Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator Posted July 8, 2015 Author Share Posted July 8, 2015 Hi Martin, On most quads the usual thing is to solder the power supply connector via a short flying lead to the distribution board. Re ESC's - again usual practice is to cable tie them to the lower face of the arms. That way they are out in the "fresh air". Sometimes its different - for example on our Black Widow they are stuck to the inner faces of the arms at the root - but that is because the arms are hollow and the cables are feed along the inside of the arm. Certainly for small to medium size quads they are usually placed on the arms. BEB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martyn K Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 Thanks BEB I noticed some of the photos in the tread (after I posted - DOH) and I can see the arrangement. Makes much better sense. M Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martyn K Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 Another stupid question I have got my Wii board and it looks slightly different to the photo shown on page 2. I assume that I need to solder a header to the i2c port (SDA, SCL, 3.3V and GND) Is this correct? I assume that the supply from the i2c>GPS conversion board is 3.3V, not 5V Thanks Martyn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pat (rActive) Harbord Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 My FC board is identical to yours Martyn - Yes that is where you will need to solder a header for the i2c board Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martyn K Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 Thanks Pat BW Martyn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Rogers Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 Andy- Thanks for sharing your experience I will see if earlier flight modes alter the RTH heading on mine. I hope this is the case as random EEPROM corruption does not inspire confidence. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caveman Posted July 12, 2015 Share Posted July 12, 2015 So, been out in the garden 'flying' my quad. I had to place an order for a massive number of props, I've getting through them at a fair rate! I decided that a larger base was needed to prevent it falling over on my rather poor arrivals. A trip to B&Q produced some 7.5mm sqaure aluminium tube, from which I've made a 250mm cross. This is fitted to the bottom of the quad using longer screws. It works well. Having fitted the u/c I decided that it was time to do a decent and tidy job of fixing the motors and ESCs. Until this morning the ESCs have been dangling and the motors secured by only 2 screws. So, ESCs secured, u/c fixed and motors attached by four screws each, it was back to the garden for a trial flight. I armed the quad and the motors started, but, as soon as I increased the throttle motor 9 started stuttering really badly. I reset everything and tried again, but with the same result. The motor was very hot to the touch. Now, I remembered Chris Bott having the same problem, so resigned myself to having to buy a new motors. Just, to be sure it was a motor problem and not the ESC I connected the motor to another ESC, with the same result. Not being one to accept defeat, and expense, easily, I retired to the garage with the offending motor. I prised the circlip from the motor shaft. The circlip pinged off and flew into the darkest recesses of the garage (didn't matter as I considered the motor was kaput anyway), and pulled the motor apart. Everything looked OK, all the circuits had a 5 Ohm resistance and all the magents were secure, so I was at a loss to understand why it wouldn't work. However, when I looked closely a the motor coils directly under the fixed cover of the motor, where the fixing screws go, I noticed that the copper wire coils were abraded. The fixing screw ends had scraped on the wires!! I put the motor back together, minus the circlip, and replaced it in the quad using only 2 screws, each with a washer to effectively shorten them, and fired it up. All the motors started and reved up to full throttle!! I did notice that motor 11 stopped before the other each time, so I removed 2 screws from the mount, and this time it started and stopped in synch with the others. All the motors were now running cool, no overheating. Problem solved! The supplied mounting screws are too long and rub against the motor coils, presumably shorting some of the wiring and electrically unbalancing the motor. To restore the motor to its former glory I then needed the circlip! I attached some magnets, wrapped in masking tape, to the end of a length of carbon fibre tube, and dragged it around the floor, behind the rubbish and through countless cobwebs, knowing I was wasting my time. But, after 30 seconds there was the circlip stuck fast to the magents, together with loads of iron filings, strands of wire-wool and the like. The motor is now returned to full health. I would suggest that any other X230 builders look closely at the motor fixing screws and be prudent by inserting a washer, or two, under the