Spider quad

[homersainty]

just having another look at your pics and you will probably be better off with your vu on the bottom as well it';s not gona be very visible on top there when it is in the air

[Smeagol]

Well ... it';s been a busy week, and will be again soon, but I managed to lose my RC virginity 

The spider took to the air, thankfully I listened to Brians advice "give it some welly" don';t be scared, so I bumped the throttle and up it went, much to the surprise of my cameraman. Apologies to the younger viewers, don';t listen to the commentary 

http://youtu.be/WXNBwG_kUL0

It';s in the air, but where, can';t tell red from blue ....

http://youtu.be/278DYECihLk

Now thats it';s been in the air  how the heck do I get it back down ... A great 1st landing 

http://youtu.be/zaty4BxEdmA


Hmmm ... something ain';t right .... the spider is at full throttle but it';s not responding and is only 5m in front of me .......   

http://youtu.be/4GQyore5XSE

On the second and third lift the quad tipped over and the props hit the deck, was successful at getting airborne after that, but towards the end of the last vid I noticed that the motors weren';t responding to the throttle, it was full.

When I got it home I did a ground test, similar response, the motors gradually went faster at max throttle rather than rapid acceleration that I was expecting ... any opinions please

[neagron]

Well done Ian,it finally paid off after all the hard work,as they say onwords and upwards,good luck for your next flight,Marty. :scotland:

[Smeagol]

Well done Ian,it finally paid off after all the hard work,as they say onwords and upwards,good luck for your next flight,Marty. :scotland:

Cheers Marty, credit to all those that have kept me going and helped me along the way.

Any comments on the lack of response to throttle on the last video ????

[Gaza07]

Very pleased to see you have had it in the air it looked very stable to, and a nice pirouette to 
not sure about your throttle problem you really need a naza guy to help with that did you check your batter levels as they wont climb if the battery gets to low   

[Smeagol]

Very pleased to see you have had it in the air it looked very stable to, and a nice pirouette to 
not sure about your throttle problem you really need a naza guy to help with that did you check your batter levels as they wont climb if the battery gets to low   

Cheers Gaz, just getting to grips with the controls, it';s the Billy Elliott in me lol

The batt was at 3.78(avg), is that sufficiently low enough to stop it responding, just thinking, i';ll check the naza assist, it does give batt level warning, don';t know how it responds though.

I would switch off the led';s but at this stage and with flying LOS instead of FPV, I need the direction indication.

All in all, I was happy with the first outing, to get it off the ground without horizontal travel was great, anything else a bonus.

[shaktar]

Realy good

Glad your finnaly up in the air

I had this to with mine, i think its a thing it dose when the battery is low.

When its low the led flashes red continually if i remember correctly. I turned it off in the software as I haven';t had the time to configure the two different battery safety levels, so on a nearly full charge it though it was low and would kick in the safety . I just use a little plug on one that beeps atm.

[Smeagol]

Realy good

Glad your finnaly up in the air

I had this to with mine, i think its a thing it dose when the battery is low.

When its low the led flashes red continually if i remember correctly. I turned it off in the software as I haven';t had the time to configure the two different battery safety levels, so on a nearly full charge it though it was low and would kick in the safety . I just use a little plug on one that beeps atm.

TBH I never thought of the naza led, and adds sense to the previous comment about installing it below the quad.

I also have the little balance plug unit alarm, not sure what the default low level alarm is, been too busy seeing if it will actually fly.

[guest325]

Well done!!! Really glad to see you get it flying - I';ve been watching your build with a great deal of interest and counting my blessings for getting one ready set up off Peter King that said you';ve now got the experience of what makes them tick that I don';t have.
Dreadimg the day if something goes awol with mine! Must have a go at building one myself now I';ve got one that works, oh two including my Hubsan!
Here we go again.....do I detect a hangar expansion immenant???
::)  ::) 

[Gaza07]

Well you do know you can never have to many Darrel   

[homersainty]

Well you do know you can never have to many Darrel   

nope just more than you can afford or more than you have room for 

[Balders]

The batt was at 3.78(avg), is that sufficiently low enough to stop it responding, just thinking, i';ll check the naza assist, it does give batt level warning, don';t know how it responds though.

Best answer I can give is "probably"...the naza low battery stuff can be setup in such a way as to protect you from yourself, ie over-discharging packs.  The power settings are tricky to get "real world" useable.  Like others, I have actually disabled mine and rely instead on lipo alarms and the auto-timer on my tx.  When I throttle up my count down starts automatically, so I always have an exact time in the air.

I tried various low voltage first and second level protection settings, I did get somewhere but just around the time I moved from 3S to 4S so I had to start all over again anyway :)

If the 3.78v reading was at rest, they were probably around 3.5v or less under load, so I';m not surprised the naza wouldn';t climb.

