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WHAT A PHANTOM SHOULD LOOK LIKE INSIDE...

Posted by Duran - ALTI on April 4, 2013 at 8:43am

3689513549?profile=original

WHAT A PHANTOM SHOULD LOOK LIKE INSIDE...

We recently got a phantom in to play with and see how it was put together, it's a great little drone for basic flying and features. Being an ArduCopter guy and having used APMs on our SD systems since the biggining I though it would be a fun project to stick an ArduCopter board in the Phantom. It was pretty easy to do! Will post how to in the comments, needless to say it's a different drone all together, much more agile and solid + it now has full GPS system with unlimited waypoints, auto, RTL, GPS hold, and a host of other cool features, all free :)

3689513908?profile=original3689513931?profile=original3689513863?profile=original3689513970?profile=original3689514003?profile=original3689513991?profile=originalHOW TO: Simply opened her up, unplugged the naza and wires, installed APM, soldered tiny 3A uBEC onto the phantom's pcb for power for the APM, used the phantom's PPM receiver directly into the APM (with a small mod in the phantom's radio to get a switch on channel 5, not 6 as it is) ripped out the phantom's gps, installed our uBlox, connected motors as is and did the AC setup, took maybe 45min in total. She flies much better now

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Comments

  • Chris carpenter October 30, 2013 at 7:12pm
    I'm looking for the final PID settings that were used. Can anyone post?
  • Ravi August 27, 2013 at 11:33pm

    do u have param file for phantom on APM.

  • gervais July 7, 2013 at 9:15am

    Terry, nothing special about it. The board is the same. Just cut the compass jumper on the board like shown here:

    http://code.google.com/p/arducopter/wiki/ExternalMag?wl=en and connect any 3.3V HMC5883L board...check for mounting direction and get it away from any current leads. additionally it might be a good idea to the compass mot like shown here .https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vZoPZjqMI4

  • Terry Burkhardt July 6, 2013 at 11:50pm

    gervais, im interested in doing a very similiar build but with the new board with the seperate compass, do you have any more info on your build?

  • gervais June 30, 2013 at 3:19am

    I am flying with 3.01 beta. From 2.91b on, I had to use an external compass board, because loiter did not work anymore. (although my compass logs did not show anything above 95) First I buildt a wire version, than one,where the APM is sitting on a F450 Distriibution board, saving some space within the battery housing. Furtheron I had to add 47k pots within the Phantom TX for fine trim of the steering,which I need for Trim Ch7 (I replaced the left 3 Pos. by an Trainer Switch for that). My problem was, that I used an APM Version, where the pins go up, which is too close to the GPS in the top and prevents my to use some add anti vibration Moon gel below the APM.dask9yuk.jpgjgr4uu4x.jpgmprywuld.jpg

  • Josh Lillie June 28, 2013 at 6:41pm

    Thanks for the video Duran. I've done this to my Phantom with an ArduPilot 2.6. I'm looking forward to using all the cool features, but so far I'm struggling a little bit with the tuning. I've used the AutoTrim feature a few times and have gotten the Phantom to hover pretty well, but it seems to lose its stability the longer it flies. I've adjusted the PIDs a little but I think that those still need some work. Did you have to mess with the PID variables much? What did you end up with? Did you tie yours up to a jig to do any tuning?

    The Nazam flight controller that came with it was somewhat limited, but it flew solid as a rock.

  • titeuf007 June 11, 2013 at 9:16am

    what size prop do you use?

    do you have original pid?

  • gervais April 23, 2013 at 2:18am

    Thx. Just sounded too simple for me...

    Are you able to use the other channel assigned to the right 3 Pos. Switch as well ?

    (I am planning to use the APM Phantom , DJI like : Loiter / add. Return home /  Atti Flight.)

    Are there any disadvantages using the tiny 3A uBec instead of the APM power module ?

    (Since my Phantom is empty (just ESCs and the RX left ..no more distribution board), I am planning to do this just by wiring.)

  • Duran - ALTI April 22, 2013 at 1:54am

    Gervais - I simply removd the pot that was on the PCB in the radio and directly soldered the 3 switch wires to the 3 PCB tracers where the pot sat :) I then get a 3 position switch in Mission Planner channel 5/7

  • gervais April 21, 2013 at 11:58pm

    The Phantom is pretty boring after a while..since my hobby is not to do some shaky fish eye videos, Durans howto came right on time for me... and I am happy the original TX RX is usable, since I like its simplicity.

    @Duran : so I simply removed the pot and soldered the 3 wires from one of the switches of the radio to the pot's 3 connectors on the pcb, giving me channel 5 and 7 on the radio's two switches

    Question: Duran, did you just solder the switch cables parallel to the 5k pot of the 7th channel and adjusted the values with the potentiometer , or did you use some additional resistors (trimmers) to adjust the flight modes...Do you have some more details on this ?

    Thx in advance !

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