Flyduino/TMF Pro practice quad

[wayno complaino]

After the destruction of my Hoverfly Y6 I wanted something a bit more simple and cheaper to practice my piloting skills.

I already had a TMF AQ50 Pro and after seeing all of the test vids from Warthox I decided to use the same platform. What's the point of trying something untested when there are many videos of a perfectly good set up working awesomely.

So here's the setup:
TMF AQ50 Pro - 1.2 Firmware with hardware mod
Flyduino.com 'Warthox' frame - 500 size
Flyduino.com cover plate and standoffs
Keda 20-50 motors
Hobbywing Fun Fly 10A esc's
APC 8" 3.8 props
2200mAh 3s battery
White and red LED strips
450 heli skids

Once all the bits arrived I got it all built in one evening. I really wanted a clean build for this quad, I've learnt enough from the last MR that there is no excuse. The Flyduino frame really makes it easy as the power distribution is part of the frame itself so the esc's can be soldered straight to the frame next to the booms. Everything is soldered on this build as I was certain I wasn't going to make changes to the setup and I wanted it to be as reliable and crashable as possible. Since the images below I have even
Covered the esc/motor wires in black tape rather that zip ties so they are almost invisible against the black booms. The FC board is hard mounted but seems to be fine with it. The FC drillings are strangely slightly smaller than the 'standard' MK/KK sizing but luckily the nylon standoffs have just enough give in them so I don't need to redrill anything.

I'm very happy with the way this build had come out and I hope that my next build (X468 Hoverfly GPS AV Y6 or X8) will be equally as neat.

As to how it flys, well it's way too windy to have a relaxing fly, just keeping it hovering within/above my garden takes some serious effort. That said it does very well out there. In the house it's steady as a rock and will hover hands off easily. I updated the firmware and did the hardware mod (removing a resistor and shorting a jumper) to go along with it but I didn't have to. When I first used this board on my Y6 is was awesome, straight out of the box. If you want a simple install and set up it's hard to beat.

I'll keep you posted on how it flys / vids if the wind ever drops.

Some pictures...

 

[wayno complaino]

Flew at night and found that having the LEDs only on the bottom meant I couldn't see them when flying towards me. Derr!

I've added some more strips around the ends of the booms to solve that issue. Much better.

The soldering is a bit scrappy as I only had servo wire to hand, it doesn't like the heat too much. I'll replace with silicon wire when I get some lite gauge stuff next.

 

[wayno complaino]

'Mounted' my old GoPro this evening. Nice and simple, just a heavy duty elastic band through the standoffs. It's pretty secure but will come off easy in a crash (I think that's safer being as it not in it's case).

Took a quick vid in the house and it seemed free of jelo but the light is poor so will try tomorrow. Re dialled the gain to make up for the weight increase and the battery can be easily moved back as it only velcro strapped down.

This is the first step down the road to being an FPV set up...

 

[combatxe2]

Looking good there wayno. I too am waiting for the damn wind to drop to a good level so I can finally wring out the gaui.

 

[wayno complaino]

Thanks mate.

I got a good flight yesterday as I had a great idea for a sheltered but open place to fly: The Bowl. It's requires a quick jump over a fence but it was well worth it. Still a lot of wind but less than in the open an there is enough space to recover when I got out of shape. There was a massive marquee in the bottom too that was big enough to fly inside, looks like there was a big Christmas party there as it was a bit of a state.

Best bit was I started to get the hang of banked turns! Yay! Having the space was a real eye opener as I'm usually restricted to my small garden or a space that's too windy to dare try a new manoeuvre.

I had a gopro on the quad but only got a little footage, the card was full, rubbish. I also had a gopro on a head strap but I'd left that on 90 fov, turns out that's just zoomed and cropped, looks rubbish. I may edit a few seconds together but want to go out more organised and set up and try again really.

Learning every day...

 

[wayno complaino]

Heres some of yesterdays footage...

 

[Orracle]

Nice build!

I also decided to build a small light quad to practice on over the holidays after crashing my more expensive multirotor.

I see we have very similar tastes

View attachment 2106View attachment 2107

 

[wayno complaino]

Good work!

Gonna trim down the booms, maybe to 400 as 500 is a bit unnecessary for light weight and only 8" props. Hopefully it will fit in a case that I have too then.

 

[Orracle]

Ye, my quad measures 450mm motor to motor. Quite a nice size for 8inch props.

 

[knupps]

Looks great and I have used TMF on an octocopter.
Worked fine and I liked this controllerboard.

Then I wanted to use it on a new quad and
I noticed that the motor arangment was: 1-3-2-4.
Is this a typo or not or does TMF use this motor set up?
This puzzled me a bit.

Picture from the manual.View attachment 5181
I am used to the 1-2-3-4 motor arangment
and the octa was 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8.



View attachment 5182

This is the quad I am working on. Using Avroto motors.

My octacopter with TMF Pro: