Developer

Indoor fun with a tiny ArduCopter quadcopter



Do you have an Ardupilot Mega and shield and want some fun for little money? check this tiny quad... my last drone in family...



Some specs:
- Size : 26.5cm (10.4 inches) from motor to motor
- Motors : 18-11 200kv 10 gram motors
- Props : 4x2.5 (standard CCW props)
- ESCs : Turnigy 6A
- Battery : 3S610 (or 3S800)
- Sonar : Maxbotics LV-EZ0 [optional]


The nice part about this frame is that it use standard kite parts, so it´s very easy to construct and it´s perfect for some radical tests.
Itried to find a bit different design that also make the quad less simmetrical (it´s very easy to loss the orientation with a quad) and I wanted to do as small as posible to flight indoors...
At this size and weight it´s very safe and robust also. The props use prop savers and this help a lot in crashes...
I am not very good writing... so I took a lot of photos during the build phase and I created a build log:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fIZL-Ca2fx2RPhBQLzoOdqdCuikXRKePwKbxDlJWiss/edit?hl=es

This code supports a sonar for altitude hold and also has a battery alarm (2 alarms).
Thisquad works with ArduCopter code, but because how main board is mounted, actual code doesn´t work. This is the code that I used with this quad :
http://code.google.com/p/arducopter/source/browse/#svn/branches/Arducopter_indoor
(as zip format:
Arducopter_indoor.zip )
note that this will be integrated on main Arducopter code. Now is temporarily in a branch.
ThePID gains are different than in standard ArduCopter, so you need to Initialize EEPROM on Configurator or put this ones manually:
-Stable mode: P : 4.8 ; I : 0.12 ; P_rate (D in configurator) : 0.4 ; Yaw : (4.5 ,0.15 ,2.8 )
-Acrobatic mode : P : 0.75 ; I : 0.1 ; D : 0 ; Yaw : (2.4 ,0.2 ,0 )

OK, but was all so perfect like in the video? I don´t believe that...
Yes, you are right, but fortunately this design is very crash resistance... and this part is also fun...


After all this battles I only needed a few drops of ciano in the crash with the lamppost :-)

What´s the real size?


On center, standard arducopter frame, on left, old ArduIMU quadcopter part III, on right-top this project.

And what about the automatic aerobatics on video?
I am starting to test a new function to do automatic aerobatics (Automatic Aerobatic Procedure). The idea is that you enable this function with a switch in the Tx to make an automatic predefined aerobatic and then automatically recover to a stable mode.
Thisis actually a proof of concept but works very nice. One limit here is the maximun rate of the gyros, in our case 500deg/s. If we exceed this, the IMU get confused...
An interesting point to note is that the IMU doesn´t loose the orientation in this hard movements...
Thestory is that I have never feel too much confidence doing flips manually with quads. Then I start thinking that with an automatic code we can get a precise timing and controled movement so maybe this could help to do better aerobatics. I started testing this function outdoor, on an open field but I was improving the code and got more tightly maneuvers, so tight, that I ended up doing flips with a quad inside my room!!!


Here is the code I was testing : (AAP function:
AAP.txt )
I implemented this functionality as a state machine where there are three kind of states:
- fixed commands for a limited period of time. (example : Apply a throttle command)
- fixed commands until we reach some IMU state (example : roll until we reach a certain angle)
- And a mix between this categories and a control (example : Throttle command + stable mode on roll, pitch, yaw)
There are many things to test and improve here but the basic concept works very nice...

If I can get a bit of help from a friend, I will probably made a carbon fuselage for this prototype...

Enjoy this “Science & Fun” mix...

Jose Julio.
Arducopter Team
E-mail me when people leave their comments –

You need to be a member of diydrones to add comments!

Join diydrones

Comments

  • @Jan,

    I have access to Solidworks so I can do dwg, dxf, or iges if Inventor puts out in that manner.

    Appreciate it,
    Bob
  • Oops, sorry guys, I forgot about this thread. Bob, do you have any preference as to what file formats you want to see? I made the part in Inventor, so if possible, I could attach just a pdf drawing or the actual dwg file.

  • i wouldn't mind seeing the motor mount files.  i am not sure how busy my buddy is that has all the mills, but if his time permits i will have him make some.

     

    appreciate it,

    bob 

  • Excellent little quad. Well done. Very cool. :)
  • The carbon fiber was cut using a Dremel and then the edges straightened by file and sandpaper. Unfortunately this was necessary because at the time our mill was broken.

    The motor mounts were cut from aluminum on a 3-axis mill. It wasn't overly hard to do, but time consuming and of course the biggest hurdle is access to a mill. I could make the CAD file available if anybody is interested.

  • Very cute! These motor mounts look great - any hints on how these mounts were made?

  • nice :)  what did you cut the cf with?

  • Here are some pictures of my finished build! Running 2.0.38 code with no problems, flies very nice!

    3692250748?profile=original

    3692250923?profile=original3692250888?profile=original

    https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3692250748?profile=original
  • http://www.funwithwind.com/store/ListCategoriesAndProducts2.asp?idC...

     

    Try this site for the motor mounts.

  • I think I found them, will post after I get them and can verify they are the correct size.  I did not want to bother my friend who has the cnc equipment as this is suppose to a be a quick, diy, indoor quad :).

This reply was deleted.