Ritewing Zephyr II plus APM1

OK I need some advice from some experience zephyr II builders. I've studied the various blogs here and youtube builds but I want to see the best way to position all the equipment and I guess every build is a bit unique so here are my details. I will paint it yellow and then laminate it.

Here's what I need to put in but the question is where is the best placement?

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APM1 with mag and gps and airspeed sensor.

Ritewing Zephyr II came with 150gr 1300 kv motor 60A esc

came with plastic gopro mount. I would prefer the wood case I saw at blacksheep but this will do for now.

I will use the gopro with this RMRC-600XV 600TVL WDR CCD (NTSC)

ImmersionRC 600mW 5.8GHz A/V Transmitter with  5.8 GHz Bluebeam Whip Antenna Set (RHCP)

EZUHF 8 Channel Diversity Receiver

XBee-PRO 900 extended range module w/ wire antenna

2 of Turnigy nano-tech 3300mah 4S 35~70C Lipo Pack

Remzibi OSD with it's own GPS

Castle Creations 10A BEC

Turnigy Voltage Protector 550000uf (1.4sec) (for BEC 5v line)

So my questions are:

Where to best position for the equipment?? If I embed anything in the wing, I want to be able to see the equipment from the top of the wing for status lights and maybe use a clear hinged cover for protection or just use the laminate and cut if off when necessary. Also will have to consider cooling for the components that get hot like the OSD, ESC, BEC.

I think it's impossible to use the battery bay in the center because I will need that space for the APM or can I put the APM embedded in the wing with a clear cover? Does it need to be over the COG or can it be to the side. Is the Zephyr more stable with the batteries in the front like I have in the picture?

I think I prefer the idea of mounting the batteries on the front. This gives me the center battery bay for APM, BEC and maybe Remzibi OSD. I will gorilla glue down a piece of 3mm plywood to help reinforce the center or can I use similar thickness balsa to save weight? I hear this is the weak point in the zephyr II according to blacksheep and I don't have their battery box.

Do I need to have a cooling channel for these two center compartments? The ESC will go by itself in the back compartment.

Or can I put the APM to the side of the battery compartment and use the original battery compartment for the batteries. Does the APM need to be near the center?

Do I need to mount the ezUHF receiver out near the wing tip. I'm going to be dealing with 900MHz xBee, 400Mhz UHF, 2 x GPS, 5.8GHz video. I think what is going to have the most bulky cable is the ezUHF depending on how many channels I will use. If I can just use the signal wires and one power connection from the APM to the ezUHF then it wouldn't be so bad but I dread digging too many long distance cable channels in this sleek airfoil :) If I can put the ezUHF with the APM in the standard battery bay then that would make for less cable clutter but I don't want to create any interference problems.

The vTx should be on the wing tip?

What about shielding? Do I need to shield any of the wires or will twisting them and / or use ferrite rings deal with any noise? I know xBees can cause interference.

I've laid out all the equipment and also laid a roll of laminate to get an idea of the weight and it came in at 2.1 kilos which seems lighter than my similarly equipped soon to retire skywalker. It still should be hair raising to launch, especially considering it's my first wing.

I'm not seeing a parameter file for the zephyr. Anyone have some good PIDs for it?

Found some parameters here from İlhan Başçuhadar. Maybe I will start with those.

Where should the center of gravity be so I can make sure the placement doesn't unbalance it.

I'm going to have an experienced pilot do the initial trimming in manual mode but what is the best way to launch them using the APM? Stabilize mode (that is what I use on the skywalker) or FBW A or FBW B or Alt Hold? I launch into a valley so the ground isn't a problem right away :)

zepherii.jpg

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  • Well the FBW-A launch was a no go. It just kept flying away from me and seemed to not be able to turn. I have +- 8mm elevator and aileron +-15mm. I'm guessing in FBW mode the throws are diminished so it wasn't enough to make it turn. I eventually hit RTL and at that point I have to guess because it went out of my view. From the video and the sound it seems like the collet unscrewed itself, probably at the point the motor sped up from RTL engaging, then it must have hit the ground. Luckily nothing broke. When I got there the propeller was 1" from the motor like it had stayed on after the collet came off.

    Anyway tomorrow I'm going to try in stabilize mode. I always had success using that with the skywalker and I think the 15mm aileron throws should be enough to turn it. In FBW it might not be giving full aileron throw but need to check.

