I have been browsing wifly for some time now, checking daily for new stock to arrive and I have only just noticed the forum section and I see some interest in quadcopters!

So I thought for my first post on these forums would be to share some of the quadcopters I have built over the holidays and busy rebuilding at the moment due to some unfortunate prangs...

Current FC's I am using are arducopter and openpilot CC. I have been wanting to build these aircraft for ages and now that I have I am totally addicted!

I am very new to RC aircraft though, and I am still looking for a good flying field with plenty of space to practice any suggestions (I live in Pinetown).

If you guys have any questions regarding what I have built feel free to ask :)

Cheers
Daniel

I designed and made that frame myself hey, I work for a laser cutting company :) I need to replace one of the centre plates on it though, its a bit bent from a crash.

I should be getting my parts next week, going to start off with a simple wooden frame and then progress to something better once i got it off the ground.

You should thing about selling kits for your design ... its very nice!

Would love to get some info on your quads youve build so far.
Me and a friend build a similar quad using the arduino arducopter board with magneto sensor, running dualsky 450W motors on 4 cell 4400 mha turning 12*6 APc props.
Motors are 850 RPM/V system runs cold with 40A ESC's.

We have been experimenting allot and this is the best we could get this far, problem is getting counter rotating props, would love to get some 13 inch APC slow flyers , would work even better.
Our quad was origianal build to carry a gopro Hero with gimble(for countering roll and pitch) and we could get about 9 min of video per flight, without camera and gimble flight time was around 15 min.Max weight flown to date was around 2.5 kg , but theres allot of power left.
WE are currently buzy working on a new camera gimble for a much bigger quad maybe hexa or octo depending on the weight to carry a much bigger camera for better video.
Would love if you could share your experience in setting up the PID's for your arducopter, also if you have managed to do some gps waypoint flying using the nav flight mode.

What motors are you running and at what voltage , RPM/V is your motors turning which props?
Also weight and payload ?
I find with these quads the only thing to do really is testing testing tesing until you get the best como i guess, so any info would help.

I recently ordered a Hk quad board from wifly just so see how well it would work and was quite surprized at how well it performed.
Though it doesnt have accelerometers and only using gyro's its very agile and quit fun to fly.
Does loops ,rolls and even after a couple of hard landings still works. Frame is very easy and cheap to build.

Heres a couple of pics

Motor to motor is 500 mm. using 20mm pvc electrical tubes.
I build this quad just for testing as the bigger quad is abit too expensive
Also setup on these hk boards are very easy although you have to change the firmware, currently running Xcopter 2.2 reflashed using the kkmulticopter flashtool and USBasp programmer

Nice looking quad you got there! Your motors look like Aeolian 2830 850kv's, I'm not surprised you have a lot of power using 4s batteries :O very glad to hear they are running cold, I was doubtful if they could be run on 4s when I looked into buying those motors.

My first quad posted, aluminium one I laser cut, is also 500 MTM and I am also using very similar motors to you. I have the rctimer bc2836 880kv also swinging 12" props.. But I'm only running them on a 5000mah 3s battery and 30A turnigy plush ESC's. I also get about a 15min hover. She was a beaut, but a bit heavy, need to shed some weight AUW was about 1600g and required about 40% throttle to hover. I am using the past tense because it was unfortunately invovled in quite a bad accident... -_- Not only does the frame need replacement parts but I also damaged the board.

These are pics of the board after it was repaired by one of my mates, it works... kind of lol. A bit bummed about that. A pitty I didn't stick to learning the basics on my small quad first which can handle alot of abuse!

