My DIYDrones Arducopter survived its first few flights without incident! This is my first quadcopter, and first Ardupilot project, so I'm actually a little surprised it flew so well.
Very stable.
This is the FahPah "all up" kit, with an added XBee Tx and Futaba R6008HS.
Arducopter NG software, untouched except to enable XBee. No magnetometer.
Turnigy 2200 3S batteries.
All bullet connectors soldered shut, which resolved the burning-motor problem.
I'm not sure I mounted the ESCs as intended.. it appears each of the arches has a protrusion that may or may not be useful for ESC mounts.
The in-tube motor wires makes a very clean package, and the "wedding cake" racks make for a compact center.
The GPS Hold mode was the only confusing thing, since it seemed to have a lot of wander and a very aloof and unauthoritative throttle control. It tried to drift down into the weeds and I had to switch out of GPS Hold to recover it.
So far, so good!
Comments
@Ground Loop. Apart from the tilting to the right on take-off I experianced very similar flight characteristics to
what you described above. This is my first attempt at something like this and being a complete novice I found that apart from the instructions on the setting-up procedure and the setting-up procedure itself, which I would equate to crawling across a thousand miles of broken glass, everything went well and I am very happy. The half left drifting problem I corrected as a tempory measure by using the trim control. I plan on doing a few more test flights to-day.
I have very very little trim dialed in. I think +10 on cyclic (Futaba numbers). The sensor and radio calibrations went well with the Configurator. I love being able to see the digital ms numbers.
I repaired the Arducopter (after the spontaneous shut-off crash) and flew it again today, and it's just awesome. It was far more windy than I normally fly in, and it was a real hoot to see the Arducopter bucking the breeze with 45 degrees of tilt. Stubborn little guy in GPS Hold. Really stable in hover -- easily the most self-stable craft I've ever flown. If it weren't for the weird altitude drift in GPS Hold, I could set the controller down and go brew coffee.
@Ground Did you finally use trims to correct tendency?
Yes they work quite well like that, keep heatsink outside so they can get nicely air too and cool down. I think in that quad I had them placed in way that ESC always controls opposite motor but it's up to everyone. I use oval hole always for exiting cables. That way I can easily modify final placement of ESC.
Aha! That picture is really helpful Jani. The tangs are for retaining the ziptie, then. I might go for that, especially if I need more room for the camera mount near the center.
Do you have the Motor leads exiting the oval hole on the side of the arm, or out the center?
Trying to get them out asap. Hope fully it's available in next two weeks or so. Having protos already and tuning them up.
Here is picture how it looks like when ESC's are mounted on Arches... Hope you like it :)
Watts-Up meter while hovering close and writing down numbers. :)
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