FPV Racer Final Build

Well I received my carbon fiber top-plate from Picnic Quads and was able to finish the FPV Racer quad.  Here are some quick pictures...

I also finished the FPV Practice racer that I plan on using to practice flying the quad...

On the sad news front, my Hontai HT F803C died with a burnt out FET.  Unlike the Micro MWC board, this one is black and obviously dead.  GearBest was offering a replacement board for $8 so I thought why not.  I liked the quad and could stand to replace it.  We'll see if it ever arrives from the place.

Latest On The Quadcopter Front

Well, I had a disappointing evening with respect to my Micro MWC flight control board.  I was moving it to a new frame from Picnic Quads and apparently I managed to kill one of the MOSFETs to one of the motors.  :-(

I guess I am disappointed because it did not last that long.  I only had about 2 hours of flight time with it.  I don't think I will replace it immediately.  It's rather expensive at $35 from Hobby King and that is about as cheap as they get.

In the meantime, I will just use Hubsan control boards on all my home built quads.  At $12 each, I can afford to play with those.

Anyway, I have been re-tooling my FPV Racer quad with the carbon fiber frame.  In preparation for the top plate that I should receive in a few days, I have pulled all of the FPV components off of the polycarbonate top plate and cleaned them of extraneous silicone.

Here is the base so far...

At this stage, the quad is a crazy flier... weighing in at just under 30g.  This is good because I will need as much power as I can get when I add the FPV stuff back.

I have also begun work on the polycarbonate version... which I think I will use as a practice quad.  It will be tougher that the carbon fiber quad, but should have all of the same flight characteristics.

My MultiWii Settings

Well after a bunch of tweaking and testing, I am closer to a set of MultiWii settings that work for me...

The settings were dialed-in to be sort of a modest flyer.  Since I eventually want to do FPV flying, this is what I was aiming for.

I was very glad that I was able to configure a nice model config file for my Devo 7E.

name=Micro MWC
mixermode=Advanced
icon=FPV-QUAD.BMP
type=multi
[radio]
protocol=DSM2
num_channels=7
fixed_id=123456
tx_power=150mW

[channel1]
safetysw=HOLD1
safetyval=-125
template=simple
[mixer]
src=THR
dest=Ch1
scalar=125

[channel2]
reverse=1
template=expo_dr
[mixer]
src=AIL
dest=Ch2
scalar=125
curvetype=expo
points=15,15
[mixer]
src=AIL
dest=Ch2
switch=SW B1
scalar=80
curvetype=expo
points=20,20
[mixer]
src=AIL
dest=Ch2
switch=SW B0
scalar=60
curvetype=expo
points=25,25

[channel3]
template=expo_dr
[mixer]
src=ELE
dest=Ch3
scalar=125
curvetype=expo
points=15,15
[mixer]
src=ELE
dest=Ch3
switch=SW B1
scalar=80
curvetype=expo
points=20,20
[mixer]
src=ELE
dest=Ch3
switch=SW B0
scalar=60
curvetype=expo
points=25,25

[channel4]
reverse=1
template=expo_dr
[mixer]
src=RUD
dest=Ch4
scalar=125
curvetype=expo
points=15,15
[mixer]
src=RUD
dest=Ch4
switch=SW B1
scalar=80
curvetype=expo
points=20,20
[mixer]
src=RUD
dest=Ch4
switch=SW B0
scalar=60
curvetype=expo
points=25,25

[channel5]
template=expo_dr
[mixer]
src=SW A0
dest=Ch5
scalar=125
curvetype=3point
points=100,0,-100
[mixer]
src=SW A0
dest=Ch5
switch=SW A1
scalar=0
curvetype=3point
points=100,0,-100
[mixer]
src=SW A0
dest=Ch5
switch=SW A2
scalar=125
curvetype=3point
points=100,0,-100

[channel6]
template=simple
[mixer]
src=FMODE1
dest=Ch6
scalar=125
curvetype=min/max
points=0

[trim1]
src=LEFT_V
pos=TRIMLV+
neg=TRIMLV-
[trim2]
src=RIGHT_V
pos=TRIMRV+
neg=TRIMRV-
step=5
value=-7,0,0
[trim3]
src=LEFT_H
pos=TRIMLH+
neg=TRIMLH-
[trim4]
src=RIGHT_H
pos=TRIMRH+
neg=TRIMRH-
step=5
value=23,0,0
[timer1]
type=countdown
src=THR
time=300
[timer2]
type=permanent
src=Ch1
val=11505700
[safety]
Auto=min
[gui-128x64]
V-trim=55,10,1
H-trim=1,59,3
V-trim=69,10,2
H-trim=78,59,4
Big-box=2,26,Ch1
Small-box=2,39,Timer1
Small-box=2,48,Timer2
Bargraph=79,30,Ch1
Bargraph=85,30,Ch2
Bargraph=91,30,Ch3
Bargraph=97,30,Ch4
Bargraph=103,30,Ch5
Bargraph=109,30,Ch6
Toggle=4,11,2,65,129,SW B
Toggle=13,11,0,71,0,None
Toggle=22,11,0,7,0,FMODE
Toggle=31,11,0,0,0,None
Toggle=40,11,0,72,0,HOLD
Battery=102,1

TxPower=75,1

End-Of-Summer

Had a fun day yesterday, at my company's End-Of-Summer get together in the parking lot.  Lemonade, popsicles and other goodies were on hand as we spent some time socializing with others in the company.  I had fun because I brought out one of my quads for flying.

My New FPV Racer

I received my Picnic Frames FPV Racer frame in the mail and spent the last couple of weekends working on it.  It's pretty much complete...

First Micro MWC Build

I have some photos of the first build with the Micro MWC flight control board.

It's a pretty simple build.  I am using a Picnic Frames' "Efficiency Platform" poly-carbonate frame with 4 generic 8x20mm motors.

The quad is flying pretty well now, since I started tweaking it a few days ago.  I loaded a version of MultiWii 2.3 that was hosted by the Micro Motor Warehouse here.  I am using the MultiWiiConf application to do the PID tweaking.

I will post my "final" settings when I am done playing around with them.

The Micro MWC MultiWii Flight Controller / Receiver Board

I have some quite time now, so I thought I would post some information.

I have been constructing a new quadcopter, trying to use the Micro MWC flight control board I received for my birthday.  Here is a picture of it (enlarged)...

The actual board is not much bigger than a standard SD card.  You can see where the motor connections are at the bottom.  This board has a built-in DSM2 receiver and 4 ESCs for the four motors of my quadcopter.  This FC board is strictly meant to drive brushed motors.

The most interesting part of the board, to me, is that it is a MultiWii flight controller that uses an Atmel AVR chip to run the flight control software.  I have always been interested in MultiWii because 

1. It allows you to tweak the flight performance of the quad in all sorts of ways
2. It's actually implemented as an Arduino sketch
3. It has this cool configuration utility

The first step I am going to take is solder some motor connectors to the board.  I have these micro JST (1.25mm) connectors that I ordered from AliExpress. My hope is that I have polarized my current motor connector to match the orientation that I am going to solder to the board.  I'll post more about this with some photos later.

Finally, I will also have to solder a power adapter to the board.