Thread Rating:
  • 1 Vote(s) - 5 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

250 size Quad copters
#61

(25-08-2015, 01:17 PM)EasySimes Wrote:  BTW Jason - always wondered what your handle means (secant0give)?

Look up "secant ogive" Smile
Reply
#62

Hi Andre, Simon
I used to run a small business making ammunition components

Secant ogive is a term for describing the shape of the nose of a projectile in relation to it's diameter. It's described like this so you can have the same shape regardless of it size. All you have to know is the number of calibres that the ogive radius is and the formula to describe the geometry

A secant ogive projectile has the advantage that it's a lot shorter than a tangent ogive and is very close to being as good aerodynamically.

Here's a pick I found on the net that kind of describes the concept.

   

N is the number if calibres that form the radius of the ogive not the radius of the bullet it self, The Caliber is the diameter of the of the bottom of the grooves of the rifling in the barrel, ie the bullet diameter.

“The knack of flying is learning how to throw your machine at the ground and miss.”

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your thoughts turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return."  ~Leonardo Da Vinci
Reply
#63

(25-08-2015, 02:01 PM)symowallo Wrote:  
(23-08-2015, 10:14 PM)secant0give
[hr' Wrote:  
For some reason Youtube destroys my videos ????
It seems as tho if the action is really busy, ie continually changing rapidly, the compression just cant keep up??
The original video looks heaps better than what's come out on youtube and I used all the recommended settings. It's odd because in places you can see the trees in the distance in reasonable HD and the foreground that's rapidly changing is all blocky Frown

Hey Jason, try using a third party tool to upload the video instead of directly to YouTube. I use Cyberlink PowerDirector which is pretty cheap, and the main reason I use it is because it transcodes it to a more suitable format for YouTube prior to uploading it, which may help to eliminate some of the over-compressed parts. Not sure, but worth trying if you're not already.

Thanks for that,

I use Cyberlink to edit the video and as you suggested tried uploading it directly from within Cyberlink but sadly it was much the same. I normally would have but it stopped letting me for some reason about a month back so to try it I've had to find and d/load a patch for cyberlink to get that feature to work again.

What I will try next is to stabilise the video using cyber link so that that it's not too busy. I will loose some resolution but what I loose I should hopefully more than gain due to the ill effects of compression.

....................well that's the plan Smile

“The knack of flying is learning how to throw your machine at the ground and miss.”

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your thoughts turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return."  ~Leonardo Da Vinci
Reply
#64
Video 

I decided last night to download FPV Freerider and give it a go. What a fantastic little bit of software for such a small price. Certainly worth the us$5 plus i paid an extra five as i was feeling charitable, maybe this was due to the 2 beers i consumed prior to purchase. i took some screen footage of some of my flying, will certainly need a little more practice but had a great time nevertheless.


Foam fanatic!
Reply
#65

Very cool, I've got it set up on my Computer and it's pretty good fun to fly


I've been tinkering with antenna's of late. I've been quite happy with my Immersion RC Duo and two 8 turn helicals. I just wanted to get them up a bit higher in the air. I noticed the picture just beginning to break up a bit if I went really low to the ground say below about 3 or 4 feet high and at a distance greater than about 80 yards away. Hopefully some extra height on the ground station antennas will be the cure. As Kizza's suggestion I managed to get a couple of speaker stands from Ebay and used some PVC pressure pipe to extend them upward even further. The 3D printer has been going non stop for days making all the brackets and more than a few spare moments have been directed to CADing up the various Solid models.

Here's a few pics of the progress so far

   
   
   
   
   
   



The other thing that I did was get an Oracle Video diversity box

here's link http://www.readymaderc.com/store/index.p...oduct_info&cPath=11_26&products_id=83

What it does is allow you compare the video out from two VRX's and divert the best signal at any moment to the screen or goggles.

Idealy you could use two ImmersionRC Duo's and use the oricle to pick the best fropm those and you'd have pretty good 4 way diversity and if you wanted you could gang even more together and make 6 or even 8 way diversity systems.

At the moment I have it set up to give 3way diversity with the two 8 coil helicals on the Duo and an 18 coil helical on a single channel skyzone VRX and I'm using the Oracle to choose between the them.

I am super keen to test it out this weekend!!

“The knack of flying is learning how to throw your machine at the ground and miss.”

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your thoughts turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return."  ~Leonardo Da Vinci
Reply
#66

That is one amazing setup you have, i am certain if the FBI required a mobile base station in Aus, you would be the first person they would be in contact with.
My setup is quite modest compared, it comprises of a set of Skyzone diversity's with 2 clovers. have not been able to do a range test to date as i have not been able to migrate from the back yard as yet.

when i had started my venture into FPV more than a year ago now i purchased quite a few items which i don't use as i decided to go with goggles instead of a screen. at least if i decide to run a base unit i will be half way there.

