FT Versa Wing

In the last month I have built a Flitetest FT Versa Wing. I had gotten the rear motor mount as part of a promotion on the kit, but chose to build it as a swappable as well so that I could just pop a power pod from my crashed FT Cruiser on.

I had my maiden flight at our club meeting last month. All went relatively well, I flew it for about 5 min then brought it down. I had it at about 5 foot, stalled it, and plopped it nose first into the ground, breaking the prop. Not too bad!

The plans/kit have an optional pusher prop mount. I could potentially use both a pusher and tractor configuration...

Here's how I packed my electronics in.

I've now moved the motor/prop to the back and am readying everything for FPV. My goal is to modify Flitetest's swappable power pod design to protect my battery and camera.

I had to use extensions to get my servo wires to reach my receiver. I wish I would have considered this a bit more prior to constructing the wing so that I wouldn't have to run the wires out, under the spar, then back in.

There's also a bit of a spacing issue with the vTx. I've cut the foam to fit over it, but I'm not sure how well that will allow for cooling, and may not be final..

I also cut a hole in front of the vTx to hopefully catch a little more air.





I finally got time to fly it, but it was so windy I was only comfortable flying line of sight, though I also had the video equipment up and running for whoever wanted to watch. It was probably too windy even for that...

Bixler 2 First FPV!

I finally got to get some FPV in on the Bixler2, but first I had to rebuild it.

I started trying to dig the spar I glued in out with an x-acto knife and quickly realized that wasn't the best way to do it. It occurred to me to try using some hanging wire I had laying around to get underneath and around the spar. This worked perfectly!

I needed to fill the gap I left after cutting out the spar, so I got out the hot knife and cut some extra material out of the box.

Using a scroll saw, I then roughly cut it in strips to fit the gap with the spar in.

My strips weren't quite long enough so I snapped some extra pieces off to fit. Then I quickly applied hot glue, pressed the strip in and removed the spar before the glue could stick.

After the glue cooled I went back and sanded everything down. Good as new!.. sort of!..

As I was contemplating how to fix things a previous hobbyking order came in with these landing gear and highly detailed instructions!

The tail wheel had to be offset a bit since the spar was already in there.

I tried to get the front gear in as sturdy of a place as possible without being too close to the CG

Next, I needed a motor mount. All I had was the stock motor, but want to upgrade in the near future, so I quickly drew up and laser cut this mount to allow me to easily get change out the motor.

I cut the foam where the mount was to be glued flat and glued it on, then also cut a flat spot for the ESC to velcro on, and a electronics bay of sorts to make more room in the nose.

It was getting late for flying so I quickly sealed the bay after putting the wings on with the stock wing screws. Removing the tubes and using velcro to attach the wings is on the list of future upgrades..

I taped on the FPV gear, stuffed this guy into my car, and hurried out to the flying field to give it a go..

I made it out just before it started to rain, and in time to catch some friends out at the field.

FPV Bixler 2, not yet FPV

I have really only flown multicopters FPV up to this point. Three or four months ago I got to give it a try when a semi-local FPVer had his Bixler at the flying field. It seemed a bit more peaceful that the multicopters, so I decided I ought to add a fixed wing to my hangar.

In general, I had seen good things about the Bixler 2 so I ordered one. I put it together as per the instructions and finally got to fly it without FPV about 3 weeks ago. It flew great out of the box, and the long flight times compared to the multirotors are a definite plus.

After that first experience, I did find it was a bit of a big plane to haul around; especially if you didn't take care to make sure the spar didn't get glue on it during assembly. It barely fit into my dad's pickup cab, and I was curious if it would even fit into my two seater Honda Insight. This started the adventure for looking for mods, and I found I should of done this step prior to assembly.

I was able to fit it into my car pretty comfortably, so I decided I'd try to fly it again last week at our club meeting. This time it didn't go as well. When I plugged in the battery, I the motor just wanted to kick/cog. Thinking the cause had to be bad calibration of the ESC, I tried a couple times to calibrate it. No dice, so I pulled out the ESC to take a look, and found it to be very hot. I then checked the motor and noticed it was so hot it had melted the motor mount!

So, after I got back from the meeting I decided it was time to do some research and tear down.

As you can see I've removed the motor and mount. It's a little rough, but I figure I can just make a cowl to cover it later. I've looked into some motor upgrades and think I can come up with a solution using the laser cutter or 3d printer. Here are a few of the ideas I came across:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krTzT6Ss9W0

http://www.undcon.com/2012/03/24/bixler-motor-replacement/

I've also read that a better wing spar is pretty much necessary if carrying more weight or going any faster than stock. My spar is glued in so I had been debating the best way to get it out. After I had dug out part of one side with an exacto knife, It hit me that the picture hanging wire I had bought recently might do the job if pulled down the spar.

After digging out enough to get it under the spar, It worked beautifully!

I figured removable wings will make the thing more portable, so I'm going to work that into the 'upgrade' as well. This video shows the velcro concept I plan to use:



Now It's time to order parts!

Y6 Down again!

I had repaired my y6 in about 10 minutes and was eager to fly this last weekend. It was slightly windy out, but that was one of the things I had hoped my y6 would excel in compared to my quad. What I didn't consider was how my ground station would handle the wind...

I had the y6 in the air and was just getting used to it when the wind started to pick up and pushed over my ground station lid/screen. I had looked up to try to get the attention of my co-pilot/dad to hold the screen but he was busy watching the craft go down..

The damage report:

Scratched the lens, cracked the plastic in front of the LED, and generally beat up the GoPro, but it still seems to work normally.

