Tag: DIY

Here is the first attempt for my new landing gear:
This is in it’s working position.

It is build of two U-shaped aluminium pieces that holds in place the and forms the pivoting system for the landing gear arms.

Two linear springs made of stainless steel holds the arms in place when in working position.

The arms are pivoted using a cilindrical nylon piece with the necessary holes in it.

here you can see how the spring hold it together when in working position.

hHere the two metal springs are removed so you can easily put the quad in you trunk without risk to break anything:

More on this later…

Here are some updated pictures of the finished quad.

I did some little modification like the bottom plate now attached straight under the arms, and the motors were wound as 10turn Delta instead of Y because the previous configuration had too low maximum thrust. now its perfect.

here is some picture.

I’m working on a simple way build a IMU that is easy expandable with new sensors.

What come out was this simple system:

several 20x20mm blocks that could be easily interconnected.

By now i have only build the Logic level translator/3.3v regulator block and a gyro/accelerometer board based on itg3200 and bma180.

Here are the pictures of the buiding process.

Yesterday i finished the controller board prototype for the new NanoQuad i’m building.

the board measures 60x18mm (it is a lqfp48 proto board i bought from dipmicro.com)

It contains:

• AVR ATMega328
• a max682 to raise the single lipo (4V to 3V) supply to 5V;
• 4 SI2304 N Mosfet used to power the brushed motors;

In this first phase i’ll control it using a DSM2 compatible Six channel radio from HobbyKing.

The gyro is simply a WiiMotion+ board.

Future versions of the quad will implements:

• Bluetooth connection and remote control instead of the DMS2 Radio;
• Smaller ITG3200 Gyro board;

The bluetooth radio will connect wirelessy the nanoquad to a controller board that contains an lcd, an atmega8, a bluetooth module and a port for an wii classic controller to be used to drive the quad.

The lcd will make able to change parameters and for a simple “telemetry”.

Here are some pictures (unfortunately i missed the finished controller board alone).

First NanoQuad integration test

 

Update 24 March 2011: here is the MultiWii (thanks To Alexinparis ) http://wbb.multiwii.com/index.php software modified to drive directly four mosfet to power brushed motors (be aware, the software was only used to test the setup, never flyed,  so use at you own risk.)

MicroboMultiWii1_6

I would like to be able to use my quad indoor, so i can practice everytime i want, so i started this project, in parallel to the bigger one.

Today the 4 brushed motors arrived, (Walkera UFO#8 motors, bought from Helipal here) so i started to arrange some test frame. It is simply made by 2 little 3mm carbon rods 140mm motor to motor.

I attached the motor to the arms using some shrink tube. Also the two arms are tied together using two little piece of shrink tube.

Frame and motors do weights 17gr.

As the bigger brother I’ll use a custom board with atmega328, four mosfet (to power the motors) a 3v -> 5v dc/dc converter to be able to power the 328 using the single lipo used for this model.

Now i have to wait for props and lipo from HobbyKing, atmega from an ebay seller  and some other electronic components (and also a small smd prototiping board I will use to mount the circuit) from dipmicro..

Mouse is only for size comparison, near there are the DSM2 receiver and WiiMotion plus board.

I was waiting for my props (they had an odyssey thanks to Poste Italiane, a long story worth a whole post…), than i saw an old bluetooth GPS, useless nowadays.

Than i ripped apart the GPS(hopefully it will be used in the quad someday), modded a little and attached to the Quad Arduino.

I only had to change the MultiWii firmware to slow down serial speed to 32800 (I haven’t found documentation of the module to change the speed).

In some days i should receive a new module bought from Ebay( Sure Electronic) that’s able to support 115200, that i will integrate into the main board.

Now I can use the MultiWII interface for short range remote telemetry on the quad, very useful for setup the PID.

here is the pic:

In this post i’ll show the new version of the quadricopter I’m building.

It’s based on the excellent work shown here MultiWiiCopter (previously TriWiiCopter)

The copter is based on

• 4x HXM2730-1300 24gm brushless outrunners from hobbyking;
• 4x Hobbyking blueseries 12A ESC (please, do yourself a big favor: BUY THE PROGRAMMING CARD, unfortunately in my case it was in backorder so I became crazy with strange and unfinishing beep sequences);
• 2200mAh 3S 20C lipo (lesson learned: it is a lot better to use a lighter lipo, it weights slightly more than 180gm);
• Arduino nano clone (dfrduino);
• Spectrum AR6100 clone 6ch receiver;
• WiiMotion+ clone (one with IDG gyro, performance wise very close to the original one);
• self made breadboarded pcb to contain all the electronic stuff;

Actual frame is built with 4 12x2mm Carbon fiber arms, joint in the middle with a 70x70x4mm birch wood multistrate plate.

it has a dry weight (without battery) of around 350gm with props installed.

Previously the frame was a cross made from 8x8mm Alu U profile. No need to say that after a long list of crashes (this was the first flying thing I flew) at the end it gived up.

Some picture of the new and one of the old one: