Starting a new Cortex build, then flight testing before being made available for sale.
Ready to Fly CarbonCore’s are on the website
http://shop.carboncore.co.uk/Shop/Ready-to-Fly
And there’s a lot more photos on the facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/CarbonCoreRTF/
On the bench is a Cortex with an A2 flight controller, flown and tuned and awaiting a gimbal.
The Cortex with short legs and a white plastic shell (with a second GPS antenna fitted) has a 2-ax gimbal and a Sony A6000 for mapping.
This current build is going to be with the PixHawk Cube, Tiger 3510 motors, aiming to fly with a single 6A 10Ah battery and a lightweight gimbal and camera to have a good power to weight ratio.
Replies
Cortex X8 with DJi A2, Antenna Suit, 6S 10Ah Batt, 15 & 16" Carbon propellers, now has a 10X optical zoom camera, with a flying weight of 4.48Kg. With Blue tinted top plate. First flight tomorrow with the camera gimbal fitted. Expected flight time: 25 minutes and will cut through strong winds and turbulence!
The Cortex drone with the red tinted top plate has a 3DRobotics PixHawk Cube flight controller fitted with the HERE PLUS GNSS, ready for uprade to RTK. With a 6S 10Ah battery at 1440g, flying weight is 3.82Kg, or 8.4lbs. Fitted with Tiger 3510 motors this has loads of power at only 3.8Kg and will fly for about 35 minutes, And will easily carry another 3Kg payload for round 20 minutes.
Testing the new top covering in leu of making side panels looking towards more weatherproofing.
Both systems will be in the webshop soon
http://shop.carboncore.co.uk/Shop/Ready-to-Fly
CarbonCore Build Thread
Wired up the PixHawk Cube Cortex. Just got the signal plugs then all standard ArduPilot software/firmware calibrations and setup. The A2 Cortex is open for inspection and now has a little gimbal with 10X optical zoom wired in. Just waiting for more 3D printed parts for the mountings, also testing another new 3D material this time too.
The PixHawk Cortex has the standard PixHawk Cube Power Brick Mini. This is the fifth aircraft I have used them in. The first two successfully sold, third completed over 60 flights, and the last one was the mapping system at 6.9Kg drawing (by calculation of battery capacity to flight time 20Ah/0.5hrs equals) 40A. But the power Brick Mini in the last machine only read up to 25A. All must have seen peaks of 80A.
3DXR.co.uk and CopterSquad UAS have both told me that it’s only rated to 30A. I’m now building a fifth propeller drone with one. Can anyone comment please on the upper current limit before the magic smoke’s let out? Is it worth changing for the MAUCH bec system?
PixHawk Cube mounted directly with the four supplied bolts.
Fixed Leg Brackets fitted with a 6th hole drilled for each.
Grommets super glued in and coloured taped added to the arms and legs.
Fitting motors and ESCs. These are Tiger Motors 3510’s with Tiger AIR 30 ESCs.
I’m ‘hardwiring’ these arms without plugs and sockets, so the cables go straight into the drone.
The transparent heat shrink provided for the ESCs was on the short side. I’m not intending to re-program these – I will see what they do on the factory settings.
Removed the top motor mounts, cut the supplied motor cables short, also removed all the ESC wires and fitted new, over-length ones to join into the main wiring loom inside the chassis.