Building a hexacopter

[The Editor]

Multi-tested the motor #3 ESC wires. The signal wire on that motor is bad. So I tied a whole new esc wire to the old one and pulled it through. Then resoldered the new ESC wires to the ESC. That all resolved the motor #3 calibration issues and I now have all motors throttle calibrated.

Last night I also finalized the ESC wiring to confirm all motors are spinning up, and rotating the right direction. All good!

Now reading up on what's next, probably tweaking my SuperX flight controller. Maiden flight coming soon.

Glad to hear you solved the problem (Welcome to the world of self build multi's !!)

Ahhh... the maiden flight, always a bit of a nervous moment that one . You've already checked that all your motors are spinning up in the correct rotation so that's good. I know I keep saying but, just be mindful of your motors syncing correctly. I've seen too many multirotors built with pancake style motors appear to spool up ok only to lose sync on one or more motors when put under load and come crashing back to terra ferma!

Once you bolt your props on there will be a different mass and inertial force on each motor than just firing them up with no prop. Effectively the motor has to work harder to speed up and slow down when a prop is attached to it.
If you can - before your maiden flight have a trusted friend hold the hex above his/her head by the landing gear. Then fire up the hex and take her from idle to full throttle several times. Also give full stick inputs and your helper should feel the multi really trying to pitch, roll and yaw.
You are listening out for the tell tale 'ticking' sound of the the esc/motors not syncing. If they do exhibit this ticking sound DO NOT FLY !!! - you (and your wallet) will regret it.
If all is well with the above test...... put her on the deck and take her up for that maiden flight

Good luck and keep us posted.

 

[mediaguru]

Multi-tested the motor #3 ESC wires. The signal wire on that motor is bad. So I tied a whole new esc wire to the old one and pulled it through. Then resoldered the new ESC wires to the ESC. That all resolved the motor #3 calibration issues and I now have all motors throttle calibrated.

Last night I also finalized the ESC wiring to confirm all motors are spinning up, and rotating the right direction. All good!

Now reading up on what's next, probably tweaking my SuperX flight controller. Maiden flight coming soon.

Glad to hear you solved the problem (Welcome to the world of self build multi's !!)

Ahhh... the maiden flight, always a bit of a nervous moment that one . You've already checked that all your motors are spinning up in the correct rotation so that's good. I know I keep saying but, just be mindful of your motors syncing correctly. I've seen too many multirotors built with pancake style motors appear to spool up ok only to lose sync on one or more motors when put under load and come crashing back to terra ferma!

Once you bolt your props on there will be a different mass and inertial force on each motor than just firing them up with no prop. Effectively the motor has to work harder to speed up and slow down when a prop is attached to it.
If you can - before your maiden flight have a trusted friend hold the hex above his/her head by the landing gear. Then fire up the hex and take her from idle to full throttle several times. Also give full stick inputs and your helper should feel the multi really trying to pitch, roll and yaw.
You are listening out for the tell tale 'ticking' sound of the the esc/motors not syncing. If they do exhibit this ticking sound DO NOT FLY !!! - you (and your wallet) will regret it.
If all is well with the above test...... put her on the deck and take her up for that maiden flight

Good luck and keep us posted.

Great advice. I'll definitely do that.

Right now I'm trying to figure out how to program my Taranis transmitter for the SuperX flight controller. Having never done it before, reading the manual is like reading chinese. Oh wait... :twisted: :evil:

 

[mediaguru]

It has been a rough two weeks. I struggled for quite a while getting the ESC/motors calibrated and working with the SuperX flight controller. It was a total PITA and I nearly scrapped the ESCS's for new ones as I'd read many other accounts of these issues. I could calibrate the ESC's but when the flight controller was in the mix, the motors would only beep and never arm. Each power-up, the number of motors which would or would not arm was different, with no other changes.

Turns out there's a strange throttle range issue between my TX and the FC. Once I found a solution from someone with a similar issue, I was able to get it working.

Now that I supposedly have my flight controller and motors speaking the same language and motors arming properly, it was time to clean her up and tighten everything down with thread lock.