My small quad is 450mm MTM and I am running the Aeolian 2822 1200kv motors swinging 8" props. Also fitted are 18A Hobbywing ESC's and everything is running off of a 2200mah 3s Lipo. I get an average flight time of 9 and a half minutes, but I push the quad quite hard. AUW is about 700g and is a blast to fly. I have just ordered some LED stips from Wifly tonight that I want to put onto the arms of this quad, reckon it will look cool :)

As far as the ardupilot goes I only had the APM and Oilpan, so I have not used the mag or GPS. As far as PID tuning goes I managed to set up on my radio to tune kP rate in flight which did help alot to get it close to where it needed to be. But then I crashed and the rest is history.

Seems both of us have similar plans for quadcopters. I also want to fit my GoPro to it and I am already planning my next build, either a spider quad or Y6 config. I'll take my openpilot FC out of my small quad and put it into my new build, I have the parts necessary to build a MultiWii FC and I'll fit that into my small quad. Also busy saving up for some FPV equipment to mount on as well.

Keep flying :)

DanZ

I am also into the quad copters I have the Aeroquad, KK project and I am busy with the ArduPilot.

Here is a video of how far I am.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWYBy8n3lbs&feature=youtu.be

As you can see it is very unstable I am constantly batling to keep it in the air and other people with the same board can lift of without any hassle.

Can you give me any advise tuning the PID as I am very stupid when it comes to that. Maybe if there is a rule of thumb.

I am in pretoria and we are going to test at the german school tommorow morning at 7 to get the thing stable and maby fly with gps using magnometer.

Groente C.

Judging by what I can see in your video the stock PID settings should have been a lot more stable than that. Could you provide some more information about your quad copter? Size motor to motor, weight, prop size, motor size, battery etc.

I found with my first Adrucopter I built it was too stable and sluggish. I had to adjust the PID's to be more responsive. In your video are you flying in stable mode or acro mode?

As mentioned in previous posts, I unfortunately did not get a chance to play around too much with my arducopter :( But along with the arducopter wiki and these other two links, posted below, I managed to setup my quadcopters so that they are nice and stable, yet still responsive. It is unfortunately a lot trial and error. It may be a good idea to start completely fresh and wipe your settings from the APM and start over.

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1375728
http://www.openpilot.org/pid-tuning/

But besides PID tuning their are also many other factors to consider regarding stability. Vibrations can cause your copter to be very unstable, feel one your quad copter arms and feel how much vibrations you can feel. You want to try minimize them as much as possible, and also try isolate the vibrations from your flight controller. Also check you haven't bent any motor shafts or prop adaptors, make sure no arms are slightly bent or twisted either.

Best of luck!

My blades is 10x45 and my motors is 1000kv motors (52.7 g X 4).

(http://global.ebay.com/4X-2212-13-Brushless-Motor-1000KV-150wattsMultiCopter-KK-Multi-Copter-Quad-X/140653659761/item)

30 Amp ESC's (25g)

(http://global.ebay.com/4X-30A-Brushless-speed-controller-ESC-MultiCopter-KK-Multi-Copter-Quad-X-flying/150693022123/item)

I have done alot of reading today about PID and some say I have to change the Rate Roll P to 0.1 and move it up to 0.9.

Same with the Throttle Rate.

I used a KK X600 aluminum (310 grams) frame I baught of ebay.

(http://global.ebay.com/Fiberglass-Aluminum-4-axialQuadcopter-DIY-Frame-QUADX-QUAD-Multi-copter-310G/140680085172/item)

My motors was vibrating like mad and I agree with you, but I have made sure the vibrations are gone.

The battery is a 11.1v 2200 mah 35C battery it is very standard. (172g )

Its weighs about 870-900 grams

In my video I was flying in stable mode. I even tried with simple mode (I am not sure what it is supposed to do) but no luck.

The one site is awesome you gave me I have read thru it and it explained it in a very simplistic way.

Thanks for your help.

Groente C.

http://global.ebay.com/1-SET-58G-200mW-Wireless-AV-TxRx-for-FPV-Quadcopter-Aircraft/270859021130/item

The will make FPV flying very easy and with the OSD board from DIY drones. I have already orderd me 1 because these usualy start at R1500

Groente C