A ESC's like the ones I am running on my other Mini GoPro Quad to replace these. I am hoping this will solve the issue and also hopefully I can actually try out the autotune mode on the Sparky flight controller.

In the meantime I just have to sit and wait on the parts, but that hasn't stopped me from working on a new project.........more on that in another post though.