Here she is:

I should post a photo of this bird with my Phantom. The Phantom fits between this bird's landing gear!

I'll be doing the suggested hands-on testing of the motors/escs/FC with the wife holding on. I'll test out full throttle and moving the sticks, getting feedback from her as to whether the bird is pulling the directions it is supposed to. IF that goes well, we will do a small maiden, just lift off 3-4 feet above the ground and evaluate.

The lovely lady does not weigh a lot. I hope this heavy lifter doesn't fly away with her during the test...

 

[mediaguru]

I've successfully performed my MAIDEN FLIGHT! Woohooo!!!

Many thanks to The Editor for the brilliant suggestion of holding onto the bird for a sticks/throttle test. The first test showed that the setup was NOT good. It went from arm to 100% throttle. I had to redo some of the setup with the SuperX controller. Had I not had her hold on, the bird would have undoubtedly either flown away or crashed horribly.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXIBWYJrXqQ[/youtube]

 

[The Editor]

Yaaayyy..... Well done.

Looking good.

It's a great sense of achievement when that multi takes off for the first time and you can say to yourself.. "I BUILT THAT !!"

It also gives you a far far better understanding of the design and set up side of things more than a RTF craft.

I have to say that still, my home built crafts give me more satisfaction than anything 'out of the box'

Have fun and I'm glad the 'Having someone hold onto the landing gear test' saved the day :lol:

 

[OI Photography]

It's a great sense of achievement when that multi takes off for the first time and you can say to yourself.. "I BUILT THAT !!"

It also gives you a far far better understanding of the design and set up side of things more than a RTF craft.

I have to say that still, my home built crafts give me more satisfaction than anything 'out of the box'

Truth x3

 

[mediaguru]

Yaaayyy..... Well done.

Have fun and I'm glad the 'Having someone hold onto the landing gear test' saved the day :lol:

It most certainly did. Hope to test out a more lengthy flight this evening if the wind dies down..

 

[mediaguru]

For your enjoyment, here's a pic from the first real flight of the big hexa!

 

[ladykate]

Very pretty!

 

[mediaguru]

Very pretty!

Thanks.

Getting used to piloting this bird is an experience, especially since the throttle stick does not default at the midpoint. MUCH different than a Phantom. Takeoff and landing is far easier though!

I need some lights or something to help me with my LOS orientation. Hard to tell front from back.

 

[ladykate]

Very pretty!

Thanks.

Getting used to piloting this bird is an experience, especially since the throttle stick does not default at the midpoint. MUCH different than a Phantom. Takeoff and landing is far easier though!

I need some lights or something to help me with my LOS orientation. Hard to tell front from back.

I put two lights on the front of mine. They are focused LEDs so you can see them in the daylight. I agree they are hard to keep oriented. Once it gets out a 100 meters or so, it becomes a challenge without OSD. Had to go to failsafe once just to get it closer (OSD was washed out in the sun and the machine was out there a ways).

 

[BigTulsa]

Very pretty!

Thanks.

Getting used to piloting this bird is an experience, especially since the throttle stick does not default at the midpoint. MUCH different than a Phantom. Takeoff and landing is far easier though!

I need some lights or something to help me with my LOS orientation. Hard to tell front from back.

Sounds a little like you're using a real RC radio (like I learned on) with the 'ratchety' feeling throttle. It does take some getting used to, for sure.

I'm thinking about going down this road at some point as well (building my own).

 

[mediaguru]

Very pretty!

Thanks.

Getting used to piloting this bird is an experience, especially since the throttle stick does not default at the midpoint. MUCH different than a Phantom. Takeoff and landing is far easier though!

I need some lights or something to help me with my LOS orientation. Hard to tell front from back.

Sounds a little like you're using a real RC radio (like I learned on) with the 'ratchety' feeling throttle. It does take some getting used to, for sure.

I'm thinking about going down this road at some point as well (building my own).

I'm using an FrSky Taranis for this hexa. Actually thinking of buying an RX for my Phantom so I can use the radio for my Phantom as well. SO many more possibilities.

