Category Archives: Drone - Page 6

Power distribution board vs. Cable harness

Posted by on July 28, 2014 No comments

When I started with the Multicopters in the late 2012, I used cable harness/power breakout cable  for the power distribution from the battery to the ESCs in my first quadrocopter. Until last month I always used my self-made cable harness in my copters. There were no problems during the flights and everything was just great.

Last month I decided to buy one from these so called power distribution boards. Just because of the weight and it looks a bit better when there are not so many cables. My goal was to safe some grams and optimize the overall weight of my SG Adventure quadcopter. It is a small quad and every gram matters.

Soldering was a bit tricky, because I left the ESCs mounted on the quad and I am not so good at soldering. In general there is no difference, but it looks better for me now. The quadcopter flies great, as it was with the cable harness.

How many grams do I saved?

Cable harness and the 3.5mm gold connectors, that I cut from the ESCs wires: 28g + 12g = 40g.       Power distribution board + 4mm gold connectors to the battery + some tin-alloy: 3.5g + 10g = about 15g. So I saved about 25g, which is not much, but for small copters every saved gram means more flight time.

Another cool feature on this flyingfolk board is, that it is possible to solder other low current components such as LED or Voltage-Sensor on the corners.

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SG Adventure with the KK2.0 board

Posted by on June 21, 2014 No comments

My new SG Adventure carbon frame was designed to be used for FPV flights and filming with my GoPro Hero 3, so the arms on the front are not on 45 degree, but on 60 degree to the pitch axis. In order to have a stable and good flight, I should change this settings in the Mixer Editor of the KK2.0 board. How do I do this:

As said the front arms are on 60 degree to the pitch axis, and 30 degree to the roll axis (if your frame has other angles of the front arms such the TBS Discovery, just figure out the angles and keep reading). The numbers in the KK2.0 Mixer Editor are sinus of this angles:

Aileron/Roll: sin(30)=0,50 or for the KK2.0 settings 50.

Elevator/Pitch: sin(60)=0,86 or for the KK2.0 settings 86.

These settings should be changed in the Mixer Editor for CH1 and CH2 (front motors), and on CH1 the Aileron should be negative number or “-50”. CH3 and CH4 should not be changed, as the rear arms are on default 45 degree to the pitch and roll axes.

Update 23.09.2014: I also wrote a more detailed how-to of the “problem” with different frame types.

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On Thursday I had the chance to test my SG Adventure QuadCopter with the KK2.0 board and it worked as it should be – stable and responsive. A lot of fun flying in the wild! Here are some pictures of the QuadCopter.

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If you liked this article please share it with your friends. Thank you and have a fun!

FrSky CPPM firmware update with Arduino

Posted by on June 1, 2014 17 comments

I have an FrSky D8R-II Plus receiver on my “SG Adventure” quad. I read on the DIY Drones site, that it is possible to update this receiver with the firmware for the FrSky D8R-XP, so I could use with CPPM signal. With CPPM you only use one wire for all the channels and not separate wires for every channel.

You can easily buy this FrSky Update Cable or you can save a bit money and time by updating/flashing the receiver with Arduino, which has an FTDI chip on board. I have an Arduino Uno, but my revision of the board doesn’t have an FTDI chip. So I decided to simply use my actual flight controller – the Multiwii Megapirate AIO board. You can use any Arduino based board with FTDI chip.

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First you need to download the 27ms CPPM firmware from the FrSky website. This firmware is actually for the D8R-XP receiver as mentioned, but it works with the D8R-II Plus too. Please keep in mind, that is officially not supported for the D8R-II Plus and I am not responsible for any damages on your hardware by doing this too. If you agree keep reading 🙂

Download the official FTDI Prog.  – EEPROM Programming Utility and install it on your computer.

There is a jumper on the side of your receiver. Take it out and place the jumper on the signal pins for channel 7 and 8, so these are bridged. This will then take the receiver into update mode.

Then connect the TX, RX and GND pins from your Arduino board to the TX, RX and GND pins on the side of your D8R-II Plus receiver. Important: Do not reverse the TX and RX as usual by Arduino. Connect TX to TX and RX to RX. To power your receiver: you can use a 5V battery or connect it as usual to the flight controller.

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To use the Arduino board for this we only need the FTDI chip, so we will suppress the Atmega chip by a constant press on the reset button. After the reset button is pressed, connect your board to the USB port of your computer. It could possibly install some drivers, so give it some time. Keep pressing the reset button 🙂

Open the FTDI Prog. Scan for FTDI Devices. Then invert the TX and RX as shown on the screenshots below and click on the flash icon. In the new opened window click “Program”. (Tipp: Remember to undone this procedure after flashing your receiver.)

FTDI_Prog_1FTDI_Prog_2FTDI_Prog_3

Keep pressing the reset button 🙂 Now go to the folder, where you downloaded the firmware file from the FrSky website, extract it and start the .exe file.

