first build thread: lessons and learning to follow...

[jbrumberg]

There is something about testosterone and frontal lobes, and "executive functioning"; and from my own personal experience males do not get better at this decision making as it relates to recreational and avocational pursuits as we age either.


This is good stuff Scott.


Good Luck.

 

[Motopreserve]

It's hard to stop once you get going with all this stuff. I'm going to complete this build with the replacement FC. Use it to continue practicing and start on the next build - which may or may not entail a custom frame that I build myself.

For or the record, when the replacement parts get here - I'll probably be starting a new thread. It looks like its time for 'Lessons and Learning' 2.0....

This thread is getting long!

 

[slow_jun]

Photos ang links....well with uour weather there,you will a lot of time testing it...but what i love getting into a hobby is all the knowledge i get to learn... And also the guys i get to know the otherside of the world..keep warm guys...


Sent from my Nokia Star Tac using Tapatalk

 

[Motopreserve]

Ok. Just a tease. HERE is the gimbal....

this is stuff better get here, winter storm warning or not! I'm going crazy over here. :highly_amused:

 

[jbrumberg]

The national and international relationships that I have developed and am developing with this hobby is eye opening. The weather around the world at any given at any given point moment is mind boogling. Scott and I and Matt and a few others here in the Eastern CONUS are/have been dealing with this nor'easter as it has been developing and has been winding up and traveling up the eastern coast, and are worrying about the ice, snow, and cold. And in other parts of the world others are worrying about tropical events. Today I have to worry about "flying" my tractor in snow management operations. It's an open air (i.e. cold) operator's platform. I might have to clear out a take off landing zone area.

 

[Motopreserve]

I can't imagine the USPS, even in Vermont, will deliver my packages today. Very sad and frustrating. Seems like the perfect day to do some building - since the storm has dropped Aprox 12" and is still humming along...

 

[jbrumberg]

My ride later. The winds were really whipping up here last evening and scoured out the snow from around the tractor. The brief period of sleet pounding on our windows woke me up around 3:00AM My "Official" measurement comes during the power cable walk out to the tractor. I got some decent drifts with which to deal.

 

[mbowser]

Cool, I've been looking at the brushless gimbals and $75 is a good price based on my research. The brushless setup is something I want to do but for now I'm experimenting with my own homebrew servo based gimbal that uses the gyros on the KK2.1 board. I only have one servo now (the snow delayed the arrival of another) but have the roll axis trimmed pretty well. I was impressed at how easy it was to trim it out, basically plug it in, go into 'camera stab' settings on the KK and up the gains and offsets until it levels out with throttle on. I know the servo gimbals are not as smooth as the brushless and are essentially old technology, but I need to stop the wallet hemorrhaging and had a servo lying around from another robotics project.

Unfortunately, I won't be flying anytime soon, we got another 14" last night. So, it may be a really bad winter for flying quads, but it is a really great winter for backcountry skiing. I skipped out of work yesterday after noon and got in a 2 hour jaunt up and down a local mountain during the height of the storm. Skiing will probably trump all quadcopter activities over the weekend, but I'll post what I have of the gimbal setup at some point.

-matt

 

[Motopreserve]

Jay,

Sweet tractor. Is that Ford Blue???

Matt,

Sounds like you're onto something with the home brew gimbal. I was thinking about making my own on the mill - but then realized that the $75 was probably well spent for a glimpse at what it is I should be making - given the fact that I've never even seen one up close. Perhaps I make one for a 3-axis version based on this as a model/template.

Sounds like the the skiing is the way to go. I'm about a pack a day and 20lbs overweight to handle that kind of thing. My 68 year old mother-in law almost gave me a heart attack while I attempted my first ever foray into snow-shoe activity. She lapped me through the woods - when I finally decided to find a nice stump to wait out her "sprinting" through 2 feet of snow. Good grief I need some exercise!!!!

In lighter news... It appears my delivery is "out for delivery." We will see if A)they make it through the storm to the door and B) the second package (shipped at the same time) makes it - since tracking of that one says it just left Florida. Man, I am just about done with USPS!

 

[jbrumberg]

Scott- Ford used to be Ford. Ford Blue. I had one (1100). Then there was/is New Holland-Ford which really is a smurf blue Fiat(CNH). It's a New Holland TC29DA. In this size tractor frame (Compact Utility) I do not know who makes what anymore. It does have full hydraulics, power steering, 3 range automatic transmission, 4WD/MFWD. The 60" bucket can lift +1000#'s +9' high. I will need it for the management of the 12.5" of heavy snow this storm dropped and continues to drop. It's +6' maybe 7' at the end of the driveway.

Wifey and I snowshoe. We do not even have to go anywhere either... Just out the door... It's pretty remote and isolated around our place. I enjoy tracking, and have seen some interesting tracks over the years. Our St. Bernard (rescue) has never been snowshoeing before. I suspect that she will find out in the near future. Like tomorrow; if I do not overdo snow management today.

I hope your package arrives soon. There is only so much waiting a person can take before they "break":unconscious:

 

[Motopreserve]

I was born on a farm in western tier NY on Seneca lake. I grew up in NJ, but still worked the farm every summer until I went to college. We had a few tractors, one being a 1961 ford. Total classic, and in use right up until we lost the farm in the mid-90's. The biggest we had was a White deisel (with front loader) which I was never allowed to operate.