I really wish i could come down this weekend to have a look at your rig, but unfortunately i don't get to dictate my time as i am married with small kids.

By the i finally managed to flash the firmware on my naze acro board, so i will be swapping out the kk2 board and finally putting my naze back into the 250 which i could never get to work from day one. i guess my full Naze board on its way to me will have to go in to a bigger rig once i have a few $ stashed away, might have to try put it through the business :-)

Foam fanatic!
Reply
#67

Got to have my first ever FPV Flight this morning, Damn I'm hooked! It was very fun and I found it much easier than flying LoS, Made it through some of the Gates Jason had set up, albeit very slowly... Now to find some speed (Which the Vortex seems to have buckets of!)
Reply
#68

AWSOME !!

I'm glad you got a chance to try the gates out !!
I was down there early this morning setting them up so I could a have a few flights before heading back to domestic duties
I should be down there tomorrow for a bit longer with any luck
Here'sa bit of video I took this morning
I tried smoothing it out a bit see if that would help with the quality a bit

http://youtu.be/hKV4JnbX0Hs

“The knack of flying is learning how to throw your machine at the ground and miss.”

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your thoughts turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return."  ~Leonardo Da Vinci
Reply
#69

Here's a bit of video from today using the gates.

Edit: Sound fixed.

https://youtu.be/du5Uo2WVaOU
Reply
#70

It was great to see 2 quads flying through the course at the same time (Rob and JasonV). Nice footage Rob!

FrSky Q X7 Mode 2, Turnigy 9XR Pro and Evolution. Multirotors, planes plus a couple of heli's. Too many to list.

Aaaaand if the wife is reading this: "The club made me buy these planes, I had no part in it, honestly!"
Reply
#71

Maiden flight of my 250 quad in my backyard. Unfortunately my 10 month old Groodle decided that he wasn't happy with the invasion of his space.


FrSky Q X7 Mode 2, Turnigy 9XR Pro and Evolution. Multirotors, planes plus a couple of heli's. Too many to list.

Aaaaand if the wife is reading this: "The club made me buy these planes, I had no part in it, honestly!"
Reply
#72

That's Classic !!!

“The knack of flying is learning how to throw your machine at the ground and miss.”

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your thoughts turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return."  ~Leonardo Da Vinci
Reply
#73

(30-08-2015, 06:43 PM)symowallo Wrote:  It was great to see 2 quads flying through the course at the same time (Rob and JasonV). Nice footage Rob!

The problem is that you watch your own FPV and think "that's not bad", then you watch some footage on youtube from the likes of Metalldanny and FinalGlideAus and realise that you're only taking baby steps.

Thanks to Simon for informing me of the lack of sound. I've spotted the issue and will re post.
Reply
#74

It was great fun Too!!

Great video Rob !!

“The knack of flying is learning how to throw your machine at the ground and miss.”

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your thoughts turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return."  ~Leonardo Da Vinci
Reply
#75

Here's some from my camera
It was hard with the wind blowing across the gates I broke a few props today


http://youtu.be/n_JyaUepRhs

“The knack of flying is learning how to throw your machine at the ground and miss.”

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your thoughts turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return."  ~Leonardo Da Vinci
Reply
#76

Great footage guys, I really look forward to being able to do FPV.

FrSky Q X7 Mode 2, Turnigy 9XR Pro and Evolution. Multirotors, planes plus a couple of heli's. Too many to list.

Aaaaand if the wife is reading this: "The club made me buy these planes, I had no part in it, honestly!"
Reply
#77

The chase shots are awesome. What a perspective they provide.

I'll try to get some of you next time Jason.
Reply
#78

watch 'the project' tonite on channel 10 for 250 quad racing
Reply
#79

Thanks Robbo
I'll probably have to catch it on YouTube later tho as I'll be working late

Here is some video I too at Marulan on the Saturday
You can see why it's worth the 2 hour drive to fly there
http://youtu.be/RXkvDnlOj44

“The knack of flying is learning how to throw your machine at the ground and miss.”

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your thoughts turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return."  ~Leonardo Da Vinci
Reply
#80

(23-11-2015, 06:51 PM)robbo Wrote:  watch 'the project' tonite on channel 10 for 250 quad racing

On TenPlay -- http://tenplay.com.au/channel-ten/the-pr...-of-drones
Reply
#81

Hi guys. I wanted to start a discussion about which 250 quad frame is the best??.The frame where the arms are all in one such as on QAV 250 all. Or with the ZMR250 that has arms will bolted on not sure which one is best but a discussion would be good.