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Chose the right COM port in the dropdown menu, chose the firmware file from the same folder by clicking on “File”. If everything is fine, you should see the UID number in the bottom of window. If so, just click “Download” to upload the firmware. (For more info about these last steps, there is a pdf-manual in the folder, where the .exe file is. At the end you should have a working CPPM FrSky D8R-II Plus receiver. Now you can release the reset button of your Arduino or Multiwii Megapirate AIO board. I hope I have helped you, save some time and money with this method.

p.s. To use your receiver in CPPM mode after flashing, place the jumper on signal pins CH3 and CH4, so these are bridged. The CPPM signal will be on CH1 pin.

Update 12.08.2014: I updated the same way my new FrSky D4R-II receiver. It is smaller than the D8R-II Plus, weights only 5 gram and with the CPPM 27ms firmware has 8 Channels and the exact same functionality as the D8R-II Plus. Check how my SG Adventure carbon frame look now with the Pixhawk and the D4R-II receiver here.

My new carbon quad frame: SG Adventure

Posted by on May 22, 2014 1 comment

About two months ago, I posted a picture of my broken quad frame. As mentioned in the post, I started developing a new one, more durable frame. I had certain requirements for the new frame:

  • Durable and light
  • Looks stylish and good
  • Enough space for GoPro and FPV-Equipment
  • Easy for transport: frame for 8” and 9” props

I used some of the ideas/details from my old frame (which is a very good frame, but it would be very expensive to do it from carbon*). So I started drawing a new one on a piece of paper 🙂

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Then with the priceless help of my sister, we draw it also digital in a CAD software. That was not an easy process, but it was worth it. And finally today I received my package with the carbon* parts for my new frame. I named it “SG Adventure”. I’m planning to have this new quad always with me for trips and adventures, so I thought it will fit very well.

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All the carbon parts weight 120g. It is a bit more compared to the 75g-plywood old frame. But the carbon is much much more durable then the plywood.

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All-up weight (without battery) is 585g. The frame is designed to be used with several flight controllers such as my HK MultiWii Megapirate AIO and KK2.0. As KK2.0 and the newer one KK2.1.5 are same size, it will also fit very well. There are also holes for the APM board. The motor holes are for standard 19mm:16mm, as on my Turnigy 2830-11 motors. I already mentioned that there is space on the front for my GoPro Hero 3 camera. The summer is coming, so it is time for some FPV and nice videos 🙂

I will be very happy to hear, what do you think about my new “Adventure” frame. Feel free to comment 😉

* Carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer

Voltage Sensor on HK Megapirate Multiwii AIO board

Posted by on April 24, 2014 No comments

On my old KK2.0 board there was an integrated voltage meter. On the new KK 2.1.5 board there is even a header for the voltage detection. But on my new HK Megapirate Multiwii AIO there is no voltage sensor integrated at all. It is very important to know the voltage of the battery pack, so I decided not to buy a voltage sensor, but instead to build my own. I used a simple electric circuit of two resistors, a voltage divider. Very useful for me was this page: http://www.multi-rotor.co.uk/index.php?topic=3144.0

So I used this two resistors R1=110 kohm and R2=47 kohm (You can use resistors with other values, important is the ratio R1/R2). I also find this webpage very useful. After about 10 minutes and some soldering my voltage divider was ready. I connected it to the analog Pin0 on my Megapirate AIO and enabled the voltage sensor in Mission Planner. Then I needed to calibrate the voltage sensor. I used this very good manual on the ArduCopter official webpage. That’s it. Now I can check the voltage of my battery during flight using the Droid Planner 2 app on my smartphone.

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ArduCopter connecting with DroidPlanner 2 (Android)

Posted by on April 21, 2014 No comments

In in one of my previous posts I described how to connect my MultiWii And Megapirate AIO board with Mission Planner over Bluetooth. As I don’t want always to have my laptop when flying, but always having my HTC One X (running Android 4.2.2) with me I tried to connect the ArduCopter (the MegaPirate version of it) with my HTC over Bluetooth. I searched the Google Play Store for Droid Planner and installed it. But I always got an error “DroidPlanner has unfortunately  stopped” as I tried to connect over Bluetooth. So I searched again and happily find the new version of DroidPlanner. It is totally new and very good looking. Great job and my admits to the developers. And with this new version I don’t need to do the trick as in Mission Planner first clicking on “Connect” and then connecting the power supply to my Bluetooth-module.

DroidPlanner2  DroidPlanner3  DroidPlanner4  DroidPlanner5

How many amps (A) draw a flight controller and/or a receiver

Posted by on April 13, 2014 No comments

Today I saw a question on the hobbyking.com if the BEC of an Afro 30A ESC could power the famous KK 2.1.5 flight controller and a receiver. The BEC of the Afro ESC is rated for 0.5A. But on the Hobbyking site there was no information how many amps the KK 2.1.5 and a connected to it receiver draw. So I take my Turnigy Watt Meter and measured the current to my KK board, receiver and my HK Multiwii and Megapirate flight controller. Here are the results:

KK 2.1.5 / KK2.0 board 100mA = 0.1A
HK Multiwii Megapirate AIO 100mA = 0.1A
HK Multiwii Megapirate AIO with Ublox GPS 180mA = 0.18A
FrSky 8CH 2.4G Receiver 100mA = 0.1A

 

The answer of the question: Yes the integrated BEC of the Afro 30A ESC can power the KK board (or the HK Multiwii AIO board) and a receiver, as both draw 0.2A.