Improved quadcopter - more "avionics" and increased run time

In the several weeks that followed a crash caused by an ESC failure, plenty of work have taken place (some of which documented here). Several things have been done since:

• Replacement of the ESCs with a 30 Amp quad ESC;
• Upgrade of the flight controller firmware;
• Building and programming the PPM Sum encoder;
• Building a BEC/filter with 12 V and 5 V outputs;
• Adding landing gear;
• Adding voltage and current sensor;
• OSD firmware upgrade;
• Change of LiPO battery from 11.1 V (3S) to 14.8 V (4S);

Induction Stove

Some days ago my father asked me to check if I could repair this single element induction stove. I disassembled the device to inspect its inner workings. I was a bit curious because I have never taken apart this kind of apparatus.

Smoke test after a lot of changes

It's always a stressful moment when after many changes something is put to the test. This was the case, taking into account that since the last flight there was a replacement of all ESCs, upgrade to Arducopter MPNG 3.0.1 R4, installation of PPM Sum module, addition of voltage and current measurement, and use of a higher system voltage (4S instead of 3S LiPo).

Busy quadcopter setup weekend

With the arrival of some of the parts I have been waiting for, more work accumulated with the finishing of my 2nd quadcopter. The parts were the landing gear and the quadruple ESC: The landing gear arrived with all the necessary parts as expected, including the lower crossing bar and the foam rods. The bar and other rods are all made of carbon fiber. The 4 support rings (for attaching to the frame) all had a rubber ring which helps to further dampen the vibration to additional items such as a camera:

Reflash the ESCs

Multicopters require a tight control loop for all the motors as part of their ability to perform stable flight. A basic requirement for an efficient closed loop PID system is that it has a high enough sample rate and fast response to error input when the knowledge about the system is minimal. Until recently most ESCs were designed for airplane and helicopter applications, where gradual response to input is desirable for saving the gears against abrupt torque variations. In quadcopters, direct driving of the propeller is normally the case (and as such mechanical wear is not much of an issue), and as explained, quick response to throttle input is required for good PID response.

One step closer...

A tray for the battery was added. Keeping simplicity and light weight in mind, I have built this tray based on an aluminium foil and four threaded rods. Four plastic straws (from kids balloons) served as spacers between the tray and the quadcopter chassis. The height of the tray was set based on the Turnigy 5000 mAh 3S battery I will be using:

New quadcopter taking shape

One evening at a time and this new drone begins to get closer to completion. Motors installed and thread locked. Power distribution board and flight controller also installed. The next step will be to install the reprogrammed ESCs (I will check for SimonK updates), wire things together, and make a support for the battery (I'm thinking about using some folded threaded rods as a kind of cage for holding it, or something similar).

New drone, old parts

With all the changes and upgrades I performed on my current quadcopter, I realized  I had about enough spare parts to build another one. The only missing thing was the frame, but this is where the fun part goes. With this I had the opportunity to build a frame from scratch after buying 1m of aluminum rod, and a 1.5 mm sheet of the same material. This resulted in a 177 gr frame, which is not too bad.

Ground Control Station

With the model aircraft hobby scaling beyond line of sight, control equipment also grows more complex and sophisticated these days. To the point where we no longer designate it of transmitter, but refer to it as "Ground Control Station".

Gathering with fellow pilots and Multicopter improvements

Most of the time I have been a lone rider in this hobby, having started from scratch on my own, since the traditional helicopters back in 2009. I would occasionally go to local air fields and try to mix in with seasoned RC airplane and helicopter pilots. But the environment would not always be too friendly, with the fixed wing guys not enjoying much the flying grass cutters.

Going higher with the flyer

After very conservative steps with this model aviation hobby, I decided to get closer to the trends, and do some updates/improvements on my quadcopter while still being careful with the budget.

Powerwheels RC conversion

I soon noticed my 20 month daughter affinity to vehicles. I wanted to give her one where she could sit and enjoy the ride, but currently most powered vehicles for infants require they are able to reach the throttle pedal and properly handle the steering wheel. So I figured out the best way would be to go remote controlled. As I already had done previous projects involving RC gear, it would be piece of cake to turn a regular electric car into a large scale RC car where a small kid could sit inside.

Creation Factory now has a domain name - www.creationfactory.co

From this point on you can also link to this blog via:

https://www.creationfactory.co

(No, it's not com, it's co).

Power Supply Refactoring - finishing the details

In spite of already being a working device, there were aspects that like I explained in the previous post, required some attention. One of the major fixes was the voltage drift. This was caused by the 5 K potentiometer used to set the voltage end point. It was too large (the sweet spot of my setup was around 500 Ohms), which besides making it difficult to adjust, caused temperature induced resistance drift to be too large, causing an increase of around 200 mV from the initial voltage once the temperature settled.