[guest325]

Well you do know you can never have to many Darrel   

Try telling her indoors that, at the moment in our 6'; x 8'; spare room I';ve got 2 computers, 3 guitars, 2 amplifiers, 3 gliders, 3 high wing foamies, 2 3D profiles, 1 small heli and my 2 quads - it';s rammed! But as you say still lusting after more, I fancy a Twister quad or mqx for something bigger than the Hubsan for indoors and quite like the idea of designing my own Tricopter; as I said hagar extension imminant!!!

[Smeagol]

Best answer I can give is "probably"...the naza low battery stuff can be setup in such a way as to protect you from yourself, ie over-discharging packs.  The power settings are tricky to get "real world" useable.  Like others, I have actually disabled mine and rely instead on lipo alarms and the auto-timer on my tx.  When I throttle up my count down starts automatically, so I always have an exact time in the air.

I tried various low voltage first and second level protection settings, I did get somewhere but just around the time I moved from 3S to 4S so I had to start all over again anyway :)

If the 3.78v reading was at rest, they were probably around 3.5v or less under load, so I';m not surprised the naza wouldn';t climb.

Thanks for the answer Balders, makes a lot of sense. I don';t know how long I was actually flying, and could probably suss from checking video runtimes. When it wouldn';t lift TBH I was a little relieved, time to go and get a drink and settle the nerves  just beyond the treeline is a large shopping centre car park 

[Smeagol]

Well done!!! Really glad to see you get it flying - I';ve been watching your build with a great deal of interest and counting my blessings for getting one ready set up off Peter King that said you';ve now got the experience of what makes them tick that I don';t have.
Dreadimg the day if something goes awol with mine! Must have a go at building one myself now I';ve got one that works, oh two including my Hubsan!
Here we go again.....do I detect a hangar expansion immenant???
::)  ::) 

Cheers Darrell, At times I did wonder why I kept going, but that was due to the encouragement from certain folks on here, if the parts had not been faulty it was pretty easy really, I am a hands on guy, love to make and fix, so for me I think the flying bit is the real challenge.

I hope you are enjoying your RTF and hubsan, I';d thoroughly recommend the build yourself option, theres certainly enough people on here that will help along the way, and hopefully I can now add a touch of my limited experience too   

Now I want to build a hex, make my own CF plates and machine them, add the naza from the quad and see how it goes  just need a good set of drawings and a layout drawing 

[shaktar]

Shouldn';t be hard to copy the DJI one in CAD

I found this vid on setting up the Voltage Protection, had not got around to trying it though, using the tx timer and beeper was easier :P

DJI Naza Voltage Monitoring - First Level Voltage Protection Setup

[benchmark]

As regards to the video above, the method of finding out your exact voltage loss is correct however his calculations are too risky in my opinion.
We all know that you should not discharge a Lipo under 3.3 v per cell if you want it to last and if you want to avoid trouble. Bearing this in mind he set his first level protection at  10.5 V - 0.5V (loss) = 10 V (loaded) . This means that his 3 cell lipo will have a voltage of 3.3 v per cell when his first level protection red light blinks, that is already the critical point and should have been his second level protection NOT the first. This is because you may not be able to land immediately you notice the red light and each second you remain in the air under load, your Lipo is the red zone. of course when you land and the load loss is eliminated it will increase the volts per cell over the danger point but the damage may already be done.
His 2 level protection of 10v-0.5v ( loss)= 9.5 volts loaded is totally unacceptable because it means that his 3 cell lipo iwill have a voltage of 3.1 v per cell under load.

Personally after you have calculated your loss like he did, then first level protection should not be anywhere less than 10.5V  loaded for a 3 S  or 3.5volts per cell and second level protection noting less than 10 V loaded for a 3 s or 3.3 v per cell.
So his values should look at least like this
11v -0.5v = 10.5V loaded  First level protection
10.5-0.5v = 10V loaded for second level

[Smeagol]

good info benchmark, stil unsure if to enable monitoring or rely on the bleeper.

I';m looking for a good collaboration to provide drawings/photos/templates, and in return to produce and machine CF

[guest325]

good info benchmark, stil unsure if to enable monitoring or rely on the bleeper.

I';m looking for a good collaboration to provide drawings/photos/templates, and in return to produce and machine CF

I use Solidworks 3D CAD at work and have 2D CAD  (Draftsight) at home, I can work from fag packet sketches to produce files suitable to load on most if not all CNC  software. I would be happy to offer anyone this facility or tell them where to get their own 2D CAD for free and perhaps give them a bit of tutorial how to use it.
I might be able to do some work in 3D at some stage but need to upgrade my pc first and get a more current version of Windows on it - I dual boot between XP and Ubuntu at the moment, and my old  laptop is on Fedora.