Folding Quadcopter for the holidays

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Not much space if you're going on holiday with the family in a Renault Clio. This design fits into a 52cm toolbox with transmitter and all accessories.

Just thought I'll share my crash resistant design that has evolved through many drops and repairs. On impact it is now usually just a matter of replacing a rivet or a prop. The electronics and battery can quickly be removed for installation on another airframe.

The props are 15" RC timers and as shown I get about 23min flight time with a slightly damaged 5000mAh 4cell Lipo at 1500m above sea level, 25 deg C.

The difference in spacing between front and rear props doesn't have a noticable effect on stability and it flies waypoints very well.

I'll post basic plans if anyone is interested or if you want an airframe let me know.

Update: Plans for the airframe

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  • Thanks for the firmware and motor data.  I ended up loading WiiESC on my F30A ESCs with RCTimer 5010kv motors (on 15x5.5 props), I'll be using 4S.  I'll be maidening this weekend, so results aren't known yet.  With my initial setup testing I did notice the motors were a little jittery when starting up from a dead stop.  Once spinning they seem to spool up just fine.  Since I don't plan on stopping the props in flight I don't think the initial jitter will be an issue.  I hope to report some some successful initial flights soon.

  • Thanks! It's not guesswork at all, and a bit more awareness may explain a lot of "weird" behavior as well as wrecked ships :).

  • That's unbelievable! Would have thought, this will forever stay a guesswork. The table you made is BEAUTIFUL!

    Great work! Thanks!!!

    So now I know I'll wait some more until I'll use my new 4s battery....and stay with blheli.

  • Pancake motors....

    See the link below for a test on robustness with pancake motors for some ESCs/firmwares:

    http://www.helifreak.com/showpost.php?p=5421638&postcount=3025

  • If you want to see my foldable Alien Locust in action, here's a video where I do some flying and autotuning with BradWii: Enjoy!

  • I think if you'd flash your escs anyway, go for wiiesc if you use the 5010s. Stock will most surely not work great, it's rather meant for airplanes than quadcopters. 

    For flashing blheli I used my crius multiwii se flightcontroller but you could use almost any arduino mini, nano, 328p or mega. There are good tutorials for that to be found. 

  • The first time I tried my 5010 motors on SImonK I do remember hearing some 'cluncky' noise.  I thought it might be the motor...maybe it was cogging instead.  I'd had cogging with NTM motors and old SimonK, but the newer SImonK took care of that.  This is my first time with pancake motors and I didn't even think of a potential cogging with them.  I've never tried WiiESC...looked into once and couldn't figure out what to do so stuck with SimonK.  BLHeli is another story that I have no hardware to flash with.  I'm revamping my Folding Quad with HK Talon CF arms and going to try the 5010's again.  I wonder if it'd be better to try the ESC's stock first, then Simonk, then maybe try to figure out WiiESC???

  • Didn't realize prior that I don't need to reflash my blheli escs for reprogramming...doh.

    Just after I flashed my flight-controller with owsilprog did I realize that there's a programming sequence with the transmitter...Oh well, flashed bradwii back to the controller and reprogrammed the escs with the throttle up-down combination to demag of 3. When I wanted to test it out, mixed up the two back motors and quad flipped on throttle -> one prop broken, and it was my last good 10" cw prop...put on one that's missing a tip but still good enough to fly and could test some hovering but found it difficult to tell a big difference to demag 1 (the default).

    Will have to get new props first and then do another autotune. 

    Btw. here is another link to the video I made during my last crash from 50m. 

    Shortly before the motor breaks in flight you can hear strange noises and finally the wire breaking. Would be great if someone with experienced ears would recognise the problem that caused the crash....Not sure if pancake cogging really caused it or if just the motor was bad...

    Alien Locust falling from the sky

  • Just flashed the WiiESC code and tested it in my 4S DT750 setup, and it appears to run well. It also handles quick accelerations.

  • I do not have the DT700, but I have run quite a lot on the DT750. And BLHeli runs it well on 4S (using demag compensation "3" or "4"). With demag comp settings of "2" and "3" it works and does not lose sync, but accelerations are slow.

    I have also flashed one 40A Atmel ESC with the latest SimonK code, and in my setup (4S DT750) it fails (stutters and does not pick up speed) in accelerations. WiiESC I do not have.

    I also have a "true" pancake motor, an RCTimer 630kV 4215 and it behaves very much like the DT750.

    BLHeli also has a "last resort" option to alleviate demag problems: The "throttle change rate" parameter. Setting this lower will limit how fast power to the motor can be increased. Which helps demag issues, but that can of course also slow down the system.

    But in a system where max power is not critical, the best is to reduce battery voltage (go down 1S or more).

    Isn't it so that pancake motors are used primarily for their efficiency (many grams of thrust per watt)? And their efficiency is definitely the highest at low power levels (=voltage). For an agile, high power setup pancake motors are maybe not the best choice?

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