screw heads. Incidentally, while sorting all this out I removed the propeller guards. My propeller destruction ratio is now minimal! I'm pretty sure that the guards, bending upwards on impact, were breaking the props quite efficiently! Hope this helps, GDB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martyn K Posted July 14, 2015 Share Posted July 14, 2015 Hi all I am having problems (here in rainy Aberystwyth) configuring the GPS I can connect OK to the unit OK using u-centre and the FTDI card However, where I try to upload the config file it fails at the 2nd line of CFG-PRT The initial upload appears to be OK, it then hangs at exactly the same place and the COM connection gets dropped. I have to disconnect/reconnect to get a successful connection again. I suspect it may be a buffer error in the communications Sending: CFG-PRT - B5 62 06 00 14 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 1A 48 ... ... successfully completed! Sending: CFG-PRT - B5 62 06 00 14 00 01 00 00 00 C0 08 00 00 00 C2 01 00 07 00 07 00 00 00 00 00 B4 96 ... ... timeout occurred without receiving an answer. Retrying...! Sending: CFG-PRT - B5 62 06 00 14 00 01 00 00 00 C0 08 00 00 00 C2 01 00 07 00 07 00 00 00 00 00 B4 96 ... ... timeout occurred without receiving an answer. Retrying...! Sending: CFG-PRT - B5 62 06 00 14 00 01 00 00 00 C0 08 00 00 00 C2 01 00 07 00 07 00 00 00 00 00 B4 96 ... Polling CFG-PORT of port 1... failed due to timeout! Sending: CFG-PRT - B5 62 06 00 14 00 02 00 00 00 C0 08 00 00 80 25 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 89 7F ... ... successfully completed after poll! Sending: CFG-PRT - B5 62 06 00 14 00 03 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 07 00 07 00 00 00 00 00 2B E6 ... ... timeout occurred without receiving an answer. Retrying...! Sending: CFG-PRT - B5 62 06 00 14 00 03 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 07 00 07 00 00 00 00 00 2B E6 ... ... timeout occurred without receiving an answer. Retrying...! Sending: CFG-PRT - B5 62 06 00 14 00 03 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 07 00 07 00 00 00 00 00 2B E6 ... Polling CFG-PORT of port 3 ATTENTION: Aborted by User! Incomplete Process Eventually, I force an abort.. Any thoughts? Martyn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator Posted July 14, 2015 Author Share Posted July 14, 2015 Hi Martyn, I had something similar to this I seem to recall that the problem was that I thought I had updated the GPS to operate at 115,000baud - but I hadn't! Can you check that? BEB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martyn K Posted July 14, 2015 Share Posted July 14, 2015 Doesn't look like a buffer error. I have remove the 4 CFG-PORT lines from the config file and the file uploads OK, Doesn't change the speed though. Need to have a look at how the CFG-PORT line is made up. It could be a checksum error Martyn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martyn K Posted July 14, 2015 Share Posted July 14, 2015 Thanks BEB Gone through the process again. Its definitely still connecting at 9600, the port speed has not changed Just doing a sanity check the device I am using is a CRIUS CN-06. Do you know if I have to select a specific model type from Receiver > Generation. ? I can't think why that would make a difference though. I have also tried extracting a virgin version of u-blox-config.ublox.txt from the zip file in case I had corrupted it somehow. No change.. It is definitely that one line that seems to be causing the problem though. Martyn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Bott - Moderator Posted July 14, 2015 Share Posted July 14, 2015 Hi Martin Just from remembering back, as I don't have the quad to had. I'm fairly sure that my procedure had to go like this:- 1 Connect at 9600 and set off the upload. 2 It fails part way through because it actually switches to 115200 (Not sure of the speed without it here) 3 Change the PC to the faster speed and it connects again. 4 Run the upload again so it gets completed. It seemed odd to me at the time that it changed speed during the upload process. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Bernard Posted July 14, 2015 Share Posted July 14, 2015 Well after a few flights in the garden fighting the gusty conditions, I took the quad to one of our indoor sessions and was mightily impressed. Those motors are a good find Chris - thanks for posting the link. Using a 1200 3S I got around 7-8 mins and the motors and ESC's were stone cold after. Despite carefully calibrating the accelerometers using a circular spirit level I still found a slight sideways drift, and the height fluctuated quite a bit when in the stabilisation modes were switched in so need to look at this. I had put some foam over the baro sensor as I had seen advised, but maybe it was the wrong sort of foam. Surprisingly I found the quad quite easy to control in acro mode, taking BEBs advice on rates. So now to play with the PID settings ...! