Intro: Like the title says I have a turbo ace x720 quadcopter. A friend of mine gave it to me recently sans controller and along with a box full of parts. I ordered a Flysky TH9x controller which I plan to flash to opensource software and modify for use with telemetry once I get familiar with the drone. The first "flight" involved spinning up the motors and scratching my hand up with the props so it wouldn't take off). The second involved only three of the motors spinning up. I got a bit frustrated after having trouble getting the drone to respond to controller input and gutted all the electronics. The board that comes in this drone (for what it's worth) is some proprietary thing that has a self stabilization system, and an altimeter that will let it hold height if the transmitter link is broken. The ESCs are "built in" and known to overheat/cr*p out mid-flight since they can't supply enough power to the motors.
TLDR: Got a turbo ace x720 Quad and a box full of parts. Took out the flight controller, ESC module and reciever, time to start from scratch
List of parts at my immediate disposal: (writing this out for my own reference as well)
DragonLabs - Dragon OSD v2.0
Dragonlabs Isense (current sensor)
Parallax 32201 serial to usb plug
Sparkfun LS20031 5hz (66 channel) gps module
Spektrum AR6200 reciever
Spektrum AR7010 reciever
Flysky TH9x Tx and Rx
Lotus t-580 with all its original guts/ hardware
Two 3s 11.1v batteries
4x - RCTimer BC-3536 600KV motors
4x - RCTimer BC-2836/11 750KV motors
4x - unlabeled turnigy aerodrive motors
4x - Hobbyking HK-30A ESC
MikroKopter HexaDistribution Board v7a (w/ 8 Bl-Ctrl 2.0c boards attached)
MikroKopter QuadroDistrobution Board (w/out esc)
Turnigy programming card
Turnigy Accucell6 LIPO charger
Dinmensions Engineering - 10A battleswitch
and a handful of random fasteners/clips and stuff
Planning on the following build (tips/guidance/pointing out obvious oversights are welcome):
The hobbyking 30a escs that I have (since they're not all soldered to the octacopter distribution board).
DragonOSD+ v2.0
Dragonlabs current sensor
Sparkfun GPS module
original lotus motor, props and frame
will probably get an altimeter soon, but need to research first (will the cheapo $9 turnigy one on hobbyking work fine?)
I'm open to ordering something else that will be more appropriate for the quad. But as far as this newbie can tell, the parts I have should work fine. I'm having a slight information overload right now and have been reading up mostly on the flysky/turnigy controller configurations and the dragonosd module. Dumb question, but can I use the spektrum recievers with the controller that I have (stock or flashed firmware)?
As a side note, I'd like to upgrade the flight controller later down the line and have started doing some research. I'm leaning towards opensource and want to have room to upgrade/tinker in the future. From the reading I've done, it sounds like the APM has been pretty much been pushed to its limits hardware wise and won't be seeing many more updates for mission planner. Looks like pixhawk is the way to go here, any suggestions would be more than welcome.
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Update 2: Picked up a pixhawk from rtfquads. Chipped up two sets of propellers (1 set was 12" and 1 was 10") learned that the remote control was on the heli-2 setting, not heli-1 and would pitch to the left when the throttle increased. Got the fr-sky tx and rx, a backlight and the usbasp to reflash the firmware. Going to start on the soldering tonight or tomorrow and get the firmware flashed. Got the backlight done and shaved the nub in the back of the controller to use the frsky unit.
Going to use this page to chronicle my build for now
Update: the DragonOSD needs to have a cppm reciever and it looks like I will be getting the frsky d8r-xp along with the frsky djt transmitter module for my flysky th9x. This looks like it should allow me to use telemetry once I reflash the firmware on the th-9x to opensource.
So far I've been unable to connect to the Dragonlabs osd with the parallax cable and teraterm. I had the board powered up by one of the lipo batteries. Or at least I'm hoping it was powered up. The gps, which was plugged in to the DOSD, lit up for a moment when I connected the power. The COM port showed up on the computer, but there was nothing happening in the terminal (with the baud rate and bitlength set to the specs in the manual). I have a feeling I'll be ordering the pixhawk sooner rather than later.
Got the ESCs mounted on the chassis and need to extend the motor leads/change out the banana clips to make everything reach. Soldered the power connectors onto the dragonlabs current sensor and blobbed way too much on one bridging a diode and something else. Might have gone and screwed the pooch trying to use some braided copper wire as a desoldering braid and heating the hell out of everything. Will attempt to remove later with a fresh tip on the soldering iron and maybe some proper desoldering equipment at school after having one of the profs look at it.
Does anyone know if the dragon osd supports other manufacturers' current sensors? The website is down and the contact form doesn't work.