 

[The Editor]

Getting used to piloting this bird is an experience, especially since the throttle stick does not default at the midpoint. MUCH different than a Phantom. Takeoff and landing is far easier though!

That's why I modified my Futaba to have a sprung throttle stick - I very quickly got fed up with trying to guess centre stick. Even if you are able to set a 'beep' for centre stick I still prefer the security of just letting go and she will hover.

Not for my heli flying... that's a different ball game and I would hate a sprung throttle for that but for multicopter flying, I love it.

It's looking good..... You will learn to love it more and more as you get more used to it.

Tip: Check your bullet connectors OFTEN :shock:

 

[OI Photography]

Getting used to piloting this bird is an experience, especially since the throttle stick does not default at the midpoint. MUCH different than a Phantom. Takeoff and landing is far easier though!

On the Taranis, you can enable the spring that self-centers the throttle stick by just turning a single screw on the back of the gimbal inside...and you can also adjust tension and ratcheting from there.

 

[mediaguru]

Getting used to piloting this bird is an experience, especially since the throttle stick does not default at the midpoint. MUCH different than a Phantom. Takeoff and landing is far easier though!

On the Taranis, you can enable the spring that self-centers the throttle stick by just turning a single screw on the back of the gimbal inside...and you can also adjust tension and ratcheting from there.

Thanks. I think I'll keep it as is for now. I like being able to leave it a notch or two up or down for smooth descent or ascent.

Did my 3rd flight yesterday, this time with two 5000mah batteries. The thing is so powerful the extra battery was no issue at all for flight characteristics. So different than my phantom, where adding a couple of grams makes it perform like a dog and reduces the flight time to half!

I'm still unsure how far down I can run my 6S's before I land. I ran it down to 3.75 volts, exactly 14 minutes flight time.

Thoughts on how many volts per cell you can run high quality 6S batteries down to? These are Pulse batteries.

 

[OI Photography]

You want to fly them until whatever voltage will allow them to bounce back to 3.7v/cell several minutes after flying...usually this means you can fly till about 3.6v/cell or so, maybe 3.5v. Same logic and levels regardless of how many cells (3S, 4S, 6S).

 

[The Editor]

I'm still unsure how far down I can run my 6S's before I land. I ran it down to 3.75 volts, exactly 14 minutes flight time.

Thoughts on how many volts per cell you can run high quality 6S batteries down to? These are Pulse batteries.

Depending on how much current your craft is drawing will make a difference to the voltage drop when under load.

I like to keep my recovered voltage (the measured voltage after a few minutes rest) to just over 3.7v per cell or around 14.9v for a 4s pack. I fly until my loaded voltage is just pipping 14.2v via osd as I know my packs will recover 0.7v after rest.
Obviously a better way is with full telemetry and then you can keep an exact eye on mAh taken out of the pack but I find monitoring the voltage is sufficient for the flying I do.
Also, if your packs are hot as soon as you land then you are drawing a LOT of current and this can be a sign of several things (packs not giving up their charge as readily as they should, high internal resistance etc, lower C rating than you should be using etc) - Your packs can be warm immediately on landing but not hot!

Keep a close eye on what you are putting back into your packs as well and as long as you are near the 80% mark you will be fine.

 

[wkf94025]

Editor,

If you had in-flight access to either mAH consumed, or current voltage under load, but not both, which would you find more useful? Planning my telemetry / OSD game plan for next aircraft, and looking at various telemetry options for current/voltage.

Kelly

 

[OI Photography]

Editor,

If you had in-flight access to either mAH consumed, or current voltage under load, but not both, which would you find more useful? Planning my telemetry / OSD game plan for next aircraft, and looking at various telemetry options for current/voltage.

Kelly

I have both types of telemetry and use them both, but if I had to choose only one or the other I'd take voltage rather than mAh consumed. I used the mAh consumed number a lot, but it's only useful if you're starting with a full or near-full batt, otherwise it can be hard to judge how many remaining mAh you started with. Voltage reading is useful regardless of how full the battery was or wasn't when you started.