Learning to fly...but i ain´t got wings...

Flying at the local golf coarse, a fantastic place to learn, as you can easily find your bits and pieces after a crash, be sure to go there as late as possible, sundown is my preferred time. No golfers around so the chances of getting hit by a golf ball are minimal. I usually fly from the tee, so that i can move when someone comes. But never met a golfer and if i did, they probably would not be amused.

Another Bamboo idea.

My quad took a heavy crash and the landing tubes broke, seeing as spare parts are not stocked in the European warehouse, i came up with an idea of using bamboo as landing tubes, its pretty simple and cheap, though not as durable as the original carbon fiber tubes, but it does the job.

Took my tube mount to the local garden shop and bought 3 x 1 meter of bamboo that is roughly 4,7 mm in size, just simply cut the bamboo accordingly and mount it on.

Repairing a broken frame.

Well was out flying yesterday and the quad took a pretty heavy crash from about 30 meters straight down onto the ground. Pretty much everything was torn apart and had to be put back together. The aluminium motor tube broke right where the first screw mounts, this practically meant a new tube and a wait for a couple of weeks until the spare parts arrived from Hobbyking US. The european center doesn´t stock spare parts for this frame.

I came up with a fantastic idea, i went down to the local garden shop and bought a stick of bamboo, just thick enough so as i could force it between the broken tube, i feed it about 5 cm in the tube, cut off the back end leaving just enough for the other broken piece

I took a two 2 mm drill and drilled holes through the bamboo using the original holes as a guideline.

Mounted the tube back on the frame

Now...good to go...no time wasting waiting for spares...

BradWII firmware

I´ve read a lot of stuff lately on quads and yesterday when i searched Google for the term "auto pid tuning" it mentioned Bradwii, clicking on the article, i found a firmware coded by this guy Brad, part of his code was ported from Multiwii. The intresting thing about his firmware was what it has to offer.
Take a look at this list:-

- Level, Acro, and Semi-Acro flight modes. - Multi-Wii Config compatible (including bluetooth apps, etc). Works on any (and multiple) serial ports. - Simplified settings means there are fewer things (especially PID) that need to be adjusted. - Auto PID tuning! - Position Hold - Mag Hold - Altitude Hold - Return to Home - Standard or DSM2 Satellite receivers - Throttle Helper - Automatically applies extra throttle when tilted in attempt to maintain attitude. - Uncrashability Mode - Takes over when you get below critical attitude or get too far away. Practice those Acro maneuvers without being able to dumb-thumb it!

Not bad...two things really wanted me to try this firmware, the Auto PID tuning and the Uncrashability Mode, if i could run on a correctly PID tuned quad and have the ability to fly without crushing all the time, it would give me some valuable flight time.

unless you can program, the firmware currently runs on these three Hobbyking boards:

- Multi-Wii Pro 2.0
- Multi-Wii 328p
- Multi-Wii NanoWii

No libraries are required to flash the firmware and flashing the firmware is done pretty quickly compared to MegapirateNG, only one file has to be edited and that is config.h,the Bradwii har support for bluetooth and GPS, but my Gimbal was not coded in the software so had to loose that. After flashing. It can be run on MultiWII GUI 2.2.

Took my quad for a spin in the garden where i had my previous crashes in the neighbours garden and with the default settings the quad was very stable, didn' t try the auto PID tuning as i might require more space than my back garden. Must say i am pretty impressed, found a soccer field and here i gained some good flight time, no broken props, and gave me a chance to learn flying. Very stable and quick to trim. This is a good beginner firmware.

Look at this site for more info on this firmware

https://github.com/bradquick/bradwii

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIrLBZttYAU

Flight controller

Looking for a new Flightcontroller, well this site http://oddcopter.com/flight-controllers/ shows you the different controllers, their capabilities and a price comparism. Each controller is reviewed and a link to their rspective web page is also provided. Check it out quite a good site.

Gain flight time by stabilizing your battery

Stabilizing the quad was for me a daugnting task, when i first powered the quad and tried testing it, it simply shook in all directions and was unflyable, searching the net, i read about PID tuning and have to this day still not mastered it correctly, but hopefully i will learn it at some stage. One of the main issues i had when i PID tuned and tested was that the quad kept drifting to the one side, i was convinced that this had to do with the PID tuning being wrong, as i thought that the flight controller would automatically compensate in keeping the quad level so i kept at it and never did find the answer until i after searching the internet i found a thread that explained this issue, after realising that it had more to do with the quads center of gravity, using the transmitt i trimmed the quad accordingly and was able to fly.

After some time of flying i got fustrated because i had to ever so often trim the quad everytime the battery moved this due to a heavy landing or simply because it wasn´t strapped down hard enough, i got extra straps, but the didn´t solve the problem.

The X650F frames comes with a small battery holder, which is almost impossible to stabilize the battery in the same position, so i decided to get rid of it.

After getting rid of it, i mounted the battery directly on the frame, used two velcro straps to stabilise it and that helped somewhat, but small movements still occured.

and time was still being spent trimming. I went down to the local fabric store and bought some velcro with tape on the opposite ends.

Taped some velcro on the battery mount and a bit on the battery. Mounted the battery and used the straps i previously had to tie it down and now my center of gravity is always the same, if you use different batteries you could align each battery and mark the spot, so you can place the battery at the same spot each time. 

If you have some other crazy idea let me know, it might be worth while trying and sharing with others....

A small trick to quickly mount and dismount your gimbal

Well my heatshrink finally arrived, time to get busy. The last time i flew the gimbal kind of fell apart, had to get my tools, unscrew the top housing to remove the wiring under the frame, remount everything before flying again, took about 10 minutes standing in the cold, too long...
So i wanted to find a new and quicker way of removing everything and though up something very simple, all you need are solder skills, even shitty ones like mine, a bit of cable, and two JST connectors.
The idea is to combine both + cables from the two gimbals and both - cables, connect the + them and add a wire thats long enough to reach the edge of your frame, at the end of the wire, do this with the - wire then solder a JST female plug, heatshrink the cables as you normaly would do, then add a coloured heatshrink on the outside.

The two signal wires from the gimbals are also fed up to the edge of the frame they are soldered onto a JST connector, remember to note which side is soldered where, as you will need to connect them correctly on the flight controller, i didn´t have an extra JST female, so used a power switch connecter from an old PC works fne. If you get confused and forget which was roll and pitch, plug the signal cable of the gimbal into one of the reciever ports, Throttle, yaw, ailiron or elevator, turn on your transmitter and move the sticks, your gimbals should react thus finding out which is which.

 The cables is then mounted into a JST male connector that is superglued on the frame, the left side which is the power, red for + and  black for -, has also been heatshrinked so  as not to confuse the two connectors. The right side is the signal, one for pitch, the other for roll.

The power cables are fed to your power source, in my case i have a UBEC where i branched the cables and have power for different units, like the flight controller, reciever etc.

The unit can be unmounted or mounted in 30 secs. flat

30. seconds later....

 The two superglued connectors run under the frame, the left  providing power to both gimbal and the right sendes the two signals, one for roll, the other for pitch to the flight controller.
Anyway just another crazy idea....hope you can use it....