Now the QAV250 the arms have broken during crashes caused by a whole in the arms a new version has been brought out where the arms are solid and it seems to fixed the problem??. Now ZMR250 has arms that need to be bolted to the frame not sure if that is better or not also ZMR250 has a halt Web the motors are attached to the arms during a crash the arm cracks at that point.
Reply
#82

Bob, I think that there is no "best" frame.

If you fly any of the 250 frames into things, or onto the ground from height, they will break.

There's so many to choose from, so if this is your first quad I would go for modularity rather than looks or performance.

I've got 4 quads -

An Eachine 250 racer (looks good, plastic arms, carbon body, RTF). The good thing with this one is that the plastic arms, which are cheap, will collapse in a collision and absorb impact, which prevents damage to the main body.

A Carbon Fibre 250 ZMR. Detachable arms. They're cheap and parts are plentiful, but there's no impact zones as such.

A HK/Diatone colour 250 frame. It's made of nylon/plastic and can certainly take a beating. It was only $20 with a built in PDB and it is nice and bright. Mine has hit many trees and the ground, however it's a Unibody so any arm damage requires replacement of the lower frame. This has happened to me, just today actually, but its my favourite frame so far. It has dihedral so it flies better, or at least it's easier to fly.

I also have a DAL DL220 frame which is a Unibody Carbon Fibre frame. Very tough and well made. Haven't flown it yet. Rob D has the 180 version of this and it flies beautifully. They feel very, very solid and the carbon is of a good quality.

All frames have their own nuances and flaws and no one frame is better than the other in all ways. For a first quad, I wouldn't be worried about getting the strongest or highest spec frame... because you are going to destroy it no matter what. Both my son and I learnt to fly on the ZMR and we haven't destroyed it yet but it's not as enjoyable to fly as the others.

The QAV issue you mentioned... I'm not sure that holes in the arm are a bad thing. They could help the arm collapse in even of a collision which may prevent damage from spreading to the rest of the frame, which is not a bad thing. Look at concrete for example. Concreters will place lines in the concrete to contain cracks so that they don't spread. Most ZMR frames have holes in the arm to pass cables through. That doesn't in effect make them weak though.

I just accept the fact that if I crash them hard enough, or repeatedly, they're going to break no matter what. My favourite so far is my orange plastic diatone/HK frame but it's not as tough in a full frontal collision as the Unibody DAL frames, or the QAV frames I would guess.

I instead focus on having spares on hand in case I do have collision damage, and I have multiple quads to fly so that I'm not waiting on spares from China.

My conclusion is - they will all break so unless you're an accomplished and comfortable pilot, don't waste money on expensive frames. Having said that, if someone gave me a Vortex I wouldn't complain...

FrSky Q X7 Mode 2, Turnigy 9XR Pro and Evolution. Multirotors, planes plus a couple of heli's. Too many to list.

Aaaaand if the wife is reading this: "The club made me buy these planes, I had no part in it, honestly!"
Reply
#83

I think you've made some very valid points Symo !

I have seen some racing quads with doubled up arms to make them stronger and I gues it would help a bit in toughening them up

Impact energy is linear in proportion to weight and and squared in relation to speed
So if it weighs half as much there should be half as much energy to do damage in a crash and if it's going twice as fast there is four times as much energy available to do damage.

Having said that 250 sized multi rotors are very forgiving in a crash, mostly you just break props, you really have to have a doozy to break a frame. I ran over my Qav 250 with my Yaris and the frame is still good!! It did bend a few of the screws that hold it together, broke the antennas and the props too

I had a look at a bolt 180 frame yesterday and it looked really strong it was flying pretty hard too. I'm not sure what it cost but it looked to be a fairly high end little machine. I'd have a look at one of those. I should have a little 250 plug and fly from Mongol gear next week to set up for a friend so I'll post a few pics of that when it arrives. Should be a fun little beast

“The knack of flying is learning how to throw your machine at the ground and miss.”

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your thoughts turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return."  ~Leonardo Da Vinci
Reply
#84

Hi, Simon. Cam across a you tube video of a guy building Diatone #37 250 quad link to below video boards the end, as he was testing the motors the whole unit erupted in smoke after carrying out a examination he had found that one of the screws had shorted out the board his conclusion was should not use this power distribution board with carbon fibre.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_0hiUwLTlQ

Jason. Had a quick look at the Bolt 180 looks good but a little bit small to work on.
Reply
#85

Bob - my Diatone frame is nylon/plastic (this one Hk Colour 250 frame (Orange)

So no worries about carbon fibre with that frame.

With any carbon frame you need to watch your soldering and wiring, because it's conductive. Not a problem for the Colour frame though - it's nylon/plastic.

FrSky Q X7 Mode 2, Turnigy 9XR Pro and Evolution. Multirotors, planes plus a couple of heli's. Too many to list.