    And now for the video :)

  • Waiting for some bad weather to pass and using the time to set up my failsafe. I'm getting a strange behavior that I think is related to my receiver instead of APM but not sure. I'm using ezUHF 8ch with my JR9503 Tx. Everything is working fine and when I set failsafe by setting my mode to RTL and pushing the throttle down to 1004 by using my throttle trim and then pressing the failsafe button it beeps confirming the failsafe.

    Then I pull the power or trainer plug from the ezUHF to simulate a failure the servos jump around and so does the throttle. It goes from about 1004 (the failsafe I set) and some other low throttle setting like 1100 and about every second it oscillates between these values. I also see the flight mode go from 1800 more or less to 1500 which was my failsafe setting. 

    I see from monitoring the Setup/Radio that those two channels are changing every second between those two values so my flight changes from manual to RTL and back over and over. Obviously not something I want to happen if the Tx loses connection.

    What would cause it to osscilate between these two settings?

  • I think i will replace it with this one:

    http://www.amazon.com/Castle-Creations-Ice-75A-Brushless/dp/B002LN7NU4
  • Well the maiden will be delayed two weeks while a wait for a new ESC. Last night I was testing the modes on the bench and when I went into RTL it sputtered the motor even though I had zero throttle. Not sure if that is suppose to happen so I switched out of RTL back to stable or manual and then back into RTL and it did the same time but then smoke came from the ESC. I couldn't unplug the batteries in time to save the ESC. I've seen this happen before on arducopter and probably I should have pulled the ESC signal wire from the apm but I wouldn't expect it to do that. Also the ESC should never do that if it receives garbage signal.
  • Final pictures of the build and ready for flight tomorrow.

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  • Some pictures of the almost finished zephyr II. Need to add the elevons, finish up some wiring and choose a prop.

    Any recommendations on a good prop? I have some 9x6 sport props. I also have some 10x4.5 carbon fiber props from my quad copter collection. I'm using the motor chris supplied, It's a 1300 kv similar to a hacker A30.

    3692432636?profile=original

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  • Still trying to figure out how to get flaperon's working in manual mode. I'm almost ready to cut out the battery bays but am in doubt if this is where they should be. The COG is suppose to be 9 3/8 to 9 1/2 from front nose. I marked that before cutting out the gopro and for it to balance, the batteries need to go here. The only thing not in the equation is the flaps but that shouldn't add much weight. 

    As a comparison, I put the batteries on top of the APM where the normally would go and I had to move the COG 1 inch forward for it to balance. 

    JohnC did you cut your bays to the side of the original or did you have to move back some in the direction of the motor to get a good COG?

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  • I taped a tube to the bottom at 9.5" from the nose to see how the COG was going to be. I had to put the batteries this far back to get the COG at 9.5". I wonder why they need to be so far back or is that about where you have your 4S4000s? It's 3" further back than the standard battery bay. I know I'm adding weight to the nose with the gopro and cmoscam and APM, OSD, etc but should they need to go back that far? JC can you post a picture of your setup? I will cut the battery bays last once I have everything else fixed in but wanted to make sure this is about where they will need to go. I will put a ply base to in their compartments also so I can hold down the battery velcro tie.

    Tonight I will cut the compartments so if anyone sees something really wrong, this is how it will be.

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  • Final doubts!

    I think this is the placement I will settle on. I put the vTx on the left. I don't need to go to the tip right? I prefer to run all cables inside the foam so don't want to go long distances if I can avoid it. I hate cables so will avoid all sight of them and tighten up as much as possible.

    ezUHF I put on the opposite side. Also ok to not go all the way to the tip?

    xBee 900MHz I really can't decide on. I don't want it close to anything because I hear it can be loud in the RF band. Am I being to paranoid? ANYONE see a good placement for it before I grab the xacto knife??? :)

    GPS on either side of middle bay and will be visible so I can see any status light. I installed super caps on them to keep GPS for a few days. If I can find room in the main bay is there any reason to keep the two GPS away from APM or other components in main bay? I'd prefer to not go to the trouble of burying them if there is no reason.

    The rest that will go in main bay -- AttoPilot voltage sensor, Remzibi OSD, Castle BEC, 550000uf capacitor bank for 5V line will all go with APM in main bay.

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  • Ferrite rings. Where do I need them before I start laying down the wires.

    I'm not using the BEC in the ESC so I will not have any noise coming from that. Do I need one on the castle 10A BEC or is it clean? What about the vTx power line? What about the OSD power line? I don't want to over do it with ferrite rings so need to understand WHERE to put them.

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