My baby was the Ford "Selectamatic" which was possibly the first attempt at and automatic tractor. Used it mostly for hauling 1 ton hay bails and the bush hog. Loved that thing and still miss working the farm all these years later.

Good of luck with the snow removal. You are correct, my patience has flown out the window and now I'm chomping at the bit...

 

[Motopreserve]

Gimbal in the house...

Ok. I was of course expecting to get my flight controller replacement from witespy a few days before the gimbal - since I ordered it a few days before. But Lo and behold - the gimbal shows up alone. This guy really needs to get his **** together. Having just gotten an amazing review in FliteTest, his orders are probably through the roof - and he was already sorta flaky to begin with.

What keeps me going back? Low price and quality product. Period.

So when I saw a good review of the $75 2-axis brushless gimbal - I couldn't help myself. The photo below shows my gopro on the gimbal shelf - ready to be tweaked and tuned for level flying. Word has it these come pretty close to ready - but I'm sure with my luck, I'll need to get into it...

 

[mbowser]

Nice. Something to play with. So a few questions though:
1. What is the cover over the goPro for?
2. I assume the white plug by your thumb is power; what type of connector is that?
3. What voltage?

 

[Motopreserve]

Nice. Something to play with. So a few questions though:
1. What is the cover over the goPro for?
2. I assume the white plug by your thumb is power; what type of connector is that?
3. What voltage?

The cover is something I order a while ago. It is a protective cover over the lens and LED screen, as well as allowing you to snip a small piece of ND filter and slide it in front of the lens to cut glare and get better shots.

The white plug is power - it's the type of connector on your battery balance. That's what powers the damn thing. Just connect your balance plug to it and it's ready to go. I ordered some extensions (highly recommended for low voltage alarm etc) a while back which help.

not even sure what voltage it runs on. It takes anything from 2-4S with an internal regulator on the gimbal controller board.

 

[mbowser]

Ah, ok... It was hard to get a sense of scale with the picture even though your thumb was right there. I thought the plug was bigger and it never occurred to me that it would be a balance plug.
That could actually work out well for me though; my son and I put together a bare bones 900mHz FPV setup a few weeks back and we are using a little 500 mAh battery to power it. It's a 3s and has a balance plug that we could use to power the gimbal as well. From what I've read, this little battery will allow for 45 - 60 minutes runtime for the FPV camera and tx, so adding the gimball to the load shouldn't hurt too much.

Sadly we haven't been able to try the FPV setup yet with all the weather we've been having. We have mounted everything up and did some 'scientific' testing by running around the house with the FPV (but not the quad) powered up.

-matt

 

[Motopreserve]

It's a pretty sweet little setup. Simple. You could run this off either battery. My gut tells me that leaving the 500mah for the FPV might be more important. Who cares if the gopro dies. You need to see with that FPV camera!

 

[mbowser]

The reason I'd tie the FPV battery into the gimbal is because I want to have a low voltage monitor on my main battery (using the balance plug) and based on what I've seen, the FPV battery load is sooo much smaller than the main battery that most people are able to power their FPV battery 3-4 times longer than their main battery between charges.

 

[Motopreserve]

I currently run the low voltage alarm from the balance plug too. Was thinking I needed to make a splitter harness for it - but then I remembered that I had bought an external BEC for this quad. In my attempt to understand and develop my building skills, and especially after the power failure causing my crash (turned out to be the cheap PDB), I started researching the BEC option.

The one I bought has a buzzer, and a "gas gauge" style volt meter, and a low level light on a servo extension that you can place facing down, in addition to supplying solid 6v power. So that can handle the power to the RX, and more importantly my multiwii board. There is a guy on the witespy FC thread who recently did a bunch of testing of the power system on the board - and it seems some is regulated, some is not. It really wants a solid 5v, so supplying the 6v regulated means it will have enough when it's stepped. Apparently supplying on 5v leaves it running a little low for comfort - and dangerously close to the threshold of possibly damaging the FC.

Looking forward to to tackling all this once the replacement FC arrives...if it EVER arrives.

 

[jbrumberg]

"Looking forward to to tackling all this once the replacement FC arrives...if it EVER arrives."

:02.47-tranquillity::02.47-tranquillity:. Can a grasshopper call a grasshopper a grasshopper? It gets all kinds of confusing with all the different skillsets and perspectives. I got my parts and my rebuild is capable of flying again, and I I am not happy with the weather, modifications, etc. Thinking is dangerous. :highly_amused:

 

[Motopreserve]

Milling the x650f booms...

I had mentioned the other day that I took the booms to the shop and threw them on the mill to try to reduce weight. Since this thing is sort of a beast to begin with (650 grams!!!), I hoped to bring it down in weight a bit and get it a little lighter....so I could add more s**t!

Unfortunately, the little slots that I cut - 4 on each arm/boom, only removed about 1 gram from each. So the effort was a bit wasted to only gain 4 grams total, and I didn't want to overdo it and reduce the strength too much...



At this point I am at a loss for where to remove more weight. I may be stuck with it, and have very few options left for reduction. I have been thinking all along that this quad is my "trainer," allowing me to develop my build skills for a better quad in the future. I'll keep that attitude and make sure I can get this thing airborne again as-is, and hopefully get some healthy flights as I work on my ideas for the perfect quad...