Aaaaand if the wife is reading this: "The club made me buy these planes, I had no part in it, honestly!"
Reply
#86

Hi, Simon. I’m are beginning to come round to your way of thinking but had the guy used nylon bolts instead of metal ones in he may avoided that problem?.

I did is some research on HK website but a little bit confused the quad you’re talking about Diatone could only find a carbon fibre model of it there was another HK quad calls H-King quad that comes in several colours and is made from plastic?, Or so Banggood have a very similar model to the HK quad.

All so my black mamba is now ready to fly I hope I finally got the parts two days before Christmas and have a little bit a problem with one of them holes wasn’t machine quite enough but anyhow managed the sort out the problem???.
Reply
#87

Bob - the frame I linked in my previous post is made by Diatone but sold by HK. The one on Banggood is the same. Just rebadged. I've ordered another one, this time from Banggood, and it is exactly the same frame.

I would NEVER use metal bolts to attach distribution boards to carbon frames. I always use nylon standoffs. I bought a couple of kits from eBay - M2 and M3 nylon standoff kits - they come with various lengths of standoffs. I use them for mounting PDB's (I use the small ones), mounting Flight Controllers (I use Flip32 and CC3D) and mounting the FPV camera (to keep it back from the front so that in event of collision you don't smash the camera).

You don't need the strength there. Just the attachment. I can see why that guy would have had issues. As he later discovered, you weren't meant to use that PDB with a carbon fibre frame. Not Diatone's fault.

PS I ordered another frame. DAL DL265 Frame

Looks awesome, can't wait to set it up, hopefully it'll be a good replacement for my rather average ZMR250 clone. Much cleaner and less clutter due to the separation of "dirty" vs "clean" areas.

FrSky Q X7 Mode 2, Turnigy 9XR Pro and Evolution. Multirotors, planes plus a couple of heli's. Too many to list.

Aaaaand if the wife is reading this: "The club made me buy these planes, I had no part in it, honestly!"
Reply
#88

I had the pleasure of setting one of these up for a friend yesterday
It uses a CC3D flight controller, It was reasonably easy to set up just watch a few tutorials on youtube plug in a mini USB cable mount and plug in the RX and follow the prompts.

It did come with the board already flashed with the firmware but I had to go through the transmitter set up and calibration process.

I set it up with a Taranis and one of the early telemetry receivers. I used the A2 telemetry port on the Frsky RX to monitor the battery voltage and have organised the Taranis make a suitable audio warning when they start getting low.

It can run on 3 or 4S so to get the telemetry to work with both I could just use a separate model memory for each battery type and have the warnings adjusted for the appropriate voltage. No problem as the early rx's don't have model match. It comes completely set up other than the RX and TX which you just have to fit plug in set up and calibrate. I added my usual Mcdonalds straws to retain the antennas on the FRsky receiver. It has a video camera set up in it and uses an immersion RC VTX and has a basic OSD for timer and batt voltage to be displayed over the video.

All in pretty nice, I think the camera is OK and very flyable for FPV but there are better cameras out there. The VTX is excellent. It doesn't come with an antenna for the VTX so you really need to put one on before you power it up or you might damage it.

the frame is carbon fibre and very light but also feels strong, It's primarily a 250 size FPV racer. The controller has 3 flight modes all set the same with conservative rates and stabilisation out of the box. There is no alt hold so it's throttle management all the way.
I set the tree modes leaving the first one basically as it was the next one still stabilised but with higher rates and the third with moderate rates and no stabilization (acro mode)

I really liked the way it flew I was buzzing it around inside our workshop, no problems at all and it felt super solid and locked in. What a top little machine!!

It was just over 400 with postage from "Mongrel gear" in Yass

   

“The knack of flying is learning how to throw your machine at the ground and miss.”

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your thoughts turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return."  ~Leonardo Da Vinci
Reply
#89

Hi, Jason. I’m interested in your assessment of the CC3D control board, I’d like to put one into a cheap 250 quad at some stage in the future.
Reply
#90

I like the controller it seems to be about 20 times better than the KK2 board.
The software used to set it up looks pretty nice and there were no funny things except for some reason it didn't like my computers display driver but I just lowered the screen resolution a notch and it worked fine. (this is more likely the fault of windows than the open pilot software)
BTW open pilot is the software I used to set up the board there is another package you can use but I haven't tried it. with open pilot you need to use not the latest version of the software but the one before you can find the version number on hobby kings web's discussion on the cc3d product listing page. I cant remember it off hand but it is there.

It's a cheap board and it flies beautifully what more can I say ?? You can use it as an auto pilot for fixed wing as well or for a rover you just have flash the appropriate firm ware

“The knack of flying is learning how to throw your machine at the ground and miss.”

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your thoughts turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return."  ~Leonardo Da Vinci
Reply


Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)