Snapped the front right and back arms, and tweaked the back speed control mount.

These are the back motors removed. None of the props actually broke, two of them unscrewed themselves and flew off after spinning on the ground. They all got pretty dinged up as well, but will probably still work fine, though I intend to use some new ones and save these as a last resort.

This one received the brushed aluminum treatment.

The top rear motor wasn't spinning as freely as the other motors. This may have only been partially due to the crash though because of one or both of these:

 1. I may have over tightened one of my props on the motor bell in prior testing (It's sort of a no-no to tighten the props to the bell, but I chopped the threads off before I really thought about this..)

And/Or

2. There was some dirt build up on the bearing under the bell. I wonder if this motor had been used before I got it? You can see some hardened blue gunk on the bottom side of the bell and  magnets, and there is on the inside of the bell, as well as some marker like markings on some magnets. I put none of this stuff there.. 

Either way, I went to remove a shim from the bottom, but after wiping the dirt off of the bearing, it looked to have more clearance for the C clip, and after assembly it spun more freely..

After reassembly, I ran the motors a bit to check for bent shafts, but found none. Phew!

Almost  ready to fly again!

Y6 additions, quick FPV, and cutting weeds

The y6 had been built and test flown, but the real purpose was to do FPV flying. To test out the vibration isolation of the foam sandwich electronics bay/controller mount, and give the awesome fighter jet like minimOSD a try!

I recently got a new dedicated FPV camera that seems to have a ton of adjustability. It needed a mount and some protection so Blender and the Replicator saved the day.
Files on thingiverse

After strapping my old GoPro 960 on and quickly mounting the power filter, OSD, and 5.8 GHz vTx, I needed a spot to mount the rc rx.

I had envisioned a streamlined roll cage of sorts to protect the flight controller, but measurements and guestimations were a bit off and what came out is more of a hump-back. It did give me a decent spot to mount the rx, as well as a nice carrying handle..

Indoor hovering was all I could do as I waited for the weather to cooperate and to get time fly.

I took my groundstation over to my parents' where I had previously flown my quad from their house across the street from a neighboring empty lot. It's a small lot, but its not bad for testing, nice practice for FPV in closer quarters, and it's fun to get a new perspective on the neighborhood.

Recent rain has caused the natural green stuff to shoot up though, and the lot was in need of a good mowing. I had joked about using the y6 to chop the weeds down, but in zooming around I lost it on the throttle control and the landing gear got snagged.

From what I remember it was a fairly graceful flip, but the video shows it to be a little fast. I'm thinking the twist when the front arms hit first caused the most stress for the break. Ah well, this was one of my design goals, make it easy to swap in a new part.

I really, really, wanted to fly longer so I brought out the quad, but I stuck it in the weeds causing a prop and nut to fly off. Ugh... Besides that, cutting through the weeds coated the camera with plant guts.




Flight seemed nice and smooth. Not sure if this is the flight controller or the Afro ESCs or what. The camera also did very well when looking into the sun. Now I need to rebuild and give it another shot..

What to do with blinky lights?

LEDs are cool.

I got one of these Digital 32 LED 1 meter strips a while back just thinking I'd eventually find a good reason to use it. Visions of giant displays came into my mind. Though I only had one strip

When I saw one of these LED globes, I figured that may be the best way to make use of it.



Even if mine was only 32 LEDs it still had the potential to be very cool..

To begin with I figured I only needed one side of LEDs. This would give me a rather large globe and more resolution than chopping the strip in half. I already had some half inch bearing/pillow blocks (that are probably way overkill). So I went out and got a piece of threaded rod to match, and proceeded to cut out a large circle from pink insulation foam. To drive the thing I imagined using an old 550 size motor and RC speed controller.

I had no idea if such a large design would work, but thought I'd at least give it a try.. This was all about a year or two ago. I got distracted or busy and nothing came of this. I'm now trying to put a little more focus into my unfinished projects. I have also since acquired a 60 led strip.

So, with my trusty laser cutter, I have started to put together the prototype:

I used Inkscape's built in gear generator to generate some gears. Being able to quickly and easily generate and have those gears in your hand, ready to drive things, is an awesome feeling!

I then started drawing up a box to house the pillow blocks and gears and cut it out.

It looks good, and the gears mesh good, but the box is a bit flimsy I think. This may be because I forgot to put the tabs on the top of the two side pieces (one of which is missing, here) In the future I think I'll just use a box generator script and then cut the holes I need out of whit it generates.

My laser cutter goofed up on that missing side. I'm not sure why this happened. Maybe a speck of dirt was in the way of the rollers on the X axis? Add that to the checklist before running the laser..

It was getting late the other night or I would have fixed and re-cut new sides. Hopefully this weekend I can get that done and test out control of the motor.

I did get some input +John Bump on Google+ about an advanced gear extension for inkscape that can also do sprockets. Something to keep in mind for future projects!

Y6 Copter build log on Google docs

To experiment with documentation I added pictures and descriptions of the build process of my Y6 hexa/multi -copter to A Google doc.

While I love Google docs and drive, and use them a ton for notes, I'm not sure this is the best way to publish continuous updates to projects. I searched a bit for something specifically for makers, tinkerers, hobbyists, etc to post their projects on. I came up with contenders such as thingiverse, github, knowables.org (looks promising!), but they didn't really seem to have what I wanted.

As I thought about it, it hit me that "build log" is not far off from "web log".. Duh!

So I'm going to give this format/medium a try, and keep labels for specific projects. Hopefully this will keep things fairly organized.