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator Posted July 14, 2015 Author Share Posted July 14, 2015 Flips next Colin! Actually it will flip with the standard motors - but only just and you definitely need a bit of recovery height up your sleeve! So start it high-ish. BEB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Bernard Posted July 14, 2015 Share Posted July 14, 2015 Martyn - Have you actually tried setting the PC to 115200? I am also running the Crius and if I remember correctly it did appear as though it was still connecting at 9600 after the first upload, but I got errors. (Can't remember what they were). I then reset to 115200 and ran the upload again and all was well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martyn K Posted July 14, 2015 Share Posted July 14, 2015 Thanks Chris Yes - I have just spotted that - the speed is changing. I reset the retry counter to 3 and after the first fail, I changed the speed in flight and the upload completed OK. I followed your advice and then immediately re-ran the upload and it was successful. However, the speed is reverting to 9600 as soon as I unplug the GPS/FTDI unit. from the USB port Just wondering if the battery is duff on the GPS unit.. Martyn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martyn K Posted July 14, 2015 Share Posted July 14, 2015 a DOH moment I hadn't ticked the box to write the config to non-volatile memory.. Now connecting OK at 115200baud however I am no longer getting satellite status in u-centre Still - onwards and upwards Gungadin Enjoying this. Thanks for your help Martyn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Bott - Moderator Posted July 14, 2015 Share Posted July 14, 2015 I lost the satellite status in U-Centre - don't worry about that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator Posted July 15, 2015 Author Share Posted July 15, 2015 Yeap satellite traces disapear for some weird reason - but satellite data appears and in the end that's what matters! BEB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martyn K Posted July 15, 2015 Share Posted July 15, 2015 Hi all Got the I2C>GPS board programmed OK this morning. Reprogrammed the MultiWii with GPS enabled and I am getting a valid GPS reading in MultiWiiConf.. Not too sure where to mount the GPS unit on the quad though. I think the quad hardware is made of Carbon Fibre so I assume that the GPS module and aerial must sit on top of the top deck. I am planning on using double sided tape or Velcro for this. Where are you mounting yours? Best wishes Martyn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator Posted July 15, 2015 Author Share Posted July 15, 2015 Yes flat on the top with double sided tape is best. Actually I don't think the quad is carbon fibre - its a sort of "carbon fibre look alike"! BEB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martyn K Posted July 15, 2015 Share Posted July 15, 2015 Cheers BEB On top it is. Next job is to fit the receiver. I was planning on using a simple Taranis V4-II however I think I will need more channels. Its not clear to me yet how you switch between the various flight modes (MAN, GPS Lock etc) However, I only have a V4 with me so that will have to do while I continue testing. BW Martyn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Bott - Moderator Posted July 15, 2015 Share Posted July 15, 2015 Martyn, does your Rx support CPPM mode? I'm using that to feed more channels into the Flight Controller down a single cable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator Posted July 15, 2015 Author Share Posted July 15, 2015 Basically the flight modes go on one or more channels - depending on how many flight modes you want to be able to select. Let's say you want ACRO, ATTITUDE-HOLD and GPS-HOLD as your three modes. You select a three position switch and program a channel such that the value the switch sets will be -100, 0 or +100 depending on its position. These will be "low", "medium" and "high" to the flight controller - you select which is which flight mode by selecting the "check box" squares in the set up software. So - if you want flight modes - and of course you do as its a big part of the fun - then you will need at least fifth channel for that. To add more features, say like RTH you will need a 6th channel. Note that if you do not set up any flight modes you will get the default - which I think is ACRO. If you haven't flown a quad much before - and/or have quite a lot of experience with a heli - you will find the quad very difficult to fly in that mode at the outset. So I think the best plan would be to either implement Chris's CPPM solution or use an RX with at least 6 channels. BEB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martyn K Posted July 15, 2015 Share Posted July 15, 2015 Thanks both That is much clearer. Not sure whether the V8R4-ll supports CPPM - I think I'll need to research that Next problem is to get the motors to spin. Theyy are rudely refusing to do so at the moment but I seem to remember as post advising the setting if the ppm pulse position earlier in this thread. I'll look later Best wishes Martyn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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